Serendipity and Learning

Try an experiment. Hear this video and see how much of the lyrics you can follow - its a lovely catchy song and all that, but see how much of the lyrics you can follow at first try or second or third.... Now hear the same after seeing the lyrics ... Now try the same with this video (another good song from the same series) And here are the lyrics... Dont know about you, but for me it is far more easier to follow the lyrics once I have read the lyrics!!

The little ones have taken to the iPod like fishes to water. No, I exaggerate. They get only limited time and access to it. I am talking about the iPod touch. The games in it are quite a learning experience. The younger one learnt colours using the iPod - there are a couple of apps - Learn colours with fruits and Learn colours with vegetables. This was quite apparent - a totally new way to play with some learning was bound to be a hit. But the other aspect of this is what I seen in the older one. His drawings and colours have taken a "great leap". The vividness and richness of colour and the levels of details have taken off after he has played a few games on the iPod - especially "Storm in a tea cup". Also, games like "Push Cars" and "Rail Maze" really make you think in different way to arrive at a desired solution. More on this later...but surely the iPod is a great tool for learning. Are your trainings making your people think?

Howard Gardners theory of multiple intelligences is well known. The intelligences listed are Spatial, Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Musical, Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Naturalistic. I am not sure if Existential intelligence is added as an intelligence or not - the wiki entry sort of confused me. But I suspect that it exists - it almost classifies as spiritual intelligence - or what can be called perhaps a higher state of awareness. I also strongly suspect that there are other intelligences that we are not yet aware of or explored - or perhaps present in too few individuals to be captured at a global level. I dont remember which book I read this in -where it said that as much as we would find a tribal newly introduced to urban life to be fairly stupid - the reverse would be true too. Most of us, removed from our urban habitat will be a complete loss in a village or a tribal settlement. And we attribute much of what we do to our intelligence - yet a lot ...

When I was at violin class, there was a prodigy alongwith me. He was the teachers pet. He could do anything on the violin - while we lesser mortals struggled. On the face of it, his ability was sheer talent. But, as I grew up, I realized that it was neither talent nor was it self motivation - it was more of practice and discipline. Not taking away anything from the kids or parents (and they both surely did a lot for the child to reach there). If a chlid starts at age 5 - anything - be it violin or music or dance or karate - it is hard for a child to be self motivated. You typically cannot start anything before that - except perhaps swimming or cycling, but age 5 plus is when you can start most things. The one way to be self motivated is when the child people around her do all of these things - which is why in a musical household - the children learn much faster - because the learning not by catching the child and plonking them down in front of a teacher - but they learn by seeing wha...

This is essentially a Tam post. Before the Englishmen had their industrial revolution and passed on some skills to the Indians who in turn made gadgets which robbed the Tams of their prized skills. Yes, Tam land was a glorious land - a land where supermaamas and supermaamis walked the earth. But hell, this is a learning blog, what is all this Tam culture doing here? I am trying to imagine if Howard Gardner had to map the skills of Tam to his theory of multiple intelligences, what would have happened? What were the skills expected of an average maama or maami in the 19th century? or early 20th century? Let us try. Take a typical Tam day that begins at 5 am. (Mind you, 530 IS LATE - wake up you stupid fool and find a kick landing on your backside.) I dont know if waking up in the morning is a skill - but before it becomes a habit, it has to be practiced. In a Tam household it is not very difficult considering that even the insects in the house follow the time to a T. And besides ...

I am not sure what is easier. Working 8 hours at your job or getting the little one to do abacus homework. One is obviously about self motivation and the second is motivating someone else. We have tried different methods - Saam, Daam, Dand and Bhed ! But one thing that is not mentioned in the above 4 is - Competition. What is working now is that me and the little one have a race. I calculate on the calculator and he on the abacus. And both of us are supposed to get the same answer - that is my objective. His objective is more about racing the calculator and me. And is it working? Yes, in limited doses it does work. Empathetic teaching - where he is allowed to take breaks when he wants to and play alongside the competition seems to help more than fervent appeals or telling him about future benefits which he has no clue about. This is the current trick which is working - many other tricks have long outlived their utility. And therein lies an important learning - you can fool the min...

A few weeks back, the little one had a show and tell. Now, I am of the firm belief that a show and tell should not be mugged - or rote learnt. Then how to get the child to say what he is supposed to say flawlessly? Here is what worked for me. I gave him the object - in this case a huge envelope look alike on a cardpaper with illustrated stamp, to and from address. And using the prop as a mnemonic, he had to say just a sentence or two on each point. So,he started off from the letter, then came from the top left to bottom right - starting at the stamp, followed by to address and then the from address. It went off like a dream. This was followed by something where he had to speak for a minute on the family. So, we got our points and asked him what would he like to talk on. His thought was a simple one. First about the family as a whole, then its components and what we like to do together. In both the cases, using his thought process made us give him a script that he can never forg...

