Articles on Huffington Post

Links to all my articles on Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/could-you-be-leading-your-kids-astray-without-even-knowing-it_a_21454801/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/ever-considered-hopping-on-a-plane-and-world-schooling-your-chil_a_21474729/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/is-technology-a-boon-or-bane-for-teenagers_a_21485123/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/why-time-in-is-better-than-time-out-to-discipline-your-child_a_21585731/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/are-you-celebrating-festivals-the-right-way-with-your-kids_a_21588685/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/how-to-use-the-us-elections-as-a-learning-tool-for-your-teenager_a_21598676/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/how-to-choose-the-best-parenting-style-for-your-child-part-1_a_21620577/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/heres-how-you-can-use-demonetisation-to-teach-kids-critical-thi_a_21621370/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/why-the-because-i-said-so-brand-of-parenting-sets-kids-up-for_a_21625583/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/10-principles-that-authoritative-parents-swear-by_a_21627463/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/do-you-believe-in-just-letting-kids-be-kids-they-may-never-gr_a_21630568/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/what-should-you-do-if-your-child-isnt-into-academics_a_21643819/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/how-and-when-to-pick-the-right-playschool-for-your-toddler_a_21711322/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/why-you-should-consciously-introduce-music-in-your-childs-life_a_21717405/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/how-to-build-a-love-of-reading-in-your-kids_a_21718215/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/how-to-pick-the-right-preschool-for-your-toddler_a_21845339/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/working-moms-should-be-celebrated-not-sent-on-guilt-trips_a_21874045/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/are-you-repeating-the-mistakes-your-parents-made-with-you_a_21876829/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/our-schools-evaluation-systems-are-making-kids-lose-out-on-lear_a_22019751/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/dear-hrd-ministry-stop-strangling-entrepreneurship-in-education_a_22042872/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/tips-to-ensure-that-your-special-child-lives-a-full-life_a_22075124/
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/lina-ashar/let-us-raise-our-children-to-be-happy_a_22128329/

Are you listening?

“You know that sympathy you feel for an abused child who suffers without a good mom or dad to love and care for them? Well, they don't stay children forever. No one magically becomes an adult the day they turn 18. Some people grow up sooner, many grow up later. Some never really do. But just remember that some people in this world are just older versions of those same kids we cry for” ~ Ashly Lorenzana

On the 13th of September 2013, the country heaved a sigh of relief when the four accused in the ‘Nirbhaya rape case’ were sentenced to death. The nation rejoiced as one of her daughters had finally found justice. The rape case and the sentence are but just the tip of a dangerous iceberg. 

The sentence also led the nation to debate it at various level; political, socio-psychological and socio-economic. While some argued that death sentence is not a viable democratic option, many did feel that this was the only deterrent; only stringent measures could eliminate the vilest of all crimes. 

Being a woman, while I totally empathise with these arguments; the educator in me also sees the futility of these exercises. History has proved that violence never deters violence. If lessons were to be learnt from history then post the two world wars we would have seen a patient, loving and all embracing humanity. The history of the world would have not been spotted with the hundreds of battles, wars, riots and rapes that it currently has. 

Lots has been written on why men rape. The sense of power that they enjoy ;the social insecurity they face from women who are more successful than them in the personal and professional spaces, the sense of gratification which they perceive by controlling and vindicating another human being and many such more are usually enumerated as the major reasons .

The crux of the issue however lies in the subconscious of the assaulter. Children grow up seeing their fathers abuse their mothers, the men folk of their village or city giving little or no respect to women in social spaces. Advertisements, jokes, movies and other forms of entertainment usually target women. The body of the woman in commoditised over and over again at the social level, while the responsibility of maintaining her dignity lies solely at the individual level. 

Research has shown that most sexual abusers belong to broken families. Interactions between the parents which create the base for childhood experiences influence the adult behaviour of many an abuser. Witnesses and victims of domestic violence veer towards violent tendencies later on in life. The suppression of emotions and the lack of communication at the adolescent ages is also an angle that needs to be explored. Very frequently parents do not want to discuss emotional and sexual issues with their children. Children are frequently told that it is bad to talk about such stuff. Unanswered questions in their mind lead to unguided actions.

When children are unable to foster trust in their parents, it develops into a lack of trust in everyone they meet in their later lives and this fosters the need to enforce power and superiority on all. Sexual abuse is a way of maintaining the power equations in their head. At the core of most socially inappropriate behaviours is the fact of being socially inadequate; of being constantly told that one is worthless and useless. When children are abused, they develop the inability to regulate their emotions and express them in a positive way. The suppression of emotions also leads to its expression in different ways which may be form alcoholism to sexual perversion. 

