What's happening in India

Just returned from a 3 day trip to two Taluka towns - Akalkot and Karmala - and one village town - Kurduvadi - in Maharashtra. As part of our mission to make excellent education, accessible and affordable, we are bringing LEAD schools to these places.

As I was preparing for the parent meetings, finalizing plans with the school Principals and traveling between these places, it gave me time to reflect on what has been occupying our minds over the last few weeks in India.

There are 3 thoughts that kept flitting through my mind:

1. How we don't know that we don't know. And despite that we operate from a position of certitude. We do not allow for the possibility that we could be mistaken. We do not realise that what we consume in media passes through a filter of 'positioning'. This 'positioning' both shapes and colours the narrative. So what we read is as important as who is writing. And what we see is as important as the channel that is showing it.

2. How we mistake discussion for action. Social media has made it so easy for us to express an opinion. I'm able to write and share this because of that same social media. But it also leads us to lazy forwards and appropriation of others' opinions without deep consideration. And having spent 10-15 minutes debating or arguing with others, we feel that we have contributed. But argement leads to nothing. In fact, in the face of certitude, it merely leads to hardening of our existing positions. How many of us have actually done anything to improve things in this country? In health, education, poverty alleviation, social harmony, civic sense, employment generation or any area that actually moves the nation forward? And how many are content with earning their bread and thinking that 15 minutes on social media, spewing their pre-decided opinions, is enough contribution to nation building?

3. How dialogue has disappeared from public sphere and has been replaced with arguments and shouting. The shrillness in conversations is deafening. Nobody wants to listen. Everyone wants to be heard. Form has overtaken substance. Motives and timing have become more important than the content of allegations. If Ex Home Secretary says, 'PC asked for report that Ishrat Jehan was a terrorist, to be expunged', the erstwhile Home Minister won't say, 'No, I did not ask for any parts of the IB report to be expunged'. Instead, he'll question the timing of the revelation. It is almost as if the timing makes the revelation false! We do not know what is true anymore. And this confusion is exactly what the guilty attempt to create. I now, am not sure whether there was a poster on Durga at JNU. HRD Minister says there was. Someone gets up and says there wasn't. No one has the time to verify the truth. And we use whatever suits us to validate our existing position.

What has happened to create this? In my attempt to answer this question, I'm aware that I bring my biases and leanings. But nevertheless, here's my thesis:

We, as Indians have historically been more content to debate and argue and less inclined to take action. Amartya Sen has described this well in his The Argumentative India. This needs to change. More Indians need to engage themselves socially and politically. We need to go beyond talking to taking action.

That being said, we are seeing the after-effects of the Great Indian elections of 2014. On May 2014, India saw a massive re-alignment in politics. Congress lost its standing as a central pole. It was reduced to the margins. BJP assumed the pole around and against which, all political alignments began to take place. This re-alignment also led to a lot of changes in the lives of the 'beneficiaries' of government largesse. Journalists, who used access to both sniff breaking news and to influence decisions, were by-passed by a Twitter and Mann ki baat oriented PM. Power brokers were explicitly discouraged from roaming the corridors of the various Ministries. Intellectuals who were pampered with plum postings and generous grants suddenly saw a shift in the Govt. inclination.

The Govt. also started flexing its muscles. It asked bureaucrats to actually work. Golfing during office hours went out and swipe card machines came in. It tried to get subsidies to work harder by pushing forward with direct benefit transfers. It tried to market India abroad to get more investment to fuel the economy. It did all this without any corruption scandals.

This leaves the opposition with little to fight. So the next best option is to create issues. Vague, emotional issues are best because they can't be dealt with objectively. Fear is the best emotion to target. So the intolerance debate, the freedom to speech debate, the freedom of minorities and dalits debate, and various other issues are being created. A lot of them are storms in teacups that are amplified by a more than eager media. And further given air by the intellectuals and beneficiaries who now find themselves 'disenfranchised'.

But this is not to say that all this is a mere creation of Congress and the Govt is completely above-board. There is a sub-text to how the sparks created by the opposition have been handled.

The ascend of BJP gave license to those Hindus who had so far felt that the state had been unfair to them in order to appease minorities. Hindu law had been abolished but Muslim law was allowed to continue, ignoring Article 44 of the constitution. Minority institutions are exempt but Hindu institutions have to comply with RTE. Anything written against Muhammad is banned (Taslima Nasreen, Salman Rushdie) but making fun of Hindu gods and goddesses is ok (MF Hussein, various bollywood movies). Hinduism's plurality is used as license to libel while Islam's monotheism is used as an excuse to ban. These grouses have come to a head now because the Hindu who felt discriminated against, thinks he has a voice now. I have empathy for this because I think the the hand of secularism should be equitable for all religions. And a uniform civil code is important for a secular nation.

But these hindus are also vegetarian (mostly). So they don't like beef. They are also anti-gay because it seems un-natural to them. They have a moral code in their mind about how girls should behave. So they are against PDA, mini-skirts and Valentine's Day. They think India had a great past and they not only derive pride out of it, they also want the world to acknowledge India for it. So they espouse theories of Pushpak Viman as a precursor to airplanes and the various 'astra's' as precursors to modern arms. I do not have any sympathy for this because I believe the state should respect individual freedom to eat, love and dress. And the state should desist from espousing claims that are as yet unproven.

The Govt. however, not only thinks that it can't visibly denounce these regressive thoughts, it has people within, who also harbour similar beliefs. Add to that, the Govt. came to power on an agenda of muscular nationalism and finds itself compelled to take action in matters of the nation.

That's why it's silence on Article 377. That's why the beef ban. That's why its 'behind the scene' management (vs. public denouncement) of fringe elements who say 'Pakistan jao' at the drop of a hat. And that's why its disproportionate action in JNU.

That's where my problem lies. I love the Govt.'s clean working because corruption, at least in large deals, has more or less gone. I love their economic agenda in driving growth and investment. I love their focus on renewable energy. I love that our PM works hard and works clean for our country.

But I would love the Govt. to revoke Article 377. I would love it if it pushes forward a Uniform Civil Code. I would love it if it appoints a more educated and visionary HRD Minister. I would love for it to publicly denounce the fringe elements within the party.

