The Gen-Y Student

I got the feel of  Gen-Y Students as I interacted with some school children last month! The image you see is the pains that a student took to sketch me, while I was taking equal pains to teach them aspects of Entrepreneurship! This attempt and subsequent conversation around this brought out to me how students have evolved over the last two decades (when I was a student)!

When we were students our sketch of our teachers were our expressions of frustration at either the subject or the teacher. Not an expression of artistic drive!

Even if it was a positive expression, we would never dare to show it to our teachers! But this student was quite easy on gifting me this lovely drawing.

I had told him I would post it on the blog. But as I was travelling I could not scan it. However after giving me enough time of two weeks, he politely reminded me that I have not yet posted it, and requested if I could do it.  The tone and the earnestness made the task get done. As a student I would not have had the temerity to push on with my teacher. In my era they were best left alone after class!

I find this ability of today’s students to be positive, be confident, be trusting and willing to talk to teachers definitely an evolution on the positive side.  Not only do they challenge us in class, but very often they goad us to push our own limits of understanding at the levels of subject and life! I am glad I am teaching these Gen-Y Students. However, I could not shake out the feeling that somewhere between school and college this spirit gets eroded in our students. Why and How is something that requires attention of all involved. It is time we put together thoughts on how the energy present in a school student can be preserved till they reach college.

This sketch was made by Anirudh! Thank you Anirudh for the sketch and all the very best !!

10th , 12th and Beyond

The hype about board exams and their importance has not reduced one bit on the contrary the number of people competing in a bracket has increased manifold. While the importance of scoring in these exams may vary depending on their utility value for gaining admissions to prestigious institutes, not much has changed about the exams themselves. If there were 1000 people scoring between 99 and 100 a decade ago – today there are probably 10,000 in the same bracket.  The number of seats or admissions at many of the institutes has also gone up in proportions, in a feeble attempt to accommodate this growth. When we hear parents and students discuss competition intensifying, I feel it is very similar to discussing the heat and humidity of every summer compared to previous years. If you actually look at the data more closely one may be surprised that to note that while the quantum of the discussion has changed over the years, the discussion itself has not.

Here are some thoughts that I feel require our collective attention and action:

• When tube becomes a funnel With increasing number of children going to school and with lot of them heading towards peak performance, your overall throughput of higher secondary education is bound to see a spurt and an overall shift to a higher level of performance.  But the receiving end of these products – the colleges and under graduate courses has not kept pace. With increased amount of competition we find a number of highly motivated, inspired and energized performers not find alternate options to pursue quality education. This becomes their first experience of friction with the system as they enter the world. It has possibility of changing attitudes instantly to the negative side.  While we are all working to get more students through school – are we prepared enough to provide for their further progress?
• Race to the top While all parents and teachers have focused on making the children perform better at the board exam, very little or insignificant effort is seen to get invested in creating and exposing the child to newer opportunities and options. This creates number of graduates who become lost after having completed their college courses – as the options in front of them are even fewer.  The   mindless herding towards business degree as the next logical step to graduation – if not addressed is going to soon become a societal issue
• Building on Strengths Though the number of aids for personal development has increased, the number of professional counsellors has gone up, the world becoming more connected, the need to earn a living at a young age decreasing – the pressure on the child and family remains on the same set of traditional choices; irrespective of the child’s individual strength. It may be surprising that many of the children do not know or experience what their strengths are even when they complete their collegiate education. This lack of working on strengths gets extended when children finish colleges and start making choices on jobs rather than careers

There are lot of questions and learning that come to one’s mind when one would watch children and parents make their choices after the board exams. Sadly some fundamental things don’t seem to change even with so called focus on development and social awareness.  While we are creating a society to be more competitive – are we really enhancing the competitiveness of our people?

As we delve on these topics it is important for policy makers to start looking at longer planning cycles, it is important for teachers and schools to start exposing students to their own strengths and the plethora of new opportunities that are emerging.

A lot of effort, faith and courage is also needed by the parents in enabling the child not just becoming competitive in the short term but helping the child in finding and settling on the most suitable natural path for its vocation. For it is here that true happiness and fulfilment will lie!

STOP MOTIVATING!!! START INSPIRING!!!

