An Infinity Unknown

Take a minute & answer these question before proceeding to read: How was your time in school? What are the top 3 things you recall of your time there?


A dear friend asked me how I recall my days in school. I would have imagined a response like "It was fun" or "So much fun & play" or at least "It was so depressing" or "I met my husband/wife there" or something like that escape my lips but none of that sorts did. To my very surprise, I realised & muttered that my days in school were a string of shining & achieving. While I did enjoy myself thoroughly & had my own share of spats & mud-fights & puppy-love & infatuation for some teachers (some I am still in touch with), I don't seem to recall my school days as a span of learning & shock. What I mean by shock is what an old villager feels when he is shown how email works. The excitement with which he claps his hands when he gets a smiley on the chat screen from thousands of miles away is missing from my memory of school. To think that that is where I learnt nearly everything of life's fundamentals. It is poor solace that most people around me too recognise their school as something other than where they were surprised at what life had in store for them. It should not be immediately deemed an issue with the school system. Let us not view it as a problem.


Perhaps what surprises me is my mental romantic want that school would be remembered as an excursion where we discovered so many new things. Math, for instance, opened the doors to the world of numbers. Geometry & mensuration made the world of shapes so amazingly beautiful. Literature & the world of words which I play in was woven tale by tale throughout my schooling days. The human body & photosynthesis is still a magical realm to me. Refraction & how we would all tilt our head to view the pencil under water was brought to my eyes then. While I do not deny that I learnt all of this in school, I do not recall the awe or the surprise in discovering how echoes were produced. It was a fact that we were exposed to & then provided with the formula to compute various aspects of a problem using the time taken to hear an echo.


I remember a simple boyish conversation amongst a few of us who were exposed to the speed of light. We proposed that if I was 20 feet away from a candle (which was covered) and moved at the speed of light, then would I ever see the candlelight if I began moving away from the candle as soon as it was uncovered. The point was, since the light from the candle & I would move at the same speed, there will always be a difference of 20 feet between me and light. To think of light being held back like a stream of molten silver was amazing in conception & even today makes me nearly want to move that fast. That is the awe I refer to. The sheer amazement of using & studying a boomerang (yes, I went to YouTube to see how a boomerang is thrown).


I am not sure if the younger days in school are meant to provide the necessary tools so that those who are sensitive might explore & be amazed & those who aren't will make a living anyway. I would think that the initial years are when the child is likely to be stunned & amazed. To utilise the natural inclination for wonder is what I would think all of education should be about. Even if we eliminated tests & grades, our current approach to introducing a child to the wonders of this world would not focus on stunning the child.


It is not entirely clear to me whether wonder & amazement is best in retrospect. Do children merely see & get used, like a child using a smart-phone and thereafter finding nothing amazing about long distance communication or mobile apps or processor technologies? Adults who see a smart-phone for the first time are indeed amused & amazed at "how much technology has advanced" and hearken back to days when "all we had was a rotary phone & long distance trunk calls". Is amazement always in contrast? I recall the first time I saw a bike in a cage/steel sphere, I was amazed & also thoroughly interested in the notion of centripetal forces. I had nothing to compare it to - sheer adrenaline racing act! But a growing plant is hardly an awe-inspiring thing to a child until she sows the seeds & watches it grow, understanding all that it goes through.


I think schools denature knowing. Whether they do it consciously or not is secondary to this exploration. By capturing the flight of a bird into paragraphs of text about hollow bones & air currents we seem to steal away the opportunity from a child to watch birds & ask questions & seek to understand. By insisting that one be provided all possible knowledge even before curiosity or need arises, we are in essence removing the wonder of first encounter. I might never see a polar bear but I have studied so much about it that perhaps if I saw it in real life, I might be less amazed than if I knew nothing about it.


I think the question that remains is, can we essentially remain ignorant till need arises? What is the price we have to pay for that? Why can we not spend the early years in wonder & then grow organically & apprentice?

Management PhD Ranking 2010

I know this is really late in the day with FT.com about to come out with their ranking for 2011. Nevertheless, here is a summary that might help. This is an annual feature I do (at least in 2008 and 2009) for the same clueless reasons as mentioned in those posts. I still think that there is no reliable and good ranking of PhD programs out there. You would need to click on the image below or ruin your eyes!

The Education Of A Writer

To the hurried soul, I offer my sympathies and the following list:

1. Book of Disquiet
2. Don Quixote
3. Hamlet
4. Mrs. Dalloway
5. Ulysses
6. Ada or Ardor
7. Century of Humour
8. Complete Works of Saki
9. Niels Lyhne
10. Dead Souls
11. Jane Eyre
12. Golden Bowl

For the cultured ones, I have a tale to offer. Suffer me for the aging through this story might prove worth it.

I recently brought upon myself a terrible onus and couldn't sit still without completing the descended task. It was at once presumptuous to accept responsibility for collating the list and due justification, and stimulating to study the tell of putting together such a necessary array. I cannot sufficiently describe the torment of the past few weeks and it is not imagined pain. It was visible to those who looked long enough including the two squirrels outside my window.

While the education of a writer is vital for everyone, as vital as is the education of a reader or a cook, not everyone is out to be an author nor needs to. A cook is not your award-winning chef, but basically someone who knows their way well around the kitchen to cook up a delicious meal. So be it with everyone being a writer. This is largely missed in the current education system as is missed the vital training to be a cook. I can't say much about the making of a reader because we do read (technical and academic books for exams) but how much do we pause (which is the most vital element in all reading) is a number I can never ascertain. We certainly aren't trained to read like a writer as Francine Prose recommends.

All my appreciation for literature came well after my school days though I have been reading since I was nearly 6 or so. My father considered it best to start putting together a library in the hope that we would organically fall in love with words. I don't think that that is what got me to read. The tales of the world were Siren calls. The possibility of tales in Russia, India, Japan and every faraway land brought an extra tinge of blue to my sky. Having read these tales, I simply had to know how to tell a tale. I also loved the smell and taste of words as they danced their way out of my mouth. So, in summary, the ability to read, write, count and cook are vital for life and the ability to see is vital for love.

So I wish to fill the gap left for ages in the complete education of a man destined to love the letters. Be forewarned, this is not for the basic education of a writer but for one who enjoys writing and wishes to be well rounded. Nevertheless, a student well into his teens could also benefit from this journey. One might ask if this is a journey all genres of writers should take and I am tempted to say yes. And I will. Yes. I think every passionate writer will benefit manifold by embarking on this journey in true earnest. While true education of a writer starts early from rudimentary combining of letters to constructing coherent sentences to being able to say what one means, such a journey, as described in this post, is best started when one has had some experience in this world and has managed to muster a vocabulary sufficiently strong to reduce the shuttles one might need to make between book and dictionary. This varies from one individual to the other. For some, that age might be 18 and for others it might be 12. Let us leave it to an opportune moment in that window of half a dozen years.

Before I introduce the apostles, I must re-introduce the reader to the one who motivated me to assemble this list. Gustave Flaubert's words ring euphoniously true in my head. The frequent reader of this blog would be familiar with the following quote:

Commel'on serait savant si l'on connaissait bien seulement cinq a six livres: "What a scholar one might be if one knew well only some half a dozen books."

I thought that 6 might be just a little less and 12 would be a better number (coincidentally, there are 12 months). Given an average life of 48 years beyond 18, that allows for 4 repetitions of each of these books. I would consider that sufficient pilgrimage for this lifetime.

I shant be going into the details and deliberation on each book. That I will present in a longer and more serious article. Nevertheless, I shall pause long enough to let the reader know why I picked each of these books and what one can expect from each.

1. The Book of Disquiet - Fernando Pessoa. If there is one book that you must read from this list and expect to gain a lifetime's education in seeing, feeling and converting them as approximately as possible into words, then it is this book. Pessoa is an unheard of author and this book is originally in Portuguese. I have a translation by Richard Zenith and it is splendid. Pessoa is extremely sensitive to the world around him without being too absorbed in himself. His reflections are unique and extremely well articulated. His choice of words are splendid making you chide yourself for not having thought along those lines.
   
   
   
2. Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes.This book is highly recommended by all the lists compiled to identify the best literary books. I have read it in parts and found it delightful. Cervantes' ability to weave in humour while making an important point distinguishes him from all those snobbish writers who believe that to be light is to betray literary worth. This too is a translation of the original in Spanish.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Hamlet - William Shakespeare. This needs no introduction though it was difficult to pick one from amongst the bard's works. I cannot consider myself well equipped to jostle my choice against the opinions of another. I wanted to pick a serious work of his with some of his best lines. After a fair amount of research, I settled for Hamlet.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf. Her very opening is splendid enough to keep re-reading this delightful tale. Ms. Woolf's writing is spectacular and very British. That adds to the beauty of it all. I have enjoyed her stream of consciousness writing and the blog's reader would have seen some samples of my own.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Ulysses - James Joyce. This is one book I have picked purely on the advice of Nabokov. He strongly recommends this and considers Joyce to be one of the few genius writers in the English speaking world. I have immense respect for Nabokov and willingly took his advice.







