As the Fellows grapple with the question - What after TFI? Here are 87 Ideas, 87 Aspirations, One idea per Fellow. Lets figure out how to make them a reality….
1. Help build excellent Pre-KG and KG for government schools
2. A Teacher Training Institute (especially for Municipal School Teachers)
3. A research and department rating system for R&D groups in India. Also, a consolidated place which accesses and talks about them.
4. An advocacy sister group – aka Leadership for Education Equity from TFA
5. An online website for teacher collaboration on lesson plans – aka www.betterlesson.com
6. An group that works to enable collaboration online and offline amongst all education or development sector NGOs in India
7. A forum which leverages technology to enable learning for under resourced children using technology – it should be attuned to needs of parents, children and teachers
8. A social enterprise that raises volunteers who can assist in classroom education – for TFI and then for other partner NGOs
9. A “TFI For Senior Citizens” – a social enterprise that is tuned to involve senior citizens in social work
10. A career guiding or “career coach”-ing enterprise – that uses a “robinhood” model to serve career needs of under-resourced children
11. Impact for India (TFI type organization for other sectors) : TFI for health, TFI for agriculture, TFI for public works, TFI for rural welfare, TFI for vocational skills, TFI for sports
12. Implement and experiment models for TFI for rural areas, TFI for smaller cities, TFI for third and fourth tier applicants
13. A grassroots level organization for “urban community building” – a scalable model for Manav Sadhana type organization
14. The Art of Living Rural and Tribal schools run 90+ schools in India. Introducing activity based learning and new teaching methodologies in these schools would form a great model.
15. Akanksha is looking to quadruple the number of schools in Mumbai and Pune – even expand nationwide in future. A great opportunity to be a school leader and build centers of excellence.
16. Make “One School For All” a reality nationwide – a single school that integrates children from both resourced and under-resourced communities.
17. Start an “Urban Ashram” like one in Pune along with a Seva Café in different cities
18. Make cities in India child friendly – like Riverside’s “aproach” project
19. Build strong alumni programs at TFI for each of “School and Teacher Leadership”, “Political and Advocacy Leadership”, “Social Entrepreneurship” or “NGO/Board Leadership”
20. Teach For All Leadership positions in other countries
21. Build technology and education collaboration in and outside TFI
22. Indicorps Fellowship
23. Bringing together various youth movements in India : Jaagore, Indicorps, Gandhi Fellows, TFI, Young Indians, Rotract/Interact
24. Start a Connect India LEAD+ for Indians
25. “Swadhyay” – spend one year travelling around India spending two months in each ashram. Or if you like in different schools around the country.
26. An online resource portal on ESL for Hindi speaking audience similar to khanacademy.org
27. Mobile education packages like MDhil has for medical use. Look up MILLEE from Carnegie Melon University.
28. Bring the best in education through online packages for under-resourced communities and figure out last mile delivery.
29. Create an “Incubator Fellowship” – a Fellowship where you can experiment to create your social experiments and see them through. A lot of collaboration opportunities provided.
30. Make a case for and start high quality charter schools in India – KIPP for India
31. Take a year off to nurture and grow your passions. For me Travel, Pottery, Archery, Sanskrit, Drums, Books, Blog and More Travel. You pick yours!
32. Start Indian version of “The New Teacher’s Project” (TNTP)
33. Travel the world for a year to study youth programs and movements. Connect. Study. Research. Learn.
34. School Coach or Consulting to develop new schools or improve schools
35. Political involvement group for youth in India - TFI for Politics, GYIPS
36. Child spaces for disabled children
37. An excellent school where children with learning disabilities are integrated
38. A leadership Institute (College) for Youth - aka African Leadership Institute.
39. Big Brother Big Sister mentoring program in India
40. Habitat For Humanity – housing for under-resourced in India
41. Special Olympics – sports for differentially-abled children in India
42. Reach out Mumbai! – a movement where citizens volunteer once a month with different NGOs or organizations
43. Capital Area Food Bank in India – collecting food and distributing to needy across the country
44. Goodwill stores in India – donate items whose proceeds are used to help under-resourced communities
45. An online website that enables one single point application for Indian students to get Scholarships for study abroad
46. Internships for people coming from abroad. Internships for people in India with a focus on development sector.
47. A venture capital fund: Education Reform Venture Fund aka NewSchools Venture Fund
48. Ed Week or “Teacher Magazine” like magazine – education magazine
49. Hippocampus (Bangalore) and Early Childhood Center (Delhi) like children library or reading room chain. Also, see Rooms To Read.
50. Education Week like Online ed daily (similar to 48 but different)
51. Alternative Education and Home Schooling - investing in Indian context
52. Kumon Publishing type books but with Indian context
53. Recipe For Reading and Indian Phonics books. Even franchise phonics classes all over the country.
54. "Holistic" activity or entertainment centers for Art, Drama, Craft, Sports and Dance – where resourced and under resourced kids come together in integration
55. Summer Indoor and Outdoor Activity Camps for children (esp underresourced ones)
56. TED-EdxIndia - TED type talks specific to Indian Education
57. Ed Venture Lab - tie up with IIMs or SP Jain type institute to form India's first lab focused on Educational Ventures
58. Ed Reform and Enterpreneurship Competition - an autonomous body that holds a Non-profit and For Profit Business Plan competition in ed-reform and edu-preneurship
59. Creative recreational and fun spaces - can we create creative spaces where children in the city can come spend “down” time?