Is it too much to wish? I don't know. But I wish those who didn't vote for BJP in May 2014, see it with more open minds. And I wish, the BJP does more to include those who want the equitable growth for our country instead of worrying about losing it's 'hindutva' votebank.

Making Gandhi fun for our kids

Let me admit. I love India. I am a sucker for celebrating good things about India. My day is made if I hear or read things like India has climbed 16 places in the WEF global competitiveness rankings. Or that India has built 9 million toilets in rural India to prevent open defecation. And I feel pain in my heart when I read about rapes, lynching and terrorist acts. 

I celebrate Independence Day, Republic Day and Gandhi Jayanti with as much fervour as Diwali. Wanting to instil the same values in my children, I was looking at making 2nd October meaningful for them. I googled yesterday for videos on Gandhi and was put to sleep by the overtly adulatory and boringly long documentaries that were not engaging for a 5 or 7 year old.

So I thought of making a game or a fun activity for my kids. Last night, I told them: Tomorrow, when you wake up, we'll have a treasure hunt on Gandhi!They suddenly had a twinkle in their eye and promptly went to bed waiting for the next day. (Side note: To have something to wake up to, is a great recipe for children to go to bed on time).

In the morning, I woke up long after Zoya and Anay. They seemed to have forgotten about the treasure hunt. And today could have passed like any other holiday without them appreciating why there was a holiday in the first place! But I somehow put aside my long weekend induced lethargy and made the treasure hunt clues.

When I reminded them about the treasure hunt, Zoya and Anay jumped with joy. Their excitement was palpable at the prospect of a treasure hunt. I think there is something inherently attractive about solving clues. The seduction of the unknown and the journey of solving a puzzle fire our neurons in amazing ways.

The game was simple. You get a clue of a location. That location has a chit carrying an aspect of Gandhi's life and a clue for the next location. You research on the aspect of Gandhi's life and record it. Then you solve the clue to get to the next location. Here are the location clues and aspects of Gandhi for Zoya:

And here are the ones for Anay:

The kids had a blast looking for locations, asking their mother about Kasturba Gandhi, Satyagraha and Dandi March and when she was not able to provide satisfactory answers, googling to find more!  At the end they had some inkling of the person who played a large part in getting us independence. This is what both of them recorded:

The icing on the cake was when they in turn wanted to make clues for us. When children extend their learning to create learning paths for others, it shows that they have not only learnt something but also learnt how to think. The latter is actually more valuable than the former!

In the end, I was happy we made Gandhi fun. And I think I'll do something to make Diwali fun too, esp. because we are not going to be bursting firecrackers or gambling!

Anay, Elon Musk and the future of energy in our world!

2 weeks back, as I was walking Anay to our car in the basement, he asked: 'Papa, why does it say 'Danger, Keep distance' near our car?'

Now our car parking is near the transformer sets of our building and while they sit there, housed in a cage, the building management was taking precautions by warning residents to keep distance. So in explaining to Anay about the 'Danger, Keep Distance' sign, I first launched into how electricity was generated in power plants or hydroelectric dams. Then that electricity had to be brought to our buildings through wires. But if they just brought the electricity like it was generated, it will get wasted a lot. So they increase the speed (short for voltage :-) to get it to our buildings, fast. But if they don't slow it down in our building when it reaches, it will burn the wires. The transformers reduce the speed and then the electricity comes to our home.

Anay asked: why does electricity have to come from so far? I answered: because the dams and the power plants are where the water and the coal is.

While the conversation with Anay ended, it set me thinking. Why do we do all this generation, voltage transform-up, transmission, voltage transform-down business? We spend so much energy managing transmission losses and theft. What if we have our own solar panels and make our own energy because the sun reaches our homes directly!

So when Elon Musk delivered his keynote 2 days back, I was delighted. I saw what he was saying. We don't need all these wires, we don't need to solve the problem of transmission losses, we don't need to worry about changing courses of our rivers, we don't need to worry about the pollution from our coal plants, we don't need to worry about radiation from our nuclear plants.

We just need to wrap solar panels around our buildings, put up battery packs, go off the grid and enjoy the energy that the Sun so happily and freely gives us!

Elon Musk has shown what's possible. The comparison of grid power at X Rs./KWh and solar power at Y Rs./KWh is erroneous. It doesn't account for the environment cost of grid power, it doesn't account for the system cost of grid power (transmission losses), it doesn't account for the human cost of grid power (the displacement, disease and disaffection of local communities where these big electric projects are situated).

Today morning, I opened the newspaper to read about the Jaitapur nuclear plant. And I wondered, why? Why do we have to create our own reactor when there is one shining in the sky - free, reliable and bountiful!

Let's make solar energy possible.

Failure is great! - our learnings from our recent Alchemy batch

Recently, we conducted an Alchemy program where the outcomes were not as per our expectation. We scored our lowest ever NPS and participant feedback rating. (NPS was 0 against our average of 50% and rating was 4.1 vs. our average of 4.6). The client was less effusive than our usual clients and our own experience of conducting the program was less than fulfilling.

While we regained perspective that we were comparing against a very high trend and the rating was still higher than our minimum acceptable base (3.5), we took this opportunity to reflect on what we could learn from this experience.

First, a quick overview about Alchemy. Alchemy is a program for personal and professional transformation where participants gain awareness of their hitherto unexamined ways of being. Once aware, they are invited to choose whether they want to continue their existing mindsets and habits or choose differently, based on their personal vision of their lives. Most participants realise that the person they have become is just a function of their unconscious decisions during their formative years, based on what helped them survive. These strategies for survival become our strengths and weaknesses and we are often stuck with them. Once we reclaim authorship of our life and realise that these strengths or weaknesses can limit our progress towards our vision, we can choose differently. Alchemy then goes on to help participants practice new mindsets and habits that can help them move towards their personal visions with velocity.

