By Kalilur Rahman
There is a famous quote floating in the social media which is attributed to Albert Einstein that goes by ?Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.? While the attribution is questionable, the message is very loud and clear. The recently released Bollywood movie, “Hichki?, attributes to the conversation, while cinematic performances and brilliant portrayals aside, there were two profound thoughts that were reminisced about education. More importantly, doing the right things, personally, professionally and as world citizen?
The movie is about the lead character with “Tourette’s syndrome,” a neurological disorder that causes a person with the syndrome to make noises that could be annoying to others watching. One of the key messages is passed by the lead character is how she is living with two characters. One, her normal self and, second, or the person with the disability that she wants to avoid, as it is an item of concern, a tool of discriminatory action for others and something that can?t be corrected.
The power of turning a weakness into a strength
One of the brilliant dialogue that resonated well was. ?“I may have Tourette’s in my speech, but not in my intellect!?. This is very true and the key themes of the brilliant films such as “Dead Poets Society”, “Goodwill hunting”, “Finding Forrester”, ?Mona Lisa Smile?, ?To Sir With Love?, “Taare Zameen Par” and hundreds of other inspiring themes. It’s all about how recognising the potential, give coaching to help people succeed.
To foster the growth of a human being
Another thing that comes to mind is the enforcement of thoughts, values, beliefs and reasons to merge with personal Tourette’s syndrome of mind. The challenge is that the mind, along with the growth in body weight, increases the weight of intellectual inability, garbage, and negative thoughts to gain prominence that results in various behaviours one emits.
All the great movies that focus on effective methods of teaching focus on one thing, the individual needful stop. Some of the Nordic nations such as Denmark have no exam still the age of 14. What they focus on is the holistic development of creative confidence and individual capability development leveraging some of the concepts of the Montessori Method of education. Who is right is the traditional vehicles dating education system that focuses only on memory and ability to reproduce on the holistic system that I love people to think critically and developing a full-fledged human with a capability to solve issues creativity?
Coming to the movie ?Dead poet?s society? an iconic dialogue comes up, ?Carpe Diem? and ?Seize the day?. All it takes is for a ?Good teacher? or a ?Coach? to teach the children the right methods, approach and thinking mechanism to let their creative juices flow. All it takes is a good teacher or a principal to make the all-important decision that sets the context for innovation and growth and let the children ?Carpe Diem?, day-in and day-out.
The key takeaways from ?Hichki?
Be supportive without giving differential treatment (positive or negative), one may need to put in a bit of effort to make sure that people needing support due to a disability is given the due recognition, importance, information to understand better, without showing ?special treatment?. Giving a level-playing-area where they can contribute equally matters a lot.
To this end, the highlighting of ?Lemon Tree ? premier? hotel in Hi-Tec City, Hyderabad is a hotel has some of the best support staff who are a delight. They are hearing impaired but the cherubic smile they bring in every time, the energy and attention they give to the customer, the attention to details and care to make the experience, be it serving a food, checking in baggage or helping out with services, a far better one that a regularly abled staff? in much bigger hotels.
Build a Platform to grow, excel and succeed, the challenge of education most of the kids face in India is lack of access and missing a platform. If a right access, platform, right to education is given without a commercial mindset but a success and growth mindset, the number of brilliant students we get will be phenomenal. Not giving a platform may result in loss of talent, innovations and building of a brilliant legacy for future generations.
Team building is life building
Let the children challenge the adult. Good children follow instructions and orders given, based on experiences, perspectives and directions on what is best for them, in a command and control fashion. Great children challenge adults, keep them on their toes, teach them to become more patient and help them to help them better. Take the challenge to make them better.
Unlearn to learn more. Teachers should learn from their students, learn about teams, understand their perspective and their backgrounds. The metaphor of a wardrobe will be suiting, everyone has one, its the size that varies, for example, retail outlets vary in size.? Similar to the wardrobe, metaphorically everyone carries baggage, values and beliefs as big as the wardrobe. Depending on the value given to clothes in the wardrobe, which may not fit or suitable, the beliefs or thoughts may not be suitable. To unbox, unlearn and have minimal (or zero) baggage and be open to learning by unlearning and relearning. This is possible only when one gets closer to the audience or customer as they may differ across the board.
Be Protective of the team, while everyone makes mistakes, it is the job of the leader, teacher, coach or guide, that needs to stand-up for the team. As the movie quote goes, ?There are no bad students. Only bad teachers?. A teacher is a leader and the students get moulded based on their quality. A good teacher helps convert the strengths to super strengths and address a student’s weaknesses.
Overcoming personal weaknesses
Convert weaknesses to strength. A quote to remember is from the ?Solomon Island? ritual followed for tree felling, as espoused in ?Taare Zameen Par,? treating team members fair and unequally is a very good trait. It is needed because every individual is unique and they have different needs, strengths and weaknesses. Take the case of Phil Jackson who coached at least 3 great basketball players to stardom, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and Shaq O?Neill. If you take the example of Shaq, there is a brilliant story, an NBA Hall of Famer, Shaq was known to be a very poor free throw shooter, albeit being a great centre. He had an exceptional talent but was low on commitment due to his other interests such as rap music and movies. He was also trying hard to overcome his weakness of free throw shooting. Phil Jackson, a master coach, looked at this and asked him to improve his inside centre game and Shaq was a bit hesitant stating he was the best centre in the game and wanted to improve his free throws. Phil convinced him to focus on his strength and helped him become the most valuable player in a years? time. How many people focus on their team, friends, family or kid?s strengths and not worry too much about the weakness? It is a supreme and remarkable athletic improvement if Usain Bolt can improve 9.8s in 100m to 9.6s that a normal person improves from 25s to 15s.
Building a better future starts today
Everyone has different types of Tourette?s that they carry forward in their lives. For many folks, it is easier to find faults with others and expects others not to find fault with our own, especially when it is a visible fault. The goodness of humanity is the genuine, empathizing few who coach, guide and propel people to realize their full potential and deliver unbelievable results.? From an education standpoint, it is very important for the academicians to really stand-up and deliver a 360-degree holistic development of children. It is what is sowed now that becomes the saving grace for tomorrow, it is good to move away from what has worked in the past to make it more relevant for current and future context. Towards this, a massive change in the education system is needed.
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