A multi-pronged approach

[Vijay]

hello all,

so i was talking to my mom a little while ago. she's a school teacher,
gives tuition classes, that sort of thing (and she's a pretty cool
teacher too, i've seen her in action. she has the ability to empathise
with kids, which is awesome). she came up with an interesting idea: in
addition to speaking to kids in schools and organising debates in
class, we should consider getting the school to convene special PTA
meetings if possible. (this would work especially well in colonies
like anushakti nagar in bombay.) her point is, we should try and reach
out to as many groups simultaneously as possible, and not just
restrict ourselves to the student population.

i was quite intrigued by the thought. my mom also suggested that we
ought to talk to our cousins, our extended families, friends... for
those of you frustrated about being so far away from home, this might
be a start.

she has already told her students about TII for a start; she informs
me that they are "excited" that i'm going to speak to them. i
suggested that she ask them to get in touch with us eventually.

best,

v

[Vijay]

In Prison Notebooks, Gramsci writes: "Mass formation has standardized
individuals both psychologically and in terms of individual
qualification, and has produced the same phenomena as with other
standardized masses..."

We began the process of mentoring via email last week; our first batch
of proteges includes among others a young engineer-turned-marketing
analyst, a cub reporter, a grade 12 student who says she has no idea
what she wants to study in college. These are people who are, with or
without their knowledge, trying to undermine the the status quo in
India.

Mentoring via email is one of the many ways Teach in India is
employing in the effort to reach out. The idea is to expose kids to
multiple voices and opinions so they might slowly develop the ability
to analyze information by themselves. For instance, the market analyst
has received inputs so far from six to eight consulting professionals;
he had in his introductory email expressed a general interest in
getting a job in strategic consulting. The respondents have focused on
encouraging him to ask penetrating questions, questions that get past
the "How do I get a job with McKinsey?" phase.

We achieved a minor breakthrough with him yesterday when he asked the
question, "My boss once told me he found it hard to break into his
current job because he'd worked earlier in a small company; does
working in small companies contribute to prejudice against you?"

Gramsci says, "When one distinguishes between intellectuals and non-
intellectuals, one is referring in reality only to the immediate
social function of the professional category of the intellectuals,
that is, one has in mind the direction in which their specific
professional activity is weighted, whether towards intellectual
elaboration or towards muscular-nervous effort... In the modern world,
technical education, closely bound to industrial labor even at the
most primitive and unqualified level must form the basis of the new
type of intellectual."

We're trying to catch 'em young. This individual, whose example we
have arbitrarily taken, has the ability to transform into an "organic
intellectual" himself; in a sense he merely needs to learn how to ask
the right questions.