6. Ada or Ardor - Vladimir Nabokov. Perhaps no list of mine could be complete without the magic of Nabokov. This work is his personal favourite and having glanced through it, I can see why. The delightful play of words in the setting of a strange family. One will do well to enjoy the fruits of the hypertexting labour that is Ada Online.






7. Century of Humour - Edited by P. G. Wodehouse. Towards the end of this post I shall explain my statistical basis for choosing this book. But there is reason beyond that as well. This book compiles some excellent short stories and humourous ones at that. Mr. Wodehouse's choice is pretty good and none of the stories are remotely disappointing. They are best not pitted amongst themselves but studied individually to learn the craft of weaving humour into literature.



8. Complete Works of Saki - H H Munro. This was my first love. I have spent hours leaping across empty rooms reading his lines with summoned baritone. Saki made me fall in love with words and the magic one can conjure with them (when rightly employed - don't blame me for spells crashing down on your head). I cannot, out of loyalty and certainty, exclude this book from my list. I believe that a young student should be introduced to Saki and made to gargle his phrases. Never spit it out! If only we had teachers who could understand Saki and bring home his worth.



9. Niels Lyhne - Jens Peter Jacobsen. Another popularly unheard of writer. He is Danish and comes highly recommended by none other than Rilke himself. I have also read his stories and another friend of mine, a more disciplined and beautiful reader, vouches for the goodness of this particular book. I willingly submit to the wisdom of Rilke here and to my meagre experience with Jacobsen's works.




10. Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol. Another Russian master. I have read his short stories and Taras Bulba. I was convinced and converted. He is an excellent writer and this particular book is a wicked take on the feudalism then present in Russia. He is an amazing writer of great talent (and I subscribe to Nabokov's distinction between a genius and a talented writer. More on that, later).




11. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë. This book is amazing in its passion and language employed. I might have picked Jane Austen's works but I felt that I needed both the power of language and the passion of a writer to be visible on the pages. After due deliberation I chose Jane Eyre. It also came in gold gilded pages to me from someone with a golden heart.





12. Golden Bowl - Henry James. This is the climax in James' career and style. I did my research on this book and his other works before deciding to include this one. The complexity in the story and the style makes it belong to this list. James Wood (author of How Fiction Works) too feels that Henry James brings an eye which isn't the detailed microscopic eye of Nabokov, but of a fabric vital to writers.

In collating this list I had a few broad criteria. I needed literature representing a good segment of the English speaking world. I was willing to include translations as long as they didn't exceed 33% of the total list (Book of Disquiet - Portuguese, Don Quixote - Spanish, Dead Souls - Russian and Niels Lyhne - Danish). I also wanted to have shorter works but didn't want them to exceed 25% of the list (Book of Disquiet, Century of Humour, Complete Works of Saki). I also wanted humour to be an integral part of the list (Don Quixote, Century of Humour, Complete Works of Saki).

Believe me when I say that I rummaged through a list of over nearly twice as many books including translations (Glass Bead Game - German, for instance which finally lost out as did The Master And Margerita - Russian). Of course, you must have noticed that I haven't added Madame Bovary (French) by Gustave Flaubert himself. I had included it initially before realising that Lydia Davis' translation was something I needed and it wasn't really available here. That is why I restricted the translations to 33%. Translations are a funny beast. They gain their strength both from the original author as well as from the translator but their weakness comes solely from the translator's abilities. I read Ms. Davis' article about her experience in translating Madame Bovary and I decided to wait for the book to arrive. Perhaps Niels Lyhne will make way for Madame Bovary.

The route on this journey is simple. Read through each book slowly and patiently. If there is a word whose meaning you do not understand, find it out. Keep a notebook (or several of them with one per author) and collect phrases that you like along with the name of the book and page number. In another notebook, try to use these phrases in at least five different situations/scenarios. If a sentence is long, break it down into bite-sized portions and understand how the coherence is maintained over the length.

After each chapter or 30 pages, write a paragraph about anything (or a similar topic as in the book) in a style nearly identical with that of the author. The paragraph should appear as if the author him/herself had written it in his/her younger days. Study where you possibly differ. Do not rush to create your own style of writing. Start my imitating and you will hear a clear voice soon.

Apply counter styles to the author you are reading. Periodically in your study, use shorter sentences where s/he uses longer and conversely without losing meaning. This allows you to create similar impact without losing literary value. Shortening a sentence is not the same as summarising. Please bear in mind that the effect and taste has to be maintained. Where the author is grand, be direct (you might think that the effect is then lost, but not necessarily) where s/he is terse, be verbose.

Study the spell of phrases and styles in a dark room. Read the words aloud in three different styles - in dry monotone, with due theatrical intonations and with the simplicity of someone reading it the first time. Study the effect it brings and understand what breaks through the barriers of the reader's ability (to read in different tones).

Combine random but fairly representative paragraphs from each of these authors to notice how they mingle and depart. This helps study the choice of words for the desired tell.

And last but surely not the least, practice writing, every single day. Keep building your vocabulary (there are several sites which will deliver you a word per day). Use them differently in unexpected settings. Create games where you can study the possibility of using fruits to describe the weather and metals to describe moods and so on. Enjoy every one of these authors and enjoy writing, too.

There might be other books that are great. There might be other works of the chosen authors that might be better. All that I have mentioned belong to the genre of fictional prose. Questions are bound to be raised - "What if I care only about poetry?" "What if I wish to be a sci-fi writer?" "What if I like John Updike better?" "What if I wish to write like Jack Kerouac?" The only answer I have is to once again recommend this study with an assurance that you will be a different person at the end of it and will be able to write as you please and read whomsoever you want. This is not the only list of books you should be reading. Read any other book too. Poetry should be read and studied regularly too (and I might put up a separate list for that) but I do not distinguish severely between prose and poetry beyond Coleridge's pithy summary:

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose, --words in their best order; poetry, --the best words in their best order.

Compiling any list is a task fraught with debate and I am tired. I can assure with all my life's breath that these books, when studied well, will make a wonderful person and writer out of the reader. That is a certainty (please read Sir Quiller-Couch's Art of Writing to understand why). If after appropriate study you do not find your writing significantly (not marginally) enhanced and affected, do let me know and I assure you that I will not utter a word from that day. I will also take this post down.

The Willingness to Make Mistakes

I was the chief guest at a rather holistic and invigorating school's Annual Talent Day. I was a misfit from the very outset. I thought chief guests were typically top businessmen or people high in the government offices or people who had done something entirely unique to deserve standing there, up on the stage with clueless kids assuming that they were in the presence of someone noteworthy. But I wasn't. I was just another software engineer who had qualified himself to be a computer scientist but had grown hoarse declaring that software engineering and computer science are quite different. My being well versed in a dozen other things doesn't count if I haven't done anything with them and haven't chiseled an exalted crevice for myself in the limestone walls of the Cathedral of greatness. I am just someone walking around that Cathedral running a solitary finger on the walls of the edifice, writing poems describing the falling flakes as they land on the washed flagstones, creating, in my poems, towering manors for ants. Soon my finger tip wears and I realise that walking around the Cathedral doesn't bless one with entry. What is there to speak of alcoves and crevices?

I was told that I need to speak to children. I was delighted and never bothered asking whether it would be to the tiny tots in kindergarten or the ones who are slightly more grown up, shy and faltering as I would speak to them directly. Children are beautiful in every size, I believe. I said yes. One day before the actual Annual Day celebrations, I was brought to the piece of news that I would need to be chief guest and the first thing that screamed in my head was, "But, I have done nothing. Honest!" I suppose this is also what an innocent man says when imprisoned for the wrong reasons. I presume that the impulse is the same - neither of them belong to where circumstances derail their life's trains. Undoubtedly, mine stopped at a school and hoisted me out: "There you go, E! Now be a chief guest!"

I kept wondering how I should conduct myself. I was numb with the sheer weight of being something I have never been nor prepared to be. I knew I would have had no problems with the children, but their parents! They would look down their nose (though that would be physically impossible for one attempting to look at me) and scoff, "A mere computer scientist!? Why, I am certain we could have found at least a dentist who had done the most number of molar extractions in Bangalore city to be the chief guest. Surely, my child should receive an award from a better man!" The child, of course, would have had no problem taking her certificate from any pair of hands and rushing off to sit on her father's lap. I would have also had no problems except when expected to rise and face individuals beyond the mental age of 15.

Hence, I decided to address only those who felt comfortable in belong to the club of the Un-Aged. But what should I speak about!? Kids are very clear when asked that question: nothing. They'd rather have me play with them or watch cartoons than hear me speak. Parents on the other hand expect me to redeem myself by providing some profound insight (neither of these words are understood by kids) into the business of living or making one. I really had nothing to say. I usually do, but most often with intimate company. I can speak to an audience I have known in a rather involved fashion than to an audience I am meeting for the first time. How do I know what they want to hear? I don't even know their favourite colour!

