The Open School, by Kartik, Founder, Driveway Devi

 

On a recent airport transfer, as I debated between reading my book or getting some work done on the laptop, I couldn’t help overhear stray bits of my Uber driver’s phone conversation. Things didn’t seem alright and I organically proceeded to ask him if something was the matter. 

Neither did I read a word of my book, nor did any work; like most of us I had assumed that in either activity, would be a judicious use of the time the longish drive would take – instead I ended up talking to the Uber driver for the entire hour and a quarter my intra-city journey lasted.

The minutes hardly called attention to themselves. Though that wasn’t the reward, that I’d been able to traverse a most unpleasant commute without glancing at my watch. Far from it. What this interaction did gift me, as I quickly realized settling into my seat aboard the flight, was the kind of insight, and knowledge, that years of academic study couldn’t have; compressed, authentic, from the horse’s mouth, in a fraction of the time!

This bounty of newly gathered wisdom around small-town Uttar Pradesh and migrant workforce in the national capital, their lives, struggles and modest triumphs, their hopes, fears, dreams and aspirations, their forsaken native lives, sacrificed family members, this gentleman’s wages and survival-mode existence, his ‘education’ that had falsified the promise of prosperity – each word out of his mouth encapsulated an India that I wasn’t ever a part of, and was unlikely to be – more significantly, his was a microcosm of a dismal epic-sized reality, one, astonishingly kept veiled, secret, a closely hidden & protected recipe that served and serviced only a waver-thin minority.

I digress, since this isn’t intended as a socio-political rant. That I’d gained so much, from such little time, and zero effort, got me to thinking. What I’d always known, practiced half my life then forgotten somewhere along my bigger journey, hit me like a ton of bricks. 

Happines & Tolerance - Jaswinder Kaur

Unhappy Student:

I addressed an unhappy student because she was dissatisfied with the marks allotted to her in two questions. She expressed that the answers were absolutely correct, but the marks were still deducted. 

I listened to her very carefully, and patiently let her vent her anger. After that, I analyzed the question with her help and told her to underline the keywords to be answered in the questions. 

Then, I read out her answers that were out of context. She had not answered the keywords in the questions. She was convinced afterwards and her unhappiness at the mark allotment disappeared. 

My advice to colleagues:- 

(a) First of all, don’t become defensive when you are questioned. 

(b) Listen 100% to the query/ coup of the student. 

(c) Rather than pointing out the mistake at the first instant, be the focus of the student first on all that is correct ( eg. keyword in question).

An Intolerant Student 

There was a student in the third grade who would not be ready to sit with another student during the rotation of the seats. I called the student during recess and tried to probe as to what was the reason for his behaviour. Initially, he did not divulge anything, so I listed out the positive qualities of the student he did not want to sit with. 

The boy listened to me and then said that his parents had told him not to sit with that student. After listening to him, I arranged a meeting with the parents. They disclosed that since the other students were from a different community, they had told their son not to sit with him. 

After a few meetings with the parents, I successfully convinced them that every child must learn to accept others, whether in school, college or the workplace. After that, the boy was able to become more tolerant. 

My advice to colleagues is that you must try finding the root cause of the disruptive behaviour of a child because it may be related to family and home. 

My suggestion to all my fellow educators is to be gentle and calm with students. We should make friendly relations with our students. You have to know your students' interests and weaknesses. Your attitude should be positive in the classroom. With a positive attitude and effort, teachers can achieve their goals and help students achieve success in their lives.

Happiness and Tolerance: Shivani Rao

Happiness means positivism that you can transfer to others. If you ask people what is happiness and what does it mean to them, you will probably receive many different answers like; for kids happiness revolves around the playground, for some happiness means lots of money and for some happiness means good health. Happiness is the feeling of contentment that life is just as it should be. Your happiness should never depend on others. 

There are people who believe that the fulfilment of a certain wish or possessing certain things will make them happy but this is not always true. Because human wants are unlimited and human being keeps on demanding those things which he does not possess and by the time he looses what he actually had.

The happy environment in school leads to effective learning could be many but few of them are often seen:

1. Attachment towards certain things

2. Less ability to tolerate situations

3. Stress & pressures of parents.

Tolerance and happiness move hand in hand. We often see people with a higher level of happiness are more tolerant. Tolerance is defined as the ability to accept someone's behaviour or attitude without losing our temper. Tolerance is very important as it brings a sense of respect, individuality, diversity and peace.

