Troubles as light as Air, love as deep as Ocean, Friends as Solid as Diamonds, and Success as bright as Gold… These are the wishes for you on ‪#‎DUSSEHRA‬. ‪#‎Vijaydashmi‬

Troubles as light as Air, love as deep as Ocean, Friends as Solid as Diamonds, and Success as bright as Gold… These are the wishes for you on‪#‎DUSSEHRA‬. ‪#‎Vijaydashmi‬

Acharya Devo Bhava...Guru Devo Bhava !!

"Agnyaana Timiraandhasya, Gnyaana Anjana Shalaakayaa, Chakshuhu Unmeelitam Yenam, Tasmai Sri Gurave Namaha. "

Meaning: A Guru can save us from the pangs of ignorance (darkness) by applying to us the balm of knowledge or awareness of the Supreme, I salute such a Guru !!

For years, we have grown on the images of Guru-Shishya engaged in teaching-learning under the learning tree. From times immemorial, from Dronacharya to Radhakrishnan, & Rabindranath Tagore we have revered and romanticised the superhero status of a great teacher. Their students in turn made the teachers proud, giving the mentor-mentee relationships an alluring charm.

Today India has 320 million students in over 1 million schools, 30,000 colleges and 500 universities. The gross enrollment ratio in colleges is a measly 12.4 per cent. Employability rate is estimated at 25 per cent. 25 per cent of teachers are absent from work.

Only 50 per cent of teachers are actually engaged in the act of teaching while at work. India faces a shortage of 1.2 million teachers. Something has going horribly wrong. To break the vicious cycle, we will need to start with the gardener, who must sow the virtuous seed-the teacher.

The classroom has evolved tremendously. After arrival of various writing systems in ancient time, hornbooks came in 1400 in England and US. The blackboards invaded classrooms only in 1801. Instructional TV and Radio ruled the roost from 1940-90 when personal computers and internet took over. What next?

The classroom of the future will be wireless. Students may choose not to carry books; they won't leave home without the tablets. Yes, the tablets will be all-pervasive. From KG to PG, a student will be connected real-time to his teacher. The content delivery will be automated. The assessments will be online and the classroom will often be outside the four walls of the institute. The good news is that we can produce the rockstar teachers of the future.

Confucius rightly said, I hear and I forget. I see and I believe. I do and I understand. We need to bring back learning experiences to the classroom. Seven principles of learning; prior knowledge, organisation of knowledge, motivation, mastery, practice and feedback, student development and classroom climate and metacognition. All of this boils down to a student-centric learning. This transition from teachercentric teaching is not just imminent but an unstoppable reality.

A teacher is trainable. The future does not need fountain-heads of knowledge and super-hero teachers of yore. The knowledge will be digitised on the tablet, available on call. But synthesising and organising that knowledge will not be easy. For effective and purposeful synthesising, the good-old teacher will always be required.

Only the teacher can start the virtuous cycle with an inspired student wanting to be like his teacher, leading to better student outcomes. Better life skills and employability skills will lead to greater success of these students leading to more children inside schools and colleges, more fees and revenues and eventually higher wages and growing teachers. The search for excellence in the Indian Education system must start inside & outside the classrooms- with the teacher.We need more Nalanda & Visva-Bharti like Universities again.

WOLNUT Independence Day Wishes

How Career Guidance will change your life

Workplace Wellness Program

Employees spend an average of almost nine hours a day at work – more awake hours than any other place – so it seems logical that employers would want to develop a workplace that encourages and promotes healthy behaviors.

Effective workplace wellness programs can help improve an organization’s culture and change lives. Companies can also benefit from lower turnover rates, fewer absences, increases in productivity and higher job satisfaction.

Decades after the launch of the Wellness Council of America, one might think the steps for getting a wellness program off the ground are easy – give employees a gym membership or stop bringing in sweet treats.Still Indian firms are not yet so convincing on the same.

However, it’s not that simple. Lack of engagement, a shortage of leadership support and complicated incentives all have the potential to derail your wellness program before it starts. Here are a few tips about how to build a successful workplace wellness program and some things to avoid.