Perhaps all of this, running amock in my head, went silent in the face of one true terror: what if I goofed up and said something I wasn't supposed to!? I recall once doing something like that in school. Back in school, each child had his/her day when s/he would walk up in front of the entire school and utter a quote of great significance by a person of renown. It was my day and I realised I had nothing in my kitty. I dug deep and recalled one by Einstein. So I walked up in front of everyone, adjusted the microphone (as I have nearly always done) and said "When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, you think it's only a minute. But when you sit on a hot stove for a minute, you think it's two hours. That's relativity." (I realise there are several versions to this. I have no clue which one I chose). My teachers asked me to stay back after the assembly and thought I was being cheeky. They also thought I had no respect for the quote-a-day activity (which is perhaps something that can be inferred else I would have come prepared, though I think the true reason was that I forgot). A couple of teachers laughed (like kids) and thought I was quite funny. I had to say something noteworthy the next day and I did. I think I quoted Mahatma Gandhi or someone equally serious and who had very little sense of humour.

So here I was, meeting customers and talking to them about software strategies (which is not what your average computer scientist or software engineer does) and corporate visions (as well as software products) and cracking jokes and delighting them with the realisation of how intuitive the entire thing was, but still drawing a blank at the prospect of having to address a whole school of individuals expecting something intelligent, profound and deep from the chief guest.

I landed in the school at the appointed hour, spoke for a while with the wise principal and his wife, looked up at the clouds for some sign (either rain or the script of my speech) and kept on walking. When I had to hand out the certificates to the students, I was at ease congratulating each and every one of them for their individual noteworthy trait (for which they were being recognised) and addressing them by their names and not "Son" or "Young lady". Somehow, I feel an instant connection with people of my age group though they look cuter walking up to receive certificates!

After some wonderful performances that the students had put together, I was to get on stage and make the speech. I walked up there and the lights were glaring into my face. I do not have a clue about what I spoke, but I will soon put down what I wanted to say. Those few minutes (and I ensured that I didn't speak for more than a few minutes) are nearly entirely lost to me. When people (parents and children and friends) came over later to tell me that they were immensely impressed with the speech and thought it was wonderful I had no clue whether they were just being nice or they were truly touched. As I said, I have no memory of that speech (but that is true even about the posts I write!)

I think I spoke about the willingness to fail and make mistakes. Those who heard that speech and are also reading this post needn't strive to find correlation for there might be none.

We are taught to respect correctness, completeness and success. These aren't mispronounced virtues but they are given undue importance. It is vital to know when to be correct and exacting. One cannot be otherwise while performing a surgical operation ("Excuse me! You have a hernia!? Why, I thought you were waiting for your leg to be amputated! No? Oops") or driving a bus full of living creatures or nuclear waste (no, I don't equate them). One cannot be casual under misplaced sanctions of being allowed to fail occasionally. Being frivolous is not what I am discussing and it would do well for the reader (and thinker) to dispel that at the very outset. No matter of life can be prescribed an application of an uncaring casual mind and effort. Nevertheless, to consider a serious mind and an ever-successful industry to be one and the same is the progressive failing of our society.

To me, permitting mistakes and failing is not a benevolent act nor something to be served to make a soul more noble. These aren't policy decisions to make a better society. I shall explain why I urgently wish to depart from such hurried conclusions. To me the willingness to fail and make mistakes is personal and individual and doesn't call for sanction. The willingness to fail and make mistakes is not the same as tolerating or accommodating mistakes and failure in society. I wish to impress upon the reader that these are different though we all know that it is always preferred to play lawn tennis in the cool airs of Northern France than in the sub-Saharan venues. What I mean is that it would be easier for an individual (who is willing to fail) to carry on with his life in a more educated society than in a brutish and oppressive one.

The willingness to fail allows one to be open to possibilities as well as imbibe true intuitive learning. Intuition is not about mere hunches and gambles or soothsaying. It has to do with the visceral connection to Truth (in its various forms including material knowledge) which makes understanding and gnosis possible without having to adopt artificial mechanisms of picking and choosing a subset of accumulated knowledge to apply in a given situation or matter under consideration. If I am focused on succeeding, I will only adopt the time-tested or hyped methods available to do anything and perhaps, everything. If I am interested in learning and growing, I will understand the subject under consideration, explore, experiment, test limits, approach it from various points of view and learn. There is no place for failure in here as everything that appears to others as a failure or a mistake is essentially a deeper understanding. In having found different ways that do not work, one understands why something does work. In finding the myriad ways one can be mistaken about something, one realises the Truth about that thing. Sometimes, this realisation comes without making mistakes and that is welcome as long as that intrinsic clarity/genius is not made the touchstone of all living.

In understanding this, it is important that parents who had the patience to raise their child long enough to get them into schools show a lot more and educate their child into retaining that spark of humility, that willingness to be in the wrong purely in order to learn what is Right. If the child doesn't remember it and repeats a mistake, find different ways of helping your child remember and realise the Truth in various things that surround her. One's laziness and lack of time cannot be an excuse for reprimanding the child while she is learning. Once the child is comfortable in truly learning, she will enjoy seeking Rightness and not treat it as an ordeal. And please do not compare your child with another. You probably wouldn't like it if your ward started comparing you with whom she thinks is an ideal parent. Work as individuals to a collective sense of goodness and Rightness. And, frankly, the other child is as important as yours. So, if you feel that your child is doing fine then spend some time with one who is having some difficulty.

With lesser censure the child ceases to distinguish between success and failure though progressively gains an understanding of clarity and ignorance. When a child grows to being comfortable living and learning through her life, she is less likely to subdue that beautiful voice in her head which in its untarnished golden timbre can help her be happy and at ease - the voice we sometimes call intuition. With that voice as your best companion, your creative and vibrant spirit will make Spring of all seasons. The joy of living is truly bequeathed to that soul.

I think I ended my speech thus (and the harsh lights screaming into my face were switched off and hence, I have a vague memory of this): I have no clue why I was considered to be a chief guest at this immensely important function, but I would like to console myself into believing that I was chosen because I am most comfortable making mistakes.

PhD Management Ranking - 2009

Financial Times published their global MBA ranking early this year. I had done a similar massaging of the numbers last year to arrive at what could possibly represent a decent PhD ranking. My motives remain the same though the formula I have adopted is perhaps different. Below is the result of a rather jobless evening!

Rankings make sense only till 83 as the ones beyond that probably don't offer a PhD programme. I have given the highest weight to the Doctoral Ranking though the ranking over the past 3 years and this years (in decreasing order of weight) have been given importance too. Hence, Manchester doesn't rank above MIT Sloan (for instance). In this sense, I believe that the ranking below is a better representation of a decent PhD ranking. Other columns (other than the country and univ. name!) have also been given importance. Haas beats Erasmus because its research ranking is better. INSEAD is lower than Man-U because its Doctoral ranking is bad although its ranking in 2009 and the past 3 years is good. Tepper goes down because its 2009 and 3-year-avg are low and its research ranking is poor too. If you find a discrepancy which is too irrational, then do let me know.

So, why am I doing this? If you searched for PhD Management Ranking in Google, my blog shows up in the top few results. The others are not offering good data (except phds.org and even there the results don't seem to tally with FT.com). Hence, if there are people out there searching for this info and they seem to like what they found on the previous post (and hence the high ranking of that page) then they might find the 2009 thingy also useful. Alright, I seem to have lost track of what was it that compelled me to write this post!

(Click on the image below and don't strain your eyes)

Punishment in Education

Shanno is dead. It is terribly sad that a child had to die due to unnatural causes. It is sickening to note that the teacher considered the physical torture commensurate with the inadequacy in remembering the alphabet. Somehow, it seemed all normal to me and I didn't feel a reaction in me surge and burn my brain into a wrath which usually culminates in a post. Perhaps I am becoming more of Earth having encountered great indecency and vulgarity in human beings - nothing seems to shock me anymore. As a friend quotes in her email signature: The opposite of love is not hate; it is indifference.

There were articles (1 and 2) in today's Sunday Magazine which dwelt upon the matter of physical abuse meted out to children in school. I wonder how the public response would have been had the mother of the child ordered her to stand in the sun. I agree with some points that they raise. One thing that I hold in spite of all that is said, thought and shared (including this post) is that children (who eventually grow into becoming human beings) are the most beautiful creatures around and there is so much to learn from them and share with them that all this coarse, irresponsible and ignorant behaviour towards them is appalling (and I am somewhat mild today).

Since enough has been written and telecast about the cruelty in the Indian education system, I do not wish to search my mind for related points. I would like to, instead, look at the source of this cruelty and toss in my hand the possibility that it is inevitable and actually encouraged by those who condemn it.

