A student along with his
parent walks in to the CFRCE premises and as they are about to enter the
visitors' chamber, notice a quotation on the wall by Helen Keller, "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing". As they look below they are struck by another quotation by Aldos Huxley, "Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you." As they are wondering what the connection is between these two, their eyes fall on yet another by Jadunath Sarkar, "India
cannot afford to forever remain an Intellectual parish, a beggar for
crumbs from Cambridge and Oxford, Paris and Vienna. She must create
within herself a place for highest intellectual research and regain her
rightful place as the leader of Asia even as Periclean Athens was, the
leader of Hellas".
A few
steps more and they enter the Director's chamber. The Director welcomes
them with a broad smile and ushers them to take their seats. He asks,
"What can we do for you?" The parent begins immediately, "My son here is
in the seventh grade. We know he is bright but he is quite lazy. He is
not responsible. He does anything but study." The Director nods
reassuringly and asks the parent, "Does your son play? Does he
watch television? Does he like gadgets?" The parent responds, "He is
doing that all the time. That is the problem."
The
Director smiles once again and says, "That is not a problem, it is the
solution." "What do you mean?" The parent asks somewhat bewildered. "You
see," explains the Director, "It is not indispensable to study in order
to learn. Indeed, study need not have anything to do with learning
though when used intelligently, can play a powerful role. Neither does
learning have anything to do with studies though it may often motivate
one to study."
"What?" asks
the parent, "What do you mean?" "It is just this," says the Director,
"What is important in any activity is the outcome. Once that is clear,
there can be several ways to achieve them. Learning means, creating new
neural networks in the brain that mirror the processes that go into the
actions one needs to take to achieve the outcome. The brain unlike a
computer has the ability to cross-train itself. This makes it possible
to transfer skills across domains, somewhat like technology transfer. At
CFRCE we specialize in redirecting the natural movements of children
and indeed, any individual whatsoever, towards desired outcomes. For
instance, we motivate a child who excels at games to use the same
activity to learn school lessons. Games then do not become a distraction
but a powerful mode of learning.”
“But” asks the parent, “is it really possible? Can my son achieve top
scores in that manner?” “Yes,” reassures the Director, “Not only that,
he will achieve in the true sense of the term. He will grow into a
harmonious personality with qualities of leadership and entrepreneurship
and fine social sense with a feeling of contribution to society. These
will be the subtle, deeper effect of mentoring at CFRCE. As far as
formal academics is concerned, every year, our students go on to achieve
academic excellence of the highest order and those who complete their
12th grade go on invariably to top institutions in the world like
Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, WPI, Carnegie Mellon University, Purdue
University, etc to name a few.
But we consider this a lesser part of our fulfillment than the former.”
"Do I take it that you can take my son through the mentoring program
and make him successful?" Asks the parent. "Let's go into it a little so
that we can know he is ready for it," replies the Director.
"Would you be taking a test? An Interview?" Continues the parent.
"Not
exactly," the Director goes on, "However, we communicate with the
student and make certain observations. We then deduce certain facts."
"How can you do that?" Asks the parent. "Well," goes on the Director,
"The essence of all learning stems from the power of communication.
There are certain cues that one may pick up. These reveal more than mere
tests that are after all, forcing the student to remain self-conscious.
To determine whether a student can really adapt to the intense, but
natural and spontaneous learning we install rather than just instil, in
the student, we need to observe the student when he/she is in a natural
state. That, I have already done. Your son seems to be quite bright. As
we were discussing, I could see that he had turned his face slightly
away. One would think he was bored. His eyes, however, reveal that he
was quite alert. It is just that he, if I am not mistaken, learns more
by listening. He inclined his right ear to do that, and appeared to be
looking away."
"That's right. I was listening," says the student.....
Fifteen
minutes later, the student is in a really excited state. He has asked
questions on topics he had been thinking all along and found how to
answer them.
"Do you think my son can now join the mentoring program?" Asks the parent.
"There still is one more thing that needs to be done. After that we can decide upon that."
"What is that?" Asks the parent.
"He needs to answer this scientific puzzle, here on this paper," says the Director.
The student bends down and reads the puzzle. As he is reading, his features brighten up.
Five
minutes later, he is successful in tackling it. He is now ready to to
become one of the keenest young minds, ready to take on topics years
beyond him in a bold, adventurous, impetuous and joyful manner.
