Learning from Children What to Teach Them

This enriching book explores quality education at the grassroots level for disadvantaged children. It evolves and evaluates strategies for the promotion of the overall development of children in the motor, cognitive, language, emotional, social and moral domains. The methods used revolve around children, with a larger purpose of shaping young minds as opposed to solely enhancing academic skills by relating the subjects of the syllabi. The essence of the book lies in what adults can learn from children while teaching them. Though the book stems from case studies of schools in rural Karnataka, it has implications for effectively providing quality education to children across the nation. It quantitatively evaluates the process of intervention that consists of 20 -25 hours of group work with the school children and qualitatively describes the outcome in terms of promotion of psycho-social development.

Table of Contents:
PART ONE: BACKGROUND Introduction Bridging the Gap between Education and Child Developmental Psychology Backdrop to the Present Work Families of the Children of the Forests Working with Rural School Children Working with the Tribal Children inAshram Schools An Integrated Approach to the Delivery of Child Mental Health Services PART TWO: SOME INSIGHTS Working with Children Orientation Programmes with Teachers Reflections Implications

About the Author :
Malavika Kapur is Honorary Professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. Until recently she was the Professor and Head of the Department of Clinical Psychology at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore. She has seven books and over 100 papers to her credit. A fellow of the Indian Association of Clinical Psychologists, the Indian Association of Child and Adolescent Mental Health, the National Academy of Psychology and the British Psychological Society, she has also been a consultant for the World Health Organization and the India Council for Medical Research among other coveted organisations. She is also involved in the development of assessment tools and intervention packages for children and adolescents in the Indian context. Her main contribution is her work of developing integrated models of mental health service delivery for children and adolescents.

Review :
The book succeeds in demonstrating the need to adopt an integrated approach for addressing the issues of health, education and welfare of children from disadvantaged groups….The book helps in developing an insight as to how and what we could learn from children while teaching them. The methods evolved by the author are unique and focus on attuning the young mind towards divergent thinking and creativity rather than developing academic skills. This message is captured so powerfully and convincingly in the book that it deserves to be read by students and teachers of child development and education. This book presents an effort of the author to evolve strategies for the promotion of development of a child in different domains of motor, cognitive, language, emotional, social and moral skills….The appreciable aspect is that it is not another armchair research work but the book has arisen out of a functional, active and live programme involving teachers, government officials and students at the grassroots level. This enriching book explores quality education at the grass-roots level for disadvantaged children. It evolves and evaluates strategies for the promotion of the overall development of children in the motor, cognitive, language, emotional, social and moral domains.