How to utilise Aptitude tests to help your child

This blog is based on the article Dick Bolles has written about usefulness of vocational tests. He is the author of a best seller, "What color is your parachute". It is a good summary of the usefulness of aptitude tests and how to benefit from them. In an earlier blog, we had discussed the technical aspects of Aptitude tests.

Observations

Here are some of his key observations on the vocational tests:

1. Psychology Experts in “Testing and Measurement” know that tests are notoriously flawed, unscientific, and inaccurate. For instance, even if the test characterises you as 'left brained', you may still possess many of the characteristics of 'right brain' too.

2. No tests can measure a person; it measures the 'group' to which you belong to. This means that you 'may' be sharing some of the characteristics of the group. Sometimes you 'really' share most of the characteristics, sometimes you share very few. For instance, if your tests show that you are 'logical' person, you may share some of the traits of the 'logical person' such as analytical ability, left-brainness and so on. But you may not share other equally important characteristics.

3. Many vocational tests have an inbuilt algorithm to narrow down the option. Each time you answer a question, the tests narrow the option. For example, if you say, “I do not prefer to work with people,” the test will reduce and/or eliminate many of the jobs which are people-oriented. Or if you say that you are 'not interested in service jobs', it will remove the jobs in hospitality and other related industries, although not all the jobs in hospitality are 'service oriented'

How to therefore utilise aptitude tests

Given these drawback of tests, here are some of the smart suggestions that the author has made

1. Never use tests to 'confirm' a path

Because of the inherent unpredictability of tests, students should never use tests to 'narrow the choices', or to 'reduce the alternatives'. Many 10th class students in India, on the other hand, use tests to 'confirm' a selected path of Engineering or Commerce. 

2. Use tests instead to broaden the horizon

Because the tests cannot give a definite answer to the 'vocation', it is better to use them to generate more options before one arrives at a final decision. Infact, a good career planner uses more tests to explore more options. They look for clues or suggestions from the test results, rather than for a definitive answer . 

Because tests pigeon-hole a student in a family, it is important to use the clues of the 'family characteristics' that the test results offer.Tests offer therefore new ideas and suggestions to what one is. They point to some hidden clues which did not get surfaced earlier. 

3. Give tests in presence of an experienced counselor 

Because test results have to be interpreted and used to broaden the horizon, it is a better to give test in presence of an experienced counselor. An experienced counselor is more likely to give you more suggestions from the test results than an inexperienced counselor. 

Summary

Tests are good to increase the possibilities one has. And if one takes tests to increase the possibilities, one must be smart in using them. For instance, if one understands the native abilities one had, and the different work-environment they can be used, one is more prepared to explore different options. The author in the above mentioned article also mentions some of the tests that one can take.

Parents can really help their children in setting their future direction, if they negotiate these five common hurdles smartly

Compass is a direction-setter. At any time, when a student is confused, it helps him/her find the right direction and not get derailed from his chosen path. Like we said earlier, Compass has two functions. It helps us set What direction and How direction. In this blog, let us talk of the difficulties in setting the 'What direction' of compass.

Why students cannot set their 'What' direction?

Setting 'what' direction means using the knowledge of our self and our environment to set a 'North' direction. For instance, it means knowing that one's direction is 'Logical skills'. After knowing the 'logical' direction, one may still have to chose among the following 'destinations': Engineering, Medicine or Accounting. But setting the direction is important.

Primarily, students encounter eight hurdles in setting the what direction. First 3 hurdles are knowledge hurdles, while last 5 hurdles are developmental hurdles created by us.

Three Knowledge hurdles

One: Some students cannot set what direction, because they lack the knowledge of converting their 'Interest' into 'Compass direction'. For instance, students interested in Drawing cannot find a Compass direction because they are not aware of how interest in drawing can help them make a career which will utilise that interest.

Two: Some students cannot set what direction, because their 'visible' strengths are not aligned with the family's interest. For instance, I met a boy who wanted to become a 'cook'. His parents did not like the idea, and refused to support him. You will often observe many parents who want their children to become what they could not, instead of helping him find what he wants.

Three: Some students cannot set the 'what' direction because they do not possess sharp strengths. For instance, if a student is good in a subject , say mathematics, he can spend considerable time in building those strengths. Naturally, this helps the student in choosing the what direction. But many students are good in many subjects. They face a big dilemma: because they are good in many subjects, they are confused, because they lack the requisite skills to chose between the many options. Their problem is the problem of prosperity.

