From Your Closet to a Box

"Every day is a learning experience"...so many times you would have heard this phrase. This is true only if you make this mantra a part of your everyday schedule. All you need to do is start jotting down the things you did each day and the learnings you had from those exercises. I began doing this exercise couple of months back and so have now gathered handful of every day learning experiences. This article, "From Your Closet to a Box", is a result of one such exercise that i did during my volunteering days. 

So many times, we would have seen corporates/social bodies running campaigns relating to Donating Clothes. I always wondered on the utility of these campaigns and how this would be benefiting the needy. During my volunteering days at a NGO, I found that children were wearing torn school uniform. It is not that the NGO didn't regularly distribute school uniforms to the children. In fact clothes and uniform distribution was a regular features of that particular NGO. The myth that resources channelised through NGOs (if not monitored) doesn't reach out to the target group is not always correct. Perhaps sometimes it doesn't but most of the time it does reach out to the people in need. 

Coming back to those children in the NGO. As you are aware, children are children, no matter whether they are rich or poor. They love to dirty their clothes, play in the dirt and dust as well as fight with fellow friends. Children in the NGO would also indulge in similar pleasures of childhood life and often come to class wearing torn uniform.I saw those children wearing torn shirts, trousers or skirts to the class. They would continue wearing till the uniform was deemed inappropriate by the class Teacher. 

Before this I never thought and considered the importance of clothes. It was during that period when I realised the value of clothes. For a good percentage of population, clothes that we hardly pay a heed to, are considered wearable. On several occasions, we discard a cloth material or dress because it has lost its sheen or the cool factor. One should never throw away or discard clothes because you don't like them or it is simply not trendy enough. Sometimes, I have seen that clothes generally sits in one's closet, with the individual not even being aware of the fact that such clothes do exist in his/her closet. It is thus important to frequently do a scrutiny of your own closet.One must make way for new clothes in their closet and way out for unused clothes. There are people who needs them. One should look for ways to donate good quality wearable clothes. 

Have you ever thought that clothes can be much more than donation items? So i did a little research to find if clothes can become more than mere donation items. My search took me to this organisation that is using discarded or unused quality clothes as a tool for social change and transformation. 

The organisation named, 'Goonj' (a social enterprise working with the mission to make clothing a matter of concern and to bring it among the list of subjects for the development sector ) are using clothes as well as other old materials as a powerful & proven tool for social change, huge resource for rural/slum development and a valuable asset for income generation. With the focus to make clothing accessible to one and all, Goonj is trying to use clothes as a means to alter the perception of the society that largely sees clothes as mere charitable thing to donate. Read more about Goonj and its initiative here [http://goonj.org/?page_id=1963] 

Khushboo

Lessons from the Book called, 'REWORK'

I have been constantly thinking of new ideas and things i could blog about. At the same time, i have also been thinking of different categories under which i could do blogging - Travelogue, Creative Pedagogy & Volunteering, Reviews or Reflections, and Self Starts.

After pondering for a while regarding the next post, I felt it would be good to write a blog on one of the recent book that I just read. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to do a good book review (probably people can share some experiences and possibly a robust template that they have used for doing any book review) and so I decided rather than doing a thorough book review, perhaps I can share my understanding and take away on one of the chapters.

Recently I picked up this book titled, “Rework” by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson from one of the book stores. I have enclosed the front and back cover pages of this book (this would provide you with the look/feel of the book and help you evaluate whether you really want to buy or not). From long ago, my ex colleagues at workplace have been asking me to slow down and stop working long hours (and definitely NOT send emails at 2 or 3 AM), but I didn’t bother and avoided these suggestions as I felt that these are useless suggestions. I kept slogging and did lot of damage to my creativity/productivity/morale and attitude in the process. And then when all this happened, I stumbled upon this book and this particular chapter, “Go To Sleep”. I wondered why didn’t I get this book long time back when I was literary burning mid-night oil!