What was done with Shanno and the boy whose knuckles were rapped (and I always wondered why Rap music was called that) and the girl who was made to write the answer to a question 100 times are nothing more than examples of responses to deviations from the norm. Somehow, responses of the following sorts are considered acceptable:

1. Writing an imposition
2. Standing on the bench
3. Standing in the corner of the room facing the wall
4. Standing outside the class
5. Passing on a complaint sheet from teacher to parent
6. Having the parent accompany the child to meet teacher and parent
7. Suspending the child for a while
8. Demoting the child
9. Expelling the child

These are considered "normal" until the child responds by being "overly" disturbed to any of these and committing suicide. They are considered normal because the school needs some means of ensuring and establishing order. One cannot run a school based on wisdom because such wisdom is rare to collect in one campus and children are rarely ever the keepers of wisdom. So one must have rules and the violation of rules must have clearly stated consequences in order to establish the value of those rules (else, who would respect those rules!?).
Presentism renders the following responses "barbaric":

1. Physically striking the child (slaps, raps, kicks, pushes, etc.)
2. Child performing physically exhausting tasks (running around the campus 100 times, 200 situps, etc.)
3. Standing for hours in the sun
4. Standing for hours in biting snow (a problem largely irrelevant to India)
5. Contorted positions for long durations

The common thread amongst these is the physical damage/breakdown of the child. The earlier category targeted the psychological damage/breakdown of the child. I wonder which is more valuable: psychological damage, which might scar the child for life (as the doomsday child psychologists like to say), or the physical damage, which might lead to death (as demonstrated in certain incidents). One might say what is left if the child dies and the other might argue that what is left of life if the spirit is broken. Such debates can continue endlessly.

As I said earlier, I am not interested in presenting my views about the evils of punishment (physical or psychological) but about their inevitability in society as it stands today. You might claim that we need to always talk in terms of a society that we should strive for but the issue is that talk and that strife have been on for several millenia, sufficient for me to conclude that talking about anything beyond what is, is merely an escape from what we are faced with. It is like someone not caring about the pollution in the air today and planning on baking a cake on a Sunday when there will be no pollution at all. Sorry: yes pollution, no cake.

Social order is vital for society to function. Order is not a dirty communist word. Nature has order and that order is established and maintained effortlessly. Amongst humans, order can be established organically amongst like-minded individuals or delineated and enforced amongst a heterogeneous collection. The latter is most commonly found example of realising order. We have law, police, military and the judiciary system along with its prisons for establishing order. Surprisingly, we do not have a reward system for someone who has never broken the law. If we set aside that observation, we realise that society cannot function without laws and punishment for violation of that law.

If you start a business with a few other friends and soon one of them starts using business money for household expenses then what do the rest do? They can speak with him, help him understand it is not acceptable, warn him, oust him or hand him over to the police. Ramalinga Raju is an educated man. Why don't we consider speaking to him and explaining to him that what he did was wrong and that he should never repeat it and let him go?

How different is a school? No, I am not taking the cynical stance that a school is hardly different from a corporate enterprise. We can visit that later. A school too has an ecosystem which needs to be maintained. A child refuses to behave and hurts her classmates and lies and cheats and steals and what do you do? Patiently explain and attempt educating the child. Very well, and if it still doesn't help? You will turn strict. And still? You might call the parents and complain about the disruption caused. Here three things can happen - the child might be taken off the school records (which is nothing more than passing the responsibility to another entity, the parents would simply refuse to do anything since they are "paying" the school to educate the child (which is fair since the school always takes credit for the child's "successes" and hence should also be responsible for the "aberration") or the parents drag the child back home and spank the hell out of her. The latter might lead to death and we would hear about parenting being on the decline and possibly blame BPOs and the Nano for it.

Given limited time (12 years) and limited resources (only so many teachers and facilities for scores of children) what is the solution? You might think that unruly children are merely an exception and cannot justify cruelty towards children. I am not calling for cruelty towards children. I am demanding a revisit of what drives us all. Secondly, Shanno's teacher might call her unruly which might justify her behaviour.

As I had stated elsewhere and often, I believe that the Right approach to education is not to constrain it with time. If the child takes 20 years to learn cooperative and constructive conduct as well as the rudiments of the world around us then so be it. If the child takes less, then that is fine too. The focus is the education of the child and not our metrics and externally imposed frameworks. Point is, not a single educator (even those who are concerned enough to write articles in newspapers) is willing to accept and adopt that. No parent will accept that for their child (it might seem wonderful for other children). They'd rather spank the child into straightness.

Hence, the reasons for such educational systems include the following:

1. Our deep desire for conformance
2. Society
3. Limited resources, esp. patience
4. Complete disregard to Rightness

Not surprisingly, (4) above features in every observation I have to make about the human specie. I think the assembly line and mass production is basically the most grand manifestation of the human want for conformance. Conformance has its benefits. There is lesser dissipation of energy and much lesser re-invention of the wheel. It would be weird and difficult to operate in a society where two individuals who have passed high school be as different as an apple and a pebble. What if one knew algebra and calculus and the other didn't know how to add? Or one could read and write while the other couldn't? Is education all about learning subjects? It is largely about learning and understanding the rudiments of life and the operating world around us. Hence, math and language and science count as do physical exercise and soft skills. Other subjects count too but we need to draw the line as to what are the basics and I think these suffice as a rudimentary foundation. Hence, we need some conforming amongst people who cohabit. Let me not dwell longer on the need for conformance. It should be clear to the intelligent reader.

Society creates strata of respectability and utility and we can address this outside the purpose of this post. Punishment in school is primarily a response to aberrations from what society calls acceptable. In a society where questioning is evil a child is forbidden to do so. In a society where mathematical genius is treated as vulgar every Ramanujan will be considered an outlaw. Hence, in a society which doesn't tolerate inefficiency or slow learners, every Shanno will be punished. I still recall a friend of mine complain that he should have done his engineering as in Andhra Pradesh a groom without a B.E. or B.Tech or M.B.B.S is not wanted. Bihar seems to prefer people working for the government esp. IAS officers. Why does it surprise us that educated engineers and students commit suicide because they couldn't live up to the "standards"? Teachers don't wish to be blamed for not ensuring that the pupils lived up to the "standard" and hence, resort to any means in order to keep everyone in the straight line to respectability even if that requires beating the child. After all, the teacher has only this much energy and only few hours in school every day. He might instruct once, explain once more and then raise his cane. Why blame the teacher when what he is expected to deliver is a pack of students who score 100%? We never blame the assembly line worker for picking the bolts which are outside tolerance limits placed by customer and employer and casting them back into the furnace.

In the "alternate" or "wise" schools that I have visited, I have observed that even the so-called "good" teacher snap and lose her cool. I was once in a discussion with teachers, educators and fellow jobless folks like myself. One of the teachers, considered to be very wise and intelligent, lost her cool when I repeatedly asked a question because I simply did not understand. I would ask her a question, and she qould give me some circuitous answer (because not having an answer is a sign of incompetence) and then I would use her answer and present a doubt that continued to plague me and she would try once more before snapping for the third and asking me to shut up. Physically beating me is simply out of question for many people (though I have taken a beating from kids one-third my size) so the nearest to that is asking me to shut up. On lighter reflection I seem to have brought hell to a lot of people with my incessant questions and probing and stubborn refusal to accept half-hearted responses and in most cases the lies that accompanied them. I have lost friends and relationships due to that and I am relieved that I have lesser foxes to deal with! Back to the post, patience and genuine belief in education is vital but teachers being human and parents being parents do not have a good measure of either. Time and energy are limited. The teacher might have had a bad day with her family and/or colleagues. He might have faced a misfortune. She might have been cheated. Anything is possible and we need to understand that they are human too or we insist that people act objectively and leave their personal influences behind when they enter the school. I haven't seen one single school where the teachers are gathered in a room, before their teaching day starts, and are asked to meditate over certain issues and in complete silence so that they are mentally prepared to tackle the responsibility of teaching that day. This might create conformance which is good; conformance with the ideals of education if one needs ideals for something as fundamental as that. There are prayer sessions, 1 minute silences (where children are busy nudging each other and a teacher glares at them) and such excursions, but nothing exclusively for the teacher to allow them to leave the vulgar world behind. Why not? Do we have conscious sessions where a teacher reminds the others that there will be several occasions in that day when children will behave in ways which make them resort to "taming" them but physical assault should be avoided as that is not to be permitted in the school? No.
As an aside, I do not believe in sparing the rod. I think it is a useful tool in imprinting unacceptable and dangerous behaviours. Climbing over parapet walls, playing near snake pits, playing with sharp objects or fire all deserve a warning and a spank, for the child remembers such sharp responses and will not venture into such dangerous practices. When used as an escape from explaining instructions/decisions/thoughts/ideas/etc. to the child they are vulgar as is every form of escape from having to deal with realities.

Finally, we haven't a sense of Rightness. The child's education matters. The child's happiness matters. The child's well-being matters. The completeness of education matters. In the face of these truths what else should matter? These don't feature in the agenda of parents and teachers alike. Lazy teachers take this to another extreme and avoid guiding the child from the fear that they might come across as old-fashioned. Again, it is closely tied in with the earlier reasons because a teacher is often the product of society (unlike as in the Vedic ages when the teacher and his gurukul were situated far from the city/village usually in a forest where child and teacher can be one with Nature) and hence, cannot be expected to be radically different. Schools which claim to be "new-age" do not have the patience to employ such teachers and tend to staff their schools with those who can teach a subject and leave for the day. Most schools simply have a good martinet for a math or physics class and they live in the belief that they have a good school because the students always score more than 90% in a subject. If that is all that is required of an education system then Shanno and others would be collateral damage and we should come to terms with that.

