Realign with your vision

Every endeavour that man has ever taken up has been with a purpose. There has been a problem statement and the answer to the question of why to solve the problem has given rise to a planned activity. A very simple example for this is our education system. People enroll their kids into schools because they want their children to be educated so that children are aware about things around them and eligible to use this knowledge to create a sustainable livelihood. After some time the focus goes more on marks on paper than the education that the kid has embodied. That's where parents need to realign their vision to educate their kids than merely seeing them as marks-vending machines. When you get off-track with any of your activities and you aren't having fun doing it, then ask yourself as to why you started it and realign with your original vision.

The world is filled with a lot of chaos today, and there is too much of information bombarding happening from all directions. We start with an objective which over a period of time becomes subjective. I have observed so many people who started to work hard to excel in life and after some time were working hard only to be better than their friend. There will be a lot of factors which shall influence our course of work. Sometimes they will affect positively while some other times they shall affect negatively. We needn't change our strategies only to increase the influence of positive factors or decrease the effects of negative influences. By doing so, we are only giving more respect to factors which appear during the run-time than the future vision. The moment you try to adjust your flowchart of action as per the run-time factors your remodeled plan shall start taking you towards a new end which you had never envisioned at all. Just like how there is an end for every start there is an end result for every plan. The moment a plan changes, its end result also changes. Hence we must focus on keeping ourselves abreast to our visions and regularly go through our vision statements realigning ourselves to our visions. Only then our true visions shall get accomplished in the true sense.

No matter what, at the end of the day, we are all humans, and not Gods. We need to brush every day and we need to take bath everyday to make sure that we are physically clean and neat. Similarly, we need to give some time on a regular basis to maintain our visions and dreams clean and to realign along with them. There is too much of information dirt that keeps floating in the air around us that sits on our positive thoughts of life and blinds us from remembering our visions. We need to get them back each time we tend to forget them. Revision is as compulsory to a dreamer as it is to a student who wishes to score in his exams. A student's dream is limited to a dream of marks but a dreamer's visions are as unlimited as the width of the sky. Go back and realign with your visions of and for life.

Time for graduation

Education has become one of the most basic necessities for people to avail a job and lead a decent life. Without education, it's highly difficult to survive in today's highly competitive and highly cunning world. There is enough number of people around to take advantage of your unawareness and cheat you from getting what you really deserve. Hence education becomes very much important in all our lives, but the misconception is that education is nothing but graduation. Pursuing graduation and completing a degree course doesn't guarantee right education. Unfortunately, majority of the graduation pursuing students have fallen into the wrong assumption that it takes 3-4 years to complete graduation of one degree. We must evaluate the right time that is invested on graduation and not the time that is spent.

According to my experience of having addressed a lot of students pursuing different degrees, I have come to know that irrespective of what degree a student is in, s/he doesn't study everyday like how students do in school. The last night before the exam becomes the most important time for such students. There are few students who start studying a week before the exam also. Many students are not even interested in attending regular classes and due to lack of experienced and good teachers students seldom listen to teachers' lessons. In this case, it gets proved that students study on their own and that too, during the dead end when the exam is just one or two days far. If students can score and pass exams with last night preparations then all semesters of any graduation can be completed within few months and it is not required to spend years to complete graduation. The college also doesn't run for 24 hours a day. It only runs for 6-8 hours a day. Taking holidays and mass bunks into consideration, on an average, just 6 hours per day is spent on graduation by students, which means just one fourth of the day. Extrapolating to 4 years of B.E, only one year of complete time is invested into graduation by students. This gets stretched for 4 years by the existing education standards, wherein students have no idea that they are wasting three-fourth of their time during graduation in the name of graduation.

After 3-4 years, when you look back you will only be able to say that you did so many years of graduation though you knew that it could get over within one fourth of the time. So, it's high time for students to understand the responsibility of every day that is bestowed on them. One should make sure that s/he is involved in lot of other things in free time apart from graduation. Only then 3-4 years of graduation will also encompass experience in different kinds of work along with exposure to different fields of life along with graduation. Filling in your day with variety of activities instead of wasting time in the name of graduation will be the best way for any student pursuing graduation to follow.

