Sunday, 20 May 2012

A glimpse of the legendary life of Dr. N. Vedamani Manuel

Dr. N. Vedamani Mauel

Born(Ne) : 24 August 1923 at Sawyerpuram,

Tirunelveli District, Tamil Nadu

Designation : Retired Professor of Education, University of Kerala

Date of Demise: 11.08.2008
Last Office Occupied :
Dean CETED

No 8, Soorya GardensSasthamangalamTrivandrum 695 010

Permanent Residential address at Trivandrum :
40 Kairalinagar, Kanchiramapara, Trivandrum 659 5030, Tel : 0471-2361965
Academic Qualification
B.A. (1942) Triple Second class; Chemistry main (III Part); Madras University
M.Ed. (1946) First Class, First Rank, Thesis on Science curriculum, Madras University
M.A. (1950) Second Class I Rank, Tamil Language & Literature, Madras University
M.A. (1953) Second Class I Rank, Philosophy, Madras University
Certificate in French (1966), Alliance Francaise, Madras;
Lang lab course (1967) L.ADIF, Lyons
Diploma in German (1972) First Class I Rank; Kerala University
Diploma in Russian (1973) First Class II Rank; Kerala University


Attended hundreds of Extension Programmes for teachers for nearly five decades- Highlights:

1. Bloom’s (First) Evaluation Workshop, Baroda, 1957 (Participant)

2. Summer Institute in Chemistry, CHEM Study, Annamalai University (six weeks) with Californian team as resource (Participant)

3. Attended several workshops and conferences in India and abroad in education, psychology, literature, linguistics, science, development, environment, habitat, music, musicology, cultural, history, philosophy etc.

Experience
Demonstrator in Chemistry in Intermediate Colleges: 3 years
School Teacher: high school: 3 years; training school: 1 year
In Training Colleges: Lecturer 7 years; Professor; 5 years
In University Dept. of Education: Reader 4 ½ years, Professor 7 ½ years
Research Officer, South Indian Teacher’s Union Council of Research: 3 years
Research Officer, World Confederation of Organisations of Teaching Profession, Delhi 1 year
UNESCO, Chief Technical Adviser (D1), National Teachers Institute, Nigeria, 1 year.
After Superannuation, Founding Director Academic Staff College: 1 year
Director, Centre for Educational Research, Innovation, Development, Mirtraniketan: 4 years
Held several nonformal positions of consultancy, of special lectureships, guidance.
Now Peripatetic Participant Researcher Dean and Dean, CETED (Centre for Technology for Development, Trivandum-10 (Tel:2726034)
Directed or served as resource person in several workshops-Highlights:
Stephen Corey’ Action Research workshop for teachers, Coimbatore-20 1959
Directed Curriculum Workshop with Marcella Lawler as resource person (Columbia Uni) ‘60


While participating as resource person in scores of workshops organized by NCERT/SCERT, attempted to make them democratic, interactive and relevant to real issues on the ground wherever possible: In the early phase of Academic Staff College work as Director and as Resource Persons tried out the intersection of modern developments in processing deep and abstract concepts in a form suitable to young mind and in disadvantaged settings focussing of the structure of various disciplines (which could embrace and generate a mass of content) The thrust in this approach is to use pedagogy and other processing/communication disciplines in interaction with the content disciplines taught in colleges and schools-rather than presenting content and method/pedagogy as separate inputs, expecting them to get integrated in the trainee somehow: in environmental approaches including the setting and the contexts too as interaction factors. In this way interacted with the late 1960s experimental curriculum groups in Chemistry presided by Dr. (Fr. Yeddnapalli (Loyala College, Madras)- overall co-ordination and guidance by Dr CNR Rao, Bangalore; The latest in this area is National

Chemistry Symposium (Chennai) 7-9: In physical education and sports interacted with National Seminar on Trends and Challenges (University of Kannur) February 2003.

The maximum of such pedagogy-discipline interaction was in Linguistics and Language at International School of Dravidian Linguistics and in music with Kalaimamani Dr. Vasantha Srinivasan, Tuticorin and her circle of distinguished musicians and with Dr. A. Sukumaran Nair.

In 1990 master-minded and organized the workshop on Mapping of Educational Innovations from Below at CERID, Mitraniketan with financial support from NCERT.



Held positions in apex bodies relating to Teacher Education:

Member, UGC Teacher Education Panel, 1973-76

Member of many committees of NCERT, particularly those dealing with teacher education from about 1974-84. Member of Governing Board of NCERT 1982-85.



