A New Thought for School; a New School of Thought?

A New Thought for School; a New School of Thought?

In a world that demands continuous re imagination for a creative and self reliant age, here could be a clarion call to transform the present day school system. The rant(brilliantly put out by the mercurial Tom Peters) goes thus:-

From Teach-to-Test TO Teach to Quest

From Developing Facts TO Developing Talent

From SAT Prep(Think ‘multiple choice’) TO WOW Project(Think ‘individual choice’)

From Fetishing Generic ‘ standards ‘ TO Honoring Individual Creativity

From Quiet classrooms TO Noisy classrooms

From School as Factory with focus on ‘units ‘ TO School as Studio with focus on Uniqueness

From turning out Docile workers TO Building up Creative ‘ talent ‘

From Obedience as key virtue TO Initiative as key virtue

From Teaching to a Standard ‘norm'(Lowest Common Denominator) TO Teaching to a Standard of ‘excellence'(Highest Possible Achievement)

From a Focus on Similarities TO Focus on Differences

From Testing for ‘Intelligence'(singular) TO Teaching for ‘Intelligences'(multiple)- Mr Howard Gardner, there you have your say!

From Math & English domination TO Art and Music thriving

ENDS

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www.brandknewmag.com

Con Tricks:Marketing Pros with their Cons..

I have been at the crossroads the past few weeks wondering what is the biggest marketing con job in the past few decades. After careful distilling, zeroed in on these three:-

Red Wine: With all of it’s anti oxidant properties spiel, filled enough guilt to ensure your heart reaches out to it. As for me, not so much the Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. I prefer Red Wine of the Neil Diamond variety.

Dhanteras: The compelling quest amongst many of us Indians for heavy metal- read ‘ jewellery ‘. The DAY to MUST buy, or else all sanctity will break loose. To me, if it’s heavy metal, give me Iron Maiden or Jethro Tull or Scorpion, any day.My Doors are open.

Valentine’s Day: 1 Day in the year when we get a Notification to drop everything else and express love.A reminder that there is a remainder. Do you see RED with this? What happened the other 364 Days? In an always on world, shouldn’t love be always on?

Take your pick. Or if you are piqued, feel free to disagree.

Just as I finish writing this post my good friend Goswami called from Calcutta wishing Happy Ballantine’s Day! Did not want to dampen his spirit and tell him that my taste lies elsewhere!

ENDS

www.groupisd.com

www.brandknewmag.com

A change of place..

For all the weight watchers, here is some Fed Talk:

“If your weight is 100 kgs on Earth, its only 68 Kgs on Mars and only 16 Kgs on the Moon”.

​So, if you want to be the next Martian(sorry Matt Damon) or be over the moon, don’t change the diet, change the planet maybe!

For all those in the quest of ‘ I need my space ‘, get set to take off! We can get the numbers cracked later. Till then we call it SpaceX!

ENDS

www.groupisd.com

www.brandknewmag.com

Selective love!

Have a couple of thoughts to share. Hope you don’t snigger at the first one:

1. You would have seen the Snickers commercial on TV saying ” You are not you when you are hungry “- but I am always hungry, so what does that make me? Hungry young man? Perhaps I should ask Dominos. Or Big B?

2. I know in a a couple of days time love will be in the air, hair and everywhere (with so much of it being carefully hoarded and unused the rest of the 364 days only to pour out in an unabashed raging premium torrent on the 14th Feb)- anyway without using too much air time I wanted to know

” Can’t it be Rose,Rose aankhon thaley ? ” Why does it have to be only on the 14th Feb? For the love of me, I just can’t seem to understand..perhaps Valentine would!

ENDS

www.groupisd.com

www.brandknewmag.com

The rock star in us!

I have heard that there is a rock star in all of us. And given my naivete, coupled with the power of collective bias, tribal mentality and social validation, decided to give Jimi Hendrix(RIP) a complex. Needless to say, my chosen instrument of expression was the Air Guitar(though the drums made a lot of noise to get my attention).

Only to realise that you cannot pretend to play the Air Guitar.They don’t come with strings attached​! Dire Straits, here I come.(But surely I was not expecting money for nothing or chicks for free!).

Once again, I was out of tune. Nevertheless, I plan to come back.This time with rock solid determination. 

Hasta manana till we string again! Till then, Rock On!

ENDS

www.groupisd.com

www.brandknewmag.com

 

Generation Text!

I had enough (considerate) people taking me for a ride, and since change, as they say is the only constant, decided to take myself for a ride.I thought it would be appropriately urban of me to add to the ridership of the Metro.

The train was crowded but I was lucky to get a seat. It didn’t take me too long to realise that I was the only person in the compartment reading a book rather than starting at a device and a small screen- a striking singularity that should have provided enough material evidence about where I fit in demographically these days..but then, I have always tempted fate!

The teenager sitting opposite me was texting away furiously with blinding speed(now I know the typos and the passionate need for being grammatically incorrect).Probably he had a train to catch??

Autumn had made its seasonal fall but with an unusual warmth- so a lot of people in the compartment wore half sleeves- and it didn’t take too long for me to realise that most of them didn’t wear a wristwatch. In a digitell (or digital) era, I suppose, analogue watches and clocks are no longer part of the dialogue. So the next time you instruct your millennial kid ‘ turn it clockwise or anti clockwise ‘, you will know exactly why wiser counsel may have to prevail. So watch it!

As I disembarked on reaching downtown, what I was not up for was to think ‘ Are we riders of the lost arc? ‘ Time will tell..

ENDS

www.brandknewmag.com

www.groupisd.com