Rechannelize your efforts for Goal Achievement

Gone are the days when people waited for months to get a telephone connection or a car. Today, we are getting hardwired to want things-NOW. Whole world is running towards instant gratification. Be it old or young, rich or poor all are being driven by the powerful force of wanting thing the very moment, they desire. 

This is being fueled by the things around:

ATM - moment the card is inserted, money is OUT.

Call Dominos and pizza is delivered right at your doorstep within 30 minutes.

And many more start ups working on convenience…..

People have started hating to wait for anything. In this scenario, working on some goals today for the results to be obtained much later is becoming that much more difficult. 

Ayush had decided to be one of the best guitarist in the town and wanted to be part of the Kaliedoscope concert. He received an electric guitar from his father as a surprise birthday gift! Few

Image courtesy: www.clipartsheep.com

days after his birthday, his Dad was inquiring with Ayush about the progress. 

Dad – When is your audition for Kaliedoscope concert?

Ayush – After a 6 months dad

Dad – And how’s your practice going on?

Ayush – Cool dad. Actually before kaleidoscope, we have performance in the school, where I can be in better position to evaluate .

Ayush was attending classes on the weekends. He did it regularly for few weeks. But due to monotonous positioning of fingers and neck and darned lessons, he got too much bored. School event took place and Ayush couldn’t perform  that well.  This came as a shocker to Ayush.  He thought about what went wrong. 

Dad – What happened?  

He knew the reason for the failure.

Ayush – Dad , I bunked few classes as I got bored and was playing cricket.

Dad – But , then what about your dream of becoming the best guitarist? Each passing day you either move closer towards achieving your goal or move further away from that goal.

Ayush – Yeah dad I know.

Dad – How important is that audition and the concert for you?

Ayush – It is very important Dad. Most of the popular guitarists have started from this event.

Dad – Then how are you going to be ready for it?

Ayush – Now I cannot relax. I will put in huge efforts. I cannot be successful overnight.

Dad – So, what you are going to do?

Ayush –I will join practice classes on week days after school along with regular classes on weekends.

Dad – Where else can you create time for more practice?

Ayush - Dad , for time being, I will skip cricket till the kaleidoscope gets over successfully. I will reschedule my plan.

Dad- that’s really good! That you have realized your progress and rerouted accordingly to get back on track of your goal achievement. I am impressed!

Ayush – Yes dad. I will give priority to practice . 

Image courtesy: www.clipartsheep.com

In the next few months, Ayush works according to his plan. He foregoes cricket and other entertainment. He gets some lessons from an online music academy.  He registers for jamming sessions with other guitar players and musicians, to improve timing and improvisation skills. He gets selected at the audition and also performs at the Kaliedoscope, which he so badly wanted to. 

For every Ayush around us who stumble, wake up and rework the plan, there are many more who give up. At the slightest obstacle on the path, they change the destination. So, in this world of instant gratification, Ayush had to forego his current pleasures for achieving the distant goal. More so, he had to reroute himself like 
the GPS tracker to get a new path to reach his destination.

Points to ponder:

1.  How many parents behave like Ayush’s Dad?  Inquiring with concern without passing judgements and offering their own solutions?

2.   How many people behave like Ayush? Analyzing own behavior -

      a)   What efforts did HELP his progress?

      b)   What efforts did HURT his progress ?

3.   How many people take the failures as step towards learning?

4.   How many parents are consciously inculcating these skills in their children?

Happy Reading !

                                   - Making Champs Team

www.makingchamps.co.in

The teacher has taught, but why students have not learned it?

This was published earlier on our other blog. Republishing it here so that everything is available at one go

The teacher has taught, but why students have not learned it?

I have one question that why do you ask so many questions? This was the question asked by one of our students Pearl.  We were a bit stunned. On one hand it was expressing her frustration of having to face so many questions from us, while on the other hand it felt good, that she has started using this very technique on the journey of exploration of new knowledge.