Placements in colleges: now a history

All the folks in your graduation or post-graduation, please get ready to read this news in the media very soon. A lot of students have pinned their hopes on colleges for their lives ahead. All your hopes might come crashing down once this news becomes a reality soon. Prevention is better than cure. Instead of relying on the past record of history it would be quite helpful if students start relying on their own strengths and skills. Some of you might be wondering as to why this would happen very soon. Let me explain…

Few decades ago, there was nothing called as placements in colleges. Schools and colleges were meant to be places for pure education. They were just limited to teachers and students and a few other technical staff who would manage and run the entire show. Parents expected that their children would come out as the brightest students from the respective institutions and chose them based on the quality of teaching alone. Few years back, when the concept of placements was introduced into colleges, when few companies started recruiting people even before their graduation was complete it was a bonus for those students who performed really well up to the penultimate year in colleges. Since companies also could save time on interviewing a bunch of candidates just to select few, and hence save time, they collaborated with colleges to do the job of filtering the applicants. Even the few colleges chosen by companies, got the reputation amongst public for developing their students so well that they would be recognised by corporates even before convocation. So, it was a win-win situation for all. Unfortunately, as time passed this bonus no more remained a bonus; everyone wanted to make this bonus a part of the curriculum itself which started to ruin things in all directions for everyone. Applying facial make-up products at times can help you look better but applying them day and night shall only ruin your skin. The same started to happen in our education system.

Colleges were meant to concentrate to bring in good teachers, get good lab facilities, and conduct programs for overall development of students. Instead their focus shifted to getting companies to their campus to conduct placements for students. Naturally, the focus on earlier aspects reduced, and hence, the quality of education took a back seat. Companies also had to select students, no matter whether they were employable or not, only to maintain their good relations with the colleges due to past records and future hopes. On the contrary, students who chose colleges based on quality of education earlier, now started to blame the lack of quality, but still joined the same only with the hope for placements. Now, the students, who needed to concentrate on studying well and scoring good marks in tests, projects and exams, instead postponed their seriousness to the final year exclusively for placement tests and interviews. Obviously the subject knowledge went down in them. Hence the students’ quality also started decreasing cumulatively. Companies, who had tied up earlier with colleges depending on quality of education provided by the college and the quality of students graduating from the college, started losing hope on getting the best students from the college. Hence they stopped coming to colleges and students hopes went crashing down. Everyone was only losing in all directions. Colleges and companies started blaming students for lack of seriousness in studies and lack of skills while students started blaming colleges for lack of proper infrastructure and under-quality teaching. It only became a more vicious loop day by day as years passed by.

This has to end somewhere and equilibrium has to set in at some time in the very near future. As people say, ‘History repeats itself’, people will start realising soon the mistakes of their predecessors and start adopting the conventions of their predecessors following the rule of ‘Old is Gold’. Colleges shall soon shift their focus on giving the right quality in education than running around convincing companies to hire their students. Companies shall become choosier before entering any college, or might wait until the right candidates apply directly. Students have no other option but to change because college rules and company laws are in the hands of few wise people who might implement the changes overnight but, a student’s life is only in the hands of him/her. You need to make a wise choice for your life. You can no more depend on the college campus placements for deciding your future. Choose a college for the right quality of education, learn your subjects well, give your best in studies to score the best marks, use the time in college to develop yourself in multiple dimensions, and especially, take the help of teachers, not to adjust your attendance, but to clarify your doubts and answer your questions. Invest your time in developing yourself than your resume. It shall get built on its own and it shall speak to the company heads on your behalf in the interviews.

Many companies have stopped coming to colleges, many colleges have postponed their placement schedules, and many students are graduating out of colleges unemployed even with the best percentage. These are the signs to prove that the news in the title of today’s blog post is going to be in reality and in the media soon. Beware my dear students!

Something for something

'Give all that you can but expect none from the others' is the slogan that people advise the disturbed souls. For the universe to be balanced, they say that for every particle there is an anti-particle. So if one person is giving away something to the other, definitely there shall be an imbalance because the giver receives nothing as per the general perception. However, the world doesn't survive if there is such an imbalance. Hence we jump into the theory of, 'for every something that is given there is always something taken as well'.

 

Let's take a few examples and prove this hypothetical theory. If someone gives another person some amount of money then he receives back a promise that he shall repay the amount. May be the give and take doesn't happen in equivalent form of an object but definitely in equivalent forms of feelings. The guy receiving the money is happy and the guy lending the money is happy because he knows that he will get back his money with extra interest added to it. In a class, when a teacher is teaching, she is passing on her knowledge to the students in exchange for their attention. The teacher gets attention for her teaching while the students get education for their attention. In above two examples, if the receiver would be absent i.e., either the students or the loan receiver then there would be no scope for the lender or the teacher to exist to perform their roles just like how if all planets cease to exist, the sun would have no reason to burn. So there is always a trade of something for something in this universe.

