An excellent talk about the myths we hold on the developing world, supported by the most amazing graphics I've seen in a while. Among other things, the speaker (Hans Rosling) proves that chimpanzees are much smarter than the top Swedish students, and are slightly better than Swedish professors when it comes to knowing the developing world.
The first one of the series that I heard was the TEDTalk by Sir Ken Robinson. May be worth hearing all the TEDTalks.
The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher, by John Taylor Gatto, New York State Teacher of the Year, 1991. (The first part of it is sarcastic. This man is speaking passionately of things he despises in the education system.)
The first lesson I teach is: "Stay in the class where you belong." I don't know who decides that my kids belong there but that's not my business.
The second lesson I teach kids is to turn on and off like a light switch. I demand that they become totally involved in my lessons, jumping up and down in their seats with anticipation, competing vigorously with each other for my favor.
The third lesson I teach you is to surrender your will to a predestined chain of command. Rights may be granted or withheld, by authority, without appeal.
The fourth lesson I teach is that only I determine what curriculum you will study. (Rather, I enforce decisions transmitted by the people who pay me).
In lesson five I teach that your self-respect should depend on an observer's measure of your worth. My kids are constantly evaluated and judged.
In lesson six I teach children that they are being watched. I keep each student under constant surveillance and so do my colleagues. There are no private spaces for children; there is no private time.
It is the great triumph of schooling that among even the best of my fellow teachers, and among even the best parents, there is only a small number who can imagine a different way to do things.
He concludes:
School is like starting life with a 12-year jail sentence in which bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned. I teach school and win awards doing it. I should know.
Sir Ken Robinson's TED Talk on education is brilliant and funny. Some quotes that struck me:
If you think of it, children starting school this year will be retiring in 2065. Nobody has a clue, despite all the expertise that has been on parade the last four days, what the world will look like in five years' time. And yet we're meant to be educating them for it. So the unpredictability, I think, is extraordinary.
If you were to visit education as an alien and say "What's it for?", I think you'd have to conclude, if you look at the output, that the whole purpose of public education throughout the world, is to produce university professors. Isn't it? They're the people who come out on top, and I used to be one. (So there!) And I like university professors, but you know, we shouldn't hold them up as the high watermark of all human achievement -- they're just a form of life.
[the] new definition of work [is] to make some original contribution to the world, and in the process not to starve.
I think the best test is to try to do things that would make your friends say wow.
If you admire two kinds of work equally, but one is more prestigious, you should probably choose the other. Your opinions about what's admirable are always going to be slightly influenced by prestige, so if the two seem equal to you, you probably have more genuine admiration for the less prestigious one.
The test of whether people love what they do is whether they'd do it even if they weren't paid for it
The most impressive people I know are all terrible procrastinators. So could it be that procrastination isn't always bad?
i cdnuolt blveiee taht i cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht i was rdanieg. the phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mind is amazanig. aoccdrnig to a rscheearch taem at cmabrigde uinervtisy, it deosnt mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. the rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. amazanig huh? yaeh and yuo awlyas thohgut slpeling was ipmorantt.
Search for Indian torrents in the box below. Type a movie or song the box and click "Search".
There are a fair number of Tamil torrent and Hindi torrent sites. TamilTorrents.net and TMSTorrents.com look good for Tamil, and DesiTorrents.com (search for invites) & bwtorrents.com for Hindi. I've collected a bunch of sites that have Indian torrents.
| alternate titles: Tamil torrent Hindi torrent Tamil torrents Hindi torrentsIf you want to find websites that you can trust: Pinakes
If you want to search the invisible web
Lots more...