In 2007, a government of India conducted a research on around 12000 along with Unicef and Save the children. The study of these children revealed the most shocking results. Around 50 % of them admitted to being sexually abused.

(http://www.friendsofsbt.org/statistics)

Statistics reveal that there has been a 336% increase in child rape cases from 2001 to 2011. And yet again this is the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Most child assault cases go unreported.

(http://feministsindia.com/tag/child-abuse-statistics/)

While a lot needs to be done at the governmental level by means of legislation, the educational system in India is a powerful force of reform that needs to be harnessed to usher in change. 

Schools and other educational institutions need to be pivotal in playing a vital role to usher in change. When we develop strong positive children in our schools, we nurture a safe world for our future. While the government’s intent on getting the RTE into place is praiseworthy, the more impelling consideration should be the right to safety. Are our children safe in their private and public spaces. 

What do educational institutes do when cases of child abuse get reported in their schools or colleges? Do they have child protection services on their campuses? Do they have counselling programmes for the children? The recent incident at the Manipal University/ (reputed university?) campus where a female student was kidnapped and raped on her way back from the college library is a case in point. A safe place till date, the University is now on tender hooks. Most educational institutes never prepare for such an eventuality because they believe such things don’t happen in their organisations. 

Short term solutions like expelling the offender may not provide the safety that individuals are looking for. People are open to sexual exploitations in schools, colleges and work places. Every organisation should have a counselling centre especially schools and colleges. There need to be safe places where children can speak up about what happens to them. 

Billabong High has been instrumental in giving voice to our students. The Chuppi todo campaign that was a part of all our schools stands testimony to this. 

(http://www.indiaprwire.com/pressrelease/education/2010081258932.htm)

The campaign aimed at teaching children the differences between good touch and bad touch. Awareness is the key to protection. It aimed at drawing the attention of parents to this oft neglected topic . It also told children to be open to their parents, teachers or any adult they could trust so that such incidents do not scar their lives. The key word is ‘trust’. Are our adults trustworthy? 

In India talking about sexual abuse is usually nonexistent. It’s often believed that ‘such things don’t happen in our family’. Statistics reveal that around 68% of child abusers belong to the family of the child concerned. Around 90% of sexually abused children revealed that they knew the perpetrator prior to the abuse. So the friendly ‘uncle’ or the loving ‘aunty’ in the neighbourhood may not be that friendly and loving after all. We revel in denial. We revere ‘family name’ and we constantly cover up such incidents. 

As parents the roads of communication need to be open. A recent video doing the rounds on you tube sends out this message very strongly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d31GbzRvrr8.

Our child could be telling you something. But are you listening?

www.kkel.com 

http://www.facebook.com/BillabongHigh

http://www.facebook.com/KangarooKidsPreschool

http://www.facebook.com/whodoyouthinkyouarekidding?

It’s A Left Hander’s World Too!

The world has been inquisitive, amazed and even scared of them. They have been looked upon as objects of curiosity. People never understood why they do things the way they do. The right handed population has always had the upper hand in life compared to the Left Handed.

Almost 10% of the people are predominantly left handed. About 1% of the people are ambidextrous i.e they use either hand for doing daily tasks.

In most civilizations and traditions across the world, the left hand has been considered the impure one or the unholy one. It has also been traditionally believed that the left hand brings bad luck. In India we never hand out or receive anything with the left hand.

Left handed children have often been accused of being clumsy and not being able to do things ’properly’. Quite frequently parents have tried to ‘rectify this defect’ in their child and forcefully ensure that the child uses the right hand. But the right hand for a left handed child is the left one.

The brain is divided into two hemispheres: the right and the left. The left brain controls the right side of the body and the right brain controls the left side of the brain. Research has proved that the functioning of the brain is to a great extent responsible for the handedness of a person. Left handed people thus usually have very active right brains.

Most babies begin to use both the hands simultaneously. It’s usually by the age of five that infants begin to show preferences for the use of their hands.  In most people where the right side of the body is the stronger side, inputs are taken from the right eye, the right ear and the rest of the right body and passed on to the left side of the brain. In left handed people it is seen that not only is their right brain more active, they are very comfortable with simultaneous, bi hemisphere processing of data.

