Video of my presentation at UWC-Second-Saturday-at-Six gathering in Boston last February in which I describe why I do what I do for the education of the marginalized in Nepal and the impact of the April and May 2015 earthquakes on the schools COMMITTED works with in Sindhupalchok. #FreeDorjeGurung

I am back..into teaching. This time teaching teachers in Nepal instead of international students abroad. I figured educating teachers in Nepal on how to impart critical thinking skills on student might have a bigger impact than teaching students at one school. If you are interested in having me be i

My attempt at inspiring students from Dolpa, mostly ethnic Tibetans, to pursue their dreams to break out of the limitations and constraints imposed on them by Nepalese culture and society. #Bhote #discrimination #Mustang

In part II of this two-part blog, I shred the contents of a grade 12 chemistry paper the students took last month. It's full of mistakes showing how little attention to details the examiners and board have paid in creating it. The contents also show how the syllabus has NOT been revised and updated

Nepali society struggles to make social progress for a number of different reasons. One of the reasons is that we have a number of social stigmas and many subjects and issues are taboo. In other words, most Nepalis live in denial of many issues plaguing the society. Here are a number of those stigma

How I used discrepant events in my IB Diploma Chemistry lessons and links to videos of some of them. #discrepantevent #IBChemistry #MYPScience

Another lesson I conducted with a grade 7 group using cutouts from magazines. The topic? Natural Resources. How and what a teacher uses as a teaching tool or resource is really limited only by the teacher's imagination, really! #BookBusNepal #SatoriCenterfortheArts #scienceeducation

I have come to the conclusion that Nepalis in general struggle to empathize with fellow Nepalis who are, for example, suffering for whatever reason. The reason behind that is their low power of imagination.Why are their power of imagination low? Caste system induced attitude, lack of travel experien

Example of a clueless Subcontinental man. #genderissues #harassment #NepaleseCulture

Given how money has been the driving force behind what a majority do in Nepal and given how little people with power and influence value other people's lives, even during calamitous times -- such the aftermath of the 2015 earthquakes and the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic--we in Nepal must educa

Why even as a non-American I actively support Senator Bernie Sanders for the Presidency of the United States of America. #climatechange #compassion #morality

There's no satisfying ethnonationalists of #Nepal. #Citizenship #NepaliCitizenship #Nepali

Children want to impress and please adults they look up to, whether the adults are family members, teachers, or members of their local community. As a teacher, if you have high expectations of your students, by and large, they will do everything they can to meet those expectations, partly to impress

I was part of the funeral rites and rituals of a relative who died recently. Being the first time I had ever participated in the activities, I learned how little I knew about our own funeral rites and rituals, and by extension our ethnic-Tibetan Mustang culture and traditions. #deathrituals #funer

Deciding on the Ballooney Baku "race" to enter their tissue-paper hot air balloon in, identifying the kind of fuel necessary to win the race, and analyzing the fuels. #Azerbaijan #Baku #combustion

Corporal punishments rarely impart any meaningful lesson, and yet, in Nepal, it's defended as part of our "culture." My classmates and I suffered from it too and as far as I can tell, they didn't do much good for us! What's more, it is possible to educate and raise children without punishing them ph

Coming across old digital records and documents, I have decided to reproduce many of them in my blog. This is a paper I wrote for my Introduction to Anthropology class as an undergraduate student at Grinnell College from 1990 to 1994. The paper describe how an ancient culture in the Amazon Rainfores

What in numbers are producers in an ecosystem to the number of apex predators, casual sexism is to sexual predators in rape culture. How? Read on. #casualsexism #gender #genderequality

Birth is a beginning...of unrealized, unpredictable, unimaginable potential! But the Hindus will have you believe that it is an end and make many suffer for it, consequently. Of course, that's completely WRONG. #castesystem #castebaseddiscrimination #casteism

On December 30, 2019, I made a presentation at a school to about 60 people. I shared my journey from Nepal starting as someone our society had written off as a nobody and wouldn't amount to much to becoming the person I am today -- a human being first -- and some of the most important life lessons I

This is another #LifeEh observation but about other people's lives, not mine. The observation comes from the lives of two gay men from my old school of St. Xavier's Jawalakhel in Kathmandu and their very divergent fates. #LifeEh #AlokNembang #NepaliCulture