60. A social networking site for all Teach For All Fellows - a “Facebook” only for TFAll
61. Blogging for TFI Fellows aka www.teachforus.org
62. Enabling a strong social networking presence for Teach For India
63. Fellowship – Piramal Fellowship for Sustainable Businesses
64. Fellowship – Gandhi Fellowship
65. Fellowship – Tony Blair Faith’s Fellowship
66. Fellowship – Ashoka Fellowship
67. Fellowship – Atlas Corps Fellowship
68. Start a “White House” Fellowship program for Indian Government
69. School or Teacher Leadership Partners – Riverside, Muktangan, Shishuvan, Akanksha
70. Improve Education Initiative’s standards and assessments (now that you have worked with them night and day!)
71. Start an EI type assessment testing body. Or join other options - Indus, EI, EQFI
72. Study different schools in India with a specific culture – start a new school
73. Travel around the world to learn about new schools. Identify the charter school movement in the US and other countries – start a charter school movement in India
74. Travel to Finland which is known for its education all over the world. Identify best practices and port them to India.
75. Find a community idea – and apply for Comminteers Fellowship
76. Work as a consultant with the Central Government – now we know one young Indian working for HRD and one for Women and Children’s Department. It’s possible!
77. Work as an executive assistant or in the team of a young/progressive politician – Sachin Pilot, Naveen Jindal, Rahul Gandhi, or others
78. A “Heal For India” – TFI type Fellowship to improve municipal hospitals. Or medical options for the under-resourced communities, there is a dire need for affordable health care.
79. “Traditional” Corporate options – Investment Banking, Consulting, Law, HR, Banking, Engineering, Sales and Marketing.
80. CSR groups in a corporate or foundations or charities. For engineers – Google, Microsoft, Intel, and many other big companies have “social” or “development” projects.
81. Pursue education in the field of your choice – education, medical, business, policy, law, design and engineering. If possible pursue cross-specializations.
82. Scholarships and Fellowships for Education Abroad – Fullbright Scholarship, Reliance Dhirubhai Fellowship for Stanford, Berkeley MBA Scholarships for Social/Development Sector, amongst many others.
83. Set up or grow philanthropic foundations in India – like Sloan Foundation, Gates Foundation, Dell Foundation
84. Make films and documentaries especially on education related topics in India – like Waiting For Superman, 21st Century Initiative by New Learning Institute
85. Build national institutes like NSF. Or setup an independent body that monitors R&D labs in all fields in India., publishes about them and gives them a rating.
86. The RTE mandates that every school should have 25% from under-resourced communities. Consult with good schools to help them setup this integration successfully.
87. Set up an International Institute for Professional Teachers – a world-wide body of professional teachers with centers all around the world. The idea is to champion the cause of teachers and their issues by collaborating with people from round the world.
Milind, I think this list needs to make one important caveat - that these are things one can do to stay 'within education'
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, point #79 is perhaps the most important. I think the most important thing we can do is to move into whatever fields we're interested in (banking, journalism, law, medicine, administration..etc) and make THOSE areas that try and contribute towards the education crisis.
If we all stayed connected to non-profits, NGOs and education, we'll just be a loud minority - that mainstream India (that is still most worried about their economic progress) will continue to largely ignore.
We need to change industries, people, mindsets from within - not from outside.
Agreed Rakesh. I strongly believe you should do whatever makes your passions, talents and dreams come alive. If it means you goto a #79 - all the power to you.
ReplyDeleteI was "hearing" a lot of us feeling unsure of potential ideas to pursue after. And hence this list :) If you look closely while it is "in education" the list serves diverse interests. You can chose to be a venture capitalist, a social entrepreneur, an administrator and/or a film maker and do something from this list. Also, you could always pursue actions from this list as part-time interests if you will....! Feel free to share your thoughts.
Great Ideas, but the primary question remains - Who will do execute? India has many ideators, a few doers!
ReplyDeleteHi Milind! Found your blog while googling for TFI. Can you tell me what sector you are working in now? I'm a potential applicant :) Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHi Pat - Great to connect with you, especially since you are a potential applicant. :) I am now the Director of Organizational Effectiveness and Technology at Teach For India. Read more about what other alumni are doing - http://www.teachforindia.org/beyond_fellowship.php
ReplyDeleteHi Milind! Chanced upon your blog while looking up practically everything I could find on TFI. Hoping to join after my graduation. :)
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to say that this is a great blog!
LOVE points 9, 77 and 78.
Mallika - Thank you for your kind words, I am glad you like the blog!
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ReplyDeleteHi! I am applying for TFI Fellowship this year.After fellowship I want to pursue an MBA either from any tier 1 B-school in India or from abroad.How will TFI help and groom me for future challenges?I will be completing my engineering in 2013 and have already got a so called good job.I want to know what most of the fresh graduates do after their TFI fellowship?
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