The program is confrontational and unconventional. It pushes participants to come out of their comfort zones. Having been used to 18-20 years of education that is primarily knowledge transfer and not used to reflection and meta-cognition, participants initially struggle to turn the mirror on themselves. Also, having honed their strategies for survival, they mistake them for who they are and are not comfortable examining them. Very often, the amygdala fires and they see the coach's questions as an attack on their identity or self-perception. The coaches doggedly pursue participants in getting them to take action in their life. All this creates a love-hate relationship between the coaches and participants, where the participants hate the insistence but love the impact it creates in their lives.

We are used to participants resenting and resisting us. We are used to them grudgingly doing their home practice. But one thing that has consistently made it worth it, is that participants make progress. Their leadership capacity improves. They report higher levels of fulfilment in relationships, higher effectiveness at work and higher productivity in life. In this batch, while the resentment and resistance was there, the balancing fulfilment and effectiveness was less than expected!

We promote two fundamental mindsets in Alchemy: One, a Growth Mindset (In any situation, focus on what you can learn) and second, Being the Cause (In any situation, focus on what you can do)

Putting them into practice, this is what we learnt from this experience:
We need to make the program opt-in: We realise that we can only coach those who are willing to be  coached. Coaching is a dyad - its gets done through the pair of a coach and coachee. No coach can outperform his coachee. We found that those who embraced and practiced the program, made progress as per their feedback. Those who resisted and pretended, did not. Next time, we'll conduct an orientation for prospective participants to share 'what to expect' and then invite them to opt-in.

We need to work on Trust while being unreasonable in our expectations from the participants: We make demands on the participants that might appear unreasonable to them, esp in their existing paradigms. Usually, people want to 'understand' something or 'get convinced' before they take action. We ask them to reverse the order and 'give it a go' before evaluating whether it makes senses or not. This required them to trust us - we could have done more to generate this trust.

We need to continuously generate the context of being a coach: It is easy to lapse into our humanity and allow our usual disempowering contexts and identities to take over. Our desire to be liked, our desire to be admired and our desire to be right is part of our survival toolkit. As a coach, we need to continuously stay above these survival strategies and be used by the context of being a coach - being and doing whatever is need for our participants' progress. We need to take us out of the equation. One or two times, I felt we were at the impact of the participants' reaction and this created an unnecessary vicious cycle, where our response further re-inforced their reaction.

We need to up our game further: Every participant found something that they could take away for practice in their life. That being the case, there were a few parts of the program where the participants didn't feel as compelled to take action. We need to prepare alternate 'ways into' the participants that can spur them into action when our existing ways do not cut it.

5 days after the program ended, we're thankful for the experience. Continued success and glowing feedback from previous batches meant that conducting Alchemy for a certain set of people was within us. The feedback and rating from this batch, indicated that conducting it for every profile, situation and context was still outside of us. That's a potential area for growth. Now that we know it, we can choose to grow or not.

In line with our mission of continuously pursuing excellence in developing leaders, we choose to put these learnings into practice and become better in what we do.

Failure is Great!

Helping students understand Science or Maths - the importance of reading comprehension.

Rahul studies at Nyalkaran School in Class 7th. His father is very proud that his child goes to an English Medium school and is doing well. At Nyalkaran, the teacher comes into the class and reads aloud the chapter from the book. She then asks a student to stand up and read aloud a paragraph. The next student then gets to stand up and read aloud the next paragraph. This goes on till all students have read or the chapter is over.

Assuming that being able to read means that students have understood, the teacher then either dictates answers to the book-back questions or writes them down on the blackboard. Rahul copies them down and then commits them to memory. Come the term exams, he mugs up the answers and then goes and answer the questions. More often than not, he gets 70% marks or a B / B+ grade making his parents believe that while their boy is not a topper, he is in the top half of the class and therefore, doing reasonably well.

Give Rahul a book of Class 7th and he would read it with reasonable fluency. Ask him what it means and he draws a blank. Last time, I met Rahul, I asked him to bring his Science book. I opened it to the chapter on Motion and asked him if he had read it in school and completed it. He nodded in the affirmative. I asked him to read it for me. 'Oscillory Motion', he read 'is when an object moves to and fro from a mean position' referring to Oscillatory Motion. I asked him: what does this mean? He looked at me blankly. 'Can you show me oscillatory motion', I asked. Again blank. I said, 'Hindi men samjha do'. Blank, again. 'Nahin aata to koi baat nahi' I said soothingly. 'Nahi aata' he admitted.

I asked him to bring his Maths book and tried the same thing with word problems. No comprehension. His English books and Social Studies books have the same challenge. He can read but doesn't understand. Since he can't understand, he just mugs it up. Commits the answers to his short term memory and then vomits them out during his exam.

The challenge with students such as Rahul is that by memory and sight reading, they are able to recognise letter shapes, break up words and read text. But since they do not have the vocabulary and haven't learnt inferencing, they are unable to make sense of their reading. It is something like we being able to read a French text because we are familiar with the script but can't understand because we are not familiar with the semantics of the language. Reading Fluency is necessary but not a sufficient condition for Reading Comprehension.

Most teachers and educators do not understand this. Even those who know, do not apply it enough in identifying student challenges. Most problems that are seen as IQ problems or 'not good in science', 'not good in Maths' or 'not good in ICT' are actually problems of literacy - specifically of reading comprehension.

Mohit, another Class 6 student, was scratching his head in his class when I visited his school. The teacher had just given a unit test for formative assessment and most students had finished and left while he was still grappling with the questions. The teacher was mouthing soothing homilies such as: 'It is ok Mohit, concentrate'. 'Read the question carefully beta, it is ok, you can answer'. Poor Mohit would just stare harder at the test paper and then pretend to solve the question.