It is an important value that helps people to live together peacefully. To be tolerant means that you accept other's opinion and preference even when you don't agree with. Tolerance leads to less stress and greater happiness in the overall community.

The educator must promote openness and respect the thoughts of others even when he or she doesn't agree. Also ask students to do the same. Teach them to listen before jumping on any conclusion. 

Shivani Rao

The Fabindia School

I am a leader. Are you ?

The biggest challenge about being young is finding your own voice. Unfortunately we spend the better part of our lives trying to conform to socially acceptable norms and trying to fit in. Be it in school, college, work or even home, we struggle all our lives to fit in. There is no room for individual opinion anymore and the collective seems to have taken over our lives. What we have always been tutored to do all our lives is to “play the game right” with not much emphasis on what path to follow in order to accomplish this. This is the root cause of what stops us from becoming thinking individuals and this is what we need to stop doing.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by” - Robert frost

At some point we have all dreamed of attaining glory and fame or whatever other form of achievement it is that is important to us. Not having the courage to walk your chosen path is the only thing that has stopped us from attaining that glory. The ones who have attained that pinnacle of personal achievement are the ones that have chosen to be fearless and carve their own paths.  We look upon them as leaders and think those are the ones to follow. Truth is that there is a leader within all of us. Each one of us is a leader and the only real difference between those that become it and those that don’t is fear. Be fearless enough to walk alone and you shall never live in shadow again.

I don’t believe that suffering is the only way to attain strength or glory, but I do believe that the best way out is through, which can entail hardships that need to be endured and not avoided in order to overcome our inherent fears. Think about a time when you wanted to do something but didn’t because you were afraid. I once got on stage to sing a song that I had rehearsed many times. I was petrified as I had always feared the stage and was sure that I would do something to mess things up. That is exactly what I did. I sang the wrong song. But when I did sing the wrong song I realized that I was still singing well, even after having blundered so, and the minute that realization set in I was unafraid anymore.

Taking responsibility for ones own actions is the first step towards becoming a leader. Right or wrong, take your own decisions and along with that the responsibility for the consequences. You know the best part about doing this is that you start to listen to your inner voice for guidance. Most people call it instinct and that is something that we learn how to suppress with time. The second you start to take your own actions and decisions that voice wakes up and becomes stronger. And trust me, it is the biggest guiding force in our lives. Always, always listen to your instinct and follow it.

Being honest isn’t all about not speaking lies, it’s also a lot about being truthful to yourself. The only person that you need to face at the end of the day is yourself and if you can look yourself in the mirror then you’re on your way to finding that leader inside. What this reminds me of is a chance meeting with a tarot card reader once who looked me straight in the eye and said that my biggest weakness was that I was too honest and that I walked the straight path. I was unable to decide what shocked me more, the sincerity with which she said this or that what was once considered a virtue was now looked upon as a vice. I decided that she was an integral part of the herd that I didn’t want to follow.

Finally, one of the biggest driving forces in the world is the power of positivity. To bring any sort of change in your life or to the person that you are one needs to be the change, one needs to believe in their dreams and aspirations and change their beliefs, if need be, in order to reach their goals. The leader within you will only come forth if your beliefs are driven with positivity. Think about it, is it possible to start that venture you’ve always wanted to if you are saddled with negative thoughts beforehand? Your thoughts are who you are and the only people that others will look up to are the ones that can infect them with positivity and enthusiasm. Positivity is that magnetic force that we always tend to attribute to people we admire and mostly it translates into their charisma.

Our beliefs can be constructive or destructive and in order to find your own voice one needs to tune to a positive frequency. You know we’ve always been taught to do things that conform and when someone decides to take an off beat path our first reaction is to judge and say he’s being foolish and that is not the right way to be. Change that reaction. Respect that person for having the courage to follow their instinct.

You know leadership isn’t all that it is perceived to be. It isn’t all about leading a pack but more about having the ability and strength to be an individual. To have individuality and a thought process, that is not dictated by others, and the courage and conviction to stand by your choices. Let the leader in you emerge and walk that path of truth, honesty and fearlessness. Never shall you be lost or walk in the dark again.

                               

About the author: Neha Parmar is a wildlife photographer and a conservationist with some tolerable talent for writing. If you liked, connected or have a contrary perspective with anything that you read please feel to share your feedback. 

To see more work by Neha Parmar  https://www.facebook.com/NehaParmarPhotography. 

Disclaimer: This article remains copyright of the author and is her individual perspective. If you wish to give any feedback please get in touch with the author.