My biggest concern is with the hypocrisy inherent in arguments against punishment in schools. Though everyone might agree with extreme punishment being excessive, punighment per se is part and parcel of society. Even if we establish a school where no one is punished and everyone is free to do whatever they please, how do they come out and coexist in a world of laws and prisons? They will be quite a misfit. Schools are not educating children on the need to conform as a basis for coexistence. They either take it to an extreme and make it a frightening matter or simply ignore it. In society, as it stands today, conformance is inevitable (esp. as long as human beings are going to remain essentially ignorant and incapable of aligning with the Divine Will) and aberrations have to be dealt with. Punishment is a response to deviations. If punishment should be removed, so must the need to conform and still further, the need for a society. Once society is abolished, the need to conform will crumble and so will the necessity to punish.

Making a case for less violent or consequentially less disastrous punishments is a matter of gambling with chance (which is a funny play of words). As mentioned earlier, making a boy stand on the bench for a homework he didn't complete could make him feel humiliated and lead to an asthma attack. Making her write an imposition could leave her so exhausted or utterly embarrassed that she jumped off the fourth floor and committed suicide. When will it stop? If the teachers shouldn't whack them who stops the parents from walloping them? Should we bring in laws like in the US which only aim at proving that human beings are incapable of doing anything right and hence it must be the government, police and law that will establish... what? Uniformity and conformance!!?

Punishment in human life and society is vital and inevitable as long as there is a need to make living and coexisting less tiresome and more organised. One doesn't have the time and/or energy to stop everything and carefully and patiently explain things to every single individual. If this is accepted then schools too would have their own form of punishment in order to establish uniformity and stability of the school ecosystem. It might help to have a Teacher of Punishment (though s/he would hardly be teaching anyone anything unless we are talking Abu Ghraib) to whom the students are sent to be punished. This teacher will consult medical records and other matters before deciding on the punishment commensurate with the fault. S/He will know how hard the rap should be and how long the imposition. Frankly, I am laughing my head off here. In the absence of Right education, how does anything matter? For anyone who doesn't believe in the Rightness of education, talking against punishment is ridiculous. Only the world of animals and Nature can be without punishment because in there is Rightness.

And still I am not impassioned enough to rebuke those who caused Shanno's death or the society in general. Perhaps between love and indifference lies impassioned caring (three points always lie in a plane and hence, the notion of "lying in between" can always be formulated).

Environment versus Education

This is something I've been wanting to write for a while. Recently, I had the good fortune of interacting closely with children and educators alike. The interaction was rather involved and I enjoyed the hours spent with the young students. Some of them grew attached and I enjoyed being included in their private world. This was an "alternate" school and hence, "teacher"-student interaction was not regulated beyond a point. This article is not about this school but about how many of us have misunderstood education by oscillating between extremes.

This school was proud of establishing a "system" where there was complete freedom given to children, fear was never used as a tool to achieve conformance or educational progress and finally, competition was not encouraged. On the face of it this is the perfect approach to educating someone. Wouldn't we all want our children to be educated in an environment devoid of fear, full of freedom and without the oppressive burden of competing? I suppose the answer would be yes.

While I was sitting on the lawns of this school, I was surrounded by some students from the 7th and 8th class. These young girls were curious to know who I was and what was I doing in their school. The typical questions started with enquiries into my height followed by my occupation and went into who my favourite actress was. I answered them patiently and enjoyed the company of these kids. I had the task of remembering all their names and they had very unique names (gone are the days when girls were simply named Priya, Sindhu, Rekha and so on). Once they were quieter I started asking them questions.

"Do you like studying here?"
[Chorus] Yes!
"Wow! Sounds like a good school. Why do you like studying here?"
[Sneha] Sir, because there is a lot of freedom for us.
(that would be an incorrect construction, but I didn't want to go down that path)
"Is that good or bad? I mean the freedom given to you."
[Chorus] Very good, Sir.
"Oh! Good. And what do you do with that freedom?"
[Silence]
I waited a while hoping that they would have something to offer and some of the braver ones attempted explaining the possibility of playing games and studying whenever they wanted to and whatever they wanted to. Turns out that most of them simply play games. We moved on to other matters.
"I am told that competition is not encouraged here."
[Chorus] Yes, sir.
"But then don't you guys compete in your games and have fights when someone cheats or feel hurt when you lose your bets and challenges?"
[Swati] That we do, but that is not the same as competing in studies, no?
"No? How?"
[Aparajita]In studies when we compete we aren't really learning anything but only mug up to score more marks. That is not good.
"And in sports you aren't really learning the game but only want to somehow take the ball to the goal and score that point so that you can stick out your tongue to the opponents. Is that good?"
[Silence]
We moved on to other topics which kept them interested as well. I got the sample I wanted and I had to interact with more to understand what these students had understood about the Utopian ideals of this school.
I spoke to the teachers and watched several of them conduct classes. Without much surprise I observed their falling back on "old" methodologies of scolding and silencing the children. Some teachers went to the other extreme of just hanging in there without consciously guiding the class because they didn't wish to be forceful or strict or contrary to the ideals of the school. Hence, they gave the students freedom to do whatever they wanted.
This school, like most alternate schools merges with mainstream schools from the 9th class. The CBSE or ICSE syllabus is followed and exams are conducted. Children are prepared for the board exams and other entrance exams. Life for a child from the 9th is like in most schools except that there is no crazy stress in the air. Children are rather comfortable with whatever they study and some of them score well and others don't.
Mainstream schools have results, pass rates, rankings to be proud of and the alternate schools have their ideologies to keep them contended.

In the individual stance adopted by each school, the child seems to be entirely forgotten. The child does not know what to do with freedom because the child is not aware of the power of freedom. Children believe they should condemn competition and use such notions to justify laziness. In a sense, mainstream schools at least are clear about what they represent and deliver what they stand by. Alternate schools neither produce deeply insightful or thinking youth nor do they produce excellence. The biggest problem with alternate schools is that the children are raised in a cocooned environment and after their 12th class are let out into the "real" world without much guidance or assistance. They enter the world assuming that everyone will readily give them freedom and that no one will try to employ fear and such base tactics to realise ends or that no one wants to compete with anyone else. There is a huge disconnect between what they see in school and what they meet in the "real" world. Finally, here is a snippet of the conversation that was started earlier:

"So all of you love this school?"
[Chorus]Yes, sir.
[Snigdha]I will feel very sad to leave this school.
"Oh! That's sweet. So how many of you plan on completing your studies and returning to this school?"
[Silence]

I personally believe that schools, educators, parents and the media make too much of the environment in which education should take place and often believe that attaining that environment is sufficient condition for calling a particular school a good school. Undoubtedly, the lack of such an environment makes true learning and education extremely difficult. All of us were raised in such mainstream schools and it is us who have gone ahead and created industries, NGOs, civil movements and alternate schools. The proportion of alternate school students who entered the world and mobilised something vital and passionate is negligible (based on whatever quick research I did). The IIM and IIT finish is quite starkly visible in most of the cases. When one meets a graduate from these institutes and discusses a particular topic with them, they do demonstrate the ability to go into them deeper and reflect on them. I can never recognise the product of an alternate school. The reason might be that the alternate school effect is lost in college. Then what is the point of having gone to an alternate school? I asked a senior teacher a similar question: "If I meet 2 gentlemen, aged 35, in an airport do you think that one of them from your school would have conducted his life differently and present himself differently from the other? If they are most likely going to be alike, does it not convince us to rather conform than confuse the child with notions of ideals at a younger age and have them all confiscated over time?" The teacher admitted to the higher possibility of finding them alike in their career choices (not the exact job but in what might have guided them) and in other ways. He nevertheless felt that the seed that was dropped earlier might grow and thrive in his students.
"How many students ponder over deep things that haven't been encountered in their life?"
"Very few"
"Safe to say about 1 per batch of students?"
"Too pessimistic."
"But accurate enough? Shall we settle for 2?"
"Numbers are irrelevant unless that is your point."
"Numbers are relevant once we realise that eventually at the age of 30 nearly the same number of students from mainstream schools would also be pondering over life and other matters. Hence, if the effect, over time, is the same then how has an environment helped?"
We left the matter there as there was nothing to say. He did raise a valid point that the success of a methodology doesn't establish its rightness. I agreed with him as I believe in it too, but if a methodology is being picked to influence someone else's life entrusted in your hands to be transformed into something beautiful, then the success of the methodology matters. If it was merely a lifestyle I chose for myself, then its success doesn't matter. I can pick up bitter gourd soup for myself and control my nauseous urges, but I cannot recommend the same to another person without understanding that person and the responsibility that we owe him.

Hence, environment, though vital, is not a sufficient condition for holistic education, or as Sri Aurobindo says, Integral Education. I prefer conscious education. Conscious education is where the child is placed at the centre without giving her the feeling of being important.

As Jiddu Krishnamurti hints, the teacher is possibly the most vital element in a school. A school is the most vital component in the education of a child. Schools that hire teachers merely to fill positions can never do justice whether they are alternate or mainstream schools.

