If not a Good child then what ?

This post is in continuation of Does world really want a good child

A child grows in the womb of the mother, hearing all the sound of the mother's internal organs and feeling its rhythm.

Once it is out, it recognises the mother and soon starts accepting those around the mother with the feeling that they are well wishers.

Till the age of seven, the child is very closely attached to the close family circle.

During this time, the child learns about its environment and gets familiarised and comfortable with it.

Very soon, it leaves the comfort zone and starts making friends and explores the world more daringly.

By the time it is a teenager, the child starts developing its own personality and also its inner consciousness.

Once the child has crossed the adolescence, the child has developed its own inner world which is a bundle of its consciousness and memories and an outer world where it lives.

So what should we do as a parent ?

As I mentioned in the previous post, the child has entered your life as an carefully wrapped up Gift. As it opens, watch the gift and try to understand the gift.

Don't push your memories onto to the child. Please remember your memories were valid in your timeline. It may or maynot be valid in their timeline.

So it is best to offer them facts.

Don't protect them too much and at the same please do not ignore them

Does the world really want a Good child ?

Sometimes when I reflect on what is happening in the world, I tend to often think that we are outdated in the common fashion - Raise our child as "A Good Girl, A Good Boy"

Maybe it worked well in the olden days but is it working now ? Will it work in future ?

Right through their childhood, they are taught to be obedient. And and told that if they are obedient and follow what the elders say, they are Good children... their innate thinking is suppressed. This continues to their adolescence too...

Then suddenly when they are Young youth, they are expected to come with unique ideas, unique solutions and lead others !!!

Don't you think that it is outrageous.

Poor kids, their innate nature was suppressed and they don't learn how to handle it and then the BIG vast load of being Responsible citizens is thrust on them 😑😑

Isn't this the root cause of the now most common disease called STRESS...

My dear parents, guardians and teachers, first please unfold the gift - your child. Peep into to see what the gift is and then plan on how to shapen it in such a way that it does not break.

That alone is enough...the child knows how to do the rest...

Jai Hind ! Valgha Vazhamudan !

My introspection on current education system

This is a followup to the blog Free...Free...Freedom and Democraticing education.html

Ideas are very easy to generate... Just sitting idle for few minutes ruminating on the problem, which is also called meditation results in a lot of ideas.

But generating workable solutions is a different game altogether.

After writing blogs and getting feedback from the readers, I had gone deeper to introspecting, analysing and strategising and gathering feedback.

Here are few of my thoughts on which I am planning an Action plan.

1. Though we think that we have won independence as a nation, we are still colonised. Yes, we are colonised by the method of education. We are all forced into following a single method of education. Only the selected elite have an option to get educated as per their wish

Education is not marks. That is academics. Education is a lot more...

2. Why should a child only learn the conventional method of basic mathematical operations. Why cannot they perform the operations in the method that is comfortable to them. There are some many options available - Abacus, Trachtenberg method, Russian Peasant method, Vedic maths etc

That too when finally they are going to use devices and tools.

Why should the children made to feel like a failure when they actually are not.

3. When it comes to Science, why should the children only repeat standard experiments. Why cannot they be made to encouraged to structure their own experiments

4. Social science is such an important subject which they understand well gives them a lot of Life skills. But unfortunately, this subject along with Literature is only taught and learnt for scoring marks

Yes, the above are only few drawbacks of education system. Have highlighted them as I have joined with an energetic team MyOpenSkool.in and together we are chartering tangible and measurable action plans that can be documented, is scientific, repeatable and scalable too.

Will be penning about them soon...

Jai Hind ! Valgha Vazhamudan !

Free...Free...Freedom

Freedom…is meant for everyone isn't it?…

During my school days, we learnt that school is a second home and is meant to be like that… during those days, there was lesser syllabus as there were lesser documemted discoveries, lesser theorems and lesser technology to study. Now the load has almost tripled !!!