Over the last fifteen days  I have been having frequent and intense interactions with the group that I love spending time most – students.  I interacted, discussed and debated over these days with them on a variety of topics around entrepreneurship. What impressed me was the high degree of enthusiasm, interest and fire to achieve something beyond the ordinary. Most of them had great ideas and a large group of them had also started piloting their ideas as ventures on campus. 

When I participated in a panel discussion on the same subject the questions posed by these young minds were pointed and deep. Even during my intense two day workshop on business design the sustained level of motivation of students even towards the end of the second day surprised me. 

Why then is there so much discussion amongst the teaching and mentoring community about the need to motivate these students? What greater than this intrinsic motivation can we feed to this Gen-Y?

However it is also true that somewhere this enthusiasm in entrepreneurship is not getting translated into real action. What then is stopping this group from taking that bold step in becoming entrepreneurs? While a number of reasons such as lack of funds, experience etc.  can be readily sighted, I disagree by categorising the above as plain vanilla excuses.  Let me expound this further.

Anyone watching these youngsters will agree on one thing that this Gen-Y are not characterised by inaction.  Very often we have seen them go on to garner resources, support, funds, friends and tools that we thought were far beyond their reach. They have broken many of our accepted limits of performance and possibilities. They are innovative, motivated and result driven – however only on those things where they are convinced. When they decide the end is worth it – they have the drive to figure the means.

Today when you notice the effort in the ecosystem to expose the young minds to entrepreneurship – the energy we are expending is directed primarily at motivating and energizing them. The thrill of the journey is spoken more than the end result (achievement, contribution, wealth creation, recognition etc). Except for making feeble attempt at appealing to their emotions; we are not providing them with a strong enough case to pursue entrepreneurship.  This is where the weakness is.

In my view, the singular factor that can catalyze their jump to entrepreneurship is inspiration.  

Inspiration cannot be drawn only from the stories of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. They need to be shown Indian success stories of the likes of Narayana Murthy, Dhirubhai Ambani, Karsenbhai patel etc. But even more importantly they need to be exposed to the regional-local stories which may not yet be popular; but with whom the students would find easier to relate.

 Since these local entrepreneurs would have started and grown their enterprise amidst the same conditions and constraints – it will provide inspiration of the highest order.  When the students constantly listen to only examples from west and exceptions from India, their logical minds start weighing the possibility of success.

If one can inspire them with the thought that while it is fine for all to aspire to become Narayana Murthy, there are many business owners who have created profitable and sustainable socio-economic ecosystem – supporting multiple families, creating and sharing wealth in many planes right from their locality, who they can also become. All these examples are not for pure emulation – but to provide the needed inspiration at multiple levels. Inspiration then also needs to be sustained by constant interactions with such entrepreneurial minds. And this will be extremely powerful once again if they are local!

Once these young minds are inspired by the larger end – I am confident that they will work out the means to achieve it.

All our hopes for a stronger and younger entrepreneurial India can come ONLY if we start inspiring our already motivated Gen-Y. Do we actually have another choice?

Vedantic Wednesday: Beyond the Story!

It is said that for every question that man asks, there are answers, solutions or at least initial thoughts in Vedantic Literature. Whenever we take the bold step into the land of Vedantic treatise, we are bound to meet with a lot of deep wisdom and thinking. Every bit of this deep thinking is buried in simple stories or dialogues. Characters are created and stories are woven around them to elucidate this deep thinking.  But very often people give up their bold journey of discovery even before they take a few steps. Reasons galore!

Many feel that this mythology is just adept story telling by some talented storytellers. They get carried away by the power of the storyline. They either become a fan of the story or abandon their search considering the volumes as too imaginative. It takes a lot more effort, trust, honesty, persistence and humility to dig deeper into this trove to discover the hidden treasure. When we dig deeper into this unadvertised and authorless body of work – we will be surprised by the deep thought that has gone into packaging the unshakeable truth in such flights of fantasies.

Why did the masters who detest even speaking little, while staying in cosmic unity take effort to write such elaborate stories? Why did they work better than today’s best scriptwriters to weave the characters the way they are? Why did they, who love brevity in speech, encourage such detailed mythology?