 

If we accept the theory of this barter that there is always that's got for something that's lost or given away, a lot of problems and worries in our life can be reduced. If a thief steals away your money, it only means that he gave back the lesson of safety to you. If a friend cheated your trust, he only gave back an experience to trust a friend carefully in future. In every possible situation, your assets remain the same. Only that, with every occurring transaction the form of your assets keeps changing. When you know that you receive something for every something that you lend out, then why worry? You can just be happy always. You can throw in your comments here.

Documentation passes on education

Documentation is the best way of passing on education. Man is mortal and that's why documentation becomes a very essential medium of passing on what one man knows to the other. Though man is supposed to be one of the living beings, he cannot escape death and his term of living is limited. However a non-living stone can live forever. Probably it should have been assigned with the identity of living because it lives forever. Extrapolating this to all the non-living things, every non-living thing is actually the living thing that lives through all the tests of time.

 

None of us belonging to the present generation have seen Aristotle or Plato or Galileo or even Hitler for that matter. We are lucky to know about them and how they looked, courtesy the books that printed their photos and the video-tapes that captured their precious moments of life. If there existed no papers or photographs or video-tapes, probably we would have forgotten the history of our forefather generations. The early man through different ages made his documentation on the walls of the caves. This has helped us to know what the Cro-Magnon man looked like and how he lived. Documentation has helped to avoid repetitions of inventions and discoveries. If no one ever documented anything then man had to still be in the Old Stone Age. Thanks to documentation! That it has helped to counter all these disadvantages and helped man's life to progress through different civilizations.

 

Documentation of the history has yielded our present. Likewise documentation of the present shall yield our future. Not just passing on of education, documentation also avoids repetition of work. Also one man cannot explore the entire world and all its aspects and learn all of them on his own. Different people will have to take the responsibility of exploring different fields and document about it. Once this is done, it shall serve as a form of education for others and as a result all of them shall be mutually empowered. You can pass on your feedback on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/ismohanbn

www.twitter.com/ismohanbn

I know I'm shattered but I also know that God is with me always

God lashes out every trouble at a person to only make him/her stronger. Here's a story of a young girl from garden city, Bangalore, who was underestimated by her close acquaintances for 20 years of her life but found her true purpose of life and started enjoying the spirit of unlimited inspiration in her life. Today, she has been responsible for making more than 35 people including children and adults literate within a span of just 5 months.
 
Kavya Madhavan is a student from Adarsh College pursuing her graduation in B.Com during the day and working part-time during the afternoon in the same institution. She is a highly sensitive person who gets emotional with just a sight of apathy of any person around her. After realizing through a number of incidents that crying alone doesn’t solve anyone’s problems she took up a dream to jump into action to give her bit to solve the problems of others. She recognized that lack of education was the root cause of all evil and hence decided to teach the under-privileged kids in her free time for one hour every day after she finishes her work and on the way to her home.
 
Here are her answers to our questions;
 
1. How did you start this campaign of educating poor children who aren’t allowed to go to school?

A. On 28^th of October, I was washing vessels during which I was thinking as to what I was doing in life. I used to get emotional at every scene of trouble of others but I was helpless as I could do nothing about it. I read a lot of books of Swami Vivekananda, who advocates that work shouldn’t be in words but in action. That’s when I decided that that day I would go out and teach any poor kid whom I found on the road. I asked the suggestion of Sujit Lalwani sir if my idea was correct and he gave me a green signal to go ahead with the project. That is when my life started to change.
 
2. How was your initial phase and experience when you started your initiative?

A. I got ready and left my home. I boarded a bus wherein I saw a beggar boy. I felt really sad for him and then approached him. He started asking me for food. I shared my lunch box with him and asked him to stay back at the same place where we both got down so that I could come back in the evening and teach him. Sadly, when I returned the boy wasn’t there. I felt that I had failed in my life but didn’t want to give up.
 
Next day, I once again went in search of poor kids who couldn’t afford their education on the roads of Chamrajpet but couldn’t find anyone. God was testing my patience while I was crying in desperation. Third day, God had to open his eyes to help me. Finally, I found around 5 kids near a construction area who were the children of the mason workers. I asked them if they would learn how to read and write if I taught them. The answered yes! And that’s how my journey began.
 