There is enough research to prove that it not just the dominant side of the brain that affects the handedness of a person. A number of factors go into it like the genetics and the foetal development. Research is still trying to discover if the levels of testosterone in the womb at the time of foetal development has anything to do with being left handed as it has been noticed that among lefthanders, the majority are male.

So being left handed has more to do with genetics and brain dominance than evil and bad luck. The left handed child is not clumsy. He is a left handed child trying to manipulate things made for predominantly right handed people. From keyboard designs to door handles, to cars, everything is created for a right hander. The fact that left handers are more ambidextrous only displays the plasticity of their brains to adapt to situations. It has also been found that right handers are not as dexterous with their left one as are left handed people with their right one.

Being able to process data between both hemispheres faster and better, left handed people have an advantage in many areas of sport and learning. Research has shown that the top 20% of all Mensa members are left handed. It has also been noticed that left handed people are better at multi-tasking and yes, better at playing video games! They may be more visual based learners and hence far more oriented to follow the creative arts.

As parents you make a note of which hand is dominant in your toddler. Initially most children are ambidextrous and will soon figure out which is their own dominant hand. See what hand he uses to eat, pick up toys, write and paint.  Speak to the teacher at school so that your child is placed on the left hand side of a desk which leaves him free to be able to write.

While teaching your child how to tie shoe laces or bows sit in front of them and demonstrate. Thus they get the mirror image of what you are doing and thus is becomes easier for them to learn these skills. At the same time do not try to change too many things for the left handed child because, at the end of the day he has to navigate in a world which may not be so kind. But don’t at any time try to rewire his preferences. Left handed children learn how to negotiate a right handed world in their own way. In fact a typical qwerty keypad has 3500 words that can be typed with only the left hand while there are only 450 words which can be typed using only the right hand.

Encourage and motivate you child just in case he gets too hassled working out things for himself. Remind him that famous people like Mahatma Gandhi, Bill Clinton, Ravi Shastri, Charlie Chaplin, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Mark Twain are all lefthanders.

August 13^th is the International Left handers day. 

www.kkel.com

http://www.facebook.com/BillabongHigh

http://www.facebook.com/KangarooKidsPreschool

http://www.facebook.com/whodoyouthinkyouarekidding?

Mind your Music!

“Music makes me forget my real situation. It transports me into a state which is not my own. Under the influence of music I really seem to feel what I do not understand, to have powers which I cannot have.”  ~Tolstoy

Kangaroo Kids celebrated the 20th year of igniting human greatness with a live concert of the world renowned Buddhist nun and singer Ani Choying Drolma. The evening catapulted everyone present into a world of peace and calm. Almost everyone I met after the programme told me how they felt a sense of calm after the ‘satsang’ as Ani called it.

Music had proved to be a powerful change agent yet again. People came in with a million thoughts in their mind; about husbands, wives, office deadlines, exams, the rains and everything in general. But music changed them all. They went out happier people; calm relaxed and more focussed on their inner self.

While we agree that it is so vital to retain inner peace and calm in our otherwise agitated lives consciously how many of us as parents and teachers try to infuse music in the lives of our children?

Music has held man in her sway since time immemorial. Music represented happiness and joy. Festivals and celebrations are always associated with music. Entertainment relies heavily on music.

Music can be introduced into a child’s life very early. There are, in most cultures so many songs which are traditionally believed to have deep impacts on the child in the mother’s womb and many ‘to-be’ moms have spent their days of anticipation listening to these songs. Though such theories have not been scientifically proven, what scientists do agree upon is that if the mother enjoys the music she is listening to and is in relaxed state of mind, the unborn child benefits from that state of mind.

Children can be introduced to music at very early stages. Playing classical music while children are busy with any activity like feeding or playing is always welcome. Implicitly they pick up music. Music offers lifelong learning for children.

Children in the age group of 1 to 3 benefit if they are actively involved with music. They love to sing and dance and that’s why we see most preschools focusing on music and movement. Music gives them a sense of rhythm and there is a lot of brain development happening when they are clapping, tapping, shaking their head, marching and rolling to music. Music thus helps develop multiple brain and muscle activity and most of this learning happens unconsciously and does impact the subconscious mind of the child.

When we listen to music the brain is activated in varied areas. It does some computational tasks that help it wire and rewire itself in powerful ways. Research is yet to figure out how deep the impact of music is and how complicated the computations are. But scientists are pretty sure that the music you hear as a child influences your taste in music as you grow older.

