ratnesh's blog
Is the world competitive or is it cooperative?
Geniekids center has two neighbours. Few months back the traffic deptt banned parking on our side of the road - so we started parking our car either in front of the opposite building or in front of the side building.
The opposite building guy came roaring at us, cursed us, and vowed that he will park his red car only and only bang in front of our gate. He said we deserved all the inconvenience (even if that makes him inconvenienced).
That to me is competition.
The side building lady - one day when i had to park my car far away, called me and said, "You have lot of things in your car to carry - i will remove my car - so that you can park in front of my house and carry your stuff comfortably into your center. She thinks we deserve convenience (even if that makes her inconvenienced).
That to me is cooperation.
Me ... learning ... :-)
Faults as mirrors
Whenever i look at a 'fault' in others
it gives me an opportunity to reflect upon the same fault in myself.
Let me not miss this opportunity. I often do that.
Now, let me take this as a reminder.
Let me listen to the echo. Let me use this opportunity to become aware.
Let me use this for my own reflection.
Let me understand the 'faults' role in my life. I need not change it. Others need not change it.
But I can become aware of it. I can make others aware of it.
And we can use this awareness to explore options, choices we are making, results we are getting; to understand.
My understanding becomes my way.
So finding fault can be good - specially when I use it as a mirror :-)))
Ratnesh
pencil, eraser, mistakes, failure etc
My friend Bhuvana shared this via email with me:
Hi, I liked this and wanted to share with you all
Pencil: I'm sorry....
Eraser: For what? You didn't do anything wrong.
Pencil: I'm sorry cos you get hurt bcos of me. Whenever I made a mistake, you're always there to erase it. But as you make my mistakes vanish, you lose a part of yourself. You get smaller and smaller each time.
Eraser: That's true. But I don't really mind. You see, I was made to do this. I was made to help you whenever you do something wrong. Even though one day, I know I'll be gone and you'll replace me with a new one, I'm actually happy with my job. So please, stop worrying. I hate seeing you sad. :)
I found this conversation between the pencil and the eraser very inspirational. Parents are like the eraser whereas their children are the pencil. They're always there for their children, cleaning up their mistakes. Sometimes along the way... they get hurt, and become smaller (older, and eventually pass on). Though their children will eventually find someone new (spouse), but parents are still happy with what they do for their children, and will always hate seeing their precious ones worrying, or sad.
This is for all parents out there.....
Here is my reply to Bhuvana:
Bhuvana - i am going to very harsh on this email - just to make sure my point is heard above all the sugary sentimentality the story creates. I am also marking this to the emails from where you got it.
The reason i want to react so is because i think this kind of sentimentality or beliefs is what is constraining our generation's lower-than-potential-
According to me:
As parents WE are NOT Erasers - we are NOT here to erase our children mistakes. The child has both the ability to write as well as the ability to erase (read "correct") and also rewrite and so on. The child has the ability to be resilient, to be persistent, to be not afraid of pencil getting shorter or eraser getting shorter.
The child (or anybody else for that matter) does not become less neither by writing (as a pencil does) nor by erasing (as a eraser does).
We as human beings are designed to write and erase and we should not be afraid to do so.
To me more importantly the parents role is not to shield, erase or protect the child from doing mistakes - we should in fact encourage children to doing mistakes.
Current view of majority parents, - and you know I interact with thousands of middle and upper middle class parents every year -
is that of protection (from mistakes and failures),
is of being scared (of performance),
is of having little belief in their children (and hence all the time seeking external ways to make it easy for the child).
to me parents role is to empower children to write more and to keep on writing - though at many times what we do is not "right".
In fact i will even go back one step and claim that in reality we do not have nor we need erasers. There is no real need to "erase" what we did wrong. We can just leave what we did wrong and start fresh. In fact if we leave the mistake in-perspective, we can be reminded of the learning from them - else we may forget it.
I had an (Australian) English teacher (in my fifth standard) who said - "When you write, if you make an error - say a spelling - don't erase - simply cut it and write ahead of it or above it or below it etc.
She said this showed to you what is wrong and what is right.
What she didn't say was that it also showed that mistakes are just to be corrected, that its alright to do mistakes, that mistakes are the sources of learning and that if someone is doing more mistakes and then correcting them - it is a sign of growth and learning.