Let me break the issue I wish to discuss into 3 parts:

1. Environment suitable for conscious education
2. Participants suitable for conscious education
3. Education techniques suitable for conscious education

I will discuss the 1st in this post. A good environment is one where the child continuously learns, assimilates, connects and applies. Continuous learning can only happen in an environment where the child can enquire and seek an understanding of the world around her. For a child to be able to enquire he must be interested in the various phenomena and relationships human beings share amongst themselves as well as with the various entities that surround them. Without interest, no amount of freedom and fearlessness can help. When a child possesses the interest the environment shouldn't introduce reasons to be afraid. When the child is assured and often that she can explore and enquire into anything then the child will learn. To make that learning continuous, it is vital to have the environment provide interesting opportunities and challenges to better understand the world that surrounds the child. This requires guidance and not indiscriminate freedom. To let the child lose and then claim that they have been given their freedom is as silly as handing over the keys of your Mercedes to your 4 year old. Would you do it without joining him in the passenger seat? Freedom is senseless without guidance and careful support. When the child is guided carefully the child can learn continuously and assimilate in a coherent manner.
Connecting information, observations, insights and conjectures requires an environment where the child is encouraged to return to the birds-eye view of the world. Often one is lost in the details of what one learns and forgets that all this learning is primarily to make sense of the world around us. To connect physical phenomena (like the flow of fluids from points of high potential energy to those of low) to their instances in life (human body, rivers, cyclones, etc.) is what makes the learning and assimilation relevant. An environment must provide support to identify various aspects of daily life and repeatedly and continuously connect them with what the child has learnt and back.
Finally, the child should be encouraged to take this learning one step further and apply them to demonstrate, solve and modify circumstances and situations. This is where creativity (from the student) is nourished. An environment which doesn't facilitate creativity can hardly ever produce a thinking man. Creativity is not merely the "aha" but also the "Oh". Often people misunderstand creativity especially when juxtaposed with the need for repetitive tasks and seemingly mechanical activities (this article in The Hindu is one such example of a rather misguided POV. E.g. I couldn't understand how she went from standardised tests to blood tests. One helps assess the familiarity with a subject and the other helps identify based on standard responses to discriminatory procedures. None of her anecdotes seemed to represent creativity!). Children like games but hate having to be creative in solving a problem which they are not connected to. This is where the environment comes in by encouraging creative extrapolations to every single task. Simplest example is to imagine that we are all trapped in a spacecraft and we have to come up with some games based on the props available.
If we are to break this understanding into rudimentary parts, then we could come up with a list of "traits" as follows:

1. Fear not a means for educating
2. Creativity not a nice-to-have but a vital element in every activity of the day
3. Guided freedom
4. Keeping the big picture (understanding the world around us) in mind
5. Continuous learning, assimilation, connecting and application

In addition to this, striving for excellence has to be encouraged. Those who say that "it is sad that this world only rewards performers" are missing the point. Performers will be rewarded and will be worshiped. Performers didn't get there by chance or by craft. They have surely put in several hours of disciplined practice to improve and better themselves. That doesn't make them a vile bunch. That doesn't mean striving for excellence is something cheap and only done by those who wish to be worshiped. Striving for excellence is a noble trait like having the courage to be honest. An environment for educating a child must inculcate the same in them. Sloppiness is not what a child should be educated in. Hence, it is vital to educate the child in the rightness of excelling oneself and continuously and organically striving to do better.
A recent CNN Money article brought out some good points about the path to greatness and success. I was reminded of a HBR article about Making of an Expert. Not surprisingly, the researcher in both of them is the same K A Ericsson. Both of them highlight the need to strive for excellence. In such an endeavour, competition takes on a very different expansive meaning. Yoshio Tanabe is one such example of excelling without being driven by competition. An environment which can balance this is most suitable for education. Those at either extreme are missing the point and create non-performing debaters or hollow achievers. Mere unplanned striving for excellence is defeating. What one needs is an environment which can help the child reach the heights by continuously developing the base. The child should realise the seriousness that is due to a subject and consciously attend to the learning and betterment of the understanding of the subject. Hence, the traits now become

1. Fear not a means for educating
2. Creativity not a nice-to-have but a vital element in every activity of the day
3. Guided freedom
4. Keeping the big picture (understanding the world around us) in mind
5. Continuous learning, assimilation, connecting and application
   
6. Structured and planned striving for excellence
7. Seriousness about learning
   
8. Communion with the "outside" world

The last point is vital in ensuring that the child doesn't feel helpless when encountering the world outside school and home. Education is a never-ending endeavour to understand the world. To make it applicable only to one locale is immature. To make it binding (e.g. the child rejecting the world in favour of his comfortable and idealistic school) is dangerous. To be totally unprepared for the world (because I know physics and math but can't compute things of daily relevance) is a waste of time and most importantly, of a rich childhood.

Though these are vital elements one cannot forget the simple element of genuine caring and Love (for the subject, for learning, for the world). The reason I don't include it is because it is not merely a trait of an environment for education alone but of life itself. In the absence of genuine caring and Love, any extent of education is pointless.

These are the main points I wish to bring out about the environment in which education should be realised. These do not bring about education. Schools which believe that providing these should suffice, are mistaken at best and lazy in all other cases. The environment is closely tied in with the participants suitable for conscious education. Please note that the environment mentioned here is not merely in a school but the environment in which a child grows and hence, includes any and every place where she dwells. Hence, education becomes the responsibility of the world and not merely of the school.

I will discuss the other two parts in later posts.

10 peculiar things I will teach my child

Teaching a child is a lot easier than teaching an adult. For one, you don't have to deal with too much of an ego. They implicitly trust you and you know that in such trust there can never be deception. How can one ever cheat a child!? Another reason why teaching a child is simpler is that everything is possible in their view of the world. One doesn't have to deal with cynicism.
But there end the reasons which make teaching children easier. Everything else makes it extremely difficult and strenuous to a person who doesn't love children. It involves to stick to the conviction of what is right and do whatever it takes to help the child learn, explore and reflect. As in the Glass Bead Game, reflecting on life's various twists and turns is vital.
I will explore education, learning, schools and much more in future articles but this one is for 10 peculiar things I will want to teach my child which are not to be found on the lists of most parents. I spoke to a lot of them and (when I asked them what their views were on education for their child) most of them fell into one of the 3 categories below:

1. I will teach my child to respect others and be tolerant and seek his passion and blah and blah and blah. Politically correct answers which very few parents are able to stick to. I find this lot more annoying than the others. Herein fall people who give you the right answers but do not have the moral fibre to adhere to them. Not all of them, but most of them (leading a lazy man to safely say "nearly all of them").
2. I will send my child to the best school. As if education is some circus trick that is taught only in schools. At least these people admit to not being able to handle the highly involved task of educating their child. They view a school as some summer camp (one which is active during the rest of the year) where children must be sent and something magical happens to them at the end of it all.
3. "Children!?" And they grow saucer-eyed with predictable theatrics. Well, yes, children.

Hence, I feel that the 10 that follow are unlikely to be on anyone's list. If it is on your list, send me a note and we can discuss this more!! :-)