As I got closer to him and looked over his shoulder, I saw that he was merely copying the question to appear to be trying. I got down on my haunches to get to his eye level and asked him: Can you read this question to me? He read: 'The following are the steps in no particular order that one needs to follow, in order to prepare soup. Convert these steps from a bullet point order list into a numbered list in the correct order.'
Below it were written 6 steps like:

• Add ingredients to water
• Chop vegetables
• Stir the mixture
• Add salt and spice to vegetables
• Warm water
• Serve it in bowls

I put my hands over his shoulder and asked: Have you seen this question before?
No, he shook his head.
Do you know what does this question means?
He said: 'The following are the steps in no particular order............' and went on to repeat the question.
I said: Question samajh mein aaya?
He nodded his head in the negative.
I said: Ok, let's break it up. What does convert mean?
Don't know he indicated with a shake of his head.
Convert means change, I said. Does this list have bullet points?
Yes, he said.
So we need to change it. Change it into what, I asked? I pointed towards the phrase 'numbered list'.
He said: Change it into numbered list.

Second, what does correct order mean? Like 1,2,3,4 is correct order. Is 4,2,1,3, correct order?
No, he said.
So correct order means 'things are in the place they should be in'. Now look at this list. Do you know how to make soup?
Yes he said.
So check if this list is in correct order?
He read it. Then questions started tumbling out: What does ingredient mean? What does stir mean? As I explained the meaning, he started to put numbers on the list and slowly he had ranked the list in an order that made sense to him.

Does this look like the correct order of making soup? I goaded him.
Yes, he nodded.
Ok, now what do you have to do?
Write it down? he enquired.
Yeah, go ahead.
He went ahead and wrote down the list in the correct order as per him in a numbered list.

I wasn't keen to correct him on the order, just wanted to make sure he got a fair chance at attempting the question. Robbed of his strategy of mugging up answers to familiar questions, he was struggling. Armed with the ability to understand, he could solve.

If you give the same book back questions, the answers to which you have dictated in your class, don't be surprised if your students score well. And don't act surprised when the same students struggle in an ASSET or an external exams where they are not able to use the strategy of mugging up answers.

Courtesy: teacherpayteachers.com

Most knowledge areas need a language to access them. If the student has not built up the language ability of that Grade level, he will have to resort to mugging up, because the other faculty - of making sense and understanding - is unavailable to him. This is especially true for students whose mother tongue is not English (which is majority of India!). Making learning experiential is another strategy to drive understanding but it cannot completely compensate for literacy gaps.

Do check if your students' literacy levels are at Grade level. We often think of English as a subject and we forget that it is actually a gateway to access other subjects. Without solid reading fluency and comprehension, students will struggle to understand other subjects. Fixing literacy gaps of your students is of paramount importance before you start fixing their Maths, Science or ICT knowledge through remedials or tuitions

If you need help in checking Literacy levels, let me know.

Convocation address at Universal Group of Colleges

My dear friend Aaditya Lohana invited me to preside over the convocation of Graduate and post Graduate students of the group of 5 colleges that he mentors. Even though the occasion fell on our wedding anniversary, Smita sportingly agreed to accompany me. The event had the chaotic energy of youth and the desperate orderliness of experience all enmeshed into a packed hall. I chose to shorten my talk to the students, sensing their restlessness and eagerness to cut to the case. Here goes:

Good Afternoon Everyone!
An interesting thing happened to me when Aaditya called me and invited me to this ceremony. I went back to my convocation, 16 years back at IIM Ahmedabad. I remember where it took place, I remember that my parents had come for the occasion, I remember meeting some of my friends’ parents. I even remember that I was wearing the convocation robes. Beyond that I do not remember anything.
Nothing. I do not remember who gave me my degree. I do not remember who the Main Speaker was, let alone remembering what he said.

So as I stand today here in front of you, I wonder: What can I say that can make a difference in your life, so that 16 years later, you remember me?

Over the last 16 years, I have had the opportunity to interview more than 500 people as CEO of Zee Learn Limited and Managing Director at Leadership Boulevard. And I have noticed 2 things while meeting these eager young people. One, while most have good degrees, degrees do not assure knowledge. Second, while a lot of young people intend to do well, they have not learnt the skills required to lead their life effectively.

So, I want to leave you with 2 things. Just 2 things that I believe, if you imbibe in your life, nothing will come between you and success, whichever way you define success.

First, your learning does not end with getting a degree. In fact, it starts with it. Because your degree gives you the license to go learn from the biggest teacher of all - LIFE. Those of you who will always focus on learning from a situation will continue to grow and lead a happy, successful life. Those who'll focus on how they look in a situation and focus on proving how good they are, will soon find out that when learning stops, growth stops. So my first mantra to you is: Never stop learning. As long as you are alive - for the next 30, 40, 50 years, keep learning and growing.

Second, the answers you get in life depend on the questions you ask. In any situation, always ask what you can do, instead of asking who is to blame or why did this happen to me. Asking 'what I can do', leads to action and action moves you forward. Asking 'who is to blame' leads to people getting defensive and you going on witch hunts - neither moves you forward. Whether it is your country, your company or your family - always focus on what you can do, instead of blaming or pointing fingers.

Dear Students - Today is a great day for you. Let your hair down, celebrate, have fun - you've earned it!

And as you adopt these 2 mindsets, there is nothing that can come in the way of you leading a successful life. And hopefully, 16 years later, you’ll remember this day and you’ll remember me.

Thank you smile emoticon

My Top 5 from our 15th re-union

No. 5
Sports at D-18 lawns
When the mind think it's possible but the body declines. 10 overs a side cricket was ok because we were largely standing and waiting for the ball to come to us. But Frisbee showed our real state of fitness! We confidently asked Ambika to time a 7-minute half, but by the 4th minute, we were begging for half time. Stars who we did not unearth during Combos, showed what we had missed - DJ, Karthik, Goriya and Parag showed stamina and skill that we didn't know existed. But Ram, Phony, Havas and Boxer showed that for some of us, class is permanent! Overall, getting our hands dirty and breaking some sweat made Sports at D-18 lawns a worthy contender for No. 5 in my Top 5 list.

No. 4
Urbanization in Classroom 3 IMDC
When I realised what was still broken at our campus. Tearing apart Prof. Nanda's claim about the Top 3 at IIMA being at par with the Top 3 at Ivy League schools, the Prof. shared re-hashed slides from McKinsey, Isser Ahluwalia and Copenhagen under the guise of 'cutting-edge research'. Thanks to Whatsapp, BCG and Lodha Group providing moments of mirth, we dragged ourselves through the 70-minute torture. For me, it was a flashback to the umpteen boring lectures I attended at IIMA. At that time, I didn't realise it but a few years into the business world, I felt that what ails school education, also ails our so called institutes of excellence - lack of great teachers. Whether a chair solves the problem or not - this one aspect needs serious focus.

