Serendipity and Learning

Imagine you have a choice of trainings. One is a training format with teams competing against each other in predetermined subjects in a league format. Each team "owner" gets to select a captain, coach and then they build their team from there on. From that point on, it is the teams responsibility to build their skills so that they could win the competition. The members of the team were purely volunteers - so there was no conscription. Contrast this with a training where you attend as individuals, show up for classes and a stick hanging over your head in case you miss a class. The mode of instruction is classes - normal facilitator led sessions spread over a few days. At the end you give an exam which decided if you pass or fail. Imagine that both of these have a spread of about 6-8 weeks. Which one would you choose and why? Sure, the same commitment is required for both and the people who are committed in one will also be committed to the other. But dont you think...

When I was a little boy, I had the chance to go to a traditional mantra class. Like Bal Vihar classes organized by the Chinmaya mission or Carnatic music classes, the teaching was purely oral. Our Guruji explicitly prohibited the use of books - as he said it impeded the learning - which placed a lot of emphasis of intonations and pronunciations and rhythm. He was able to resist it so far - books were available very easily and so the books made inroads into our class. And he was right - the books did impede the learning for some (the older ones who could read Devanagri). That was temporarily though. Later on, they got used to using the books when they had a doubt or some such. And for me it proved useful when I wanted to pick up the threads of the mantra where I had left it off. If I did not have to access to a book, that learning would have been lost forever. Why I say this is because I am sure when books first made their appearance, people reliant on traditional methods must h...

Push cars is one of the new game app on the Apple Store. We downloaded this quite by chance. It takes off where "Unblock me" (video above) and its parking counterpart (same game using cars) left. Myself and the little one have been playing this with gusto for the past few weeks (except somewhere during the iOS5 upgrade, the game went kaput). There are versions of physical unblock mes available - and are used quite widely in schools as part of their co-curricular (usually paid separately) activities. Where push cars scores is making the whole damn thing so mobile, and just so simple. The bad cars have to crash while the good cars have to escape. Every city introduces a new car (good or bad) with slightly complex features and keeping it all in mind, one has to ensure that the good cars escape and the bad cars crash. The levels are not simple. And require quite a bit of contrarian thinking to make it work. And yes, they are far better than mindless single person sho...

The little one and the father prepared for yet another story session. A common routine for us is that every now and then, the little one will bring something he has created - a drawing, a model or something - and we have to create a story out of those things. The story usually has no limits - you can concoct the most implausible story with those things. This time it was two small ship models - armed to the teeth with dazzling weaponry and bristling with technological capability that has not yet been invented or perhaps even conceived of. "Here are the two ships. Which one do you want?" he says, offering me something with no real choice. I take it. "I want to be the good ship. Now tell me what do you want to be?" "I will also be the good ship." "What? If both ships are good, then what story will we make?" I smiled at the observation. We did make a story with no "bad", but he had stumbled on a very basic question, had he not!

A few years back, I had the great opportunity to sit in one of the trainings conducted by this “one man army”. He blew us away by his knowledge, his timing and his ability to hold nearly a room full of people with about 10 odd years of technology experience. So, with about 15 people, effectively it came to about 150 years of experience. And he was able to convince us all – regardless of what questions we threw at him – on the subject at hand. The best part of it was that he was not the slick, suave, savvy presenter that you think would do this. His language was quite rusty – not some convent educated fake accented English – he did not use any jargon – he used a lot of common sense and simple examples and in my books, he will perhaps be the best trainer who I have ever trained under. Why? He was able to connect with the audience like no other. No fake smiles, no brotherhood – just pure subject matter expertise – and ability to relate and connect with people and their field of work. Th...

I distinctly remember the first training I loved. Perhaps it was on day 1 or day 4 as a management trainee. It was a full day session and run by this very friendly gentleman. I don’t recall the topics that we discussed that day nor do I recall the whole objective of it, but it did make us all feel very good. The exercises they made us do and the way it was structured all made for some really good “feel good” factor. As management trainee, I really thought, I had arrived – as did the others in our batch. And it was done, unconventionally for us at that time – which has now become the new conventional. We were used to classroom seating – this one had conference room seating. We were used to dull drab presentations, this one blew our minds away. And I remember the facilitator had great personality – he could build rapport in an instant and all of us connected with him. There were group exercises and de-briefs and it was a challenge for all us management trainees to outdo the other. Overal...