3. How many people have you taught till now and how has been your experience?

A. I have taught around 20+ kids to write their names in English, English alphabets both capital and small letters ­­and numbers from 1 to 100. Even adults were influenced to learn while I was teaching those young kids. So I have taught around 15 adults to write their names in English and basics of English language.
 
The experience has been totally satisfying. I now feel that I am living my life to the fullest. There are so many small faces that await my arrival in the evening just to learn. I feel so empowered while I am empowering someone else’s life through education. In spite of all the difficulties in my life, I feel every moment that the Almighty is right beside me and supporting me.
 
4. Were there any incidents during the process which made you sad?

A. Definitely, Yes! On a number of occasions I was disappointed and had lost hope. Thanks to IU (Inspiration Unlimited) who inspired me to carry forward my work. My parents were absolutely not supportive of my work as it included meeting strange people and teaching them. I had to make sure that initially I had to work without informing them. Couple of times, those students whom I had taught had gone back to their villages and didn’t return to Bengaluru. I was broken and felt that all my efforts had gone a waste but when I learnt from those who had returned that they had taught English to their friends and relatives in their village I was jumping with joy.
 
5. Which was the most striking incident during this whole process?

A. I used to teach a group of kids who lived near a construction site. There were 4 girls and a boy. Every day they used to come running to me as soon as I reached their place to teach them. On one fine day, it was strange for me to see that the boy who was always enthusiastic to learn was running away as soon as I reached their place. I was disappointed and felt bad thinking that he had lost interest in learning. I was into tears almost. However, I started teaching the rest of them. After sometime the boy returned and said that he also wanted to join the class. I was angry at him and scolded him. Immediately came the reply from him that he couldn’t come to learn as his pant was torn. I couldn’t control myself. I started crying. This was one of the most striking incidents of my journey.

SEPC - Sports Equipment Procurement Campaign

PLAY FORWARD is an organization from Australia which through community programs use sport as an avenue to build confidence and self esteem amongst young Australians aged 8-13. They aim to impact disengaged and marginalised children, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, whose school completion rates are well below the completion rates for other students.Play Forward harnesses the power of sport as a vehicle for social change. OSCAR - Organization for Social Change, Awareness & Responsibility is an organization from Mumbai, India which aims at encouraging children to continue their education through the medium of sports. IU Cares from India tied up with the Australian project PLAY FORWARD and OSCAR and decided to carry out the campaign named as SEPC - Sports Equipment Procurement Campaign in India.

 

We started this project around the month of November and initially this project gained wide interest among lot of teams who were willing to take it up. Whenever a lot many people take up something ultimately it ends up in no one doing it. The same happened with SEPC and the different sets of people who took up the project fell short of their commitment but IU Cares was hell-bent to make sure that this amazing campaign materialised into reality. Hence the team IU took the entire responsibility of making sure that the task of SEPC happened within 24 hours of time frame and we are glad to let the world know that we have achieved our target.

 

The target was taken precisely at 4pm on April 2nd,2013 and right after that 5 dedicated volunteers from different parts of Bangalore were selected and were informed to contact 5 or more relatives or neighbours or friends or classmates or strangers and collect at least one old sports equipment from them which they would otherwise throw away. Within just 4 hours of allotment of the task, the first volunteer by name Srinivas KN from National college reached with his sports items including cricket bat, stumps, jersey and shuttle badminton rackets. The next day on April 3rd,2013, old toys and sports equipment from 4 more volunteers reached within 3pm and finally it was a quick grand successful campaign of SEPC. More than 50 sports artciles were collected within a matter of 24 hours of time. IU Cares takes this opportunity to appreciate all the volunteers- Srinivas KN, Nivedita Raj, Aditya Kanbur, Rajath, Jayanth and Shylesh KS who made SEPC a successful campaign. All of these sports articles shall be distributed to under-privileged kids at the earliest.

You can look for more information on all these social projects on the following links;http://www.resolutionproject.org/content/vanessa-picker
http://www.iucares.org/partner-projects.php
http://www.play-forward.org/#!about_us/csgz

Self-defence: An essential education

The recent Delhi gang rape incident has been one of the biggest shocks for the nation. From the moment I read about the incident on facebook, my mind has been in complete unrest thinking about this incident. All media are reporting the consequences of the havoc caused by inhuman beings. People are protesting on streets, online and police are trying their best to capture the criminals. Amidst all these one thought that was prodding my mind was 'What can I do about this incident?' Yes! I can participate in any of the marches or campaigns and show my support against this inhuman act. What next? was the next question. Will just the punishment to the criminals be a permanent solution for such a problem?