No. 3
After party 27th night, Room 917, Hotel Pride
When Mr. and Mrs. Havas showed that the after-party can be as entertaining as the Party.
Whether it was the intense discussion on 'whether men can fake it' or it was 'Modi and people's expectations', CP was of the highest order. Shagun, Ramya, Indrani brought personal experience into play, to defend their positions on faking. Between Nongi's detailed accounts of him applying 12 bottles of foundation on Shashank and Bhavtosh searching for Soma's sandals, Mani, DJ and Kuldeep gave us senti accounts of how IIMA changed their life. One thing was clear - our obsession with Top 5 continues unabated. Ramya and Nongi did a stellar job with the booze - so much so that after a while everyone had a glass half full with booze but no mixers! I have seldom seen 40 year old bald men trying to squeeze out the last drop of 7-up from a poor 330ml can!

No. 2
Party 26th night, Room 817, Hotel Pride
When we broke the ice and met as if we had never been away! A game of truth and dare which had Havas kissing Boxer and everyone revealing their Top 5 made, jumping over 15 years of not being in touch, a walk in the park. We quickly relapsed to a level of familiarity and warmth as if we had always stayed together, as if nothing had changed even though 15 years had passed! Pat and Havas made it an evening worth remembering. For me, it was a perfect precursor to the official reunion starting the next day.

No. 1
Shagun, Dholu on stage and a group of left footed dancers below. Party 27th night. Hotel Pride.
When Shagun and Dholu rolled back the years belting out number after number that got everyone on their feet. DJ, Ramya and Susu provided able support. Shiv Negi took it upon himself to pull everyone off his chair to join the dancing. At one point, he was seen pulling a waiter to the dance floor only to realise that the poor guy was just offering soup to him! Boxer drank too fast, passed out too soon and Ramya and Shweta had to call housekeeping to rescue the bottles stored in his room! The high quality of the music can be assessed from the fact that in a never-before-seen incident, Apte too, was seen shaking a leg! Not to forget the Batch of 2030 performing on stage with 'Let it go', 'I have a dream' and 'Apne Karam'. And not to forget Tunta's red trousers which threatened to set the night on fire!

No. 0
Cafe Coffee Day and Campus corridors - all 3 days.
In a departure from tradition, I'm introducing a No. Zero. Cafe Coffee Day next to Hotel Pride became our NR, Rambhai and D-14 coffee machine - all rolled into one. What groups couldn't possibly achieve - intimate conversations, phone no. exchanges, promises to drop-in or drop an email - it all happened in Cafe Coffee Day, Mirch Masala and Toran. For me, I got re-introduced to a lot of my batchmates - some of whom, I spoke to more in these 3 days than I had done in all 2 years on campus! I sensed the influence and energy this group of well-meaning people carries. I was overwhelmed by the number of people who wanted to contribute and connect for education and making a difference! For this and for rekindling old relationships and camaraderie, Cafe Coffee Day and the corridors on campus are my No. Zero.

Thank you everyone for creating the context for this list. Thanks to Kissan - without you this was beyond the realm of possibility!!

Look forward to seeing you all and more on our 20th re-union (Phoney will tell us when it's going to be). People in Singapore, HongKong, Dallas, Vietnam, Gurgaon, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai have extended warm invitations to everyone in the batch to drop in if they're passing through their town. I hope we'll take them up on their offer - whether to share a drink or an airport pick-up!

Stay Blessed and Love you all!
Senti.

Creating Great Teachers - 2

CGS 1 - Creating Great Teachers  - 2

As I read yesterday's DNA of education, I was disappointed by the lack of rigour from journalists and the 'experts' they quote. The issue of teacher effectiveness is a complex one with no silver bullet.

Any attempt to solve the problem necessitates a deep understanding and a step by step delayering of the apparent causes. Saying things like 'change the B.Ed curriculum' or 'increase the salaries' ignore the interlinkages involved in the issue.

Let's look at how did we get here.

In 1954, my father was in the merit list in Punjab state in the 10th grade. He was a topper in Intermediate and then graduation. He could have prepared for Civil Services but chose to be a teacher. And was he good! Over 36 years, he was instrumental in shaping the lives of thousand of students.

When he was graduating, teaching was a profession that was looked upon with respect. There was dignity and regard for teachers. People looked up to them. Most jobs were in Government or Government aided schools. Private schools were a small drop in the ocean. The income disparity between teachers and other professions existed but it wasn't as wide as it is today.

The general climate in the country was of idealism. People were fired up to do great work and change the world.

These are broad brush narratives but they illustrate the point. People choose their future to avoid what they did not like in their past and this choice gets created in a broader cultural context of what is admired and what is ridiculed. Social admiration is a very important currency.

The current reality is that economic prosperity is the shortest route to social admiration. And the teaching professions does not offer it.

The ideal situation is not for every 'bright young folk' to become a teacher once we fix the social admiration issue. Different people are intrinsically interested in different things (even without the distorting effects of social admiration). But can we create conditions where children who are intrinsically interested in the creative and inter-personal areas, pursue a career in teaching?

When the problem is articulated as above, the obvious solution is to increase teacher salaries. And this can, of course, be part of the solution. But executing it is tricky, as we'll see below.

Economic prosperity has no material limit. Greed often overtakes need and quite quickly. But as long as teachers are in the top tertile of the income bracket, I assume the profession would attract students who are intrinsically inclined and who want economic prosperity. It is my assertion that for teaching to be able to attract talent, the profession should offer the potential to earn 35,000 - 50,000 per month (indexed to cost of living of the place). 

This leads to the deeper question of - From where will the money for these salaries come? 