In the March 29, 1998 episode of the Kantipur FM, Marlboro Music Network radio show, I talk about the peculiarities of SLC by comparing my class' end-of-year examination results to that of SLC to show why it is an exercise in futility and unreliability. #KantipurFM #MarlboroMusicNetwork #privatesc

Another way the universe appeared to have conspired to send me home was the racism it sent my way! ;) I experienced a lot of harassment and abuse from locals in Baku as well as in Doha. I was also profiled by establishments in both the cities angering me greatly and compounding my depression, as wel

When people think of modelling, they think of catwalks and skinny models, mostly. We do a lot of that in Science too...modelling that is, not the catwalks and skinny models! #dependentevents #logicaldeduction #Mastermind

16 days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Campaign started a few days ago. A campaign that started in 1991 aims to raise awareness about the subject and to spur people into action to end violence against women and girls. #HearMeToo #orangetheworld #16daysofactivism

In Nepal, respect for teachers and administrators is instilled in student through the threat of violence, i.e. fear! That, of course, is despicable, just as Albert Camus says. Getting students to respect teachers is easy: just show them respect by listening to them. #childabuse #childrearing #corp

Embeds of PowerPoint slides covering Topic 9, State of Matter, of IB Diploma Chemistry Syllabus. The slides also include practice questions from past papers. #Chemistryteaching #IBChemistry

Driven by the sting of childhood discrimination, I sought to "escape" Nepal at a young age. Over two decades of living and working across the globe transformed me, allowing me to find a sense of humanity that transcends borders. I finally broke free from the cultural constraints that tried to define

The fourth one in the series about Nepal needing a revolution...a revolution of the mind. Here's more of one of many MANY reasons why. #genderbias #genderequality #genderissues

In the highly patriarchal Nepali society with very low level -- as well as low quality -- of education of the population, maintaining the status quo benefits the hill so-called high caste Hindu men, the social, economic and political elite. #gender #genderbias #genderequality

A meme, using completely false reasoning, tries to prove that there isn't any discrimination in Nepal. But, ironically, in the way the the non-Khas-Aryas are characterised in the meme, the creator ends up outing himself or herself as a bigot! #castebaseddiscrimination #casteism #Facebook

President Obama has a bowl full of things people have given to him some of which he carries in his pocket to remind him of the people who gave them to him, what they mean and, when necessary, to inspire him to do the best he can. I on the other hand have been given something else by those that I hav

Introducing my Science Teacher Training module to several dozen teachers and administrators on December 1, I performed some light magic. Follow the link to listen...to the 18-minute long magic!! #BookBusNepal #QuixotesCove #SatoriCenterfortheArts

The intellectual bankruptcy of the two biggest universities in Kathmandu.... #Azerbaijan #corruptioninNepal #intellectualbankruptcy

During my first professional career as an international teacher, for about two decades I worked in ten countries around the world spread over five continents. Also during that time, I wrote innumerable job applications for positions all over the world from Latin America in the south to Scandinavia i

What gives popcorn its pop? #alcohol #Azerbaijan #Baku

In part II of this two-part blog, I shred the contents of a grade 12 chemistry paper the students took last month. It's full of mistakes showing how little attention to details the examiners and board have paid in creating it. The contents also show how the syllabus has NOT been revised and updated

I have noticed Nepali men rarely admit their mistakes; forget about apologizing for them. Why is that? I am really curious to know. #Facebook #genderissues #malechauvinism

Outcastes, foreigners, according to the caste system, are supposed to be of lower status than Dalits, and therefore even more "impure." At one time, some category of them were treated as such. But no longer. Nepalis changed their views of, attitude towards, and behaviors with them within a little mo

A reproduction of an Instagram post about a family in Nepal pressuring their young professional adult medical doctor daughter based in Australia to accept an arranged marriage proposal from a complete stranger. In spite of her "No" the day the post was published, it had been three weeks of constant

Peruvian beauty pageant contestants present their figures.... #activism #beautypageants #gender

Embeds of PowerPoint slides covering Topic 4, Changing Materials to Useful Products, of GCSE Chemistry Syllabus. #Chemistryteaching #GCSEChemistry