MUMBAI BLEEDS, INDIA WEEPS

Bloodstained uniform, ragged and torn,
Bullet riddled and limp, life ebbs
Through bleeding gaping wounds..
Yet with one last heave, my city staggers,
And wraps the charred remnants of her once proud flag,
Around her gasping soul and charges.
Right into the raging fire of the damned,
To rescue the incarcerated spirit and shackled dreams,
Of a nation set ablaze, nay not with zeal or ardour,
But by the ravenous hunger of a corrupt and corrosive mind,
Of a jealous neighbor, brimming with sinister design.

My Mumbai, my city, my home,
I can scarce behold your weary listless form,
Once so graceful and with vibrant life possessed,
‘Een though with unpolished rustic charm
You could ever with consummate ease disarm
The most gracious and grandiose guest.

Shot in the back, blown apart by explosive hate,
My city bleeds, the bullet shattered bones crack,
Her eyes turn glassy and unseeing..
Oh ! my Mumbai, my city, my home
On her knees in the dust amidst rivers of blood ,
Her dying soul shudders, rattles and behold,,…

She lives, she rises, she stands valiant and tall,
Crusted with the drying blood of her young and old,
Now screams her defiance right from her very soul,
My Mumbai, my city, my home
Turns her blazing gaze upon the cringing coward,
For time is up, time is through, time has ticked
Right through, my foe, to you.

A PRESSURE COOKED LIFE : A Potful of Parenting Goulash

The children of today and their parents are subject to innumerable stressors and pressure-cooker circumstances of a competitive-crazy world. Managing daily life itself is a stupendous task. There seems to be no time or patience for any thing or for that matter any person out of control or even out of the careful alignment with our regulated lives.

The careless and carefree child, both real and the one in all of us, must conform or convert to a sedate straight-jacketed adult.

Living on the leading edge of life in today’s rushed and rough times, involves both parents being actively engaged with careers that turn in the money to fund the household and lifestyle economies. Growing awareness of competitive careers and advancement vistas in the great big span of working life, has helped cast the dragnet over even the most the unsuspecting home-warming individual.

Bounding out of the couch of comfort, both men and women are brandishing degrees and skills that lay claim to jobs and careers that demand an all-consuming attention absorbing time and life like a gigantic blotting paper.

Regulation, regimentation, rigour are the watchwords of a timetabled life , driven by the need for bringing certainty and predictability to an anticipated incredible combo of a see-sawing roller-coaster life.
Instead of creative-constructs we seek regulated-regularity. The happy lull of mediocrity is the way to an undisturbed life. But ever so often Life has other plans….

What happens when we are faced with uncertainty , when our time tables have no meaning, when our plans find no place to unfold, when our carefully crafted lives are ripped apart by reality ?
What happens when all this happens because of our children ? Or the pressures put on our children ??

Such as competitive social lifestyles, expensive gadgets & gizmos, tuitions, peer-pressure, overly competitive exam pressures, study-load, rivalries at school / college, victimization by teachers, failure, fear-of-failure, success itself, substance abuse like smoking, drugs, alcoholism, absenteeism, sickness – real and imagined………… ???

Parenting can be a bizarre experience for both the parent and the child. Almost all parents, teachers and tutors expect the child to develop in to a superhuman composition of talent, knowledge, skills, competence along with vision, foresight, clarity of purpose, ambition, all neatly folded and pressed into the sharp edges of the shining blade of the sword of success. All this must of-course fit into the pre-constructed timetable of the mentor, unfortunately soon to be tormentor !

Parenting from afar, remote controlling results, financing concern, and funding the future is the order of the day today. But where is the Love ? Where is the Care and Compassion ? Where is the Connect between lives ? Where is the Soul of the family ?

The expected brusque answer you invariably get is : Where is the Time ? Aha ! Find Purpose and the Means usually follows. Alas, the Means is oft the End !

So here is a potful of parenting goulash for the modern family meal:

1. BE INVOLVED : Decide to set aside time to connect with your children every day. Get to know your child and let your child discover you. Give the gift of togetherness, it is far more precious than any other.

2. CONNECT : Be a parent and a friend – and draw the line clearly between the two. Shuffle the cards and no matter which falls first, you will always deal a good hand. This makes the transition easier as you both grow.