Research also shows how music helps develop various skills. Music and math go a long way together. There is enough research to prove that training in music does help enhance the math skills of an individual. Music targets, among the varied parts of the brain, that particular area that deals with the development of math skills. Music will not help create a mathematical genius but will help develop the same part of the brain which is used to do math.

Learning to read and interpret music is as beneficial as learning a new language. While mastering the syntax and semantics of music new pathways are created in the brain. These then rework on existing pathways and get the brain to think and process differently .Thus music helps increase the levels of creativity in an individual.

There are simple ways of introducing music in the lives of children.

Pick out musical tracks that can play in the background when you read aloud to them. Pick and choose the song to the mood of the story and always play the same song when you read out a particular story. Though association children will link the song and the story and make multiple connections in their mind.

Infuse dance along with music. Ask your children to dance to the tunes. They could interpret the music in the way they want. They will develop a sense of rhythm, balance and coordination. The power of creating their own dance piece is very powerful and will keep their creative juices flowing.

Simple activities like creating a paper plate drum or a simple jaltarang will bring music and rhythm in their lives. Just pin up two paper plates together with a few beads or tiny pebbles inside them. You have a simple percussion instrument ready. Arrange a series of bottles or cups with varying levels of water. Hit notes on them with a metal spoon. Your jaltarang is ready!

Play music at home while you are doing your daily tasks. Playing music while you children are doing their homework or even playing boards games helps a lot. Soon you will have your children developing their own taste in music and wanting to play and learn music for themselves.


www.kkel.com 

http://www.facebook.com/BillabongHigh

http://www.facebook.com/KangarooKidsPreschool


http://www.facebook.com/whodoyouthinkyouarekidding?

Why This Kolaveri Di

The guru shishya parampara in India is an ancient and revered practice. The ancient texts speak about how students used to live with their teachers, and learn what has to be learnt. They learnt the skills of their trade and left the ashram only when the teacher felt that they were equipped to handle their designated roles in society. During this tenure, students were monitored emotionally and psychologically by the guru. The guru knew the strengths and weaknesses of each and every student and hand held him individually; modifying course content till the desired level of proficiency was reached by the student. Education was personalised, the guru was committed and the student was devoted lifelong.

Is the situation today the same? We read and hear of students turning against their teachers. Recently there was a case in Chennai where the teacher was killed by a student. This only brings me to the question ‘Why this kolaveri, di?’ (Which I have been told means why this murderous rage?)

A friend, also a parent of two growing teenagers recently commented, “Its difficult being a kid nowadays. Clothes, mobiles, game machines, academics, the lack of role models and the competition: all are there out for a child to face.” And all this bottles up in the child sometimes converting itself into rage: a rage that is also the culmination of unheard and stifled voices. In classrooms with around seventy kids teachers lack the time, resources and patience to listen to each and every student.

How do we help our teachers work around such situations?

Someone once said, “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” I beg to differ. Teaching is a highly specialised field dealing with the future of several generations to come. Each teacher in her career deals with a minimum of 15 generations. So one can only imagine the impact a teacher has in the life of a nation at large. Teacher education and in service teacher training is highly essential for our teachers to be able to handle the emotionally charged students of today. Teachers need to be people who are trained and equipped to handle these high pressure jobs. They need to be content masters and at the same time pedagogically sound to handle the emotional outbursts of their students.

The responsibility of the well being of a student is surely a combined one and it is up to the both the stakeholders i.e. the parents and the school to meet and discuss the issues that plague the child. Rarely is the initiative taken by the school or the teacher. And this is largely, not just because of the heavy workload of teachers but due to the lack of appropriate training for the teacher. The teacher needs to be trained to have a discerning eye to notice any voice of dissent in any student and initiate to resolve this with the student and the parents.

In-service training is highly essential to maintain the quality of teachers. During pre-service training most student-teachers are just out of their youth and do not usually have the maturity and life experience to take on the mantle of other lives. But as they go ahead in their career, they get trained by the job and by their interaction with their students. And this is where in-service training is very important. As teachers move ahead in their careers, they tend to get rigid and fixed about their ideas, their teaching practices are rarely renewed and their mind sets get reinforced. Refresher courses are essential to into their lives new theories of education, the latest trends in the educational field and ideas that will help break existing mind sets. A constant regeneration of ideas helps bridge the gap between the teacher and the student. What we need to remember is that the age gap between the teacher and the student is increasing with every passing year and the teacher deals with increasingly younger age groups. If the connect between the teacher and the student is not renewed time and again then the generation gap will stare into the face of the teacher.

www.kkel.com 

http://www.facebook.com/BillabongHigh

http://www.facebook.com/KangarooKidsPreschool

http://www.facebook.com/whodoyouthinkyouarekidding?