Also, earlier the children were taught so that they learn whereas now the focus is scoring marks and making the parents and school proud.

Isn't it our responsibility to ensure that the children enjoy the process of going to school and feel Free.

Today that is the only way they can socialise and make friends and relationships...

Yes, there a few schools. But they are accessible only by economically privileged. What about others ? Should we not scale it so that it reaches everyone?

Can we do something so that they begin to enjoy the process of being educated.

Firstly, should only a single adult be a teacher of a particular topic? Why can’t the children be put into “Mixed age group” as prescribed by Dr. Maria Montessori

In a Mixed age montessori group, a student takes the roles of being a student and a teacher at the same time. The adult becomes a facilitator.

The word “Montessori method” was not patented as the visionary Dr Maria Montessori wished it to grow and mould into different generations. But unfortunately, the word has become highly corrupt and many say that their school adopts Montessori method whereas it does not follow the spirit to its entirety.

Common – yet so uncommon Common sense

I really wonder who coined the word Common sense. It is so very uncommon.

In today's world, one has to work hard to be able to use it. We tend to use Book sense rather than Common sense

I remember one day, during my UG days, my mother once called me and told me to watch over the stove. She was making murukkus and wanted to leave the stove under my care for a few moments and handle some other work.

A few minutes later she came and blasted me saying “Arivu irruka!” which transliterates to “Do you have brains?”

I was watching the oil so that it does not get heated up so much that it catches fire whereas my mother had told me watch the murukkus so that it does not turn brown J

This saga continued to my motherhood. As a young mother, I was advised by elders to make sure the child gets fed once in an hour or so. I strictly followed the time table. One day, my son was crying with great vigour and I didn’t know what to do.

Hearing him cry, my father came running up and told me “Feed him” for which I told him that there is 30 minutes more.

I still remember the look on my father’s face!

There are few more incidents like this.

But now I am more mature and wiser.

Sometimes I wonder, how come the previous generations had more common sense and the upcoming generation do not have what we have too…

Is it our education system that needs to be upgraded so that children are not taught only book sense but also common sense...

Parents amongst us...those who are proud that the children know the digital world so well...please check if they have sufficient "Common sense"...

Labelling – At what cost

Each and every one of us would have experienced being tagged with labels at some point of our life or the other.

Tags based on our gender, nativity, caste etc.

We also would have experienced stereotyping due to the above tagging.

Some of these are not harmful. But some are very harmful.

The simple, “You are a good child”, “You are a bad child” puts so much pressure on the young minds.

Every human being has a good in them and a bad in them.

Instead of labeling the child, if we label the action. For e.g. “You took care of your sister. That’s a good thing” or “In your anger, you broke the pencil. That is a bad thing”. The child learns what action they should avoid and what action they should repeat.

These labels are small compared to the bigger ones I am going to talk about – The labels given by the world to denote difference in behaviour

I have personally been there and have fought it out and all those who are near and dear to me know how much I have struggled because of it.

Let me tell in brief my struggle.

My father is no more. I remember arguing with him a few years back saying “Even a murderer gets a chance to argue his case in the court but a psychiatric patient gets none”

Once labelled, the world only looks at what treatment to give. Very less on what we should do to make her feel better. That’s because everyone feels that it is the medicine that helps.

If you talk more, you are a patient. If you talk less, you are a patient.

You all may ask, what should we do?

Please listen to them…not just to the words…but also the body language and facial expression…

Please look at the person while conversing. This has become a lost culture.

Looking at the person gives them confidence that somebody cares and will also help the listener to truly understand the emotions behind the words

I am no longer on medication and my family has supported me to come out of the psychiatric label “BPAD”. It was a very painful journey. And I wish to help whoever is facing similar journey and these blogs are the result of that.

Unfortunately, it is done not to adults, but to children. Especially those who have different learning tendencies. They are affected very much psychologically 

Thus change in the society is very much needed.

I am one…I cannot do everything. Yet, I am one…I can do something. That something, I shall do