Hand cricket is a form of lazy cricket that I have seen in Bangalore. It may be prevalent in other cities as well, but it was surely was not there while I grew up. (We had something on the lines of book cricket and we used it while away free time in school.)From the looks of it, it seems invented to use in school buses or other areas where there is less space like school benches or queues. The rules of hand cricket seem complex. But it is simple and quite intuitive. Two boys (and it is usually boys) play something that looks like rapid dumb charades displaying what looks like numbers. The numbers on a closer look mirror the runs in cricket - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Except 6, the rest are quite intuitive. There is a bowler and a batsman - and if their runs match, the batsman gets out - there are but one or two other ways in which a batsman can get out. The boys play this quite rapidly - with the added benefit that their counting ability improves at a rapid rate. The passion of the game i...

Last year, a little after Gandhi Jayanti, I was at my sons class attending a routine Parents Teacher meeting. After the usual meeting and greeting, it was time to go back. And as is my wont, my eyes wandered around the class and I noticed that the teacher had pinned up various Mahatma Gandhi's coloured by the children. These were the outline of the face of Mahatma Gandhi that had been distributed to the children and they were presumably instructed to colour it. The faces were all coloured identically - orange and yellow in some combination. I looked around and it did seem like all the childrens drawings were there spread across the many boards in the class. Not able to spot my sons drawing, and knowing that he would usually know where any of his stuff is pinned up, I asked the little one, "Where is your drawing?" "The teacher did not put mine on the board." he said, quite indignantly "Why?" I asked curious to know "Because I coloured Mahatma ...

Over the course of our life - day in and day out - we gather/learn lot through our 5 senses. Out of that, what sticks in our minds? And why is that? Undoubtedly bad memories last for a long long time - and so do good. And both of these can be triggered by certain "triggers" - in the absence of a better word. But in the context of this post, I dont mean just memories - I mean, things we learn. But as you will see, memory is an important part of the learning process. Click here to see the types of memory . A typical example of how we learn something is best explained using the bicycling paradigm. The four stages of competence . We start from "unconscious incompetence" - I dont know I know. Then we move to "conscious incompetence" - I know I dont know. Then "conscious competence" - where we need to put in effort to learn. And finally, the rewarding stage - "unconscious competence" where the learning is internalized. Each of the memo...

Superb video. Dont miss it - if you havent already seen it.

Another great video. Take a look.

A great example of storytelling - using vivid illustrations - and this is only about Bottled water. The whole series can be seen here - lovely stuff. All part of a project called "The story of stuff".

When I was in school - about 10 years old - I used to go to shloka classes to learn the Rudram and the Chamakam among other things. OK. That's a lie. My father used to send me to those classes and I used to go because I had no choice. Here is where I learnt, by experience, that you can take the horse to the water, but cannot make it drink. The prime reason I did not like those classes was because they clashed with those stupid DD soaps of those times. Come of think of it, those miserable soaps. Luckily my father won - and thankfully I realized it about 15 years later. As you might have guessed, I went to those classes, but did not learn. For 5 long years, I went and did not learn. These classes were taught in the traditional gurukul system - with the guru leading and the students repeating it twice. Pure auditory learning. No books given or encouraged - books were allowed at your own risk. Books make you focus more on the text and less on the diction and comprehension the gu...

During my random survey with my friends on the teachers they have encountered through school or college, my findings have generally been similar. Over the course of the entire school and college, we would have typically encountered no less than 100 teachers, if not more. The real figure is closer to 200, if you were among those who went to coaching classes and tuitions. And yet if you ask them how many teachers they remember from their school or college days (for what they taught), most of the answers are in single digits. Think about it. Barely 5-10 percent of your teachers are "good" - that you remember them 15-20 years later. It's a travesty is it not? That the nearly 15 to 18 odd years we spend studying, we barely remember a few teachers. So, here is the story of one such teacher who has left an everlasting impression in my mind. Metallurgy, as a subject, to those who do not know about it, can be interesting as watching paint dry. And that in essence is what gre...

It is unlikely that you would have spotted this blog. In the unlikely event that you have spotted this blog, I welcome you here. This is a space where I plan to share my rather serendipitous journey into the world of learning. If someone told me ten years ago that I would be planning for a career in learning and training, I would have laughed at them. But thats how it is. If I knew what I would be doing ten years ago whats the fun in it. But then, as life would have it, here I am, heading a Training team. And enjoying it immensely. These are some of my own learnings in this space which I hope to share. Thank you for coming here and I hope you enjoy your time here! After all, life is learning, is it not?