Liberty and Big Data is Watching You- Part 1

Sandeep Dutt’s Masterclass on Emerging Literacies

Discuss Chapter 3 of 21 Lessons for the 21st Century on Liberty and Big Data is watching you.

Key Takeaways

The “Human Hacking” Formula: The intersection of biological knowledge, computing power, and data (b x c x d = aah) enables algorithms to understand and manipulate humans better than we understand ourselves.

The Myth of Free Will: Feelings are not free will but biochemical algorithms for survival. This makes them hackable, undermining the liberal premise that individual feelings are the ultimate source of authority.

The Shifting Source of Authority: Authority is moving from divine law and human feelings to big data algorithms, which can make better decisions for us by overcoming human biases and lack of self-knowledge.

The Teacher’s Role: In this new reality, a teacher’s primary role is to be a thought-provoker, not an information processor, fostering critical thinking to help students navigate the influence of algorithms.

Topics

Review: The Future of Work (Ch. 2)

The previous session explored AI’s impact on work, including Universal Basic Income (UBI) and Universal Basic Services (UBS).

Conclusion: The path forward requires a new social model combining a safety net with meaningful community and purpose.

The Liberal Story & Its Vulnerability

Liberalism defines liberty as authority stemming from individual feelings, desires, and choices.

Core Liberal Beliefs:

Politics: Democratic elections

Economics: Free markets

Personal: Following one’s heart

Vulnerability: This reliance on feelings is the “Achilles’ heel” of liberal democracy, as technology can now hack and manipulate the human heart.

The "Human Hacking" Formula (b x c x d = ahh)

The formula b x c x d = ahh (Biological knowledge x Computing power x Data = Ability to hack humans) explains how algorithms gain authority.

Mechanism: Biometric sensors convert biological processes into data, which computers analyse to understand us better than we understand ourselves.

Example (Medicine): Algorithms will monitor health 24/7, detecting diseases long before symptoms appear. This could lead to constant algorithmic recommendations, with non-compliance potentially impacting insurance or employment.

The Rise of Algorithmic Authority

Algorithms will make better decisions for us by overcoming human limitations like insufficient data, faulty programming (genetic/cultural), and chaos.

Example (Entertainment): Algorithms will use real-time biometric data (e.g., eye movements, heart rate) to determine true preferences, bypassing unreliable self-reporting.

Example (Information): Google search has become so dominant that “truth is defined by the top results,” diminishing our ability to search for information independently.

Next Steps

All Participants:

Reflect on the session’s themes, especially the b x c x d = ahh formula.

Share reflections via email for potential publication on The Teachers Academy (www.happyteacher.in) blog.

Join the “Saturday 5.30pm” WhatsApp group for ongoing discussion.

Subscribe to the gsi.in newsletter for weekly updates and session recordings.

Sandeep Dutt:

Share the session recording on the My Good School YouTube channel.

Publish show notes and the recording link in the Good Schools of India (www.gsi.in) newsletter.

Who am “I”? - Akanksha Pandey

Read And Lead: The Saturday Masterclass 2026 with Sandeep Dutt

1. I realised that many of my worries exist because I care too much about how others see me. If I stop overthinking people's reactions, many of my problems will be reduced.

2. I understood that my insecurities grow only when I compare myself. Without comparison, there is no reason to feel ‘less.’

3. I learned that I create the meaning of my weaknesses. If I change the meaning, I change my life.

4. I realised that sometimes when people brag or behave arrogantly, it is not confidence—it is pain. This helps me understand others with more kindness.

5. I understood that true confidence never needs to shout. Real strength is quiet; fake strength is loud.

6. I learned that even playing the victim can become a way to feel powerful. But it only locks us inside our own pain.

7. I realised I don’t need to be ‘better than someone’. I only need to be a better version of myself.

8. I understood that freedom means living according to my own values, not based on who likes me or approves of me.

9. I realised strength and weakness depend on how we use them. Real strength is honesty, responsibility, and inner stability.

10. I understood that both inferiority and superiority complexes are prisons created by comparison. When I stop comparing, I become free.

Akanksha Pandey

Sunbeam School Mughalsarai

Poetry Session with Brinda Ghosh - 27th Feb 2025

#ThoughtfulThursdays
Update: Henceforth, the sessions will be from 5:30 PM onward.  

Ms. Brinda Ghosh led the poetry session, which discussed the importance of sharing personal compositions and exploring different poetic forms. 

