SBenegaL

Category: Changing Times

  • Education – We inherently know what to learn!

    I found this floating in the Facebook world and this sparked off a thought! – Could we make education really personal. I guess there are multiple dimensions of this, and it would be worth exploring these in a series.
    Albert Einstein possibly put this statement out of his own experience! Especially his early childhood when he was considered a good for nothing kid! But today we consider him as one of the many geniuses who walked on the planet.
    As humans, we all possess an inherent urge to “learn something”. This “something” could range from the standard courses taught in college to just what we find around – could be art or just a simple skill too.
    Most likely, we donot know the source of this inspiration that comes to us – exciting us about the “thing” we intend to learn… The question then is – “If we inherently know what excites us to learn a specific thing, why shouldn’t we think of personalizing the learning process?” 
    Recognizing that individuals are all different, like different things, learn different things at different paces should be the bedrock on which we should develop our learning systems. Education though broad-based, should be flexible to give the necessary space for students. 
    An interesting perspective it to allow the diversity itself to be a guiding factor in the process of educating oneself. Constraining and creating a rigid mindset could be detrimental to the education’s cause of broadening one’s horizon.

  • “Remote Culture” – Get up and change it…



    A short while after I woke up today morning I checked my facebook page for some inspirational quote, and lo! I found this.
    I have been thinking of the declining willingness in today’s generation to bend their back! and feel this quote kind of helps me put these thoughts together. 

    All through my childhood, growing up as the only child to my parents it seems to me that my parents should have logically pampered me. I thanks them today for the emphasis they put on hardwork and patience. I increasingly find this emphasis on hard-work becoming a rarity thesedays. 
    Most of the students I interact with have grown up in with a lot more attention from their parents (unlike the old Indian kids where the parental attention was divided between almost half a dozen kids!). The higher attention typically translates to parental attempts in ensuring the kid almost everything (s)he wants! Beginning to rely completely on the “remote culture” as I call it. An extremely easy way to get things done – almost at the click of a button!

    While this parental attention is great, the repercussions begin impacting nearly a decade and half later, when they are either doing their graduation or are in their work environments. The certainty that was so much a part of the growth years, all of a sudden seems to disappear and the harder realities of life which require one to stretch and get the better of oneself takes over. 

    The reactions of the individual in these situations is to either accept the new norm and retain the current pace of activity, or to try and push and may be eventually give up. The major issue is when one stops experimenting and exploring and eventually morphing to be ready for the challenges of everyday life.

    If there is someone who can change what we want to change it is us alone.