In all our sessions, the learning is co-created. We as facilitators and the students have a conversation on the topic and progressively, new knowledge is discovered by the students. We believe in this method. But students initially felt a bit confused as they are used to a different process – where the teacher is the giver of knowledge and they are the recipients. In our view, this is one of the big problems in the current education system where rote learning has become the rule and students try to memorise without understanding. This explains why in many situations, the teacher teaches, but students do not learn.

The etymology of the word education throws up some interesting insights. The word ‘education’ has roots in E + DUCO, which means TO BRING OUT. If education is the process of bringing out (knowledge) what exists, then why do we have the entire system focussing on shoving in the information to students, without helping them in the process of knowledge formation? So, how is this system supposed to work? The answer to this question can come from the brain mechanism on how the learning happens.

Any information received by the brain, is first tested against the existing knowledge and if a connection can be made, the new information gets hooked up to the older one. The more this process happens, it gives rise to a new pattern of connections and this is the process of LEARNING. If the brain cannot connect the new information to the existing knowledge, it is simply discarded as unwanted, unusable piece of data. So, how can we make use of this knowledge, on a day to day basis to facilitate the process of learning by our children?

Example of an interesting conversation in our house last week:

Our son Harsh and daughter Jiya were talking about fabrics. Jiya mentioned that Harsh’s sports day costume is of terrycot based on what she had heard her mother speak. Harsh is not aware of what terrycot is.

Harsh : Papa, what is terrycot?

Papa : It is a blended fabric. Do you know about synthetic fibres?

Harsh: Yes, it is a manmade fibre like nylon.

Papa: Good. Like nylon, there is a synthetic fibre called terrylene and when that is mixed with cotton, you get terrycot

Harsh : Oh, so it is like an alloy of metals.

Harsh can now place terrylene (new information) as a synthetic fibre similar to nylon (existing knowledge) and terrycot, a blended fabric (new information) is similar to a metal alloy (existing knowledge). So, it is very likely that the new information that he has received becomes part of his knowledge due to the connections he could make.

When children ask questions, avoid giving direct answer as that may be like new information to the brain without anything to be connected to. So, what can we do as parents while answering these questions?

·        Ask them relevant questions so that they can answer it and then connect it

·        Ask them what do they think about it

·      Ask them to use some source of information – any expert, book / dictionary and then let them explain what have they understood

There are a number of ways in which we can keep our children on path of lifelong learning and keeping their curiosity alive. For that, we as parents need to keep patience and allow the children to explore.

Mili and Prasanna Pahade

Co- Founders, Making CHAMPS

Website: www.makingchamps.co.in, Fb: www.facebook.com/makingchamps

Address:

Shop No. 11, Ramchandra Niwas,

Sector 12A, Koparkhairane,
Navi Mumbai - 400709

Love your children and more so, when you think they don’t deserve it!!

This was published earlier on our other blog. Republishing it here so that everything is available at one go

Love your children and more so, when you think they don’t deserve it!!

Our children study in St. Mary’s ICSE School, Koperkhairane, Navi Mumbai and in one of the visits to the school, I remember reading a poster – Love your children and more so when you think they don’t deserve it. This message made home in my mind and have been thinking about it for a long time.

Isn’t this statement contradictory? Why should children be loved when they don’t deserve it? Let’s see different scenarios between children and parents to understand this.

Child is happy

If the child is happy due to some achievement or recognition, she is in good mood and behaves very well. Any external endorsement or support is not required. But generally we find that we parents reward them with some goodies and children do not mind it. But actually, they have got their own reward in terms of recognition and the happiness that comes along with it.

Child is upset

Now imagine a case wherein the child has had a bad day – due to poor grades in the exam, losing a match/race or due to fight with someone. The child is trying to cope up with the situation and is emotionally charged – either on someone else or on herself. She needs some support to come out of this. But generally, we as parents add fuel to the fire. Imagine our statements – “If you do this again, then you will have it”/  “You better improve your grades or forget the new PS2”/  “You better work hard and practice for the next race or stop going for the extra class” and so on.

