THE DRIVING FORCE

Asked the students to make a presentation on "What is the driving force in your career?/What motivates you in your job-work-profession/What excites you in your workplace-institution-organisation/What life-purpose do you see being fulfilled by being in this position?  

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When to start teaching English Communication in schools?

If a person shuns his mother tongue, then he/she may lose the basic clarity of thought process that is necessary for one's development as an individual. ---MT Vasudevan Nair, Jnanpith Award winning author

During a training session for a batch of XI class students, one of them mentioned that in her previous school where they had to speak only in English or else were made to pay fine if they spoke in their mother tongue and the kind of bitterness she felt towards the school authorities' who imposed such a draconian law that curtailed their right to speak in their natural language of thinking and made them feel frustrated and suffocated creatively and vocally; this made one feel that the right age to learn to "Think and Speak in English" should ideally be after ten and it should happen out of their volition. If you ban the use of mother tongue in institutions especially where the learners are very young in age then it is like killing their ability to think and speak altogether. The students stand a chance to lose the most important God given gift they had been endowed with at the time of birth - the gift of thinking and discovering which is so useful to understand their own minds, their society and the natural environment where they live.

Besides this too much emphasize on speaking without clearly telling the students/learners the basic rules to make a simple English sentence is also a futile exercise in itself. The ideal way is to first let them enjoy and empower their thoughts in their native language and then gradually expose them to a few expressions and a few rules to make sentences in English. Let the students have the best of both worlds. Let them be open, non-judgmental and neutral to all languages. Let them not be swayed by the culture of the native speakers of a particular language. Let them see language only as a vehicle, a tool to carry their thoughts across to an audience and nothing else. The audience matters, not the language. Let the situation, the occasion define the chosen language. And let people be proficient in multiple languages and feel the freshness of their thoughts when dressed in the right robes. 

Who are we, ordinary mortals, to tamper with/cripple their minds by banning their thoughts if expressed in their mother tongue. I am asking this question again, who are we to play with their natural evolution in the way they think, reason, imagine, feel, introspect and reflect. Let there be diversity in the way people think and express their thoughts and in this uniqueness lies the true answer to the well being and happiness of societies.

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STORY NARRATION

Asked the students to narrate a scene/story/script/situation to an actor and then direct the scene with the actor enacting the role.

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Being In Someone Else's Shoes Ex.

Asked the students to imagine that they have got a power to send their mind/thoughts/spirit into somebody else ie., a famous/rich/influential/powerful person. Whom would you like to be if given such a power to live in the body of some other human being for a few minutes? 

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The REAL SOCIAL NETWORK not Facebook

Where is the REAL SOCIAL NETWORK? Where are the minds that think about society as a whole (and not about their individual selves however big/nice it may seem to be)?

Are human beings finding social network dispensable? No, it's not the social network like Facebook which is the center of this discussion. It's the real society around us, the people who make our society. 

In most of our thoughts and conversations people don't figure at all. Why is it so? Are human beings less important than mobiles/automobiles? Have we lost our compassionate mind? 

Where is the human society now that was once so vibrant, dynamic and passionate about each others' welfare? Today people go to social functions, gatherings, activities not to engage/ participate/contribute to the betterment of the community but just to see that you are keeping up with the Jones's. The social health/well being/progress is hardly given any thought. 

And the fallout of this trend is quite visible in the way our traffic, our public utilities like libraries, our hospitals, our schools, our media, our transport system etc.  are concerned. When there is no wealth/wave of thoughts, the social fabric just gets lifeless, colorless and dies out. It's time for some thoughts and discussions on how to reconstruct the social edifice on which all the existence of the human species rests.

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EC Gossip/ Why do people spread gossip/watch TV serials?

Gossiping ie., spreading rumors etc. about other people(our own fellow beings) is a common pastime among those who spend most of their time at home, doing household chores. This kind of a conversation/discussion gives their mind an outlet to release their pent up(repressed) feelings which get accumulated as a result of their frustration in living up to the perceived/learned social rules/ethos/roles. The repressed mind of a person needs somebody to target their baser instincts/emotions/feelings on. Most of the time the prey/victim happens to be a neighbor/relative who seems to be leading a better/happier/more successful life than the rumor/gossip monger. 

Watching TV serials also serve the same purpose provided the serials have characters who live life on their terms disregarding social norms/customs or displaying their true(or evil or socially unacceptable) and ambitious nature without fear or shame. This makes the audience serial addicts as they find an evil incarnate whom they love to hate, and hate and hate...They want all the bad things to happen to this man/woman in small doses each day and thus enjoy a vicarious pleasure that is hard to describe!

So it is high time people reclaim their humanity by facing their fears boldly and not suppressing their dreams/aspirations/desires. Let us live a life of dreams and desires ourselves and not blame/shame others who are doing what we are/were unable to do. Every life has imperfections. Everyone makes mistakes but to play the blame game is actually playing into devil's hands; the devil in us. As they say, an idle mind is a devil's workshop. All the gossip mongers/serial watchers have two things in common-they all have a lot of time to sit idle and second they don't think that their life has a worthy purpose. They day the people empower their repressed selves and start living their dream lives, TV serial makers/gossip(rumor) mongers will find no takers and go underground or to some other planet.

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EC POWER DRESSING

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