Schooling...!

"Our collective well-being starts with inclusive schools

and helping every child realize their endless potential..."

"When families and schools work together, everyone wins. Students are supported, families are empowered, and teachers' jobs just become that much easier. Education goes beyond economic growth, and our goal goes beyond the classroom..."

"Schools are a funnel to the real world. Public education makes citizens. And in creating the next generation of citizens, we cannot be leaving behind four out of five children or their families. If we continue to pick and choose who the system engages with generation after generation, like we do now, we will not be left with a community, a civil society or even a functioning democracy..."

"Our dream is that one day, they'll feel included 

in the very communities that they're expected to build..."

VOICE...!

Sarah Kay – a writer, performer and educator from New York City – tells the story of her metamorphosis from a wide-eyed teenager soaking in verse at New York's Bowery Poetry Club to a teacher connecting kids with the power of self-expression through Project V.O.I.C.E. in this talk.

Project voice is an interesting initiative that utilizes poetry to entertain, educate and inspire. It has worked with hundreds of schools in thirty countries reaching over 150,000 students from kindergarten through university level. Project voice promotes empowerment, improves language skills and spurs creative collaboration through award-winning performances and innovative workshops.

Sarah’s ‘confession’ about her poetry is not only downright candid but also absolutely profound - 

"...But there are plenty of things I have trouble understanding. So I write poems to figure things out. Sometimes the only way I know how to work through something is by writing a poem. Sometimes I get to the end of the poem, look back and go, "Oh, that's what this is all about," and sometimes I get to the end of the poem and haven't solved anything, but at least I have a new poem out of it..."

We have read, heard, shared and interpreted Abraham Lincoln’s the world-famous Letter to his Son’s teacher that talks about the values that must be taught to the pupil. No doubt it is a classic example of communication literature and the optimism about the virtues against the vices makes it timeless also, however, it is more retrospective in nature being based on experiences of an adult and tends to become little idealistic in expression.

Sarah in her poem ‘If I should have a daughter…’ seems to be more realistic and revolutionary as she doesn’t advise her daughter to get adjusted to the circumstances as they are but tries to fuel her with the preparedness to empathize with the situation and try to change it for better. Her narration is overflowing with the hope and the grit expressed is so contagious that it can ignite minds. I strongly recommend that you hear it out completely no matter how long it seems. Here are few excerpts…

"...And, baby," I'll tell her, don't keep your nose up in the air like that. I know that trick; I've done it a million times. You're just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house, so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else find the boy who lit the fire in the first place, to see if you can change him. But I know she will anyway..." 

"...Because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's sent away. You will put the wind in win some, lose some. You will put the star in starting over, and over. And no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute, be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life..."

"...Your voice is small, but don't ever stop singing. And when they finally hand you heartache, when they slip war and hatred under your door and offer you handouts on street-corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother..."

"I know that Jean-Luc Godard was right when he said that, "A good story has a beginning, a middle and an end, although not necessarily in that order."

Way to go…!

Emotional Fool...?

NO doubt IQ or Intelligence Quotient is important and has a role to play in developmental stages of your life; however it can only take you to a certain position in your career and society. Once you achiever a certain position and status, EQ or Emotional Intelligence takes charge of your life and irrespective of your IQ’s status – progressing, stagnant or diminishing – developing EQ becomes crucial to your well-being and prosperity as it will help you juxtapose your-‘self’ in your surroundings.

Your emotions are very important as those are impulsive, expressive and inevitable aspect of your personality that can make you anxious, depressed, excited and/or overwhelmed affecting your decisions and actions for better or for worse!

So you are at the mercy of your emotions and if you have an average or not-so-good EQ, your chances of ‘succeeding’ are frail, is it? But what if you learn that Emotions are nothing but just thoughts preconditioned by the brain cells which you can very well read, predict and even control by conditioning? This World could be a whole new place and you could be a completely different person, won’t you?

Check out in this most intriguing, inspiring and almost therapeutic for mental health talk…

RESTART...!

 

This is our moment.

We cannot turn back time. But we can grow trees, green our cities, rewild our gardens, change our diets and clean up rivers and coasts.

We are the generation that can make peace with nature.

Let’s get active, not anxious. Let’s be bold, not timid. 

Join #GenerationRestoration

Resilient...!

"...resilient people are really good at choosing carefully where they select their attention. They have a habit of realistically appraising situations, and typically, managing to focus on the things that they can change, and somehow accept the things that they can't.

This is a vital, learnable skill for resilience. As humans, we are really good at noticing threats and weaknesses. We are hardwired for that negative. We're really, really good at noticing them. Negative emotions stick to us like Velcro, whereas positive emotions and experiences seems to bounce off like Teflon.

