IIT to LKG !

Nitin, Murugan, Deepa, Vel, Haneef..... my son handed me a long list of friends who need to be invited to his birthday party. But there is a challenge. All of them are from different areas in the city and too young to come on their own.

But he wanted all of them to be there when he blew the candles on the cake. I had to think of a serious strategy that facilitated this. He even suggested me picking up each of them from their house and dropping them home. But unware of these kind of plans I bought only a car rather than a bus.

At last we decided to shift the party to the school itself where all his friends can be present at one place.

Thirty little angels sang the birthday song and wished my son when he celebrated his birthday at school.

We had invited the school principal and other teachers too. After the party is over I got a few minutes time to speak to the director of the school.

This person belongs to north India. He went to IIT. Had corporate experience.He had a passion for teaching. Once he was comfortable with his finances he tried his hand in teaching. It is not being a professor at a college, but he wanted to impact the young generation at an early stage which he believed will serve a much better purpose of serving the country. ( I was inspired too)

As he liked the philosophy of this school, he joined recently and started experimenting with his ideals.
He not only manages the school, but ensures that he practically teaches in the class room at least for two to three hours a day.

I had a doubt. An M.Tech graduate teaching a LKG class, could be pretty easy task. What satisfaction he gets in teaching such lower classes ?

His answer opened a new dimension in my trainer's brain.

He said and I quote:

" Teaching lower classes is more difficult than teaching higher classes. Teaching means breaking the complex issues into "simple most form" that can be eaten and digested by the pupils. Teaching is not display of knowledge but teaching is imparting of knowledge"

I think this is a lessorn worth learning for many of the people in learning and development function.

Many a times we see the people using lot of jargons, phrases, making the subject more complicated. This way of communicating in a training session serves only one purpose. It is to show the participants how knowledgeble the trainer is.

The purpose of traing or coaching is not to show our knowledge. It is to make the participants understand the subject.

The trainer who can break down the complexity of the subject and deliver in small pallatable pieces to the learners is the trainer with true purpose.

Training programs are meant for transfer of knowledge. They are not fashion shows where the trainer tries to showcase his personal capabilities.