“ChaloThinKare (Let's Think together!) Foundation” offers advice, training and support to schools, industries, NGOs and individuals - promoting Thinking Through Philosophy as a robust and effective learning method. This approach enables students / individuals to develop thinking, innovation, problem solving skills and self-awareness as well as build social and emotional intelligence.
Our Vision is ‘To develop a society which encourages- dialogue based thinking practices, open questioning and striving for truth’
To stimulate thinking skills that will enable participants to fully participate in India’s 21th century society -
• We build these thinking skills by asking open questions; questions to which readymade answers are not possible. This stimulates the capacities for finding creative solutions for difficult problems and situations
• We work in groups to create dialogues with clear thoughts. This stimulates interaction; cooperation and self-confidence
• We stimulate independent thinking: everyone in the group is encouraged to develop his/her own understanding for any concept. We don’t teach or convince, but stimulate building one’s own conscience
• We believe, Truth is what oneself finds and feels right, and is ready to accept and pay the price of his/ her own thinking. Truth can also change with experience. So striving for truth is a continuous process and there is no harm in accepting the change in views with good understanding
How to think is our subject, not what to think.
Every person is an independent thinker and one has its own truth with him/her. So one has to use own wisdom and experience-based learning to form an independent opinion and that is the truth for that particular time frame. But as the person grows, with the change in time frame perspective changes and hence the truth for him/her changes.
Hence one needs the freedom to think and take own decisions and that will help the person to take the responsibility for his/her own thinking. So, striving for truth is very important and finding my own truth and experimenting that to take right action is a chain of thinking habit. This will bring change from inside and it will be a permanent change. This will be a real development.
We have adopted a very profound yet simple module, from a Scottish couple Doris and Paul Cleghorn (www.aude-education.co.uk). It helps introduce thinking in groups of people in a non-intimidating fashion. Our facilitators are well trained to bring the desired impact.
‘ChaloThinKare foundation’ is a sec. 8 Non Profit Company, incorporated to create a culture of thinking in India by developing a community of enquiry, partnering with Yojana Projecthulp in the Netherlands (http://yojana.nl/).
Prof. Dr. Jaap Schouten was a university professor in education at the Amsterdam University and visiting professor at the Rajasthan University.
Jaap was Yojana’ s guide to develop awareness for and an approach to develop the quality of Indian education. Twice he travelled to Indie to train partners and teachers. Jaap is Yojana’ s top advisor for education with whom Yojana has frequent contact. He developed the tool for educators: “Words of Value.”
Jaap can be characterized by his statements.
" Experience is the only way of learning "
" A pupil does not care what you know until he/she knows that you care "
" We cannot teach students; we only can support her/his learning "
" In essence teaching is developing the ability to ask questions "
" If there are no questions, let’s go home ".
Cees is a non-salaried Secretary and Founder Member of Yojana Project Netherlands. Yojana was associated with manay Indian NGOs for the last 40 years and supported projects in agriculture, village development, child labor, women empowerment and streen children. More and more Yojana became aware that lack of indepependent thinking, curiosity and creativity are the main hindrances for economic and social development. This conviction was the base to start two curious/ discovery centers for our youth and to introduce P4C and IRA. And now Yojana parters in developing ChaloThinKare movement.
Paul was Headteacher/Principal of primary school in Scotland for many years. Later he was a Development Officer in Thinking Development before becoming an education consultant. Paul directed the 'Thinking Through Philosophy' project in central Scotland that received international recognition. He was a committee member then Chair of SAPERE.
Over the past fifteen years Paul has published several books, given workshops, keynote addresses and presentations in many parts of the UK. He has spoken at several International Conferences on Thinking. Paul has worked with schools, education authorities, government agencies and educational charities in several countries around the world. His books have been translated into Korean, Dutch, Hungarian and Marathi.
Doris was for many years a Senior Teacher in a primary school. She became involved in the 'Thinking Through Philosophy' programme in Central Scotland and was seconded to support teachers in developing philosophical enquiry in both primary and secondary schools. Subsequently she has worked in international projects supporting teachers and developing support materials suited to the country and culture. Doris was co-author of 'Thinking Through Personal and Social Development' for secondary school pupils.
Together, Paul and Doris have worked to bring philosophical enquiry to teachers in Grenada, India and Hungary through different charity projects.
Sabine is a Dutch child psychologist and family therapist. She helps children to develop a more secure attachment and helps families to solve their problems. She has developed IRA (Interactive Reading Aloud) program for ChaloThinKare and trained a team in Pune to take it forward. SEDT (Pharbani district) and CWIN in Nepal also experienced positive effects in children using IRA.