Don't blame the child for forgetting lessons; make the lessons unforgettable.
Sonam Wangchuk
The world needs real-world universities, 'doer' universities. We're going to set up one model of it in Ladakh. And if it is successful, we hope it'll have a ripple effect from New Delhi to New York.
Yes, though trained as an engineer, I shifted to education as I realized that the system needed to be changed; I saw so many of the bright minds caged.
I always say please live a simple life in the city so that we can lead a simple life in the mountains.
I believe that education should be about healing the earth and dealing with the crises that we are in.
I believe that schools of today with all their answers on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, above everything else, take us back to the industrial revolution in time, when people thought that nature could be conquered and consumption or production could be unlimited.
We should choose simple ways of living... to live in harmony with nature by adopting simpler technologies and using natural resources innovatively.
Education needs to be linked with life and should take into count the ground situation in different parts of India.
When I started my engineering, I had to support my education expenses; I was then studying in what is now the National Institute of Technology in Srinagar.
We in the Himalayas have the problem of glaciers melting away and we had to make our own glaciers and I don't consider them proud or great achievement. It is only mainly to adapt to the problems that we have caused in this planet; The real solutions lie elsewhere; maybe people in the big cities of India, China and US can solve it.
Education was not about consumption, but about contentment with less and less. This is what Buddha taught and this is what the Vedas say.
I hope the conduct of Indians can become an example for the rest of the world to follow.
My journey has mainly been driven by empathy towards people who I thought were suffering.
It is important to engage students by focussing at what they wanted to do, rather than forcing them to do something.
I find it strange that our children, teenagers are kept captive listening in classrooms. Earlier education was for career and livelihood. Now, it has to rise to solve the crisis facing the earth and nations have to pay attention to the education of children to save this planet.
We need to explore our own deserts and land, which need to be healed and managed on the planet itself. It is not the time to use and throw this planet and we need to explore deep within more than without. Space exploration should be used to quench human thirst.
The Indian government has been taking some lead in several environmental initiatives, like the international solar alliance, many green initiatives in schools, lots of river reservations projects.
Young people in their twenties spend three-four years doing things that are behind the times. We're capturing such people in a classroom for a lecture. We need to reground ourselves and see how evolution has taught us.
Paper knowledge, paper evaluations, paper degrees all too papery and all too theoretical; it has very little that prepares us for real life in the real world.
Private schools cannot be the answer to nation's needs. Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway are leading examples where government schools are world acclaimed.
Our young ones have always been shoulder to shoulder with grown-ups, learning on the job in the field, facing challenges. They were never designed to sit and listen or scribble.
Not that I did not have any other skills, but I loved teaching students, sharing with them my knowledge in sciences, maths or languages.
A lot of times we hear that nothing good can happen in government schools. The reason nothing can happen is that the children of those who have a voice do not study in them.
I expect nothing from the government but I expect everything from people. There is a need to update ourselves, our values and lifestyle.
People know crowdfunding, but they know it as something where one pays money for a cause or for products and so on. This is something where you contribute, but not money.
Ladakhi life is very fine-tuned with nature. We don't want it to become like cities.
Let Ladakh change the world rather than the world change Ladakh.
We try to make children problem-solvers. That gave birth to solar-heated mud buildings, using greenhouses to grow things and ice stupas - artificial baby glaciers.
Ladakh has changed a lot. Flash floods are common, followed by drought.
Sports stars connect with youth. So, Viacheslav 'Slava' Fetisov's coming to Ladakh was a natural thing.
In the past 30 years, I have been trying to make education more relevant as our old education system valorises production and consumption.
Things that work in New York or New Delhi do not work in the mountains. We have to find our own solutions for our problems.
There weren't any schools in my village, so I learnt to read and write from my mother. I played in the fields, sowing seeds, working with animals, jumping in the river, climbing trees.
The idea is to freeze the water in the winter and use it in late spring. The conical tower shape ensures that the surface exposed to the sun is minimal, so premature melting is avoided.
Many people have uninstalled Chinese apps. So when crores uninstall apps. It will be a message for the Chinese government when they are intruding into India.
When traders will start cancelling orders from China it will send a powerful message to Chinese government that antagonising India will extract a huge price.