• DON’T rush into a wellness program. 
• DO take your time to develop a formal strategic plan with measurable goals. Without a plan, you will always be reacting to the pressure of the day instead of focusing on specific objectives. 
• DON’T launch a wellness program without any support. 
• DO partner with as many employees and departments as you can. Consider recruiting employees for a wellness committee to help you reach across the entire company.
• DON’T forget about getting buy-in from management.
• DO include senior management as visible participants in the wellness program.
• DON’T leave people unsure of how the program works.
• DO communicate consistently and often.
• DON’T call it a Human Resources project or initiative.
• DO position the wellness program as something much bigger. Think about how the program will strategically impact the business and how it plays a role in your culture.
• DON’T forget about the night shift. 
• DO provide night shift workers the same access to wellness events and programming as the day shift. 
• DON’T stop the wellness program because it hasn’t saved millions of dollars. 
• DO have realistic expectations. Behavior change takes time, and most wellness programs do not see a positive ROI for at least 18 months.
• DON’T view data collection as unimportant.
• DO collect data on your employees’ health status. Biometric screenings are a great way to collect objective data.
• DON’T select programs that are not relevant to your workforce. A smoking cessation program, for example, will do little to impact costs if smoking and its related illnesses are not cost-drivers for your health insurance plan.
• DO focus on the health issues and concerns of the majority of your employee population. 
• DON’T forget to address employee privacy. Some employees may ask, "What do they need that information for? Can they fire me because of my poor health?”
• DO stress repeatedly that personal health information is confidential.
• DON’T assume you need a large budget. 
• DO be creative in identifying free activities to improve employee health. Things like walking meetings or healthy potlucks can help promote a healthy workplace without breaking the bank.
• DON’T build a complicated wellness program. If employees don't understand wellness offerings or don’t know how to participate, they will get frustrated and give up.
• DO keep it simple and straightforward. 
• DON’T be negative or insult employees.
• DO show your employees they are valued. You want your wellness program to demonstrate that the company cares about employees’ health, not give the impression the company is coercing them to take a Health Risk Assessment.
• DON’T put your wellness program on autopilot.
• DO run regular reports and assess how your wellness program is improving employee health. Your program should evolve with your employees.
• DON’T build a wellness program with only the intent to decrease health care costs.
• DO look at the bigger picture.

Wellness can have a profound effect on your company culture, turnover rates, recruitment efforts and overall productivity. Follow these do’s and don’ts and your workplace wellness implementation will go so smoothly, that you’ll wonder why you waited so long to get started. 

Critical Thinking: Educating Competent Citizens

We are becoming increasingly aware of the need to analyze the enormous amount of information we receive every day.  This information helps us in our cognitive development and participates in the construction of our patterns of perception of reality. In the case of children and young people, these patterns are in continual development.

Critical thought is a cognitive process that proposes the systematic analysis of information, opinion and statements that we accept in our daily life as valid or true. It is a basic skill for a competent, free and responsible citizen.

It is not about questioning every information we get everyday, it is about being critical with the information that is relevant to us when we make up an opinion about something.

To educate an individual in critical thinking implies educating him or her in the ability to make decisions. It implies that students do not accept opinions or statements as valid without submitting them to their own analysis and as such, to their consideration, based on their knowledge and on other opinions or information that enables them to form their own criteria about what is true or false.

Education in Critical Thinking Implies…

• Reflection. We should ask ourselves about the information we receive.
• Analysis. By using our own knowledge and other data we evaluate information and arguments that reinforce or question ideas.
• Acquisition of information. By contrasting and collecting data from other sources we can, in many cases, confirm or reject the information we have analyzed.
• Creativity. This is stimulated by the need to associate ideas and knowledge with the purpose of building up our arguments.
• Structuring arguments. Learning to build up cases on a solid foundation in order to support the criteria we have constructed.
• Decision making. Learning to take decisions based on our own criteria.
• Commitment to our own opinions and arguments.
• Debate. The ability to explain and defend our ultimate criteria and contrast it with other criteria that may be as valid as our own.

Cross-curricular Connected to Education in Values

All these capacities have a clear relationship with the underlying value based educational objectivity of our system, given that these values are ever present in a world  that is increasingly technological and, for some, in process of dehumanization.