Participants shared their poems, including Nibbrati's tribute to her students and Saloni's metaphorical piece on overcoming fear. 

Ms Ghosh explained the differences between free verse and blank verse, emphasising free verse's flexibility and emotional depth. She also introduced the concept of sinquain and shared her poem about her father.

The session concluded with a reading of Naomi Shihab Nye's "Kindness" and a call for participants to submit their poems for reading and publishing in our Good Schools India Journal.

Tune in on SoundCloud:

My Good School · Poetry Session 27020225 | Enjoy the recording on SoundCloud

Freedom and Peace - Rishona Chopra

Freedom as we know, of course, is the joy of feeling free & and doing what we want, to simply have freedom. We can do what we want, but freedom has its own limits. It's not that we cut the wings on the bird, but it's like a summer-adapted bird goes to Antarctica. Can it? It might die... Similarly, freedom is to have the initial and foremost rights and the right to do good deeds, not bad ones.

When someone says, "you are not good at drawing at all. I am much better." These things hurt us, and then when people say things that hurt us, they capture our thoughts. We usually start criticizing ourselves. Their thoughts about us capture our thoughts. What people say about us is not necessarily who we are. 

We are who we think we are, so if we start thinking about ourselves as someone else thinks, our thoughts are not free. We are not free at all. So people can say what they want to, of course, if they say something we must see if what they are saying is true but if not then don't think about what they say because if your mind doesn't have free thoughts, then you are not free and if you are not free then how will you be happy and if you are not satisfied then how will you feel peace and if you have no peace then you don't have a wonderful, happy and peaceful life. And I'm sure all of us want a happy life. Don't we?

Freedom in the classroom is quite essential; the Montessori teaching style aims to make the child more thoughtful and independent. Freedom for thought and doing. In the book "Lord Of The Flies" a group of boys are left alone on an island for the first few days the enjoy, but after a few days, they need someone to guide them. So freedom doesn't just depend on you but the proper process with which we need some guidance.

Freedom and peace are pretty related; peace starts when space starts. Peace, in my opinion, is something you can't describe. It's a feeling of pleasure, satisfaction, fulfilment and joy. Peace is freedom from the noise in our minds. Today let us pledge, "Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me". "The more in harmony with yourself, the more joyful you are, and the more faithful you are. Faith does not disconnect you from reality; it connects you to reality." — Paulo Coelho Rishona Chopra Grade VI Gyanshree School

RP Devgan: Homeschooling - a possibility

A few weeks ago before the lockdown, in one of my articles, I had mentioned the possibility of Home Schooling in India. The idea was met with a fair amount of scepticism. Now with three months of Lockdown and hours and hours of online classes, I wonder if the thinking has changed, even if ever so little.

My first experience of meeting a ‘home-schooled’ child in India in the late nineties was a pleasant one. A young couple, family friends, had decided to bring up their daughter at the Tiger Resort they were running in a Wildlife Sanctuary. The girl grew up in the forest, had a menagerie of her own and birds and animals for company. She lived a free, happy life, unaware of the travails of a city school. My wife and I met her when she was about nine years old. The parents needed some advice for she was going to write the entrance exam for a renowned residential school. She turned out to be a charming girl full of incidents and great knowledge of flora and fauna. She had never been to school and carried no baggage whatsoever of competition and expectations. We were extremely pleased to meet a most unusual family. Needless to say, she qualified for the entrance examination and joined the school. Presently, after her graduation
she is getting married and moving to Australia.

My second experience of ‘home-schooled’ children, three of them, was when I went to visit my wife’s cousin about 10 years go, in a village beyond Santiniketan. His NGO runs a school for the Santhals and other tribal groups of that area. Married to a British girl they have two sons and a daughter. The children aged between 7-10 years attended the same village school, dressed the same way and went to school barefooted. I spent a week with them, visited the school every day, played cricket and football with all the children and even crossed a river to pluck local fruit. The three children would return home at 4 pm and had access to the internet. They were then homeschooled by their parents on various subjects.

All three wrote the IGCSE  privately and are now in England. The oldest one has graduated from the University of Warwick in Discrete Maths and Economics, the daughter is to join London School of Economics this September and the youngest sibling will finish his ‘A’ levels next year. This is a great example of ‘Home Schooling’ carried out in a village in West Bengal.

