Partnership in Education

“The newspaper editor fired him because he had no good ideas. A pastor employed him to draw canvassing material for the church. He was allowed to stay in the backyard of a mouse infested church garage. One of those Mice inspired this man so much that Mickey Mouse was born and Walt Disney was revealed to the world”

Walt Disney was able to learn something worth even from the mouse infected garage, which the sophisticated infra structures of our schools at times fail to do. Society needs responsible adults with creative ideas and diverse talents, not just test taking skills. Does our education help our children make a living meaningfully? Do our schools really consider education as an integral preparation towards facing a reality called LIFE? Is this education, the only responsibility of Teachers? Can we blame the social distracters like Social Media networks, Video Games, the internet, Mobile texting and other virtual realities that steal away our valuable presence with our kids?

We need Partnership in education with the Parents that would enable the educational process effective and collaborative and thus meet the expectations of Parents as well as understand the struggles of Teachers in achieving the expected outcome. In this very important partnership, we need certain set of roles to take upon ourselves.

1.       Give more time to your Children:

Spare time in your busy routine for your children. If you keep ignoring them, it will make them feel irresponsible and thus lose interest in study. Ask them daily “what they studied? What did they learn? Help them in their studies, if possible.

2.       Keep Watch on children’s activities:

Have watch on the daily utilizing of their energy and time in unnecessary activities. Have watch on the amount of time they spend on T.V., Video games and Internet. Never suspect your children but have a watch in such a way that they feel that you are for them at anytime.

3.       Don’t over-schedule your child:

Be judicious about how much you let or urge your child for extra curricular activities to supplement school. If you engage the child with too many supplement activities, it can quickly become a joyless race from one thing to another.

4.       Control your time with Idiot box:

I’m not sure whether to call T.V. as Idiot box but it definitely controls the agenda of your child. Though it has numerous educational programmes, yet it doesn’t allow the mind to imagine and think. Create unstructured time with books, toys, crafts and friends (real friends and not their virtual ones from facebook) to be in charge of their own agenda.

5.       Limit Media Exposure:

Turn off the T.V. and the iPod when your child does homework. Keep in mind that if you watch T.V. when your child can’t, it may backfire because the child will create hatred towards learning.

6.       Don’t wash the dirty linen before your child:

In Finland, Italy and Japan, kids perform better in school because teachers are more respected by the entire culture. That doesn’t make the teachers infallible. Settle your difference of opinions with the Teachers in private. A child can’t really learn from a teacher if the Parents don’t respect the teacher and a teacher can’t really teach a child if s/he thinks the parents don’t respect him.

7.       The Teacher can’t expect that all children will adapt to her/him. The teacher has to reach out to the child and the child has to learn the patterns and behaviors of the teacher. From both sides, we need to realize that we are dealing with human persons with strengths and limitations. Teachers are the second Parents of the children entrusted to them. Make this relationship trustworthy and worth remembering.

I was reminded of the rubber bands that we use in day to day life. They come in different sizes and different colours and different shapes, but they all work on the same principle:  STRETCH. In order to have an effective partnership in education, like rubber bands, Teachers and Parents have to stretch out themselves to be effective in their roles. Just being there doesn’t serve the purpose. Teachers have to stretch beyond their routine teaching pedagogy and Parents from their conventional thinking that education is teacher’s job. We need to leave the safe harbor in order to sail and that’s why ships are made for. We need to break the comfort zones in order to be effective. In order to be effective in our Partnership in educating our children, we need to be little more, do little more.

I love Colors

Colors are the essence of life. Colors make flavor to ordinary things. We can’t imagine a world without colors. Colors permeate the entire environment. We love nature because of its colorfulness. We love to see the Sea just because of its color. Children love to eat and thanks to the colors. Every event of life is colored by colors. The dress we wear, the food we eat, the things we buy, the houses we build, the slippers and shoes we use, sometimes even the vehicles we get into, everything has something to do with the color.  

