Ask my friends what my favorite word is. If they tell you “Perspective”, it is likely they have been subject to my torturous ranting more than once. It is a word that I hold close to my heart and my stint with this class has only brought it closer. So what about perspective?
If you are going into this MBA looking forward to learn business concepts, make friends and go places, good for you. But you know what would make it all worthless: If you go into this program with a closed mind and a chauvinistic attitude.
Over the course of your study, you will come across a myriad of people with very many opinions. Sometimes these opinions will conflict with your own. And how much you learn from this course will depend on how you handle these conflicts. I will talk about conflicts in another post but for now, it would suffice to say that in a bigger frame, conflicts are irrelevant.
Let me now flip this perspective. You will also come across people who will make you feel uncomfortable about beliefs that are close to your heart. Again, the future course of your life will depend on how you handle these encounters. If you spend a lot of time in another country, the peer pressure to confirm to their way of things can be great. You are probably there to learn about them and not to become one of them. However, this said, there is nothing wrong if you choose to become one of them. Just remember to make a conscious choice and not succumb to the pressure.
The following quote has been the guiding force for me for quite a long time now. Hope it can help you get where you want to go.
“If you had been born where they were born, if you had been taught what they were taught and if you had been where they were, you would have believed what they believed.”
Monday, August 31, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Thinking out of the box: Reverse Gear?
When I was young; Roses could be green, and the fish could fly. Fairy tales were the way of life. I could glide on the ground, and drive the same car; Round and round. Now I am grown up; the days are dark, spent indoors. People bark and processes are adored. And then they tell me to think out of the box, and I wonder how I ended up in the box.
I had been reading an article about the importance of creativity and it set me thinking. Not about how I could be creative but about why we drive in reverse gear when it comes to thinking out of the box. Kids are born creative but somehow, by the time they grow up the creativity is lost. And we end up driving backwards to rediscover something that we are born with.
Let me tell you a story. This is a story about my young cousin, who had just started school. I was responsible for dropping him off to school. The first few days had been pretty much the same. We started from home with him skipping ahead of me, and then when we crossed about the half way mark, he would become silent and subdued. And as the school came into view, I could hear some sniffing and by the time we were at the gate, he would be crying his head off. “I don’t want to go to school, not today”. “I am having a terrible headache, please take me back”. But that particular day was different. That day he was skipping all the way to the school. Just before he snatched his water bottle from my hand to enter his class, I asked him why he was so excited. He told me “We have painting class today”.
No surprise there. He really enjoyed painting. When he was painting, the rest of the world did not exist for him. However, the day’s events did not end there. His return from school was usually marked with ecstatic screams and songs. But again, that day was different. When he came back, he looked as if he had lost the love of his life. A 5 year old kid loosing the love of his life may sound absurd. Not so much if you realize that painting was the love of his life. And he did not like painting anymore.
He didn’t like using ruler scales to make houses, where each side had to be exactly 6 inches; he didn’t like the fact that roses could only be red; he did not like that a circle had to be circular; he did not like that cars should always have four tires.
All this in just a two hour painting class! When I look at him today, I am not surprised at all but disappointed that he doesn’t paint anymore, loves mathematics and science and follows every process precisely. He is working hard to enter an engineering college and spend the rest of his life behind a desk. I guess, like the rest of us, he has been at school a bit too long.
What happened to him? Something changed deep within him. He lost his independence in thought. The problem lies in how we as parents, teachers and role models, set our expectations with kids. Look at the structure of education in the schools. In most schools around the world, science and mathematics come first. History, geography and civics come next and last come the arts (painting, singing and dancing). Why is this the case? Because our education system was set up to meet the needs of the industrial revolution. Are we still living in the same world? No! Today’s world needs independent thought and creativity. The education system is not the only problem. Each one of us is responsible. This is the age of prohibitions. All we ever say as elders to kids is:
Do not do this; Do not do that; Do not take fate; In your own hands; We will open the gates; And lead you to; The quicksand. And therein, my child you shall sink. Sink so deep that you will have but a faint recall of something that you were born with. Creativity!
This is not fair. We should not impose our own perceptions onto children. Time and again we have proved to ourselves that we are not always right and by enforcing our perceptions on the kids we are eliminating the chance of standing corrected. Let us stop driving in reverse gear.
As for my young cousin, I think he is long lost. You see he was born creative, but education ruined him. The choice, ladies and gentlemen, is yours.
I had been reading an article about the importance of creativity and it set me thinking. Not about how I could be creative but about why we drive in reverse gear when it comes to thinking out of the box. Kids are born creative but somehow, by the time they grow up the creativity is lost. And we end up driving backwards to rediscover something that we are born with.
Let me tell you a story. This is a story about my young cousin, who had just started school. I was responsible for dropping him off to school. The first few days had been pretty much the same. We started from home with him skipping ahead of me, and then when we crossed about the half way mark, he would become silent and subdued. And as the school came into view, I could hear some sniffing and by the time we were at the gate, he would be crying his head off. “I don’t want to go to school, not today”. “I am having a terrible headache, please take me back”. But that particular day was different. That day he was skipping all the way to the school. Just before he snatched his water bottle from my hand to enter his class, I asked him why he was so excited. He told me “We have painting class today”.
No surprise there. He really enjoyed painting. When he was painting, the rest of the world did not exist for him. However, the day’s events did not end there. His return from school was usually marked with ecstatic screams and songs. But again, that day was different. When he came back, he looked as if he had lost the love of his life. A 5 year old kid loosing the love of his life may sound absurd. Not so much if you realize that painting was the love of his life. And he did not like painting anymore.
He didn’t like using ruler scales to make houses, where each side had to be exactly 6 inches; he didn’t like the fact that roses could only be red; he did not like that a circle had to be circular; he did not like that cars should always have four tires.
All this in just a two hour painting class! When I look at him today, I am not surprised at all but disappointed that he doesn’t paint anymore, loves mathematics and science and follows every process precisely. He is working hard to enter an engineering college and spend the rest of his life behind a desk. I guess, like the rest of us, he has been at school a bit too long.
What happened to him? Something changed deep within him. He lost his independence in thought. The problem lies in how we as parents, teachers and role models, set our expectations with kids. Look at the structure of education in the schools. In most schools around the world, science and mathematics come first. History, geography and civics come next and last come the arts (painting, singing and dancing). Why is this the case? Because our education system was set up to meet the needs of the industrial revolution. Are we still living in the same world? No! Today’s world needs independent thought and creativity. The education system is not the only problem. Each one of us is responsible. This is the age of prohibitions. All we ever say as elders to kids is:
Do not do this; Do not do that; Do not take fate; In your own hands; We will open the gates; And lead you to; The quicksand. And therein, my child you shall sink. Sink so deep that you will have but a faint recall of something that you were born with. Creativity!
This is not fair. We should not impose our own perceptions onto children. Time and again we have proved to ourselves that we are not always right and by enforcing our perceptions on the kids we are eliminating the chance of standing corrected. Let us stop driving in reverse gear.
As for my young cousin, I think he is long lost. You see he was born creative, but education ruined him. The choice, ladies and gentlemen, is yours.
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