A little thought seems to give us answers! I think they did this because of two primary reasons:

1. The wisdom is too subtle and deep to be received by people as worthy.
2. Most people don’t have the level of concentration to receive such distilled wisdom.

To be able to see such a situation worsen centuries later and hence packaging the messages to live a long life, the unnamed and realized masters have proven that they were truly realized souls.

They believed that with the guru-shishya (master disciple) tradition, the message in the form of stories would live longer and hence embedded deep wisdom within them, thereby making sure we in today’s world are able to still gain access to them.

But the sad part is very often only the mythology is recognized and not the message!

The Ramayana and The Mahabaratha (probably the most widely read Vedantic volumes) are today remembered as stories and not as lessons for living life.  In this attention deficit world, one really does not spend the needed effort to peel the layers of stories to enjoy the seed of wisdom.

If today’s education is not delivering what it is supposed to – this is also a reason!  Where words, are given more importance, than embedded concepts.

In the interest of our life and that of our progeny it will make immense sense to read the message behind every good work and not just the story – in both Vedantic literature and life!

Happy Reading!

Thinkers 50

The Thinkers 50 list is published! The verdict is out! Clayton Christensen becomes the most influential thinker in the world. It is not too surprising to see him at that position. Even his one article “How will you measure your life?” ( http://hbr.org/2010/07/how-will-you-measure-your-life/ar/1 ) alone makes him worthy of this honor. This article brings the reader back to fundamentals of life. It is wonderful to see so many people influencing the way forward for the society. The interesting thing for us as Indians is to see quite a few people of Indian-origin that list.

Though it may not be a surprise entry – the one that really makes me feel happy this time around is to see a person on that list who is not only of Indian Origin but one who also spends a fair amount of time in India – Vineet Nayar, CEO of HCL. I had written a review of his lovely book “Employees First, Customers Second”  ( http://rajshankar.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/employees-first-customers-second-by-vineet-nayar/ ) Kudos to Vineet Nayar! And I truly hope this signals the beginning of a trend – Indians working from India figuring on this list.

I have derived immense inspirations from many authors and thinkers on that list. The list serves as a source of encouragement for many aspiring writers and thinkers as well.

Please do have a look at the interesting list of amazing thinkers, video interviews, their profiles and their works – Happy Reading! http://www.thinkers50.com/

Full Circle

Today i experienced of what people call “coming a full circle”! A student of mine asked me for a recommendation. Normally i decline recommendation requests not because i’m too big to write one, but because i feel there are other who in my opinion are better placed to do so. But today i decided to accept the invitation to recommend one of my students for a Masters course in the US. While writing this i remembered how over a decade ago i was asking some of my Professors, Directors and Deans for a “Reco Letter” as it was and is popularly called. It was truly nostalgic.

Since i was a student i have always thought “teaching” was a great profession! It was a hidden desire to be a teacher. Though i never let an opportunity pass by to be teaching something even as a student, about a year back i got my first opportunity to be a visiting faculty not at just one but two premier business schools! Since then i have been a much more happy soul – having achieved one my hidden desires of becoming a teacher. Of course i have greater milestones to reach as a teacher (i will reserve it for a later moment!)

Today i more than adequately realized what it is (in one more way) to be a teacher! I have today the power to enable (play a strong positive role) a student of mine to get an admission he wants. I could see myself be a catalyst in him achieving his dream of higher education. And i thank God for having given me the opportunity to do so – be a teacher! I give my salute to every teacher who is playing his true role and treating this profession as how it should be – truly “Noble”

I wish my student and all other students who are planning their future paths in the months to come the very best and loads of luck to see their dreams in real life.

Correcting the teacher shortage problem!

Increasing compliance is definitely not a problem solving tool. In a recent move UGC has decided to do away with M.Phil as the required qualification for teaching, raising the bar to Phd / NET or SLET. The reason sighted for this change is the ease with which one is acquiring an M.Phil degree – but will this move solve the quality of education / teaching?

How can increasing the base qualification ensure quality and performance of a teacher? Raising compliance to a higher entry criterion cannot solve this problem. In fact by lowering the tax burden to realistic needs, we are today seeing more people pay taxes. Increase in total tax filings due to this is more rather than any steps that were taken to enforce compliance and checks.

