Being on the Other Side

Just 3 months earlier I was doing my MBA from an Indian Institute. Having an amazing group of friends, we were always best at making the most of the time in the class that otherwise would have been wasted listening to the teacher (as students we always think this way).Here I am, fresh out of school, teaching the art and science of management to students just about my age (some even older). I now know why teachers repeatedly say “please pay attention”; it’s like a law, I call it “the law of flow of attention” which say that “attention is always flowing in some direction or the other, if you are not paying attention, you are attracting attention” and it spreads very quickly resulting in chaos. My experiences as a student are very handy today, as I know what methods worked on me.

But more important than understanding the “Chaos Theory” is the realization of magnified effects of what I do or say in the class (and of course outside it also but let that be :P).

I now realize that the grass is greener on the other side of the river only if the person on that side works harder/smarter to keep it that way. As a teacher, I control the environment of the class. The student’s behaviour is only a reaction to my actions in the class. If, before throwing upon them a long model and complex mathematical equations, you can tell them a practical problem, otherwise difficult to handle, which can be handled very easily using the model that is to be studied you can observe what is known as “the pin drop silence” in most of the cases (obviously, there will always be people like me who will always create chaos). Just tell them why the hell it is important to study “this” and they will study it in great detail on their own.

Always give lots of examples and then ask them to give you a few. Only when they can find/create on their own, a new example that fits, they will learn. Don’t teach everything, let them explore. Don’t tell them again and again, make them solve it on a fresh piece of paper (best is to make them solve it on the board). Don’t transfer knowledge, transfer capability, to think, to solve, to prioritize and to learn. Don’t train, educate! (Yes it’s an expression)