For Government schools, the government just does not have the money! Here's why:
India's GDP is $1.8 trillion. Our spend on education is 3.3% of GDP which translates to $61 billion or INR 3650 billion. Almost 60% of this spend goes on teacher salaries (rest goes on admin, teaching aids, activities etc) which means the money available for teacher salaries is INR 2190 billion. India needs close to 12 million teachers to service its 360 million school going population (a student: teacher ratio of 30:1 which is on the higher side. Good school systems have a ratio close to 20:1). This means we, as a country can afford only INR 15,000 per month as teacher salaries (2190 billion / 12 million /12 months). This includes all benefits, retirals etc. So unless, we increase our GDP ahead of population growth and increase our spend on education (6% of GDP instead of 3.3%), we do not have the money to make teaching an attractive destination for talent!

For private schools, teacher salaries are paid from the student fee. For teacher salaries to be at 35,000 - 50,000 level and the schools to make a decent 15% return, the fees would need to be at least in the range of INR 3000 - 3500 per month. How many parents afford this? No wonder, most private schools are offering education factories with 50 children in a classroom and teachers who are paid between INR 5000-8000 per month!

Net, the economic model underlying schools does not currently permit teacher salaries to be at a level where they are attractive to talent at scale. So the few parents who can pay get access to schools where teachers are paid well and the rest make do with poor private schools or worse, government schools.

The solution to this issue needs to be created in a broader framework where our school system needs to be re-imagined. But before we get there, let's get a couple of issues out of our way.

The above discourse rests on the assumption that if you attract talent to teaching (and you have the budget to pay all those teachers 35,000 - 50,000 per month!), learning for all students will automatically take place. That assumption is faulty.

Creating great teachers not only needs talent to come in, but also needs 2 more things to be firmly in place:
1. A great teacher education program that is continuous
2. A system of accountability that fosters performance

Will cover these in detail in my next post.


Post script:
Any solution to improve the social admiration attached to the teaching profession would be incomplete if it rests only on increasing the economic incentive from teaching. The solution needs to include social structures that celebrate teachers and teaching. In the list of Top 100 Indian celebrities why are there no teachers? Why are there no role model teachers who are national heroes? Why are educators, education and learning not sexy enough to occupy headline news and trending topics on social media? There needs to be a concerted effort to put teaching, learning and teachers back on a platform that captures public imagination. This will encourage youngsters to take up teaching by offering another way to get social admiration.

Creating Great Teachers

Teacher training does not make great teachers.

This comes from the last training I conducted for teachers. I recognised that while a lot of focus is on subject matter expertise, CCE, classroom management etc., it is like applying cold cream on cow dung.

Unless teachers become self-aware, they'll not become good teachers. Why do I say so?

Our beliefs and mindsets lie at the root of our actions. What we believe about the child, about learning and about assessing, shows up in how we deal with children.

Teachers who believe that they need to know everything, don't give themselves the option to admit they don't know. They would rather shut up a child asking an interesting higher order question, than admit that they don't know and will find out the answer later. 

Teachers who believe that children need to listen when the teacher is talking insist on pin drop silence. Their belief makes them create lectures where they become the fountainhead of knowledge and children the silent receptacles.

Teachers who believe that some children are born smart and some are not, focus on telling children whether they are smart or dumb, hard working or lazy and creative or not. Their belief focuses them on results and scores and makes them categorise the classrooms into haves and have nots.

Bear in mind, that most teachers mean well. They are in this profession to do good. They want their students to succeed. But being prisoners of their beliefs and mindsets, they act in ways that run contrary to their intent.

So we have a swarm of teachers who intend well, but act bad. And no amount of Continuous and Comprehensive Examination or Classroom Management strategies will help. It is the beliefs that need to be pulled out from their sub-conscious level to the conscious level where they can examined. Until that happens, teachers continue to be driven by their beliefs without being aware of them!

One of the basic belief that needs altering is our belief about talent. Most teachers believe that talent is inborn. Their assessments are designed to find who are talented. Their reporting give each child a label of poor, fair, good, very good - categorising them into the talent have's and have not's.

Carol Dweck's pathbreaking work has proven that talent is not inborn. Interest is. Effort and practice is what builds talent. Once teachers adopt this belief, they focus on children's behaviour, not labels. And children in those classrooms, focus on what they have learnt and how much more they need to learn, not whether they are talented or not.

Another belief is about children as learners. Are they reluctant learners who need to be coerced or cajoled to learn, who continuously need to be told to pay attention, who need to be put in a classroom lest they get distracted? Or are they curious learners who want to know more and figure out things as long as it is interesting for them? Depending on which belief we adopt, our actions as teachers, alter.

There are a host of others beliefs that run teachers - about children, about learning, about school and about their role as teachers. As teachers become aware of their existing beliefs, they can see the actions that spring from these beliefs. And they can also see why their actions end up contrary to their intentions.

Teacher Education needs to start from examining their underlying beliefs and then creating a skill set for teaching. Else, we'll continue to have teachers who intend well but act bad.

5 steps to the India of our dream

Reams have been written about the Dec 16th Delhi gangrape. People have addressed the issue at 3 levels:
1. Reaction: Kill/castrate/hang/shame/punish the perpetrators of the crime.
2. Analysis: It happened because Indian society is repressed or judicial system is slow or police is toothless or worse, complicit or the girl was to be blamed or the stars were to be blamed or chowmein was to be blamed
3. Polarization: Attack and ridicule at people whose reaction or analysis disagrees with ours.

The gruesome incident seems to have significantly reduced the space for free speech, respectful debate and multiple perspectives. This polarization and antagonism is sure to come in the way of any sustainable solution. Here's why:

There is a current India. 
And there is an India of our dream - The ideal India.

The current India has a lot of people who are not like us. They think differently, have different mindsets, and therefore, act differently.  This current India can be mapped on two axis - Mindset and Economic power. It looks like this (this is simplistic but mostly accurate):

And it betrays the fact that at the time of independence, we chose a democratic system of governance and a constitution based on justice, liberty, equality & fraternity without really believing in it. This inauthenticity is coming to fore and is at the core of most issues facing our nation.