In working with students, critical thinking encourages and promotes:

• Humility to accept criteria that is not their own.
• Courage to defend their own criteria against others.
• Responsibility to contrast and take into account the appropriate information.
• Commitment to filtering out and separating valid from useless information.
• Respect for the group and for the individual when the time comes for debate and contrasting ideas.

To educate an individual in critical thinking is to educate him or her to be capable of governing or controlling their own personal and professional life and to be able to find answers and solutions to problems. It is the road to forming critical and responsible citizens who are capable of confronting the challenges of the future.

Valentine Slaughter !!

She was only fourteen then. It was her ‘first valentine’ with her ‘first boyfriend.’ She had wanted it to be perfect. She had spent weeks picking out the perfect dress for their perfect date on a perfect day.

Her dress was pink – the colour of love. But she couldn’t leave the house – all decked up for her date. She lived in a joint family and each person in her family was more conservative than the other (it was as if there was a contest for the title, The Most Extreme); so she had surreptitiously hidden the dress, the shoes and the makeup in her school bag, which was easy since her school bag was empty. It was her first valentine; there was no way she’d waste the day in school!

She had to go to school as she couldn’t escape the ever-vigilant eyes of her cousin sisters…but she had a plan.

The massive iron gates of the convent had shut imposingly behind her; but that gate didn’t feature in her escape route…she had a better plan.

Before the morning assembly, she had quietly slipped into the restrooms situated on the playfield. She stripped quickly and put on her ‘date’ dress, before shoving her school uniform inside her school bag.

She was putting on the last bit of her makeup, when she heard a multitude of voices singing in unison…the assembly was drawing to a close. One of the things that a convent school really liked doing was singing. And as she herself was a good singer, the convent sisters had harangued her, to within an inch of her life, to join the choir. In the end, she had cited stage fright. Standing in front of the school and singing every day for the entire school life, was not something she wanted. She sang for fun and only when the mood struck, but the choir sang for the sisters and as soon as the chord struck.

She looked at the reflection in the mirror. She had tried her best to hide those ugly red pustules but they were all over her face. Hormones, she had been told but it did not make the situation any better. She was ugly! It was a miracle that she had found a guy who loved her and had looked beyond her face.

She smiled, as she watched her reflection; true love was rare to find. She reached inside her bag and removed a plastic bag. Inside the bag was a beautifully wrapped present – his favourite cologne (after all, her boyfriend Rohit Randhawa was in high school and was a ‘man’). Only she knew how she had managed to save up enough money to get him the gift. Even though she came from a well-off family, she never got any pocket money. She had tried arguing a couple of times, but all she accomplished doing was instigating an hour-long lecture on how money spoilt children. Her parents argued, why she needed pocket-money when her family bought her everything she asked for. There was no arguing with that.

In the end, she had resorted to saving her lunch money, preferring to eat a little from her classmate’s lunch-boxes. Oh…the things you did in the name of love…but it was all worth it. HE WAS WORTH IT!!!

She took her school bag and hid it in one of the underconstruction stalls. Her friends had been instructed to retrieve it after school and meet her exactly at 2 pm at the corner cafeteria. In school, matters-of-the-heart required careful planning and complete coordination. Now she was ready for her great escape. She had planned to slip out through the in-campus bank, which had two entry/exit points. The fact that she was in plain clothes would not raise any suspicion. Of course, she prayed that the bank teller did not notice the pearls of sweat, glistening on her head. If she had to be successful, it would have to be done in one fluid motion. She entered from one side and exited from the other…and she was free.

She was supposed to meet Rohit at the entrance of Cupid’s Corner, a restaurant which was frequented by couples. She had heard about this restaurant, her friends often went there.  This would be her first time. Finally, she would no longer be the odd-one- out.

She got down from the auto and there he was, leaning on his bike in front of the restaurant. “Oh, he is so cool,” she thought as she sighed, “there is something about a guy on a bike.”

He waited as she paid the fare. She joined him and he took her hand and pulled her inside. They climbed two flights of stairs, until they were in front of a big wooden door. He pushed the door open. It was so dark that she couldn’t see a thing. It took her eyes several seconds to adjust to the darkness. She was still squinting when a young waiter led them to a corner table with a ‘reserved’ plaque.