Color is a powerful and important communication tool and the fact is that it is just not color and it is tied to religious, cultural, political and social influences.  Colors can affect our mood. So to say, we are conditioned by the colors often than what we really are. Red can boost your energy, yellow often makes people feel happier, and blue is proven to bring down blood pressure and slow your heart rate which is why it is often associated with being relaxing. If you combine the happiness of yellow and the relaxing feel of blue you get green, a very pleasing color for many people.

Schools tend to user bright colors that appeal to children. Class rooms are filled with colorful posters and pictures of appealing colors fill the side walls of the class room in order to keep the children’s attention within the class room.

We just can’t take colors for granted. Artists have done years of work on the effect of colors on people and have certain proven conclusions about colors and its effects. We are able to see around 7,000,000 colors. They say the following colors have following effects:

Yellow – warm, exciting, happy

Blue – deep, peaceful, supernatural

Green – peace, stillness, nature

White – harmony, silence, cleanliness

Black – grief, dark, unknown

Red – glowing, confidence, alive

Orange – radiant, healthy, serious

Of course, colors are colors but have its meaning in different locations just like words do. After all, Color is just another medium of communication. Different colors have different meaning in different countries and cultures. Little bit of sensitivity is required when we want to communicate something to the universe in colors.

Let’s observe:

In western cultures black is a color of mourning

In Japan however it is a color of honor, with white the color of mourning

Red in the west represents danger, love, passion

In India it is a color of purity, in China it is a color of good luck and in South Africa it is a color of mourning

Yellow represents courage in Japan, mourning in Egypt and hope in the West

Colors are representative of certain religions too. So as not to unintentionally offend anyone through colors, some examples of these color/religion associations are:

Green is considered to be the holy color of Islam

Judaism is represented by the color yellow

In Hinduism, many gods have blue skin

White is linked to peace across many religions.

Colors enrich our lives. It has immense meaning in different cultures, different countries and in different religions. Colors add more colors to life. When we taste victory, we say, “We came out with flying colors”. Colors are integral part of our lives. Colors are the symbols of intrinsic values of lives like sacrifice, happiness, integrity, peace, sympathy, oneness, etc. If we were to discriminate someone with the wonderful tool of colors, that could be the worse thing that we could do to the humanity. Let the colors bond together our individualities and break away our barriers.

If you have a WHY?

A few years ago a gentleman stepped on to the top of the Bridge and preparing to jump. Cars started stopping and the traffic backed up for miles. The police arrived with the fire department, ministers and mental health professionals. They began talking to the man and telling him not to jump but he wouldn’t bother.

About half a mile back in traffic was an elderly gardener got out of his truck and walked up to where the crowd was gathered. He made his way through the people, looked at the man and said, "Hey, I got to go to work. Either jump or get off the bridge. If you decide not to jump, tomorrow is going to be better!"

              After hearing this, the man climbed down the bridge. The police handcuffed him and placed him in the back seat of the police car. The gardener walked back to his truck waiting for the traffic to move.
All the way to the hospital, the man kept saying over and over, "Tomorrow is going to be better."
Have you ever wished you could “begin again”?

This year 2013 is a ‘begin again’ season after the much awaited Apocalypse on December 21^st 2012. We’ve all experienced our share of errors, failures, disappointments, complications, betrayals, missed opportunities and we have an endless list of “enough is enough”. We all have things that we would do differently if given a second chance. What wonderful news to know that, in this new year 2013, the slate is wiped clean and we do have the opportunity to begin again.

There are many who have become weighed down by debt wish they could get financially independent.

There are many who have become emotionally depressed by circumstances wish they could break the emotional bonds and start anew.

There are those who have become morally deviated or perverted indulging in eve teasing and rape and murders wish they could set right their path.

There are those who were deprived of their rights wish they could rise against the oppressors and regain their rights.

It’s always refreshing to start anew. We need strength and motivation to keep the momentum until the end.

One must see a future, to have a future. In order to begin again, we require a “WHY” to live for. Oscar Wilde wisely said,

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”.

Yes, If we have a WHY to live for, we will put up with anyHOW.