1. Sleep Walking: Well, not really. It basically means someone else is sleeping and you do normal stuff without waking them up. I would teach my child to paint a moustache on me while I am sleeping without waking me up. Or walk around with a pair of anklets but not wake up the person. I used to practice similar things on my folks when I was young. I would try to take off my mom's specs when she fell asleep wearing them (completed it in a record of 7 minutes) or pull a magazine from under my grandmother. My sis and dad were easy because they slept like a log. I could remove the bed from under my sis and she wouldn't know! Opening a plastic bag to eat the cookies in there, was another test. It might sound simple but it is not. You need to be aware of the mobiles around, the chance of the doorbell ringing, a sneeze, your perspiration, a locked finger/knee joint and a lot more. Our house has a bell which rings whenever you open the door. I have successfully entered and exited the house (mechanical locks and iron grill doors) without waking up anyone who slept 3 feet away.
2. Senseless: For a period of time, the child will be asked to stop using one of his/her senses (not nonsense and common-sense but sight, smell, touch, taste and auditory senses). Numbing of the tongue will be rather difficult and I don't like playing with chemicals, but for all the rest, we will work out schemes to disallow using any one of the senses. The child is then expected to cope with a normal life but without one of those senses. This should help him/her understand the purpose of each sensory faculty and not take them for granted. This exercise would also include visiting homes for the visually impaired, etc. not to pity the residents or feel superior but to observe how they manage life and learn from them. It will also include getting creative ideas to help work with them to mitigate their difficulties.
3. 10 seconds: That's all s/he will get to note down all the items in a room/scene before having to list them all out (or as many as s/he can). This could be upon entering a restaurant, bookstore, a friend's place, a bus or just about any fairly enclosed unit of space. The request will be random and not upon every entry. We will share a keyword which upon uttering either of us will get down to noting down the details of the enclosure.
4. Recommender: This is an exercise that goes on forever. It basically requires the child to gather all skills and information required to serve as a person who can recommend something for another person. This involves knowing another's preferences, patterns, taste, allergies, whims and moods and using all this and more to be able to recommend clothes, food, gifts, books, movies, holiday spots etc. The child is definitely allowed to keep notes but will be encouraged to drop that crutch over time.
5. Cook: My child will surely learn how to cook. S/He will be definitely fed good food and will also learn how good food is prepared. S/He will start with learning to cut vegetables, maintaining vegetables, buying them and understanding their qualities. One task I imagine is cooking broccoli to 5 different textures. Smell is vital and I will expose them to the smell of too much/less masala, over/under-cooking, levels of salt, etc. They should be able to smell a dish and know whether it is done right and if not, then what went wrong. They should also be able to use their nose to pick good vegetables and fruits as well as feel them for goodness.
6. Teacher: I would encourage my child to teach another child whatever s/he has learnt in school (or on that day/week) or subjects that are relevant to that child (if he is much younger). This will help him/her understand the difficulty of teaching as well as the need to vary approaches to educating another person. I would prefer (and hope that s/he does too over time) that s/he teaches poor children who cannot afford to go to schools. I totally believe in education piracy!
7. Debater: Every month, I shall give him/her one ideology or perspective and make him/her the paladin of that. S/He will be required to learn about that ideology or perspective and build logical and sound basis for following that. These could be about finances, sociology, religion, philosophy, etc. We will have discussions about them and help the child develop the talents of thinking deeper and anticipating rebuttals.
8. Surveyor: Occasionally, I would like my child to reflect on an issue and meet people from various walks of life and gain their opinion. The exercise is not for the child to arrive at a conclusion but be able to present a topic/issue to different people differently and simply gather their opinion/feedback without influencing them or paraphrasing them. This will hone his/her skills of interacting with different people without much introduction and come straight to the point in a manner that caters to the individual's ability and cognitive background.
9. Comedian: I will teach my child to remember jokes and perform them. I will teach them the utility of exaggeration and how it can be employed to affect humour. I will watch several comedy serials, shows with them and help them understand how certain things work to create a laugh. I will encourage them to try it out on people who seemed to be sad and depressed. I will teach them the power of helping people see the possibility of life (without pep talk and Chicken Soup) by cheering them up with the power of lightness and humour.
10. Zen Monk: I would love to expose my child to the beauty of Nature and abundance of it if we could only stop long enough to see. I would take them to forests and mountains, seashores and meandering rivers to observe the calmness of things as it has always been. I would love to take them on travels where we survive on the least possible preparation and then abruptly check-in to grand resorts and hotels and then back to the road hoping that they take to each like fish to water. I hope this exercise instills in them an appreciation for a falling leaf and to live life like a feather....

These of course will not be the only things taught nor will they be taught to a child who doesn't know his/her ABC. There is a time and place for everything and a way and manner for all.

Math and Counting

The man who reforms society is still caught in society, being free from conditioning he will act in his own way, which will act again upon society. So our problem is not reformation, how to improve society, how to have a better Welfare State, whether communist or socialist or what you will. It is not an economic or political revolution, or peace through terror. For a serious man these are not the problems. His real problem is to find out whether the mind can be totally free from all conditioning and thereby perhaps discover, in that extraordinary silence, that which is beyond all measurement.

K, London, 17th June 1955

I was walking back home with my daughter. She has inherited very less of my physical features (which is good) but mirrors a lot of my inner being (the goodness of which I am undecided about). She is the only person on earth who readily and effortlessly connects to my thoughts and views and like a flowing river cleanses the water that was once there. Our thoughts and inner unrest cohere on such excursions into silent worlds and still paths - as paths inherently are; isn't it amazing that the path we take to go somewhere doesn't go anywhere? All the grand movement of the world has been along paths which are still there, perhaps repaired, but dustily there - where unrelated topics swerve into deep conversations.

We were discussing school - her marks in the exams weren't good - and about the education methodology that her school follows. She was not sure whether she should feel bad about her results. I wasn't sure either, so I offered that we should feel bad for about half hour and then reflective for another half before rejoicing in the results for a final half hour's duration. She was willing to try this out (and it was her indecision which helped sell this idea, else we would have debated this). We were also discussing our neighbours and about the demonstrated selfishness of the young lady of that house. We were also discussing prices of vegetables as we had to go back home and write accounts though we wondered why we did that and whether growing our vegetables was an option and so on. I think it was the latter topic which rammed the doors open to our deep pondering. Allow me to paraphrase what might have been the words we exchanged before I quote the actual discussion.

"Why do we need to write accounts?"

"So that we can keep track of how much we spend on particular things."

"Why?"

"So that we know where to cut down if we need to budget."

"But can we do without veggies or the rice we eat?"

"Perhaps not, but we can learn to adjust with less if a day calls for it."

"Which is something that R next door doesn't now and hence the shouting and screaming."

"Don't gossip! R's problem is beyond that. She is not really interested in living as a family and hence is more keen on wanting more than she can offer to the health of the family. One needs to better understand the motivation behind such a person wanting a family in the first place."

"Parasites!"

"S! How immature of you to call people names without knowing sufficiently well about them!"

"Anyway, I suppose keeping accounts would help me put my math education to use."

Something like what was quoted above lead to the following:

"Dad, why do we need to count?"

"In order to measure, in order to plan, in order to budget, in order to predict, in order to capture knowledge about the functioning of certain systems, in order to prevent hazards arising from miscalculation, in order to ration things out, in order to estimate and several more reasons."

"Hmmm"

"What?"

"I understand, but it feels unnatural."

"It is, sweetheart. It is a creation of man, and like most of the creations in there, it is rather unnatural. Counting per se is unnatural though measuring isn't."

"How so?"

"Measuring when it is a perceivable manifestation of a sense of rightness, is natural."

"Not clear."

"Well, Nature knows how much water will evaporate when exposed to heat. Nothing more, nothing less. It is natural and not something that one can will differently. Nature doesn't allow for a sapling to flower or bear fruits and the maturity of the plant or tree is measured before allowing for that. Mountains cannot grow indiscriminately. There is a measure which is controlled by the physical attributes of the rocks composing the mountain, gravity and isostasy."

"You saw Stacy?"

"Isostasy! Something that is used to explain the point at which the mountain base turns into mush due to the increasing weight above it. Let's go home and read about it."

"Ok, so measurement and counting are two different things according to you, right?"

"For the sake of a discussion, yes."

"And keeping accounts is?"

"Counting."

"Aah! Good! So do we need to count?"

"Depends."

"On?" (and this is where I always turn to look at her and love her even more. She listens and treats words seriously unlike people who would simply nod whenever I say "Depends". She has beautiful eyes, if you would allow me an aside.)

"On where you are and where the world is."

"Dad! Are you trying to evade this conversation as I have no hassles dropping it and going back home and doing the accounts till the day when I get married and have an intelligent daughter who would ask me "Why do we need to count?"?"

"No, sweets. I am dead serious."

"Ok, then explain."

"Let me give you an analogy before I proceed. There is this world which about 100 square feet. In a corner is a little gramophone record player which..."

"We are buying the gramophone record player, right?"

"Not now, but eventually, yes. So in the corner is this little gramophone record player which continuously flowers music. People are growing deaf and then they die when they are totally deaf. You want to switch off the music so that people don't suffer, but everyone else stops you from doing so. Their only way of knowing that they are alive is the music - if they can hear it, they know they are alive. And you plan to turn it off for their benefit?"

"Hmmm. And this is related to counting, how? You are saying that if we stop counting the world as we know it will collapse?"

"Or it would require the re-birth of an entire world which consciously notes the point at which it felt the need to measure and also count."

"The former is of no use, so let's go with the latter."

"Perfect!" and I held her closer. Sometimes a pointless hug means that I am still alive. S knows that and threw her arm around my waist.

"You are going to explain, right?"

"Of course. I don't think there is a need to count in order to be alive. So, if all I am interested in is eating my fill, sleeping when I want to and waking up when I am done, performing tasks because I need to survive and not be at the mercy of the elements, because I have no fur or claws but a brain which also needs to be protected then I do not need to count. Let us take a normal day..."

"... on an island where E and his daughter S are the only inhabitants and no can enter that place."

"Right."

"I wish I get to see such an island."

"Not sure you will like it. Then you will hate me for having made it so enchanting by including it in all my theories."

"You sure know how to spoil a moment, don't you!?"

"Anyway, so on this island we wake up and stretch ourselves and brush our teeth. No counting needed so far. Then we walk around and get a few coconuts and some fruits and veggies."

"No accounts so no counting."

"Well, no counting because of no accounts but also no counting because we eat to our fill. We do not pluck beyond what we know is necessary for a meal. That is measure and not counting. One might be hasty to say: Oh! You picked 2 coconuts or a handful of figs so you are counting. That would be, as I said, hasty and silly. If we walk a thousand footsteps and know that we are going to get tired soon, and then repeat that several times before we automatically know when we are going to get tired and when we are going to get hungry, then it is measure and not counting. Of course, we see only one sun. Should we call that knowledge counting? No! We can see five coconut trees in front of us and one is rotting. We don't need to know counting to realise that we should plant some more trees. There is a huge difference between intrinsic measure and contrived counting. Are we together?"

"So far, yes."