In research, guided about 100 Masters’ level theses and 35 Ph.D theses; most of them were done from a teacher-like/participant stance, adding some new theoretical contribution applicable in practice. The important areas are : Science education, environmental education, music education, language education, developmental education, education of the disadvantaged, philosophy, cultural history, cultural variations and educational adaptations-especially with the  tribes and other ‘culturally different’ groups. Just now giving more ‘grounding’ to the approaches with the collaboration of creative teachers, and Kerala Sastra Parishat workers. It is also planned to direct Habitat Education activities and tribal education research on these lines, Deep constructs have been developed during the past four years at CETED in educational integrations with tribals and forest personnel: facilitated by Dr.C.V. Ananda Bose when he was principal secretary holding SC/ST and forest portfolios.

Life Member: All India Association for Educational Research, HQ Buhubaneswar; Pondicherry Institute of Language and Culture: Dravidian Linguistics Association (International School of Dravidian Languages, Trivandrum; “INDIS”, Trivandrum; Madras Philharmonic Society.)
Member : Libraries of British Council, Alliance Francaise, Kerala University and SCERT

Publications/Papers:
Published ten books/booklets, most of them relating to education and research. Published or read in scholarly conferences about 150 papers. A few exemplars from the early, middle and the latest phases are given:

Early Phases : To major papers

The concept of dreams in early Tamil literature, Madras Psychological Society, 1955.
Indian Psychology as Revealed in early Tamil literature (Indian Science Congress, Agra, 1956)
Some major landmark papers in education from 1972 to 1999:
National Lectures in Education (UGC-sponsored) 1980-81:
Reconstructive approaches to education in the context of an ancient heritage
Environmental approaches to education: a means of enlivening formal and nonformal education.
Tapping the hidden curricula in work experience and folk art forms: a way of positive intervention, favouring the very disadvantaged groups.
Innovation, diffusion and distortion in education.
Education as dialogue: an analysis of multiple forms in formal and nonformal education.
Models of adaptation of education in multilingual and multicultural contexts.
The relevance of Piaget in the modern educational context.

Other important papers in this period:
1. Some aspects of the theory of communication and teaching in Tamil literature, First All India Dravidian Linguistics Conference, Trivandrum 1972.
2. Research in Textbooks, National Seminar on Research, NCERT, 1973.
3. Trend Report on Research in Philosophy of Education. In Buch (ed) Survey of Research in Education, Vol. I &II, 1974, 1978
4. Sociology of Knowledge as Revealed from Malayalam Sources, World Malayalam Conference, 1977.
5. A comparison of English syntax and Tamil-Malayalam syntax from the reference point of scientific and mathematical syntax, and its implication for teaching, world Malayalam conference, 1977.
6. Professionalism as an input in Teacher Education. Paper commissioned by Research Cell of National Commission for teachers 1, December 1983.
7. (a) Formative use of intelligence tests for the culturally disadvantaged ; (b) Constructs for culture-fair measurement of intelligence in a multilingual society. National Seminar on Intelligence Testing , NCERT, 1984
8. Teacher’s and Mental health professionals’ Collaboration. Dialogue paper, National Institute for Mental Health and Neurosciences, (NIMHANS) Bangalore 1985
9. Sikhamen paryavaran-upagame:aupacharik aur anaupacharik siksha men nava jivan sanchar ka sadan (Hindi version of paper on Environmental Education as means of enlivening formal and nonformal education), NCERT Silver Jubilee Souvenir, 1986.
10. Education in the Sangam Age, Dravidian Encyclopaedia, Vol. I. International School of Dravidian Linguistics 1990
11. Innovations in Integrated Education developed at Centre for Educational Research, Innovation and Development, Conference on Mapping of Educational Innovation, CERID and NCERT, Trivandrum, 1990.
12. Educational Research in the 21st Century: A Reconstructionistic and Transdisciplinary View, Golden Jubilee of Entering Service Seminar, Trivandrum, 1992.
13. Reconstructionistic analysis of the social and productive context of Mitraniketan as a learning environment for science and mathematics (CASTME award paper, Manchester, UK) 1992.
14. The Naturalistic-Amoristic Philosophy Reflected in Early Sangam Literature and its Educational Implications. Indian Philosophy Congress, Trivandrum, 1993. (Published in PILC Journal of Dravidic Studies 8:2, July 1998, Pondicherry)
15. Reconstructionistic and hermeneutic approaches to educational history with special reference to Kerala. International Conference on Kerala Studies , A.K.G. Centre, Trivandrum

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