Never mind ..what is gone is gone and is difficult to get back but we can try to resurrect whatever we are left with. So what are the valuable lessons this particular chapter of the book teaches us. It starts with a caution notice,“forgoing sleep is a bad idea” and ends by saying that one can travel down this adventure path once in a while. But this shouldn’t be made into a regular habit.  The chapter lists down some of the serious cost implications of not sleeping well.

• Stubbornness; Sleep deprivation leads to inability in an individual to think straight and distinguish between the right or wrong. If you are acting stubborn, check whether you are taking adequate sleep or not.

• Lack of creativity: The ability to think creatively reduces drastically in a person who is tired and haven’t slept for a while. In fact the book says and I quote, “what distinguishes people who are 10 times more effective than the norm is not that they work ten times harder; it’s that they use their creativity to come up with solutions that require one-tenth of the effort.

• Diminished Morale: When your brain is tired, it is unable to focus/concentrate and so it starts indulging into not so important tasks (to some extent you start with extreme procrastination).

If you are suffering from any of these symptoms, then you might want to slow down a bit and relax. May be take some time off from work. This way you will not only be doing a great service to your self but also to your organisation.  I can say with conviction that you will return back with strength and power to get the work done.

Things that matters most in life but we tend to ignore them!

Effect of visuals and illustrations on learning levels of children - A story straight from the field

STORY TELLING then and now

I always (and even now) use to envy story tellers primarily because of the way they engaged the readers, viewers or listeners. So, when i got the opportunity to conduct story telling sessions with the children at NGO (where i worked as teacher volunteer), i grabbed the moment with both the hands. I was brimming with joy as it brought back vivid memories of my own childhood, when i use to look forward to story sessions. 

For most of us, story sessions were a way to break free from the routine life as a student and immerse into a life that was filled with fun and merry making. Teacher then use to read out and sometimes enact the stories to us. Unlike earlier, story telling has undergone tremendous change. For example, a good story teller makes use of not only written texts, but visuals & illustrations, drama, language styles and variations to communicate the story. 

The Big Idea 

The idea of conducting story telling sessions amongst the NGO children was aimed at these interwoven components:

(#) Instil reading habits, (#) Develop listening abilities, (#) Improve english comprehension, (#) Develop vocabulary base, and (#) Foster visual thinking. 

My instructional approach to story telling 

So,i read up articles and watched handful of videos in-order to prepare myself for this session. Based on the reading ability and vocabulary knowledge of the children, i picked up a story book from the scholastics called, " Chewy Louie by Howie Schneider". Apart from the fact that these children come from poor background and hardly have exposure to english language at their homes, the hindi medium of instruction at the school further provides them with limited english speaking exposure. This happens to be a prime cause of their poor english understandability level. After assessing the level of children, i decided to conduct the class in english with hindi translation. 

I started the class in English and asked children to explain the story so far. Many children struggled to explain even the basic sentences such as these:

He ate everything we put in his bowl. Then he ate the bowl.

My mother was very worried. "He'll get sick,"she said. "He won't get sick," my father said. "He's just a puppy. 

This prompted me to switch to Hindi and children began relating to the plot, characters, and sequence of events. But children looked far from an enthusiastic bunch. The participation was passive, while i wanted the children to become active participants. I wondered as to what was wrong and why children were looking less enthusiastic about being in this class. I started flipping through the book pages to find the answer and i saw the beautiful illustrations.

I began showing the illustrations to the children one by one and to my amusement, children rattled out the entire story as it was written in the book. That day, i witnessed the power of visual teaching and learning. 

So, i decided to embark upon a small research to validate the power of visual teaching and instructions upon the learning levels of children. 

Visual learning and teaching impact on children (especially beginner-intermediate readers)

In the next article, that is Part II of this post, I would share some perspectives on visual literacy and its effect on learning levels of children. 