Reading Is Right

Srishti works as a senior manager in a multinational and is highly upset with the new batch of trainees that have entered her organisation. “Every year the problem seems to be getting worse”, she complains, “These guys can’t even draft a letter properly. If I ask them to quote someone, they wouldn’t have even heard of the names! I wonder if they read anything while they were growing up. I give them a list of books to read and they hardly manage to finish even one over a three week period. They are good with their content but when it comes to reading, they just don’t want to go beyond the newspaper!”

This is not an isolated case. One of the major problems faced by many senior level managers today is the resistance of employees to reading new stuff. A sense of complacency settles in lives of many people once they have finished their college education and are well placed in their jobs. The only reading that many adults do is that of the daily newspaper. Mark Twain once remarked, “If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed, but if you read the newspaper, you are misinformed.”

The key to survive the competitive market today is communication. The most important tool that aids communication is good language. And good language stems from good reading.

Michael Gove, the Education Secretary of the United Kingdom has said that kids should read at least 50 books a year. This follows a study undertaken by him on the falling standards of reading among teenagers in the UK.  Research shows that the chances of a seven year old owning a mobile phone is 90% higher than him owning a book.

That brings us to the question of the day. How do we address Shriti’s problem? Are we rearing a generation that is slowly losing out on the reading skills? If the answer to this is yes, then it’s time we got up and took stock.

I can hear voices that ask me, why do we need to read? If it’s for information: then it’s all there on the internet. If it’s for entertainment, then I have a movie to watch or a game to play? Why something as passive as reading?

And this is exactly where the misconception lies: Reading deceptively looks passive but is highly active in nature.

Reading activates synaptic connections in the brain that impact other sensory interpretations also. Recent research by the neuroscientist Stanislaus Dehaene indicates that reading actually improves the way the brain functions in a number of important ways. While the mind tries to discover how the characters feel and respond it also tries to see, hear and think like them. Meanwhile it tries to decipher counter arguments for the ones placed in the book.

“Most of my trainees”, says Srishti, “inform me that they never read anything but school text books through school. They were never encouraged either. A few of them read despite their schools but stopped somewhere down the lane”. This is why reading needs to be cultivated as a habit for life. It’s not difficult to get kids hooked on to reading. We just need to figure out what is it that encourages them to read. Without trying to impose what we think is right reading, we need to encourage the reading habit .If your kid loves fiction hand him ‘The diary of a Wimpy Kid’. If she adores nonfiction, the latest National Geographic could just do the trick. The process into initiating kids into reading has to be pleasant. Many kids read all their school books but do not step out of that domain. Forcing kids to read will only drive them further away.

Set up a reading time at home when all members of the family only read. Switch off the television; keeps your mobiles on silent; answer them only if there is an emergency and enjoy the reading session. Let your kids read light material if they do not want to read a novel. Display good books around the house. Some day she will be curious enough to pick it up. Take them book shopping, when you shop only for books and nothing else. Get them a library membership. Read the book she is reading and discuss it with her. That sends out the signal that you care about what she reads and you share his tastes. It might motivate her to want to pick up what you read so that she can discuss it with you!

Reading helps create pictures in the mind. These connections are highly important to the development of the brain. Programs on television offer the brain pictures and the brain finds accepting this less challenging .Hence it doesn’t take in as much. Ask anyone who has watched a movie made on a book they have read, they will always tell you that the movie disappointed them. The images of the movie clash with their mental pictures of the book and someone else’s idea in the movie never comes up to the movie in their own mind. I never found Dev Anand’s Raju Guide as delectable as R. K. Narayan’s.

This is where the genre of comics plays an important role. Super heroes fascinate. So let them revel in the world of Phantom, Superman, Batman or any other legendary hero. The Amar Chitra Katha Series is a major source of edutainment and has held generations captivated. Comic reading abounds in fantasy and fiction. The light reading that it provides along with images has the motivational power to get kids to read heavier stuff at their own discretion. 

Shristi noticed that her trainees used the most basic vocabulary. Even if she sent them back their project reports, they never came up with outstanding work. Most adults often find themselves stuck up for words. This is because they lack a vocabulary at their beck and call. The brain divides vocabulary into active and passive. Active vocabulary is relatively easy to recall and used regularly. The passive vocabulary however is in the subconscious mind, which comes to the fore when needed. The passive vocabulary bank is built when one reads and deposits words in them. The brain then attempts to use the words appropriately.