Most of India does not really believe in the principles enshrined in the Preamble to our constitution. Ask any husband or mother-in-law about the equality of women and they'll scoff at you. Women have long been seen in the image of Annapoorna, Mata, the provider and the home-maker. So when Mohan Bhagwat says that “A husband and wife are involved in a contract under which the husband has said that you should take care of my house and I will take care of all your needs. I will keep you safe. So, the husband follows the contract terms. Till the time, the wife follows the contract, the husband stays with her, if the wife violates the contract, he can disown her.”, he is merely repeating the vows that most Hindus take at the marriage altar. We ridicule him at our own peril because he is giving voice to a million who think exactly like him.

When Asaram says that “She should have taken God’s name and could have held the hand of one of the men and said ‘I consider you as my brother’, and should have said to the other two ‘Brother I am helpless, you are my brother, my religious brother", he's applying his received wisdom to the situation because in his world, woman is at the mercy of men. Beseeching the aggressor to validate his male ego is an accepted ritual.

Ditto that for the MLAs and MPs advocating longer dresses, overcoats, night curfew and the works for women. They are applying their knowledge and beliefs to the situation.

This is real. They are as much Indian as any of us. We might not like what they say and what they believe in, but they are here. And they are the majority. So what should women do? Should they accept this reality? Should they fight against these outdated mindsets? What should we do? The answer begins with the ideal we are aspiring.

The 5 steps to an Ideal India (in no particular order)

I do not suggest that we create a new shared vision. Our constitution has given us a great ideal - that of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity. The challenge is to make it truly a shared vision. And put it into practice with integrity.

I might believe that women are better as homemakers than at career but it is not my decision to make. In the India of our ideal, every women will have the liberty to choose whether to stay at home as a homemaker or step out as career woman. Ditto for what to wear, where to go, at what time and with whom. No male can accord this right to himself - it is not his decision to make. 

Are we there yet? Far from it. Most women in India don't even have a choice. Theirs is a life of survival - abject poverty perpetuated by gross illiteracy. Get enough drinking water, enough food to feed her family, enough clothes to cover the bodies, a roof over her head. Their conception of honor is shaped and colored by the conditioning of their economic reality and their patriarchal upbringing. No wonder Abhijit Mukherjee and Mohan Bhagwat said what they said. These women don't know what is possible for them and hence don't ask. And their silence is taken as affirmation that things are ok. Unless the economic and education levels of women in India improve, there is little hope of our constitutional ideals coming to bear. This is step 1. Fundamental. Affirmative action for women. Can we implement RTE for women first? Can we ensure adequate boundary walls, toilets for them when they come to school? Can we have special scholarships for them? Can we have special training, coaching and mentoring for them? If our women are educated and empowered, half the abuse will disappear (rhetorical but am willing to bet on it)

What happens when people do not act as per our ideals? What happens when they commit crimes? The 'conservative haves' see themselves above the law. The lack of justice delivered, has emboldened them to a level where any excess is fair game for them. Whether it is breaking rules when it suits them or bumping anyone who is an inconvenience, they do anything to achieve what they want. And they don't fear any consequence because there isn't any. It is an old boy's network and the only way to get in is with money, mostly ill gotten. Our judicial system needs to uphold the idea of justice. Our laws have to be strengthened to prevent abuse - child abuse, women abuse, any abuse of power, instance of which, we see everyday around us - man over woman, rich over poor, political goonda over hapless layman, policeman over hawker, babu over businessman, business tycoon over employee. Police has to be decriminalized and depoliticized. Cases need to be dealt with faster. We need more judges. We need to demand it because the 'conservative haves' will not allow it. This is step 2. Constitutional, Judicial and Institutional (mainly police and bureaucracy) Reform. And justice delivered. 

And what about the crimes committed by the 'have nots'? What about the daily incidents of robbery, murder, rape? The 'have nots' mostly lack the scaffolding of moral fibre that a basic economic well-being, a good upbringing, role modelling or education create. And it is easy to imagine why we, the 'haves' rankle on their nerves. 24 hour news channels beam news of wedding invitations coming with Rolex watches followed by the Delhi CM announcing that ₹600 is enough for a family of 5 for a month! And news of a tycoon flying everyone and his grandmother to a Jaipur palace where elephants wait to get them to their rooms is followed by news of homeless dying of the winter cold and seeking refuge in Sulabh toilets. A man pushing a cart is honked and glared at by the driver of a BMW for slowing him down. It is not that people who have wealth, use it as they please. It is that there are so many people without any of it and they have to suffer the excesses of the rich in front of their eyes, day in and day out. A constant reminder of what they are missing. A constant reminder that the state has failed them. Unless we bring them out of poverty and illiteracy, the spiral of violent crime will continue to increase. We ignore this at our own peril. This is step 3. A well researched poverty alleviation & education program that is not only based on subsidy (give a man fish) but on sustainable employment / entrepreneurship (enable him to fish).

Lastly, What happens when people who are supposed to serve and protect us, turn on us and start abusing their power? What happens when they plunder our resources, are ready to do anything as long as the price is right and are driven by recovering their election investment than any sense of public service? Why is it that 150+ MPs have criminal cases against them? How do we get criminals out of politics and bring back the sense of service? This is step 4. Electoral Reform. We need a transparent system of political funding (that Indira Gandhi abolished) to prevent black money of criminals and favor-seekers we also need. And we need to debar candidates with criminal record from contesting (with safeguards to prevent abuse with false cases to prevent good candidates). This will clear the way for the 'liberal haves and have nots' to contest elections. We need a fresh transfusion of clean blood in Indian politics and we need it real soon!

This begs the question: Why isn't this being done? I'll answer this with another one: Whose interest will it serve? The 'conservative haves' who rule India do not see it in their interest. Status quo is in their interest. We have to hold them to account. Show them the inauthenticity between what they proclaim (the constitution) and what they practice! Unless we, the 'liberal haves' stand up to demand that we practice our preamble, we'll continue to be taken for a ride. This is step 5. Public protest. Peaceful but forceful. 