As Principal of an International School in Bali, I would admit a few children every year; children who had never been to school till the age of 11 years. The most interesting of them was a 12-year-old girl whose class for three years, had been her father’s yacht. She had sailed with her parents around the oceans and seas, stopping at any island they fancied. The yacht had been her classroom and the oceans and seas her playground. She had the most fascinating tales to tell about her adventures at sea, her meeting with all kinds of people and sampling different kinds of cuisines. At the age of 12, she was a very confident young lady and I would often make her address the school.

Back to the present and the Lockdown continues. I have been observing that almost every school has been conducting online classes. Over the past three months, I have heard educators and numerous experts giving their views on the future of education, almost creating paranoia among parents and students.

Young, educated parents with two children think of the cost of fifteen years of schooling which is staggering and to add to this, there is no guarantee of the quality of education provided. Would it then be wise to ‘home-school' our children? With knowledge and information available on the Internet through Google and other portals, it seems a possibility. If a couple can balance their act in between their professional lives, it can be done.

Online schooling during the Lockdown has benefited some children. Children who are introverts, under the pressure of peers, bullies and teachers, have found online teaching a boon. These children are at peace and have found the joy of learning. Children who are always short of sleep are relaxed. There is no rush in the mornings and breakfast is enjoyed. Sensible parents have chalked out a timetable where the child has enough time to study and indulge in things that interest him. Some have gradually made fitness a way of life by exercising regularly. It has given children time to pause and think.

Of course, there are many limitations but then there are solutions too.

With education becoming expensive and in most cases with no guarantee of quality, ‘Home-schooling’ could be an alternative. Sometimes for no fault of their own, schools cannot provide facilities in sports, art, music, theatre and other activities. It is possible that Homeschooling overcomes these deficits.

Parents have the choice of the number of years the child needs to attend school. After all, we as Homo sapiens are gregarious by nature and it is important to live with our fellow beings and learn about adaptability, relationships, compassion and tolerance.

A time has come for the parents to pause and think about what is best for their children. Just attending school because everyone is doing it may need a rethink. Education is changing and changing fast. With knowledge and information accessible easily, schools will have to change from educators just teaching their subjects to paying more attention to pastoral care, life skills and values.

In my opinion, children who eventually lead a happy and meaningful life will have to be good at adaptability and building relationships. Though no one can tell what to expect in the years to come, I sincerely hope that as a human race we do not lose our sense of values and lead a meaningful life that makes a difference.

- Rajinder Pal Devgan, Chairperson Learning Forward India
With near five decades of experience as an Educationist and having served as a School Leader for schools in India and overseas, Mr Devgan brings in rich experience as an administrator, sports person and champion for teachers.

More parents are now choosing to homeschool instead of sending their children to public or private schools. Learn more about the homeschooling movement and what's involved when parents educate their kids at home.
https://www.parents.com/kids/education/home-schooling/homeschooling-101-what-is-homeschooling/

How HundrED Ambassadors in India have Supported Learning during Lockdown

The Indian school system is one of the largest in the world, with 247+ million learners and 9+ million teachers across 1.5+million schools. On Monday, March 16th, 2020 the Indian Government announced the closure of all educational institutions and the implementation of a 21-day nation-wide lockdown. For many, classes and examinations have been suspended until further notice. Depending on how long the current lockdown lasts there will be an impact on the duration of the academic year, which will in turn severely impact students, as the planned syllabus will have to be covered over a shorter period of time.

Unlike urban communities where schools have already adopted remote learning solutions, there is limited access to dedicated devices, amongst peri-urban and rural community stakeholders. Lack of connectivity and tech-savviness is posing major roadblocks in the transition to online learning. The expected impact on local communities if the lockdown continues and schools remain closed for a longer period will be harder to combat due to the inherent challenges in these areas, such as limited access to dedicated devices for students, low technology readiness of school staff who often have had limited exposure to online tools and methods of delivery and teaching. 

Below you will find three examples of initiatives our HundrED Ambassadors and Innovators have taken to help combat the disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in India. 

