Authority vs Power

Last week I had an interesting discussion with my school leadership team about the difference between authority and power. We call these informal discussions in my office, at the end of the day, our “Chats for Clarity”.

Why learning should never stop

I believe that a nation can be great if the children are allowed to think and adults are encouraged to learn.

Somehow the practice everywhere is in the reverse. It is assumed that children are not capable of doing any critical thinking and are spoon-fed at home and at schools, they are robbed of their ability to make wise choices or think creatively. It is also assumed that adults have done all the learning and have nothing more to learn. It is only when we make a paradigm shift to this equation that will any movement towards true education take place.

The anatomy of the poor

I have been working closely with people in the slums for around 18 years. The people I work with from around 72 slums in Bangalore are the parents of the children that come to the schools run by Parikrma Humanity Foundation. While this is my most recent and longest experience, I have had some exposure to slums in Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Nepal, Bangladesh, New York and Mexico City. While I don’t claim to be an expert on the slums, I do have data that has been time tested about how desperately poor people in the slums look at themselves in the role of parents.

With Royalty

This is old news but still holds true. Several months ago I received the Pride of Karnataka award from the Roundtable International in a very glitzy ceremony at the Leela Palace. The other awardees of similar awards were far better known and had achieved much more than I have. So, just sitting beside them and waiting for my name to be announced was an honour by itself. And then to top the celebrity list was the Chief Guest who was none other than the new Maharaja of Mysore, Yaduveera Krishnadatta Chamraj Wadiyar, a shy young man who was trying to settle down to his new high profile role. He had many glamour quotients attached to him, all that makes any man top the charts of most women’s desired list. He is young, educated, good looking, obviously rich and most evidently powerful. I recognized his quiet dignity as he handed my award to me but I also detected a hint of familiarity in his unwavering smile.

Teachers must know their ikigai

The new academic year for the Parikrma schools (www.parikrmafoundation.org) will begin in the first week of June. In the month of May, which is otherwise a long summer holiday in all schools in South India, the Parikrma schools were busy with the Summer Program for children to ensure that they don’t go hungry and are away from harm. While the summer school was on, some of us met to plan the Orientation program for the new and old teachers. It is so important to hire the right teachers and then immerse them into the Parikrma culture and way of doing things the correct way.

The need for space

I am writing this from the School of Ancient Wisdom where I have come with the Parikrma leadership team for a strategy meeting to plan out the new academic year and to just breathe a little oxygen. In the hectic pace that each one of us get immersed in when the schools begin, with emergencies happening nearly everyday in our students’ homes, sometimes we forget to take – deep breaths.

I have the happiest office in the world

Design, space and aesthetics have always been important to me. My mother tells me that the character of a person is determined by all the things he chooses to have around him.

Lessons from children of Parikrma…

The other day a senior Parikrma student asked me what makes a developing country a developed one?

The Dog Project

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated,” Mahatma Gandhi.

I saw this quote this morning written boldly on the blackboard of one of the Parikrma school’s entrance as the Thought of the Day. I smiled to myself with secret pleasure hoping that finally the schools were getting the message that children need to be taught how not only to take care of themselves, their society and their environment but also their animals. It has taken me several sessions with the teachers and administrators to make them understand that children can also learn compassion and responsibility by taking care of animals. To prove this point I found a dog for each of the schools and the children were given the responsibility to take care of them.

This is what we did. The message went out that we were looking for abandoned street dogs. I was very clear that we did not want the nice looking pedigreed dogs but the tough street dogs that were survivors, very much like the Parikrma children themselves. So, the little pups started arriving at the four Parikrma schools. But we took it a step further. I told the kids that we needed to have a proper christening ceremony of each of the pups and choose names from Shakespearean plays that they would have to read, to qualify for their dogs. And, that week we saw children in the library with their teachers scouring through Charles Lamb’s tales of Shakespeare. No doubt it was a bit of a short cut to Shakespearean plays but I was happy that the Dog Project got the kids to enjoy reading some fascinating Shakespeare minutely, which in any other circumstance would have been a drudgery.

The boisterous black snouted dog in Jayanagar got named Bianca from Merchant of Venice. The white nervous little dog in Koramangla got named Titania from Midsummer Nights Dream. The strange light hazel eyed dog with erect ears in Sahakaranagar earned the name of Portia from Merchant of Venice. She would run away from school and land in our office whenever the children would practice for sports or any festival. She is considered the only drop out we have had in school and now spends more time in the office and my home. She is a disgrace to the education fraternity but even drop outs have to be taken care of and have to be vocationally trained. So, to replace her we found Romeo that was soon followed by a Juliet and they make a handsome pair in our school compound. But wait ,that’s not all. Our youngest school in Nandini Layout found an Isabella from Tempest to guard the doors. The Parikrma family is now complete with the dog mascots in place.

The children now needed to be taught that dogs are loving and loyal if taken care of. We had to teach them that dogs have feelings, they want love and feel sad when neglected. We had to teach them that they get hurt when their ears are pinched and tails are pulled. We explained to them about the anatomy of a dog’s ears and why they get scared during thunderstorms and when people burst crackers. I was overjoyed when children themselves decided to have a Green Diwali and not burst crackers not only to reduce pollution but also because of what it would do to Bianca, Portia, Titania, Isabella, Romeo and Juliet – If their dogs got distressed with crackers they realized what it does to other dogs on the streets who have no place to hide. A big step towards compassion.

As days progressed we got the dogs to enter the kindergarten classes for Show & Tell. Our little five year olds who get exposed to English for the first time in school itself, were taught to feel Bianca’s fur and learn the words soft, brown, and short. They began to count numbers by prying open Romeo’s mouth and peering into his teeth. They learnt action words by observing Titania and Isabella. Our dogs were better teaching aids than even the Salman Khan Academy videos!  Our dogs too learnt to be patient and follow class rules. Taking the dog for a walk is a far more cherished award than several stickers and smiley face stamps. We try and teach our children to observe and guess what their dog is feeling which is a great lesson on contemplative observation. If children are taught to be sensitive to emotions that are not always verbalized much of the conflict we face in adulthood would be reduced. Dogs are the best such teachers.

It bothers me when I see dogs being stoned on the streets when they bark, shooed away when they are hungry. It is absolutely true that the real test of character is revealed by the way one treats animals and other creatures who don’t speak the human language but have the same emotions. I hope that the Dog Project would help bring up kids that have to struggle to do well in life but will also look at the world not only as a home for humans but all living creatures. And no one can teach us this as well as dogs.