Rather than focus on mistakes parents need to develop the ability - in children - to sit back and look at their work and see what they need to learn from it and how to do it better - not erase it just because it seems not to be right.
The story below ends with ......(parents) will always hate seeing their precious ones worrying, or sad.
Why should parents "hate" seeing their wards worrying or sad? Worrying or sadness are merely two emotions - that we all come across in our life. Are we here to protect or shoo away (so called) negative feelings from our child's life? Is it even possible to do so? Emotions are not positive or negative - they are just emotions - what we need to learn is to be aware of them, to listen to our emotions and learn how to effectively respond to them.
Instead of empowering our children to deal with emotions (all kinds) we seem to be under an illusion that we can (and should) proptect them from experiencing them.
Our job is not to wipe their tears; our job - as parents and educators - is to show them that they have the ability to manage their tears!
I will yell at the top of my voice - lets empower children, lets make them resourceful from inside.
Lets not wish for a lighter load for them, lets prepare their back to be stronger.
Business tips from yet to be 6yrs old
One child, yet to be 6yrs old, during KAA trip told “I have to reach Bangalore in time, I have to catch a train to Chennai for a business meeting, I do not want to be late”.
I asked “what kind of business you are in”?
He said “we are in Amway business”
I asked “what all you do” ?
He said “every week one brochure come and you can select the product, we can send to your home or you can collect from our office”.
I asked “what is your role”?
He said “I help mummy and papa in making the business big”.
I asked “how does one make the business big”?
He said “you have to really work hard and harder, then your business will become really big”.
By now another child got interested in his Chennai trip - so he said I will tell you more later.
After he came from the business trip , I again asked “how was the business trip”
He said “oh! aunty, I was only playing in a room, but there is one new brush with the vacuum, only for children not for you, you can buy for your daughter and son.
I smiled and still waiting more business gyan.
Learning Aditi
testing my patience
I was not happy with their cleaning of the room after doing their scores of paintings. "The floor is still red" - i quipped for the Nth time. One child turned and remarked "Uncle, you are testing my patience" - Ratnesh
An unconditional doing.
I was taking something out of my car parked outside geniekids - when i heard an exuberant voice, "Have a good day"
I turned around to see a 8 year or so girl beaming a big three tooth smile - out of a school van parked across the road (must be from NPS)
I returned her greeting, "You too, have a good day" (thinking she must be knowing me from geniekids, though i did not recognize her)
Soon she rang out "Have a good day" to another passerby - who too was surprised, then smiled and returned her greeting.
She continued distributing her "Have a good day" to others who walked pass her van.
What was this angel upto? Why?
Did she know that she was spreading unconditional cheer in this world? Did she want to do that?
Unlikely - i think she was doing it because she wanted to do it and because she was enjoying doing it.
I don't think she had any lofty goal or agenda or expectations.
An unconditional doing.
wow
change is learning
Its only when my thoughts change that learning happens.
Its only when my actions change then the leaning that happened is worthwhile.
How we learn?
How do we learn? Mother,
Asked the little ant.
“By our instincts”
– just keep your whiskers up.
How else we learn? Mother,
Asked the little ant.
“By our efforts”
– just keep doing work.
What else to do? Mother,
Asked the little ant
“By wondering”
– just keep asking questions.
How to accomplish it? Mother,
Asked the little ant
“By our strengths”
– just put your best foot forward.
How to learn more? Mother,
Asked the little ant
“By our sharing”
– just keep teaching others.
How to enjoy it? Mother,
Asked the little ant
“Learning itself is joy”
– just keep learning dear ant.
– Just keep learning dear ant.
questions as instructions
According to me
questions which are actually instructions are worse than instructions!
For example i heard somebody say to the child, "Can you hold the railing?"
While what we wanted to communicate was "hold the railing"
So the "can you?" is superfluous and actually makes the child (if at all) think:
"can he" or "can he not" rather than making the child focus on the actual instruction.
I often joke with people (seriously:) by answering with a "no" to a "can you" instruction or sometimes answer with a "yes" but not do it - just to show that this kind of close ended question is of not much use - atleast according to me.
The idea is simple
what changed?
There are a lot of things we can do at a certain time which we couldn't do years before.
Those things themselves did not change; what changed was our idea of our self.