To solve quality of education, teaching has to be made more apparent and attractive as a profession. How can we do this?

1. Respect It: Today while there is a healthy welcome for many new career options, teaching is not being promoted amidst youth as a lucrative, challenging and high-satisfaction job. It is still relegated in the minds of youth to old / boring / book warmish profile. While a professorship after an MS in US is appreciated, youth do not vie for professorship even in the top most university as a goal. Very often, ‘teachers’ are made not by choice but by the constraint of not finding any other option. So creation of a healthy respect through awareness of teaching as a profession should be undertaken on a war footing.
2. Make it comparable with any other profession at levels of performance, pay and rewards: From yore teaching has been a lack luster profession. A teacher is portrayed in all forms of media and art as a ‘poor man’ struggling to make his ends meet. While the pay commissions have tried their level best to put the remuneration at par with any other profession, the awareness of the same is lacking in the general public. Also there is not enough healthy competition between the ranks of the teacher community that can fuel performance that can be globally recognized and showcased
3. Reward and Celebrate great teachers: It is the duty of educational institutions and governments to recognize, reward and respect contribution in the field of teaching. While there are state and national awards for teaching, these lack the packaging that any other award gets. While schools are quick to do PR based on their meritorious alumni, seldom school showcase their best teaching talent as their identity. External, visible, continuous and considerable recognition of teaching expertise is a must to attract passionate minds to take up the challenge
4. Make research and publication as compulsory requirement for higher level teaching: For many of us, getting a professorship or a teachers position signifies the end of our progress. We end up for the next two-three decades teaching the same subject in the same manner from the same text books. Teachers are not to consider themselves as vehicles of knowledge dissemination – they are to adopt the role of knowledge creators where a considerable portion of their time should be committed to developing new frameworks, models and methods that can add to the knowledge and method repository.
5. Create opportunity for recognition: Exchange programs, performance based incentives, competition amongst peers, conferences, paper presentation should all be considered as tools used in conjunction with each other to create an environment of constant learning and inventing for a teacher. Every teacher must be presented with multiple avenues through which they can hone their talent and passion for the subject and profession, while getting their due recognition from their institution, peer level, national level and also in the global arena.

Downside of just increasing the entry barrier without adequate control on quality of output will only create more new loopholes and short cuts. What may now seem as a prudent act may work as a short term boon but on the long term it will become a bane – making us question the authenticity of the new entry barrier!

Our tribute to the Great Indian Engineer

15^th September is celebrated in India as “Engineers Day”. Surprised? Yes! there is an Engineers day but unlike other special days where Greeting Cards and Roses are exchanged, this day is spent more quietly in memory of one of India’s earliest and celebrated Engineer – Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvarayya.

He is probably one of the few men to be honored and celebrated by both the rulers and the ruled. He was awarded the “Knight Commander of the Indian Empire Medal” by the British Crown in recognition of his public service and was also honored with the “Bharat Ratna”, India’s highest civilian award.

He lived to the age of 101 and passed away in 1962. He was instrumental in the nurturing of the Krishnaraja Sagara dam and reservoir, the steel works at Bhadravathi, the Sri Jayachamarajendra Polytechnic Institute at Bangalore, the University of Mysore, Bank of Mysore Limited (now State Bank of Mysore) , Karnataka Soaps & Detergents Limited (KSDL) – Govt Soap Factory amongst other.

He also set up one of the first engineering college “Government Engineering College” at Bangalore in 1917 which is now “University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering”. There is also the Visvesvarayya Technological University at Belgaum in his memory.

His contribution to the field of academics and application of engineering to uplift society and solve critical problems cannot be undermined. When one reads about his contribution, they cant help feeling a sense of awe at what a single man could achieve in a lifetime.  Today as India celebrates “Engineers Day”, let us all remember this great Indian who lived a life to be spoken about.

We at ichiban Academy (www.ichibanacademy.in) truly wish that every one of us also attempt to emulate such fine minds and live life to the fullest through our contribution to society by “Engineering” dreams!!

On Teacher’s Day!