Being wired in this way is actually really good for us, and served us well from an evolutionary perspective..."

“Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, 

but from wanting to control it.”

― Kahlil Gibran

Let us give our best to change WHAT WE CAN and

Let us ACCEPT WHAT WE CAN'T and in any case

Let us STOP WORRYING and start WISHING...

Way to go...

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PS - Don't miss to watch NOMADLAND, particularly if you seemingly have reached the end of the tunnel and not sure where to go next...

Leadership...?

The difference between a King or an Emperor or a Boss and a Leader is a Leader can never be authoritarian, dictator or self-indulgent to the level of being indifferent to other’s pain and sufferings. Quality of Leadership is directly proportional to the Human lives one touches and uplifts… it has nothing to do with the Position or Power, lest the Propaganda! Besides, a Leader has an unwavering Vision and a dignified Mission higher than self-worth that can never be compromised...!

"The only variable are the conditions inside the organization, and that's where leadership matters, because it's the leader that sets the tone. When a leader makes the choice to put the safety and lives of the people inside the organization first, to sacrifice their comforts and sacrifice the tangible results, so that the people remain and feel safe and feel like they belong, remarkable things happen..."

"If you think about what being a great parent is, what do you want? What makes a great parent? We want to give our child opportunities, education, discipline them when necessary, all so that they can grow up and achieve more than we could for ourselves. Great leaders want exactly the same thing. They want to provide their people opportunity, education, discipline when necessary, build their self-confidence, give them the opportunity to try and fail, all so that they could achieve more than we could ever imagine for ourselves..."

"It's not the numbers. It's that they have violated the very definition of leadership. They have violated this deep-seated social contract. We know that they allowed their people to be sacrificed so they could protect their own interests, or worse, they sacrificed their people to protect their own interests. This is what so offends us, not the numbers. Great leaders would never sacrifice the people to save the numbers. They would sooner sacrifice the numbers to save the people..."

"Leadership is a choice. It is not a rank. I know many people at the seniormost levels of organizations who are absolutely not leaders. They are authorities, and we do what they say because they have authority over us, but we would not follow them..."

Way to go...

Lifecode...!

The only human (?) emotion or feeling that is being nurtured lately is of being competitive. And this competitiveness has nothing to do with the competency, mind you, but being successful. Moreover, this Success is hardly measured by quality of life or being happy, it is about the possessions. These possessions have to be branded, hence expensive and to possess and maintain all of those, a lot of resources are required. The resources would be generated by bagging more and more work by hook or crook, then working hard to keep the work coming and finally keeping the customers ‘happy’ even if their demands are illogical, unjustified to the extent of being indecent or immoral.

This is what is called as vicious circle in which you can get in quite easily, you know, because the whole (value?) system is designed and developed to facilitate your entry into it; but can’t get out of it… ever, forget easily, only your spirit (?) might escape it, God knows! It goes round and round and as the basics of geometry has it – a circle doesn’t have a start or endpoint, only a center and quadrants… at the most Tangents, if you choose to be one, but then you are not the part of the circle anymore!

Had it been a personal matter of individual interest, there was no need to pay any heed to it; however, the very structure of a civilized society is weaved with individuals that cannot be isolated and left to live in silos. Every human being is connected to the other and the bio-system and the ecology, in one way or other and can make its environment stink just like a rotten fruit that can spoil the entire basket, because the self-centered and ‘possessive’ competitiveness is no healthier but is full of ignorance, even worst, hatred towards others. The winning in this competition is all about 'I, Me and Myself!' This selfishness knows no limits as it, not only takes for granted, but completely underestimates the others forming the pyramid on top of which the privileged ‘I’ stands.

This obsession for self-growth and apathy towards everything else is terminal to the humanity and to the nature by and large. Why, because it is fundamentally against the nature’s law of circular motion. A seed gets sown into the soil and the groundwater helps it sprout. Once it breaks the ground to emerge as a plant, Sun, Rain and Wind do their job to facilitate nature taking its course and a huge tree is born. Once the foliage is full-grown, it generates flowers and fruits with the essential elements to develop a seed that will go into the soil and a new cycle will begin. A shrub, plant, creeper or a tree, irrespective of its size and family, follows the circular motion and keeps the nature’s law circulating. A tree, no matter how big and old, serves as the home for innumerable insects, birds, animals and many other species, bears fruits as per the season and even becomes a shelter for the passer byes, but never boasts its riches or expects anything in return, even 'privileges' for being a privileged huge old 'cultured' tree!

Except for every saleable commodity that humans can extract from the trees and the jungle, when would we return to the jungle and see a tree to take some life lessons...?

Humanity is dead, long live the nature...!