These 5 steps can lead us to the India of our ideals. The India of our dreams, as mentioned in our Preamble. It would look like this (again, simplistic but close):

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While we are at it and while we work to create the India of our dreams, here's a handy guide for the women of my country. I don't mean to be presumptuous or pedantic but this is what I would say to my sister, my daughter, my wife and female friends:


Take the locus of control of your safety in your hands. The whole exercise of asking men to change so you can be safe, betrays your underlying sense of powerlessness. Let's change our country but while we do it, let's be safe:
a. Learn personal safety. Be a person who others can't mess with. Judo, Boxing, Pepper spray, Chilli powder - whatever works for you. While we wait for the country to become safe, let's start by becoming a person who can take care of herself.
b. If you are partying late, be with people you know and be sure you have a female friend, who you and your family trusts, with you.
c. If you are out late, don't be alone. Ensure there is a trusted friend with you. Avoid public transport that is secluded.
d. If you befriend someone on the internet, do not meet him alone the first few times.
e. If you are choosing to wear a short skirt or a cleavage showing top, ensure you are in a place where that's an accepted form of dressing and with people who don't see it as an invitation to make a pass.
f. Drink but do not accept drinks from strangers. Also, it doesn't hurt to ask a new male acquaintance offering you drinks, to drink it himself.

These can be clubbed under 'common sense' and would hold true in any country or any culture. And these can avoid  at least some of the instances that we keep reading about in the papers.


Jai Hind

Where did we go wrong? (And how to right it)

I will not spend time explaining why this post came to be. The horror of India's daughter's murder is too painful to recount. I have been wondering how we came to be a society where people of my gender think it is ok to rape and mutilate a woman. Is it about power? Is it depravity? Is it sexual urges finding release? Is it pent up frustrations finding an outlet? Is it anarchy where people just think they can get away with anything? Is it lack of education? Bad upbringing? Absence of role models?

There have been so many questions and so few answers. I have tried to stay away from rants of instant justice - castration, hanging, stoning, mutilating. I don't want to become one of them. I want justice to be done and I want to it to be done with due process. I just want the process to be fast. I don't want to see the accused going out on bail, the witness turning hostile, the judge falling ill or the police officer getting transferred. One thing going for the case (if anything could!) is that the accused are not high profile, politically influential, rich people. They are easy targets for hostility - illiterate, uncouth bus drivers and their friends. They are people we can imagine to be indulging in such heinous crime. God forbid, if it were some politician's nephew or some industrialist's son. Facts would have been distorted, PR machineries would be activated and the victim would have been turned into a vamp.

None of that thankfully happened in this case and hence, the battle lines are clearly drawn. This polarization gives us the opportunity to see the problem clearly and without any smokescreens. This gives us the opportunity to do something about it. And after all the rage, it is time to reflect on what led to this and resolve to act against it.

Shireesh, my ex-boss and friend rightly pointed out that it has come to be about 'what is it that we can get away with'? In a civil society, we are supposed to live by some rules. Power has checks and balances. Sex is consensual. Money is legally earned and taxes paid on it. Ownership to property and wealth is protected by law. If someone steps out of the legal framework, he is given punishment commensurate with the crime.

These rules hold if everyone plays by them. Or those who do not play by them, at least publicly accord themselves specials rights to not play by them - some use religion, some use force and others invoke royal lineage. The problem occurs when we say we are all equal but behave unequally. Democracy in theory means everyone is equal and government is by the people, of the people and for the people. Democracy in action though is very different. It is feudalism in disguise. True, you choose your government but in effect you choose who you'll be ruled by.

When some people start to regard themselves above the law, it frays the fabric of civil society. More and more people start to test how much they can get away with. The problem is exacerbated when minor crimes are left unpunished. This emboldens petty criminals to try for bigger and bolder adventures. And slowly anarchy sets in. Then everything goes.

Anger, Lust, Envy and Greed are base human tendencies present in everyone. They stay in check because our education and upbringing creates a strong context against them, that they are BAD. Civil society creates more barriers by creating a punitive framework where acts emerging out of these basal instincts are met with severe punishment thereby creating deterrents.

In India today, neither of these exist. Our law and order system has gone for a toss. People see politicians and the rich get away with crimes of murder, bribery, extortion and adultery. Nothing happens to them. Whether it is ND Tiwari, A Raja, Lalu Yadav, Jagan Reddy, Sharad Pawar, Vijay Mallya, Navin Jindal....the list is endless. They think anything goes - why not have a go. After all, our basal instincts are at play all the time!

Our education system and our value system is terribly frayed. Moral science is just a subject - often inconsequential since it is without marks. Teachers are very rarely role models - they are typically bottom of class and choose this as a vocation of last resort. Families perpetuate existing prejudices. When boys see themselves treated better than their sisters or nieces, they think this how it is supposed to be. Mothers often ask their daughters to help them in cooking, cleaning and sweeping while their sons can eat, drink and be merry.

Unless, this triad of education, family and deterrent works, this anarchy will continue.

People need to understand what is right and what is wrong. And they need to see that when someone does wrong, he meets with the consequence commensurate with his wrongdoing.

For this to happen, we need to hire more judges. We need to hire more policewomen and free up policemen from VIP security to common man. We need to train them better and we need to pay them better. We need to free the police and judges free from political influence. We need to pass stronger laws for the safety of women.

We need to create a national movement that questions are existing biases and prejudices. Bollywood, TV channels, NCERT, UGC and NCTE - all have a role to play in education because formally and informally, they both create and mirror societal values.

But the most important one is the need to decriminalize our politics. The whole economics of elections where a person needs to 'invest' crores of rupees, forces a person to 'recover' that investment with a decent return over his term of 5 years. And since legal and above-board ways of recovering those crores don't exist, we are creating a system that necessitates corruption, cronyism and favoritism. The profile of our Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha is a testimony to the cliche - politics is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Electoral reform is the biggest lever we have to improve our society. Election funding has to be made more transparent. Criminals have to be barred from contesting elections. Unfortunately, the very leaders who are supposed to create these laws are products of the same system - so there is a conflict of interest.

It is us, civil society, who will have to demand this and make it happen. And more of us have to join politics. These ideas are not for instant gratification. While the hanging of the 6 accused will assuage our anger (and mine too), we need to go deeper and longer to see real change!