Learning to LEARN as a hobby!
To teach is a priority for any teacher but to empower is a requisite. Being an educator, a national teacher awardee, an education innovator, a KAZEN initiator in Academics and an author, I ponder over my learning to be updated or downgraded. Thanks to our honourable Prime Minister Modi Ji, who dwelled some learning to the majority by means of new vocabulary featuring, DEMONETISATION, CALIBRATION and GST among the majority. Well, trust me, I did not know these terms earlier and would believe the same for many of you too!
Welcome to the world of learning, let us begin the learning to learn by giving yourselves a round of applause for it is a moment of happiness and HAIL- which stands for Honesty, Authenticity, Integrity and Love.
I love going my way of learning to learn with fun, joy and interest to deliver something new every time I meet my friends and relatives.
LEARNING TO LEARN, Must be a hobby rather than an occasional occurrence. I wish to relate the ideas, as adults one has to incorporate to be on a learning spree via the power of technology and online reputation management (ORM) as a requisite.
With years of my teaching career for over 27 to count on fingers, the one most important thing I remember both as a student and as a teacher is “CAN DO BETTER”. This may be one of the only REMARKS or the COMMENTS in our report cards of yester years to mark a fun or a pun over being precise. Over the years, what has not changed is our learning standards but the priority remains with a preface of novel vocabulary of A for ANDROID, B for BLACK BERRY and C for CLOUD to taste of many.
Learning comes with pace to re-invent our knowledge and what we know. Let us not blame others for the more we blame the lamer we become. I started my TEACHING career way back in April 90’ with the spectrum of me being just out of school, attending the University and at the same time undergoing a Diploma Course in Computer Software and Teaching. I was the few who calibrated earning out of learning as a trend to deliver. I remember my time used to be so fascinating with the world of COMPUTERS with Word Star, Lotus, dBase, BASIC, Cobol and Fortran with C being a craze and a trend. Teaching computer science was indeed a fascination to kids who had the excitement of practicals and gaming. The time passed, I joined my own school at Boys’ High School, Allahabad as a teacher at 10+2 level with competencies being there as deliverables as per the Council For The Indian School Syllabus. The first ever batch on Computer Science, had just 7 students with a girl and 6 boys, I remember, I was more worried than them on the day of exam.
Time passed. I migrated from Allahabad, the sangam city, to Lucknow, the city of Nawabs’ and joined the world’s biggest school, City Montessori School, as a Computer Teacher and paved some of my golden years of learning for over 14 long years.
Year 2005 paved a grand recognition with the declaration of the Best Teacher by the Government of India and I was awarded the NATIONAL TEACHER AWARD by His Excellency, Late Dr. Abdul Kalam Azad, the then President of India. I still remember his words during his hand shake when he said, “To have a small aim in life is the biggest crime in the world”, the words still reverberate in my ears and instill in me the power to excel in life as a habit.
Every individual has to incorporate self motivation to be the best and explore the best. My talk would deliver the probable towards being excellent via the belief KAIZEN, the mantra of continuous improvement to ease the discomfort in life by accepting defeat rather than taking every failure as a feedback in particular. With my years of experience as an EDUCATOR I wish to share about LEARNING qualities one should have to impress some one during every day scenario via some of the tools of excellence and communication skills with building of rapport as a requisite in particular. My years of teaching and learning encountered many hidden challenges to mount to my anxiety but being with the students was always exciting and entertaining provided I was prepared in the class. For I believe, failing to plan is indeed planning to fail in reality.
In addition, the SIX SIGMA in EDUCATION is an innovation where we utilize the power of DMAIC cycle to re-discover the problems and derive solutions for a WOW Learning scenario within schools.
My bucket list has had some desires as of always with a spectrum of writing books, generating ORM- the cloud presence, signifying Online Reputation Management has been one of my hobbies in particular. I believe, learning to learn must be a hobby rather than an occasional occurrence. The nurture of our individuality has to have a priority to create rapport with people around as a requisite. The aim is to explore the connect and encapsulate learning via tools of one of the models of communication and excellence, NLP, popularly known as Neuro Linguistic Programming.
I recently published my latest book, NLP FOR TEACHERS towards Quality Teaching Skills within classrooms.
There is an urgent need to emphasize on implementing the concept of human excellence through our connect of Matching, Mirroring and Visualization. THE IDEA IS TO CATCH THEM YOUNG AND INNOCENT. This has its impact on the majority of our attributes and make us wiser, confident and dynamic. The spectrum lies to the taste of loving the subject we address and deliver with our talks and dimensions to the view point in action.
The various awards I received further prompted me to do more and more for the world of education. My books have generated much of likes and downloads via the SCRIBD links and I do propose every individual here to explore the PRESENCE felt by the powerful use of TECHNOLOGY.
Be tech strong not savvy!.
For every individual to be prepared to attain success has to have a self belief for as a Teacher I believe making learning happen is not an easy task for the new age learners. The wonder is over learning via WWW- enhancing learning through whatever, whenever and wherever possible to the surprise of many with a classroom or a library not at all being the arena for learning to take place. The tech world of today is not only liked but appreciated by the majority these days.
We are known today by the QUALITY of apps we have in our mobiles. This prompted me to activate learning for the common man particularly the parents, teachers and school owners via the mobile applications.
It was my great pleasure to start working on developing these mobile apps and I could do the needful after the great motivation from our PRIME MINISTER, Shri Narendra Modi, when he visited US and had mentioned about some teacher who had developed few applications for the community.
I have a dream, to explore the world of learning with things in my bucket list and I wish the same for you all too. The preface of my book is not limited with the number of pages but the chapter I am yet to ponder over. What to include is yet to be curated. The pace to the wonder of wonders (WOW) as capsules is yet to excite the masses and so to me.
Let us learn to respond and not react with the say of others for TIME flies but knowledge remains and gets credited to our nature, personality, individuality and a means in totality. Let us learn to be flexible, innovative and willing to take risks. The sky is not always blue and so is the water not always clear, let us expand and deliver the pride to know the world with the beauty of taste to deliver and march smart. The priority must be to CURE IGNORANCE and LEARNING to matter. We as adults need to nurture the taste to being WORKING the talk and not just walking the talk or TALKING the talk as others. The pride is to make a difference by being connected.
As the demand explores from the society, the ICT expertise is not only a luxury but a requisite for the masses. We now tend to govern our lives through the power of technology. The students are no far behind either and managing the GOOGLE GENERATION is not an easy tasks for all our teachers and elders.
The desire of the children who tend to replace their teachers with the expectation of a GOOGLE window look forward to a preface in a big bang way.
The statement above sounds funny but alarming.
We need to be on a spree of learning and I repeat, Learning to learn must be a hobby rather than an accessional occurrence.
The trend is changing with the pace of learning. But we can not dream of even teaching the way we were taught.
Is what is desired. A rockstar teacher is what is a necessity today.
A ROCK STAR TEACHER uses 21ast century ICT Tools to create self directed learners acting as agents of change.
I end my talk with the quote:
Learning to Learn must be a hobby rather than an occasional occurrence and let any failure to be a feedback with a possibility of doing it better the next time via LEARNING as a continuous phase to enrichment.
Dr. Dheeraj Mehrotra
Dr. Dheeraj Mehrotra is an Academic Evangelist with Next Education India, Author, Innovator, A National Teacher Awardee and a TED-x Speaker with expertise in Six Sigma In Education, NLP – Neuro Linguistic Programming and Experiential learning. He can be visited at www.dheerajmehrotra.com