She sat down at the corner of the upholstered sofa seat and waited for him to sit opposite her on the chair. Instead, he shoved her in and sat beside her. She was a little uncomfortable but she didn’t want to ruin it…after all, it was her first Valentine’s Day!

The whole restaurant was plunged in darkness. “How do people eat?” she wondered. There was a single small light hanging above the table.

“I’ve got you something,” she said, handing him the beautifully-wrapped box. He tore it open and smiled at the cologne, before replying with a simple “Nice.”

“I’ve got you something too, to show just how much I love you.” He pulled out an expensive-looking velvet box. There inside the box, delicately placed, was a beautiful mother-of-pearl bracelet.

“Oh, this is gorgeous,” she said, reaching for the box.

“Allow me.” He took the bracelet from the box and placed it around her wrist. She was admiring the bracelet under the orange hue of the incandescent light bulb. It was magical…her first valentine gift.

He turned her hand over so he could close the metal clasp and lightly touched the inside of her wrist. She quivered at the tingling sensation. She thanked him when he did the clasp and started withdrawing her hand, when his grip tightened…

“Let me go,” she bantered playfully.

He was forced to let her go as a waiter approached their table and switched on the lamp. Rohit unceremoniously opened the menu and ordered the ‘Valentine’s Special’ menu – with an assortment of chicken canapés; the main course was pasta in red sauce; and strawberries, champagne and imported liquor chocolate for dessert.

Rohit withdrew a 500-rupee note from his wallet and handed it to the waiter as a tip. The waiter smiled widely as he nodded his head and walked away.

“There, no one will disturb us now,” remarked Rohit, as he switched off the overhead light.

Maya was panic-stricken, when she felt Rohit place his hand on her thigh. He shoved her further back into the corner. Before she knew what was happening, his mouth came down hard on hers. She felt pain when he bit her lower lip. “What was happening?” she thought as she attempted to push him away; her hands placed on his chest as she tried to increase the distance between their bodies. But he simply grabbed her hands and resumed the onslaught.

It was several minutes before he finally released her, his breathing heavy. Her lips were throbbing! She ran her tongue over her sore lips and could taste a salty residue. She wasn’t sure if it was the taste of her blood or her tears.

Rohit was lighting a cigarette while her eyes roved back and forth the room; she saw several couples across the room…making out. She could almost swear that she saw a girl, topless…with a dark head sprawled over her chest. She could gag!

She felt nauseated…she was going to be sick. She put a hand over her mouth as she started to retch in disgust. She could feel Rohit draw away from her.

She reached for a glass of water, while he sat there…fuming! Her retching stopped in a few minutes but she held onto the glass. She didn’t even dare look at him.

She heard him curse under his breath, “Stupid bitch.”

“I’m sorry,” she croaked, still unable to look at him.

“I got you an expensive bracelet, you bitch. And what do I get? This is how you repay me?” he said unkindly.

But wasn’t it a gift? She felt her eyes watering.

“What did you think? That you’ll con me and I will let you?” he ranted, every word spewing venom.

“But I didn’t ask for a gift,” she managed, in between breaths.

The ensuing laughter reeked of scorn. “When a woman accepts an expensive gift from a man, she knows she has to return in kind,” he carried on ranting.

Tears were now streaming down her face…He didn’t love her; he thought she was a whore!

“But I thought you loved me,” she pleaded.

The repulsion on his face drove a dagger into her heart.

“You think I can love you? Have you even seen yourself?”

She closed her eyes as fresh tears rolled down her face, like the torrential rainfall of summer.

“Do you know why I brought you here, you bitch? This is the only place where I could switch off the lamp. You think I could kiss you if I had to look at you?” He got up and left, while she sat there, hurt, angry, weeping; and now alarmed…how will she pay for the food he had ordered?

She got up quietly, pretending to walk towards the restroom. No one was watching her—the guards were busy enjoying the scenes at the tables.

She turned and bolted out the door. She had learnt an important lesson—“When a man paid ‘for’ you…you paid ‘to’ him.”

It was her first valentine slaughter.

She could hear voices in the distance, which drew her back into the present. She simply looked down at the bags that she was holding in her hand—her expression sombre. She had vowed to never ever let a man pay for anything for her—ever again!!!