As per Hindu Mythology “Guru” or “Teacher” is to be worshipped even before “God” himself. That is enough to highlight the importance of this position and its role. It has been a wonderfully different experience this teacher’s day.

While it has been my agenda on teacher’s day to pay tribute to my teachers and guide(s), for the first time I had number of students call and wish me “Happy Teacher’s Day”. Now this has brought a totally different connotation to life, rather added one more dimension this year– the role of a teacher.

Teachers have always caught my imagination from childhood and I have always sought out to reach to faculty and continue to seek them more often in my journey today, or advice and directions. My personal inclination towards academics and teaching has constantly kept me in close contact with this community and its changing trends. Today I am also happy to be a part of this noble profession.

Today as I received text messages, calls, FB messages and e-mails, it dawned on me that I need to carry myself with greater care as I may be an influence on a growing group of younger minds. It brought to my mind some thoughts on teaching as a profession and teachers as people. I present some of them here:

• A teacher can have profound impact on the student community which looks up to him / her
• A teacher can be the real alchemist
• A teacher can never feel poor as all he has to do is give
• A teacher will always be happy since everyday he / she can have students walk up to them and make their day
• A teacher should be proud to have got the opportunity to serve the noble cause the role demands without pride

I repeat what I tweeted some days back “For a good student the world is his teacher, and for a good teacher the student is his” – this is a relationship which can create Arjuna’s for the world.

On this wonderful day I wish all my teachers (so far) and the many who I am going to meet in the days to come “Shree Gurubhyo Namaha” or “Salutations to the Guru” OR popularly “Happy Teacher’s Day”.

As I close out this rambling I would like to quote from one of my e-mails sent to me today by a student of mine (thanks Milan):

“Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well.” – Aristotle

Young Teachers: Not an oxymoron anymore!

During the last semester on my tenure as a visiting professor, I had a rather interesting experience which I dismissed uptill last week, when it resurfaced again.

While on my teaching engagements with B-schools, I tend to spend a large amount of time on campus outside teaching hours. This is the time I get to have discussions with my students, clarify doubts, learn for interactions, observe student behavior and also get to know my students better. I am usually given a separate room in this period that is very helpful in carrying out these.

One fine day as I was sitting alone in a cabin,  an elderly senior professor passed by and addressed me rather tersely “ What are you doing?” I told him I was catching up on reading in my non-class hours. This seemed to infuriate him more – he asked me  “Why don’t you use the common areas reserved for student, why occupy a faculty room?”

For a second I was speechless and then told him “Sir! I come here to teach and so the non-class time I have been allocated this cabin for reading and interaction.”

It dawned on him that he was addressing a faculty member and not a student, he immediately apologized and we parted ways with the promise to catch up later. I dismissed this  as just another interesting interaction , considering I was teaching a PG course that too for the experienced students!!

But during the last week when we (me and colleague) visited an engineering college as guests for a ceremony, we decided to have lunch with the students at the Cafeteria. My colleague pointed to a group of young people and asked why they were in more formal clothes than the others – was there a student dress code for the college function? We were told by smiling students – that the people we were observing were faculty members and not students. The only way to differentiate the students from their faculty we realized was through the attire.

I think this is a trend.  We are finding more youngsters turning to teaching as a career.

A great move but then somewhere are these young teachers treating the profession as it should? Are they getting the respect that comes as a natural by product for an experienced teacher? Today we find students giving 100’s of reasons why they need not listen to class or respect these new genre teachers. They are unable to demand respect or hold the students attention. Their inexperience in having handled students seem to be gaining leverage amongst their class.

While it seems age can then be a limiting factor – I have realized in my classes, age  (or lack of it) can be a very distinct advantage. As a young teacher, you are still fresh with memories of what it takes to be a student – you are seen as a person who can understand their psyche better. You can establish a faster, closer and stronger connect. While young teachers can ride this wave – they need to also remember to deliver. If the young teachers can bring fresh perspectives in both method and modules teaching, if they can make learning more interesting, if they can go the extra mile to give the students exactly what they had wanted when they were sitting in those college benches – the “young teacher” will become a winning combination.

Truly we are reaching a state where young teachers can gain the respect and value from the student community by delivering value – after all even in education customer is king and delighting your customers (students) should be the singular aspiration.