We are starting a new initiative at Timeless Lifeskills – Cut to the Chase – weekly interviews with professionals in different fields, who are an inspiration to the community of youth we wish to reach out to.We want to give our young audience a sense of what a typical and a not-so-typical day feels like in that profession, how can a young person prepare for entering that profession, what formal and non-formal education they should…

A student giving his campaign speechLast December Atul was back at Jeevanshala school in village Maram in the Himalayas. Earlier, in July '14, Atul had introduced project-based learning and grade 4 and 5 students had visited a local ‘naula’ (traditional water source) and created a newspaper based on their findings (see our earlier FB posts). Atul was pleasantly surprised that the students had since created half-a-dozen newspapers on different topics.This time the focus was on…

A hearty welcome to our new readers on Facebook – thank you for joining in! And to all our readers, best wishes for a great year ahead – may you learn and flourish!We urge you all to consider making a new year resolution – to learn something new, something different, or something in–depth. According to Benjamin Franklin, "An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest." How true!Learning is indeed same as making an investment.…

At Timeless Lifeskills, we're bringing in Children's Day this year with a bang of a book - the only way we know how! Celebrating the joy of learning for the sake of learning such that it helps you grow and flourish in the 21st century and beyond, Yearning for Learning: The Adventures of K is what you should be getting your intelligent yet distracted (read: wired) children. Plus, it's Pay What You Want! To download your…

With eminent Indian educationist Professor M.M. Pant we have launched a pilot online course on self-directed learning. Over the next six weeks we will be looking at various aspects of self-directed learning - why has it become imperative in the 21st century, what are the dispositions of an autonomous learner, how can these be imbibed, what leads to the a-ha moment, trends in online education like OERs and MOOCs and what should be the end-game…

Many of the children at Jeevanshala, the tiny primary school in village Maram in the Himalayas, have never gone beyond the villages in their vicinity. Thus, with a lot of support from well-wishers like Mr Ranjan Joshi, a 3 days field trip to Almora, one of the major towns in the region, was organised by Timeless Lifeskills from 23 to 25 June, 2014.Twenty children, ranging from 6 to 11 years and three Jeevanshala teachers came…

Field Trip to Sudana Naula At Jeevanshala, a tiny primary school in village Maram, 50 k.m. from Almora the focus of Timeless Lifeskills workshops was on self-directed learning, critical thinking, creative expression and multimedia skills.One of the projects we did was on ‘naulas’, a traditional source of water in the mountains. Water pipes and taps are now much prevalent in Himalayan villages and naulas are no longer being properly maintained. However, when there is a crisis,…

If Mahatma Gandhi were alive today would there be no corruption in India? Would relations between India and Pakistan be better? Would he run a factory or spin the wheel? What impact did Mahatma Gandhi have in the Kumaon region? Did the Himalayas influence him?These were some of the questions posed by 6th, 7th and 8th class students of Aarohi Bal Sansar, a school in village Satoli 30 km from Almora, at a recently concluded…

Our sincere thanks to all our contributors for making us feel this spectrum of emotions, by helping us reach our target in our maiden crowd funding campaign, And, a big shout-out to all our supporters for their time, mind share, energy and influence.Thank you all for your faith in Timeless Lifeskills, our belief in inculcating self-directed learning skills in our children, and our dream of making education less exclusive, more affordable.Our comic e-book is rearing…

45 supporters have helped us raise £9,068.Our sincere thanks to all of them. Only £932 remains to be raised of our project cost of £10,000, to create a comic book on self-directed learning and make it available for free to 200 schools for underprivileged children.Even a small contribution has the power to effect a big difference now. Please chip in and help make it happen.You can make an online contribution here - Comic eBook on Self-Directed…

If our children are destined to be doing jobs that haven’t been invented yet, have you thought about how we, as parents, can equip them for a future we cannot even comprehend today? The only thing certain about it is that it will be fiercely competitive.In an ubër wired world with unbelievable access to reams of information, at the touch of their fingertips, children today are all sharp, intelligent and super-capable.What then would set anyone…

At Timeless Lifeskills the three key issues we are addressing are – Relevant Curriculum (life skills needed for shining in the 21st century), Enticing Learning Experience (that appeals to today’s distracted learners) and Affordability (to make education inclusive as it is otherwise becoming expensive and hence exclusive).The past four years have seen us creating and sharing learning modules on life skills, on platforms such as Scribd and Slideshare. Some 215,000 views, 10,500 embeds, 2,200 downloads,…

In the science of ideas, sometimes called ideonomy, we have what Brian Eno calls, ‘scenius’ - “Scenius is like genius, only embedded in the scene rather than the genes. A communal form of genius.”With your help we want to create a 'Scenius for K', the 15 year old hero of our comic ebook.And, from the comments we have been getting it seems that the creation of such a scenius is already happening, for K and…

In an earlier blog post I had shared a quote from Tom Friedman’s interview of Laszlo Bock, senior VP in-charge of hiring at Google: "…I told that student they are much better off being a B student in computer science than an A+ student in English because it signals a rigor in your thinking and a more challenging course load." A little more disconcerting was another comment that Bock made which seems to suggest that…

To fire up K's passion for learning, learning for the sheer joy of it instead of learning to earn, learning for the thrill of knowing something about the world he didn’t know before, something about himself, we plan on taking unsuspecting K, the hero of our comic ebook, on an adventure.

An adventure that will give him an inkling of the world Before Google and prepare him for a world Beyond Google. Before Google, when gaining…

आत्म-निर्देशित अनौपचारिक शिक्षा पर एक रोमांचक चित्रकथाWhen you yearn to learn - learn for the sheer joy of learning - chances are you’ll survive the coming age and its challenges better. Not just survive, but thrive and prosper - ride it. And not just thrive, but find that elusive equilibrium within yourself.Our objective of creating a comic ebook on self-directed, inspired learning is to help young learners understand the value of yearning to learn. In…

If you, like us, are concerned about how children are learning (or not learning) these days, consider joining us in creating a 'Comic eBook on Self-Directed Learning Skills' that will provide information and guidance to young adults on how they can become better learners. They will also find reading our comic ebook on their iPod, smart-phone or tablet pretty cool!In the comic ebook, K, our 15 year old hero dives deep into understanding the dynamics…

Fellow travellers on the Jubilee line in London may recall an ad campaign for a university last year. The ad read, “Think Different, Think Employability, Think xxx University”. The ad set me thinking.While considering a university degree if you are thinking employability are you really thinking different? I believe better copy for the ad would have been, “Think Different, Think Value Creation”.After you have got your university degree you think of a job, self-employment or…

My son is going on a school trip to France and since he holds an Indian passport he has to apply for Schengen visa. This morning we went to the company that processes Schengen visa applications.Although the experience was pleasant enough and fairly efficient it made me wonder how secure are the jobs of the people working in this company? How secure is the future of the company itself? Work they are doing – inspecting…

Inspired by the trip I made to the Himalayas in December to conduct Timeless Lifeskills workshops in small schools, I have started rerecording the videos I have created earlier on 21st century life skills with narration in Hindi. Here is the second video with Hindi narration. I discuss why a different set of life skills is essential for flourishing in the 21st century. Original videos in English are available on Timeless Lifeskills website - http://timelesslifeskills.co.uk