"So we don't need counting till our breakfast. We know by experience the exact amount of sea water to use to cook our veggies, and we will rub the twigs till the fire is made and not till we reach the count of 582 twirls of the stick. We eat not 134 gms of potato but the amount we need to not feel hungry. If there is only this much tomatoes we set aside some for dinner. It might turn out to be less or more but that is fine. No one is giving us Michelin stars for our culinary capabilities or our standing as restauranteurs."

"Well, it is only the two of us, so its ok."

"Well, if we extend this to any number of people, it will still be ok if we understand the philosophy behind this. Then we walk around the island, write, read, sing, plant trees, build hammocks and watch the sunset and dance after dinner. Nothing needs counting. We are alive and hopefully happy but haven't had to count. We celebrate any day we want as your birthday. We make strawberry cakes whenever we feel like. We build sand-castles and design kites out of dried leaves and coir without having to count. Essentially we live and enjoy living without having to count."

"Ok. So now we are a village of fifty people. How does it scale?"

"Everyone consumes what s/he needs and produces enough to satisfy the village's wants. How much is the want? That is known by experience and understanding. The ability to count doesn't assure accurate estimates. Estimates is still a function of experience. For the farmer to know how much land he should bring under the plough and whether the signs in the sky auger well and whether he needs to repair his barn or not and how much of the produce will typically reach the cooking pot is not something that the ability to count helps. It is experience. Like a ironsmith who says that you need to heat the rod till it is hot enough to hammer. He doesn't talk in terms of degrees celsius or other counts. He heats the rim till it just fits the wheel before rapidly cooling it. No counting there; just experience and a measure of rightness."

"What about food? Someone will want more and some less."

"But there is only so much. One could increase the land that is tilled. The want for more could be a physiological aberration or plain greed. The latter has brought us to the state of the world as it is today and the former can be treated through medicines."

"But we need to count the millilitres of medicine that we give him."

"Or have a measure of the right amount. No doctor knew the right amount of a medicine without experience. No medicine discovered came with a count as to how much of it should be administered. The measure was obtained from experience. Earlier it was tried on human beings and now on monkeys and fruit flies."

"Sick."

"Indeed. Human beings are inherently destructive and greedy but are also the only creatures that can save this world from self-annihilation."

"The problem and the solution."

"God and Devil."

"But aren't you just using measure as an alternative to count? Isn't that just playing with words when the act is essentially the same?"

"Not really, sweetheart and don't drag your feet. I have told you what that does to the footwear."

"Sorry."

"Let me give you an example. You know how much milk you want. That is measure. Do you count the ml of milk you drink? Watch animals around you and you will know how measure and counting are different."

"They probably do the counting unconsciously."

"If it unconscious then it cannot be counting. If you ate a measured amount of bonbons till you felt that any more would not do well for your tummy, do you know the count of how many you ate? Definitely not. If you had kept a count and at around 20 thought that this was too high a number and probably you should stop, then it is counting and not unconscious. If you did it unconsciously and then counted the wrappers then too the initial phase was measurement and the latter was counting - one unconscious and the other conscious."

"I get what you are saying, but I am not totally convinced."

"If you were blind and I was feeding you dinner with a spoon and I was also telling you a story, would you or not tell me when you are full? Does it depend on the number of spoonsfull you had? Does it depend on the duration of the story? Does the story's import depend on the amount you ate or the minutes spent?"

"Hmmm"

"Remember R's wedding we went to?"

"Yup."

"Do you recall how the cooks prepared the meals? None of them used teaspoons or weighing measures to decide on the amount of salt or dal to add to the dishes, did they? They didn't use beakers to measure the water to be added. You can call it counting. I call it measuring. All things natural are measured. You cannot count happiness or fear or greed or inspiration. They can only be measured."

"Ok. Now that makes sense. So I understand that counting is not instinctive or natural, but does that mean we can do without it?"

"If we accept that counting is not natural then we automatically know that we don't need it for survival. All that we need for survival has been provided to us by Nature and nature."

"But that would mean that we live like animals."

"Which is why I said, you cannot stop the music though you know very well that the music is not needed for the people in the world to be alive."

She held me tighter and I knew she was able to realise the place that counting has in this world.

"Then we need to understand where counting is vital."

"I suppose in budgeting and planning and the other things you mentioned."

"True, but before we go there, stop to think why do we need to do them."

"Because if we don't we can run into trouble."

"So counting is essentially a means to avoid running into trouble. It is our tool to prevent miscalculation, under-planning, under-utilisation and missing opportunities to gain from the environment around us. It is essentially a means to compare and contrast which measuring can never help in. I can never say which has more right sweetness - this dish or that if they were both prepared with a measure of rightness than a count of the number of spoons of sugar. Mind you, even with your count every batch of sugar and every ounce of green chilli you buy has a different taste and you need to alter your counts to match rightness of taste. Counting is a predictable way to avoid failures and re-learning or as cynics say: re-inventing the wheel. But the point is, we are re-inventing and measuring nearly every day in so many spheres of existence. We need to know whether to run at this speed or more to catch the bus that just left the bus-stop. No, you cannot and should not do that. If it has left then you wait for the next bus or reach the stop earlier. No climbing into a running bus."

"Fine dad! I won't. God!"

"We count a lot and then we store them in our head in order to create a safe world where things are predictable. We now have manuals and guides to tell us how much of this and how much of that should be there in order to produce X quantity of that. Then something changes (ore quality, fibre content, sucrose levels, tensile strength of raw materials, brittleness, etc.) and we are upset and we count all over again. Counting has essentially cut off the sense of measuring in human beings. Somehow monkeys know that a particular fruit is going to be sour. They know with one step on a branch whether it can take their weight or not. Counting helps us be safe and cocooned with the surety of the world around us. We don't count the amount we breathe or the number of breaths. Hence, counting is not necessary."

"But is counting essentially wrong?"

"Nothing is inherently wrong or right. Counting isn't when applied to certain technological and scientific things. Do we need them for living on this earth in harmony and in peace? No. Like most other inventions of man, counting helps only this much especially where re-invention has little benefit over the invented. For instance, if I know that this much temperature is required to fabricate silicon wafers and then so much photoresist is allowed I probably do not want to discover those measures every time I make a new wafer. It is far too wasteful to do that. I could probably feed them into control panels and have a self-managing manufacturing plant."

"I didn't understand a word."

"Ok. Let's try again. Do you remember the tea tasting ceremony we went to? There they explained how tea was manufactured and the oxidation process etcetera? So there are manufacturing units which know the temperature that should be maintained and the height of the drying beds and so on. Such knowledge is not worth re-inventing at every harvest as it would lead to excessive wastage. Here, I think, counting is utile. There are similar areas where it is worth using knowledge that comes out of experience."

"How does one decide?"

"By a measure of rightness. It is so simple if only we are comfortable with simplicity. But we cannot accept simple solutions as they all expect the human being to be simple too."

"But that doesn't quite happen."

"It doesn't and it won't. Man is inherently insecure and counting is the strongest pillar he invented to build his fortress of greed and grandeur."

"Woah! That is strong."

"No, sweets, listen. He started by counting the deer he killed and the men he could defeat. He built walls and then higher ones. We count spears and the dead to decide who should rule a piece of land and then count the number of heads that bow down and the acres of land under one's seal to decide who is more powerful and hence who should be more respected. We searched new lands and burned more forests to create food for the countless. We wallowed in orgies and feasts while a poor man starved because we counted greatness by the amount we could afford to waste. We invented new ways of military murder and sought better weapons to kill more with least effort. The less blood-thirsty invented money and used counting to decide who was richer and more powerful and likewise who could be enslaved or not. Then we measured the worth of science by the lives it could take or save but never bothered about the natural balance we were disrupting leading to more consumption and more resource utilisation. We count on providing a better standard of living at the cost of a measure of better living. We would burn more forests and build taller and grander buildings without measure though we would immediately count our expenses and investments in the same.

This need to count migrated into our relationships where we became calculative and want more without a sense of giving and balancing the measure of mutual happiness. The philosophy and the need to count is essentially the same whether it is done with numbers or with greedy wants. The ability to count creates a security in taking and hoarding. One who cannot count will only take what he needs and he who can see your pile of gold as being higher than his needs to count to ensure that the total weight of his is more than yours. With the ability to count comes the possibility of comparison and with that comes the illusion that that which is calibrated is less important than the calibration itself. If you look around you, everything is a count. All of business is a count, a count for profit, more revenues with least regards to things that cannot be counted - ethics, morals, exploitation, fairness. All of relationships has become whether the husband has bought more diamonds or not and whether the wife has mothered more sons or not and whether the parents bought X clothes and gadgets every month or not. Everyone is trying to grab and take whatever they can because they count and compare with others. All of education has become grades and scores and percentages and not what one has understood and what one can apply to the betterment of life around us. All of life is a count of what we have done, seen, owned, possessed and spent."

"So I needn't worry about my Math grades?"

"You better! Forget about the scores but figure out why you didn't understand the concepts well enough to use them in the exam."

"But I can stop counting them, right?"

"If you can stop the music, yes."

We walked on for a while silently.

"I spoke too much?"

"Who's counting?"