Khushboo

The Julie&Julia Project - My inspiration behind blogging

Few years ago, i saw this motion picture called the, "Julie & Julia", a motion picture based on a blog of Julie Powell featuring all the 524 recipes of Julia Child, tried, tested and documented by Julie on her blog. The film contrasts the life of chef Julia child in the early years of her culinary career with the life of young New Yorker Julie Powell, who aspires to cook all the 524 recipes in Child's cookbook in 365 days, a challenge that she describes on her blog, "the Julie & Julia Project". When i had seen this film the 1st time, i had loved the unsaid bonding between Julie & Julia, their fiery attitude and undying love for cooking.

The ever charming and fluid Meryl Strip (who played the role of Julia child in this version) was simply outstanding in her role. She had a peculiar way of expressing herself and frequently rolled her body around to say things. Whereas Amy Adams (who played the role of Julie Powell), very convincingly portrait the role of city dweller caught up in her boring 9 to 5 job. No matter how boring the job was, Amy had to keep the job as it enabled the couple to pay the bills and somewhat prevented them from going back to the caravan (where the couple were living earlier). This is all i could gather, when i had first seen this film. Well at that juncture (or perhaps a point in life), i failed to realise the underlining message that the film was trying to deliver through the two lead characters. 

Recently, i again happened to see this film by chance. Behind this comedy-drama, i unearthed the poignant message that the film was trying to convey. The two foremost messages that came nicely through the film were, (#) finding your passion, interests or true calling and (#) finding ways to nurture the passion, interests. So for instance, when Julia Child (a childless but happily married women in her 40s) relocated to Paris along with her husband, she didn't want to become another social butterfly. She wanted to utilise her life well and do productive work. This led to her exploring various hobby classes to find her true interest. She finally found her calling in COOKING. She chopped, boiled, pouched, and baked her way through several dishes and finally collaborated with fellow cooking enthusiasts to document all the recipes in writing. Julia's life story presents us with a very important lesson of life, that is, finding out what interests you and then working towards that interest. 

Similarly, when Julie Powell (a happily married New Yorker, stuck in a boring job) was having hard time connecting herself with her work (where she answers telephone calls from the survivors of the September 9/11 attacks and members of the general public complaining about the controversial plans for rebuilding the World Trade Centre), she decided to revive her old passion of, "WRITING". She enjoyed COOKING and so she decide to cook and write about all the 524 recipes in Child's cookbook in 365 days. Julia gave a deadline to herself so that she could see this as a time bound project. Julie's blog not only became the most popular blog on Salon.com but also established her as a prolific writer. So, what did Julie do right! Julie decided to put her life back on track and not get drown in her boring job. She carefully evaluated as to what interests her and then worked towards that interest (finding ways to realise it). Being aware of the fact that she never complete things, Julie set herself a deadline. Julie's story presents us with yet another lesson of life, being aware of oneself and finding ways to overcome the limitations or self inflicted barriers. Well putting a deadline can be pressuring but it disciplines you.

Many a times, i have tried to start blogging but each time for some reason i discontinued. After watching this film, i realised that to follow your passion you need to have a disciplined and systematic approach just like both Julia and Julie had. They were passionate, aware, hardworking, disciplined and absolutely honest to their work. 

Cheers to Julia & Julie for igniting the writer within me and showing that disciplined approach is essential to realise anything. 

Khushboo 

Why blogging?

Sharing is good. Share to reduce the resources scarcity.

Life in some way, always provide us with the tentative answers to resolve some of the most troubling problems of our times- The resources scarcity. One feels sad to see that some people have abundant resources at their disposal whereas some people barely have resources to meet their daily requirements. The divide between the rich and poor is growing steadfast, even when the policy makers and societal strivers are trying hard to come up with rather humble schemes to uplift the deprived sections of the society. 

Have we ever pondered over as to why this divide is growing. The answer to this question lies into the very way of how we consume our own resources. This thought penetrated into my mind, while i was taking an un-announced class at the NGO where i am working as a volunteer teacher. 

So, let me narrate the proceedings of the class that made me left thinking about this resource crunch issue faced our own society. 