Shrishti also realised that most of her trainees were as comfortable with technology as they were at ill ease with books. Every succeeding generation is exposed more to technology than ever before. Every home today is a technology treasure trove with innumerable gadgets that garner attention of kids. These offer games, songs and other predetermined programs that have limited value in igniting the greatness of each individual mind.  They keep the kids entrapped with their glamour and glitz .A growing dependence on the internet, search operations, algorithms to monitor what sites we visit ensure that we are flooded with similar material at all times. Reading becomes the poor second cousin.

Can we then tap the power of technology to get kids to read?

E readers like Kindle and Nook offer books on the computer. Though most of them are on sale, there is a vast store house that allows free download of books. With technology in their hands, they feel they have something that belongs to them and something that they identify with. The iPad is also equipped with a good e reader.  

The internet readers today have so many options to choose from. The moment they figure out that content doesn’t engage them they move on the next link. This is increasing their level of intolerance towards reading. But this can also be used to their advantage. Accessing different stories simultaneously, the reader draws by his own path of natural curiosity to reach some option that he may never even have considered reading .The internet has the capacity to take people on a tour of self discovery.

You might not have kids reading 50 books in a year but half an hour a day of sound reading will lead to lifetime of experiences. Real or virtual, reading books is a life skill.

Confucius opined “No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self chosen ignorance.” These ring true even today.

www.kkel.com

http://www.facebook.com/BillabongHigh

http://www.facebook.com/KangarooKidsPreschool

http://www.facebook.com/whodoyouthinkyouarekidding?

Empower The Brain

The human brain is the most complex organ in our body. Its capabilities are infinite. While research on its potential is an ongoing process, the available data is yet to be put into use by the education system in our country.

Research shows that the brain finds it simpler to learn complex things. Information that is straight and simple is not challenging enough for the brain. It does not retain it. That is why we forget the 100 odd movies we have watched in our lifetime but we do remember that one movie which has affected us. This is because that one movie was complex in its situation, its artistry or its creation and that motivated the brain to retain that in our memory.

Most parents and educators believe that we need to simplify things for our kids. We presume they do not understand complex ideas. Research has proved that this is not true. John Medina, (author of Brain Rules) in his book speaks about a simple experiment that anyone can do. Take two groups of people. Give both the groups a list of words. Ask Group One to figure out the diagonal lines on the words. Ask Group Two to associate these words with experiences from their lives. Now take away the lists and after a few minutes ask them to write down words from the list. You will be surprised by the results. Group Two remembers more number of words as their task was more complex. The brain does not retain to memory very simple and monotonous tasks.

The most complex skills are learnt by a baby on its own. The baby learns to crawl, to sit, to toddle and to walk. The brain does the most complex learning early in life and on its own. The brain has evolved to learn by itself and is not meant to follow instruction. Yet we insist on giving instructions to our kids on a minute by minute basis!

“So do you want me to leave my kid all by himself till his brain teaches him how to live in this world? How is he going to survive?” I can almost hear you asking. Well, that’s how the brain has evolved... it has evolved to survive. It has evolved to think things out, to figure out relationships, to feel and emote, to figure out what information is important for its survival.

And that is why today’s kids are wired to technology. It is important for their survival. They instinctively know that they need to learn how to figure out technology before they figure out how to walk and talk. Kids as young as eight months can manipulate remote controls and iPad applications.

The brain is wired to explore and enjoy. It enjoys exploring complex stuff rather than plain and simple things. But as kids grow up we bombard them with so many instructions that soon the brain gives up its ability to explore and enjoy and chooses to just follow. We then deem this as the innate inability of our kids to learn things on their own; especially complex things. We begin to dumb down information so that we make it child friendly.

Every experience that we have adds to the capacity of the brain. By restricting experiences to the kids we reduce the development of the brain. Research shows that a healthy adult human brain has about 100 billion active nerve cells (sounds a lot but is only 20% of what we start with). By the time we enter adolescence our brain has chosen the nerve cells it will keep throughout adult life.

The more open we are with allowing our brain to dynamically change every moment, the more we allow our brains to grow.

Let us not limit our potential. Let us empower our brains.

www.kkel.com

http://www.facebook.com/BillabongHigh

http://www.facebook.com/KangarooKidsPreschool

http://www.facebook.com/whodoyouthinkyouarekidding?