3. VALUE : Always value the child. The messenger is sometimes the hapless carrier of an incorrect message.. Reinforce your belief in the person even when you have to admonish the behavior.

4. CO-CREATE : Take a personal interest in shaping, not shoving, the child’s knowledge, skills and abilities, on a regular basis.

5. BE PATIENT : Do not expect miracles to happen. Give the child time to grow and learn. Do not rob your child of the delightful process of growing and learning, just as you cannot hasten the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a butterfly.

6. SUPPORT & GUIDE : Be available to nurture the growth of your child- mental, physical, spiritual and emotional. It is important to move from choking controls of the regulating parent to performing as a nurturing parent within the footprint of the controlling parent. Which means while setting clear and enforceable rules, throw yourself into enabling and supporting performance within the rules.

7. COMMIT : Make a promise and keep it. Let you child see your commitment to the family. Demonstration of commitment is a sure fire way to build trust. Commitment means never giving up on promises, goals, dreams and especially people.

8. LEAD BY EXAMPLE : What you want your child to do, is best reflected in what you do and how you do it too. Role modeling is one of the most powerful ways to help your child grow by your own demonstration of the “right” way. We all remember what we see and practice. So give it a go, it will help you too !

9. FORGIVE : Learn to be generous. Bearing grudges and wielding the club of reform is hardly the way to conduct life. If you have to threaten , be prepared to carry out the threat, and bear the consequences. So wherever possible, forgive the messenger, and correct the message.

10 HAVE FUN : The bottom line here is so often in the red. What is life without a good dose of fun. Let your child grow in the sunshine of love and fun. Let the children of this world want to live on.

The Menu is the Meal. Bon Appétit !!

The Learning Teacher

The arbiter of knowledge and skills, the Teacher, is a revered figure around the world. In India , the Teacher is known as the Guruji, the Wise One who can be trusted to lead the knowledge-blind and shine the light of competence and skills in the darkness of ignorance and incompetence.

Over time it has been realized that the Wise One is not necessarily the most skilled teacher. Learning proficiently and transferring the learning just as well is not really as simple as it seems. It takes far more skill to teach than to learn.

The teacher has not only to have a full and wholesome appreciation of the subject but also know how best to transfer this in an intact and useful manner to the learner considering the learning styles and needs of each individual learner.

Whilst studies have been popularized concerning learning styles, and suitable adaptation of knowledge transference has been undertaken to match the varied learning styles of participants, the newer platform of transference has to do with the multiple intelligences that seem to be far more effective in reaching across to the learner.

The theory of multiple intelligences was developed in 1983 by Dr. Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University. It suggests that the traditional notion of intelligence, based on I.Q. testing, is far too limited.

Instead, Dr. Gardner proposes several different intelligences to account for a broader range of human potential in children and adults. These intelligences are:

· Linguistic intelligence ("word smart"):
· Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart")
· Spatial intelligence ("picture smart")
· Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart")
· Musical intelligence ("music smart")
· Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart")
· Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart")
· Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")

How does this affect us Learning Facilitators and Trainers and our participants?

The theory of multiple intelligences has strong implications for adult learning and development.

Many adults, young professionals seeking to make their mark in life, often find themselves in jobs that do not make optimal use of their most highly developed intelligences (for example, the highly bodily-kinesthetic individual who is stuck in a linguistic or logical desk-job like Customer Care when he or she would be much happier in a job where they could move around, such as in front-line Sales ).

The theory of multiple intelligences gives adults a whole new way to look at their lives, examining potentials that they left behind in their childhood (such as a love for art or drama) but now have the opportunity to develop through courses, hobbies, or other programs of self-development.

This is another way of chasing away the boredom with the routine or the mundane work one becomes habituated to accept and live with, lowering the levels of enthusiasm, responsiveness and creativity – some of the essential ingredients for success in these competitive times.

What we must recognize is that these multiple intelligences offer choices to
a) Trainers / Teachers / Learning & Development facilitators – to use varied methods and practices of transferring and processing learning deliverables and
b) Participants – to acquire and learn varied methods of addressing work itself , using creative methods to address work issues through the favoured and more developed intelligences

Let’s look at the Eight Intelligences and how Training or Learning Methods can be matched against them.

