A Travelogue and Edulogue by Amita Gupta
On one hand, the onset of Spring brings blossoming tulips and magnolias here in the north-east, heralding the approach of warmer, longer, sunnier days. On the other hand, it brings the much dreaded admissions decision season as pre-schools and kindergartens in the city begin the process of informing parents whether their child was admitted or rejected or wait-listed. The season becomes joyful if the news is good, and can become colder and greyer than winter if families get a rejection letter. The admissions season...
The political turmoil in the Maldives with the ousting of its president earlier this month reminded me of my recent visit to that beautiful island country while on a Fulbright Grant. I was conducting...
Video clip on cultural perspectives on children's learning: http://www.schoolsworld.tv/node/3394
The weekend celebrations continued with Pongal and Makar Sankranti. Pongal is celebrated in various forms in many parts of India. I was reminded of my stay in Sri Lanka two years ago. I was in Colombo during January. Sri Lanka has a large Tamilian population and Pongal was a big celebration there as well. It’s a holiday that falls in the Tamil month of Thai on Jan 14th each year. So it’s called Thai Pongal and it is the only Hindu holiday that follows the solar calendar. It coincides with the rice harvest and thanks...
New Delhi: Today is Friday the 13th - an ominous sound in the Western world that I live in. But in India where I am at the moment, today heralds a celebratory weekend bringing in Lohri, Makar Sankranti and Pongal...After the festivities of Dussehra and Diwali in the fall, it's now the mid-winter festive season for giving thanks and harvesting that celebrates the season of winter crops or Rabi in India. This will be followed by the festivities of Spring with Shivratri, Holi, Ramnavmi and Baisakhi...I want to describe...
I was in India two weeks ago during Navratri: the start of the festive season that includes Durga Puja, Ramlila and Dusshera and culminates with Diwali. The stories signifying these festivals can be...
The car ride from Shanghai to Hangzhou is about 2.5 hours, and the hotel where the conference speakers were booked in Hangzhou is amazing. It's so new that you can't even google it yet. I have a beautiful large room overlooking a large expanse of woods and lake! The hotel is ultra luxurious and very glitzy; and inside, right at the front door, is a huge tank of the beautiful red coy fish supposed to bring luck and good fortune. The first day at the conference was busy with conference sessions, tea break, conference...
October 27th: Landed at Shanghai’s Pudong Airport at about 10 pm last night. Have to say that the airport is fabulous and the customs and immigration process was efficient, painless and not at all...
One day during my stay in Bali I got ready for the long drive to Celuk, Ubud, and the still-active volcano in the north-west of the island. The day was filled with long stretches on the road interspersed...
CULTURE, LEARNING and TEACHING
Amita Gupta, Ed.D., has been in the field of early education for more than 20 years. She is a Fulbright Scholar, an international educational consultant, and a professor of early childhood education at The City University of New York in Manhattan.
She is the author of two books:
Early Childhood Education, Postcolonial Theory, and Teaching Practices in India. Palgrave Macmillan (2006).
Going to School in South Asia. Greenwood Publishing (2007).
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