Just step into the shoes of the poor child. She realizes that some mistake has happened. She doesn’t need any sermon at that time. She needs compassion and someone to listen to her. If parents do not play that role, where would the child go? This is an important juncture wherein the communication between the child and the parent either blossoms or starts breaking down!

Confidence and self image

As is written by many experts, the confidence of a person is linked to her self-image, which in turn is based on being felt lovable and capable. In a situation where the child is feeling upset, what would make her feel lovable and capable? This is where the parent and teacher’s role become critical. By being with the child in the toughest time, they can give that boost to the self image of the child in addressing both these needs. They can shower the parental love at this juncture and this is where – “Love your children and more so when you think they don’t deserve it” comes into the picture. On the question of being felt capable, you cannot weave the false stories of capabilities when she has experienced a defeat. However, you can help by acknowledging the existence of that feeling and then let the child come out with the positives or learning from the experience and we as parents can appreciate the efforts being put by her.

As a parents of 2 children, I know that to implement the above is not easy and is a test of patience. But this is the essential role as parents. We have to ensure that our children become ready to face various eventualities, including facing upsets and defeats and still get up to fight again. The ultimate reward for the parents is when our children do this with confidence and keep their self image intact.

Mili and Prasanna Pahade

Co- Founders, Making CHAMPS

Website: www.makingchamps.co.in
Fb: www.facebook.com/makingchamps

Address:

Shop No. 11, Ramchandra Niwas,

Sector 12A, Koparkhairane,
Navi Mumbai - 400709

Outsourcing of school projects

Outsourcing of school projects - Unhealthy Trend

Extracurricular activities as learning opportunities
The 2nd half of the academic year is busy season in most schools with extracurricular activities taking up substantial time - sports day, annual day, science day, model making and in some schools even the carnival. As part of these activities schools have projects to be done by group of students. Schools expect parents to assist the students. 

These projects are an important source of learnings and contribute significantly to the development of the child. This involves interpersonal behaviour, team working, planning, time management, creativity, art/craft and overall leadership development. Even if parents assist the children in this activity, children learn a lot from this exposure. They see their parents in action and work with them.

Students not getting exposure
At Making CHAMPS, when we interact with students of many schools we find that they are lacking in most of these skills. Upon going deeper into the situation, we discovered a very unhealthy trend. The reason students are not good in these skills is because they have never worked in such an environment! Some times it is the parents who end up doing these projects and for the last 1-2 years we are seeing the parents role substituted by professional agencies. 

Professionals doing the student's work
Parents have a busy schedule. It is a humongous task for somebody to take along 8-10 children with their parents to work as a team. Moreover, there is a concern that we cannot do good work as we have not made models or charts like this.  There enters the professional agencies. 

There are individuals who work on model making for real estate or design firms. There are many private class owners teaching art & craft. They take on these projects. The charge can be anywhere between Rs. 3000 to Rs. 15000 depending on the complexity of the model. For a group of 8-10 students, parents end up spending Rs. 400 to Rs. 2000 per student. No meetings, no mess in the house, no tension of coordination with other parents & children, no concern about people not working, substantial saving in time  and moreover, the output is of professional quality.

Encouraging lies
Schools do not support such practices. Therefore, when the students are asked - who has made the project? They are taught to speak the lies - we made it ourselves with the help of our parents. Instead of such activities building important practical skills & leadership qualities, it is sowing the seeds of lies. 

Questions to ponder
1. If parents do not have time, should school have such activities? If anyways the work is not going to be done by students, why to have such activities?
2. What role can school play in discouraging such practices? If a team resorts to such practicies, should they be disqualified?
3. What will it take for parents to understand that in such developmental activities, the journey is more important that the destination? i.e the process itself is a learning opportunity. If the team gets an award for a model done by a professional agency, what has the child learnt?


Eager to know the views from all the stakeholders. 

Mili and Prasanna Pahade

Co- Founders, 

Making CHAMPS - Personality, EQ & IQ development program for children

Website: www.makingchamps.co.in , Fb: www.facebook.com/makingchamps

Email : makingchampsindia@gmail.com