Intelligence Type and possible Learning Methods

Linguistic intelligence ("word smart"):
Reference reading material, reference books, well scripted program handbook

Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart")
Case Studies, Problem Solving Models & Techniques, Inventory / Questionnaire / Response Form / Instrument Evaluation & Analysis

Spatial intelligence ("picture smart")
Use of Graphs, Charts, Pictures and Diagrams

Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart")
Role Plays, Projects, Structured Training Games/Activities

Musical intelligence ("music smart")
Music with learning deliverable lyrics- participants create musical learning summaries using popular tunes / leveraging Nursery Rhymes to Advanced Learning Songs & Anthems

Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart")
Team Exercises, that need the identification and use of the varied resources of team members

Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart")
Presentations by participants on processed learning, role-reversals : participants study and deliver ( teach ) selected modules in the program itself, participants are asked to create learning models / modules

Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")
Learning from Real World Experiences, interpretations and guiding principles that emerge from such experiences.

Dr. Howard Gardner says that other than areas of developed expertise, most of us react or process and infer learning outcomes in all other areas in the manner we used to do as 5 year old kids – the earliest levels of cognitive intelligence.

Implications of this are as follows for Trainers/Facilitators/Teachers and our corporate participants.

As Trainers / Teachers / Facilitators we need to be experts at what we teach else we are simply transferring our own 5 year old childish reasoning and logic to the participants, who receive it believing it is the word of the expert. The snowballing consequences are nightmarish !

To be experts, demands more than average attention and learning in the area of study.

Extensive reading (to replace extensive research and study) is the minimal effort one has to undertake to raise the levels of personal awareness, knowledge/content and competence/understanding.

Participants are unlikely to react in the “expected” manner in either receiving, processing or understanding the learning deliverables, as they are most likely to be at a level of “non-expert” in these areas and therefore would have learning conclusions matching their own 5 year old level of logic and belief.

Concluding Remarks

This exercise leads us to some interesting conclusions in the training-learning process
Content transference is easily possible at an adult learning level. Summarising receipt of content at the end of the program is not an indication of learning or understanding as pointed out by. Dr. Gardner

Understanding can only be ascertained when participants apply the learning in simulated real world experiences that are necessarily different from the experience created when delivering the concept. For example, participants can offer each other their own past experiences and ask others how they would use the learning to have handled the situation, or offer their own new approaches to the old experience

Training Videos, Role Plays, Case Study Experiments, Training Exercises, need to be processed with “understanding” in mind – not a simple analysis of what happened in the experiment or video or exercise, which is what participants tend to explain, but how this learning can be applied at work / back in real life.

Similarly hoping that the video/exercise or experiment is “self-explanatory” is not constructive as the learning derived by participants is likely to be unprocessed content management and learning summaries are derived from the 5 year old child-like “theories of life” . The “expert” must anchor the learning rather than leave loose ends to be automatically tied.

Understanding can be investigated only by moving from “Foundational “ Questioning / Basic Questions = What, Why, How to the more advance “Aesthetic” Level Questioning Skills / Questions that ask participants to offer personally processed input that has direct bearing on their work practices or behaviour

Program Design and Delivery Process

Program designs which are packed almost like a school-time table leave very little processing and understanding time. The program flow is often “impaired” by handling lack of understanding or processing by participants and therefore participants learn to respond by cleverly managing the showcasing of content to represent learning and understanding, in order to release the program flow and time which tends to be the casualty, in a concept-crowded program.

Dealing with Learning Hurdles

The Facilitator has to be equipped to deal with the following learning hurdles which participants will unconsciously throw up.
i. Misconceptions : based on their past experiences, pet theories and assumptions
ii. Rigid Algorithms / Formulas : formed from their earlier explanations of how the world works ; input to output formulas that worked or seemed to work ; expert opinions of others they consider experts, information in magazines / MIS data ( tabulated and charted data tends to overwhelm the thinking and understanding process )
iii. Stereotyping and World Views held by participants to diagnose and judge the rest of the world , in order to make decisions, are usually based on earlier formed assumptions and perceptions which without confrontation or validity checks, often script the guide book of their current life