I always plan my classes in advance. I read through the chapters thoroughly, consult the teachers and then select & design a suitable activity for the session. Since i want the concept to get across, I ensure that resources are simple, easy to use and enable children to think intuitively about the concept as they explore. Also as i want children to completely participate in the process of discovery and derive utmost joy of learning, i request them to keep some basic resources/supplies always handy with them. This is about my planning for the class ...but that day was an exception. 

Unannounced i walked into the class and began teaching them. The topic was making basic shapes using matchsticks. To make the class more engaging, the children had to first listen to the clue, guess and make the shape basis their guesses. We were almost set to do the activity when we just realised that we don't have enough GLUE in the class to carry out this activity. Further, to add to our misery, i realised that we just have a BOTTLE OF GLUE. What do we do now? i asked the children. A child sitting in far corner of the room shouted , "Miss...miss, why don't you give little DROP of GLUE to each one of us?". Listening to the child, I instantly got sparkles in my eyes. It was as if somebody had just showed me LIGHT amidst no hopes. The child was so right in his thinking. We can just share and resolve this GLUE SCARCITY faced by the class. So, i gave some droplets (or blob) of GLUE to all the children and the class successfully completed this activity. Honestly, GLUE true to its nature, bonded us as one UNIT. 

After the class got over, i started introspecting about the inequitable distribution of resources between the rich and poor. Some people have more, some less and some practically nothing. What if we can share the resources such that everyone has just enough? Can redistribution or sharing of resources reduce the gap between the rich and poor? What means or mechanism we can deploy, so that resources can get shared and reaches the people in need? How can we make a richer, a little less rich and a poorer, a little less poor? Do think about it?

Organising things to make yourself organised

Recently I was reading an article that said, “the lesser organised you are, the more efficient worker you are”, and I started wondering. How can one become efficient when everything around that individual is in utter chaos? Since i am an astute believer of experiencing/doing things on my own before offering an opinions and viewpoints, i decided to revisit my work days and dig through how organised or unorganised I used to be and its impact on my efficiency.  

At workplace I have this habit of doing anything and everything. So, if the work demands me to create as well as do market feasibility blueprint simultaneously, I won’t shy away from the assigned responsibilities. Though this being a good quality, it also leads to bombardment of more work than you can actually handle. An old saying but true, “When you have too much on your plate, you just don’t know what to do when”. This has happened with me all the time. It is thus important to plan and prioritise your to-dos.

Here are some organising help techniques that i recently stumbled upon and have found them very useful (http://muralmaker1.blogspot.in/2013/01/organize-stuff-online-new-series.html). I have adapted the suggested technique to fit the requirements of this article per say.These narrow down filtering technique done using Why-What-How-When, can help you in getting organised as well as systematise the work flow both offline and online.

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Why?

Begin by listing down all your to-dos and write down your goals for each action (short-intermediate-long).While you are doing this critical task, keep asking yourself the following, "why are you doing whatever it is you do?". Doing this will help you in deciding the priority of each thing so they don’t ALL feel important.

What?

What do you do for each item. For instance,I am an aspiring entrepreneur, meaning I have an idea and plan to set up my own business. Having an idea is just not enough and this is where the 'what I do' comes into picture. To translate my idea into a valuable business preposition or venture, I must begin by researching the said domain. So, I might develop a mini market research template, reach out to people who can provide valuable insights, read research reports, develop plan of action and much more.

How?

How do you perform the action? Computer?Call?Email?Networking?Social Networking?Presentations etc.

When?

Each task that you would have listed as part of your TO-DO seems important an in-fact are important. However prioritisation helps you to set allocate time to each and every tasks. So prioritisation helps you in setting time for the tasks i.e. WHEN, you can do the various enlisted tasks.

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I have shared my views on how one can organise oneself. Well, how do you go about organising yourself and how it has benefited you. Do share your self organising techniques that you have been practising for a while now.