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Learning Forward India, a professional learning community-led by Sandeep and Devanjali Dutt is helping galvanise their community to handle the social and emotional connect on the ground in the lockdown. Devanjali shares, 

"Before the COVID-19 Crisis, Professional Learning seemed a drag and most teachers were not finding the necessary space and time to look at their personal and social development needs. Today, as we do not have formal school, the focus is on their skill development, they need a plan for the day and look forward to a structured approach. The Joy Of Learning Program (our flagship offering) was built to help teachers at this hour of crises, with a focus on the values that will help children be prepared for the future, overcome the social upheaval, and learn to appreciate the community as well as the environment. "

Learning Forward has taken this lockdown as an opportunity to coach teachers. Multiple studies reveal that teachers’ capacity building strategies enhance students’ performance. Supporting teachers positively also furthers the growth of other key stakeholders, such as students and parents, within learning communities. As a professional learning organisation supporting nearly 400 members and five schools, Learning Forward has taken the following steps:

• Delivering support modules to coach and enable teachers to overcome their tech roadblocks by offering sessions on using various tools and applications 
• Offering their flagship professional development programs across 11 sessions of both structured training sessions and self-directed professional learning with increasing amounts of self-directed time as they progress from week to week. 
• Providing regular webinars and short sessions on defined themes chosen by the target group to support them in their individual learning journeys. 
• Hosting short remote group sessions to take on assignments and discuss solutions to chosen in-class scenarios.  
• Conducting dedicated one on one sessions for school leaders/principals to mentor and guide them in the task of remotely managing teaching and non-teaching staff. 
• Sharing best practices and inspirational stories across social platforms to applaud and recognise steps taken by their target communities to fight the on-ground impact of the pandemic

Read more

- https://hundred.org/en/articles/

FREE SESSION - Joy Of Learning

Join Us with family & friends

Learning can be a joyous and powerful thing, as it’s all about feeding your curiosity and giving you further insight into the world around you.

Honesty & Tolerance...22 Values to help you have overcome the challenges you face in your day-to-day life.
Sunday 24th May 20
4.00 to 5.00 PM (IST)
Via ZOOM
To find out more https://www.brewingknowledge.com/

जब मैं अपने विद्यार्थियों को शिक्षा प्रदान कर रहा होता हूँ |

जो आनंद एक किसान को अपनी लह-लहाती फसल को देखकर आता है, व्यापारी को अपना व्यापार फलित होते हुए देखकर आता है, माता-पिता को अपनी संतान को सफल होते हुए देखकर आता है|उसी आनंद की अनुभूति मुझे तब होती है, जब मैं अपने विद्यार्थियों को शिक्षा प्रदान कर रहा होता हूँ | क्योंकि शिक्षा अर्थात् ज्ञान ही इस संसार में सुख का आधार है | बिना ज्ञान के साधन होते हुए भी हम सुख प्राप्त नही कर सकते | जिस प्रकार Aeroplane होते हुए भी यदि उसे चलाने का ज्ञान नही है तो हमें क्या लाभ | इसलिए समाज व देश के लिए ज्ञानदाता शिक्षक की जिम्मेदारियां बढ़ जाती हैं|

 मुझे चाहे विद्यार्थियों से आदर मिले या ना मिले, हर-हाल में मेरा कर्त्तव्य है, कि  मैं अपने ज्ञान और शक्ति के अनुसार अधिक से अधिक प्रभावशाली शिक्षा प्रदान कर, अधिक से अधिक जिम्मेदार नागरिक तैयार करके देश व समाज की सेवा में रत रहूँ|  एक आदर्श शिक्षक को विद्यार्थियों में भेद ना करते हुए, अपना पराया ना देखते हुए, अधिक से अधिक ज्ञान प्रदान कर परोपकार अवश्य करना चाहिए –
 कहा गया है –
              अष्टादश पुराणेषु व्यासस्य वचन द्वयं |
              परोपकाराय पुण्याय पापाय पर पीडनम् |
- Naveen Sharma, The Iconic School

Students define the Classroom, Not the Walls

The real classroom is the mind of the student and not the classroom of a school.

Today’s classrooms are in which either the teacher explains using a board or in an audiovisual – a smart class, in both type of classrooms the minds of the students are receiving audio and video signals in the form of lecture and visuals – students mind is only receiving, not able to interpret herself, it quickly tries to interpret when a question is asked and this time is very less to analyze and interpret information provided.

A good classroom is where the student’s minds are free and attentive to what is explained.

A good teacher should be able to develop discipline and creativity in his students without force.

Image from Google Search

Our learning from “Can You Teach A Zebra some Algebra” by Debashis Chatterjee.

Ajay Vijayvargi, Kusum Dangi, Tarun Mishra &Usman Gani - The Fabindia School