That is when this big problem showed itself as the subset of one more bigger problem that has been infecting our 100 crore plus population. Rapes, murders, blackmails, human extortions, etc, a lot of such henious crimes are executed on common public. It might be almost non-existent or very meagre of such incidents with the trained police or military, the simple reason being these trained people know to defend themselves well. On the other hand the common public seems very weak in front of the minds which have decided to harm others. Not all criminals who commit crimes are well-versed in the fights. They are just one step ahead in thinking to harm the other person, that's it. The victim is among the general public who has no training to even combat an attack except very few who might have learned some martial arts. So the base problem lies at the incapability of the common man to defend himself under attack. This is the problem which I want to address.

Our education system is so well designed from nursery upto Ph.D to defend ourselves from illiteracy. Very few schools/colleges/ institutions have the concept of teaching self-defence to students as it is not at all a part of our curriculum. The physical education performed in schools hardly can reduce the weight of obese growing kids. Today's need of physical education is that of defending from any kind of attacks even from weapons for that matter. The world is not safe as it seemed earlier due to over population combined with lack of sufficient resources for all compounded with human greed and most important of all due to the lack of humanity. Just complaining against government or police or the public who stood silent while the hazardous crime was happening right in front of their eyes cannot solve the problem from the roots. Just like how the victim is afraid, likewise the public watching is in front of the muscle or weapon bound evils.

I want to propose that self-defence must be included as part of the education curriculum right from childhood by the education ministry. It can be any of the Indian martial arts or karate or kung-fu or taekwondo or kickboxing or anything that can make a person capable enough to defend oneself under any sort of physical attack. More than self-defence the real teaching of these martial arts inculcates the spirit of a warrior in every soul that undergoes the training. If people are trained right from childhood, not only will they defend themselves but shall even jump out to help others under trouble. I am tired of hearing statements which shout that every individual should be a soldier in himself/herself. How can it happen if the soldier is not trained at all?

Unfortunately in a country like India where more focus is given on bookish studies both by the parents and teachers its hard for students to even devote their time and energy for sports. So very less percentage of parents enroll their children for martial arts outside school. Then what about the rest? I believe that a man should be well-equipped with both mental and physical skills to protect himself from both types of problems and there is no other better place than school where a child spends more than a decade of the most precious early time of its life completely dedicated for learning. So self-defence must be taught right from 1st std to every kid be it boy or girl to help a strong man/woman step out of school by 18 who is strong enough to face the real cruel world. I am on my way to promote this mission of getting self-defence training inculcated in the education system under physical education section with a vision to see a nation full of soldiers. IF YOU ARE WITH ME, do show your support by messaging your ideas and opinions on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/ismohanbn

www.twitter.com/ismohanbn

Should children be put to work?

India's Census 2001 office defines child labour as participation of a child less than 17 years of age in any economically productive activity with or without compensation, wages or profit. I definitely support this and would condemn any such scenario where not just a child even if a grown up is employed but not paid. There is a big difference between unethical labour and an ethical work.

The meaning of labour is already known to you where in the child is deprived of its childhood and the work is harmful to its physical or mental development. However there are other types of simple work such as distributing newspapers, milk, vegetables to houses, assisting in accounting in general and provisional stores, painting pictures and making handicrafts for sale etc. There are a lot more of such examples which will not involve much of labour and are not at all hazardous in any format. These types of simple work just require few hours and dedicated interest and efforts for completions. The best part about them is that they pay back those who work as well. I honestly feel that children must be enrolled in such kinds of work for them to understand that 'every pie counts' as I said in my previous blog.

But what's the right age to put children for work? We have heard and seen that children in some of the foreign countries start earning their own living at the age of 11 or 12 and leave their homes to become independent. India is a different country for sure and hence the same model doesn't work out. Hence I recommend that 14 years must be an ideal age for children to start working part-time for at least 2 hours in a day. One main restriction should be that this work should be known and monitored by the child's parents. Though 18 is when Indians get the right to vote constitutionally, I feel that today's generation matures far ahead at the start of their teenage. By 14, when the child is in the high school, he/she would have understood the basics of adult work-life in this world and that must be the right time for them to experience it part-time as well.

This part-time work will definitely increase the seriousness towards life, cut off the unnecessary distractions, provide financial education and practical education of life, help them to develop time management skills and more positive impacts. Would really love to discuss more on this topic with all of you. Please write your opinions to is.mohanbn@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/ismohanbn

www.twitter.com/ismohanbn