Five Developmental Hurdles created by us

One, wants of many students are never taken seriously by anyone. Therefore students do not know the difference between wants, needs, desires and just interests.  Throughout their life, they do what others want. Even if they pursue an interest in something, say painting, astronomy, or in dinosaurs, they are constantly reminded of not wasting too much time in it. Or they are discouraged in pursuing in-depth work in any hobby. For instance, even when they are interested in mobiles, they are discouraged in learning to repair the mobiles, because it is a considered as waste of time.

Two, many students are unknowingly discouraged to become independent. Even while getting up in the morning, parents take the responsibility of waking them up. Their daily priorities are set by teachers and parents. Even their study-place is managed by parents. When the holidays set in, the parents prepare the schedule of their children. When students get used to this dependence, they often lack the energy to find what they want.

Three, most of the students do not learn to express their emotions freely. When they try something new, they naturally fail in first few attempts. But when they express their emotions of pain openly, they are told to be 'strong' and 'courageous'. When they get second rank in a subject, despite trying hard, they are told they trying hard is not 'good enough'. If they cry because of failing in new event like 'roller skating', they are told to avoid becoming 'sissy'. Even when they manage to get good marks and beat others, they do not feel good because beating competition only increases the fear of failing 'next time'. This generates envy and insecurities. But they cannot speak to anyone about these feelings, because these feelings are supposed to be 'wrong'.

Four: Many students do not like reading novels, seeing dramas, or watching movies as the families do not encourage these habits. These three habits are the sources of inspiration for us. When we read biographies and novels, we are inspired by the heroic acts. When we watch dramas, we are attracted to the struggle of 'good' versus 'bad'. When we watch movies, we get inspired by the struggle of hero who wins despite all the hiccups. This inspiration ( of what can be possible) guides our wants and desires unconsciously.

Five: many students to not get the real taste of what 'real work' is. Even when these students want to volunteer work in NGO's or public causes during holidays, they are not encouraged. Or if they do not work in NGO, they can work in Pizza centers. Or they can also volunteer to work in public festivals like Ganpati, Navratri, or other community festivals. Or they can volunteer in organising school work of Republic days, Visits to Astronomical labs, Annual Days. Because students have not worked, student's  awareness of the working world is bookish or incorrect. They are unable to find relevance of 'subject knowledge' with real-world problems or situations.

How do students behave when they lack the 'what' compass

Due to their inability to negotiate these developmental 5 hurdles, especially, many students become 'passive' receptors of information with no capacity to process the data about environment or data about Self. Their development is blocked. They get attracted to the glitter. Instead of asking what will help them lead to find meaningful work, they chase what others are doing. They have no practice or skills to find what they want. They are clueless.

They follow other students like a herd. If others are pursuing marks, they chase marks. If others are choosing Engineering, they chase Engineering. They rely on trophies and symbols. For instance, they may pursue degrees, one after another, and hope that career will take career of itself: They first finish Engineering, then MBA, then MPSC, then Banking exams.

Summary

Often students approach Counselors to help them set the 'destination' ( Engineering or medicine) without setting a 'direction' ( Logical Or Visual). Taking this kind of help from Counselors is not useful, because Counselors are ideal in tackling knowledge gaps. They are not trained to tackle the 'Developmental' gaps.

Instead, Parents should ideally approach Coaches in negotiating the five developmental hurdles created by environment. Coaches are trained to identify the development gap of a child and suggest options within the city or family to overcoming these gaps. If this help is taken at the right age of child, for instance when the child is in Vth class, your child is ready to tackle the challenges of latter years. When the child goes in 10th class, he is ready to tackle the challenge of setting his future direction. He may or may need a Counselor.

In next blog we shall understand how parents can help their children in setting 'how' direction. 

How to motivate your child?

I often meet parents who want me to talk to their children and 'motivate them'. They feel that their children have a drained battery that can be charged by some outside source of 'motivation'. True, sometimes we need a kick in our butts to do something. But that kind of external motivation works only for a short while and only for one-time tasks like preparing for a speech, or preparing for a difficult exam one day before the exam.

Map: To set the paths to reach next destination

To achieve our goals in life, we need an  internal motivation within ourselves. The key of motivation must be inside us. A student cannot remain motivated long by hearing a motivational speaker or by reading something inspiring. That motivation lasts for a day or a week at the most. To remain motivated, he requires much more preparation. He needs to get his mind focused.

To motivate his mind on a constant basis, a student must take two steps. He must determine the next destination and develop a map to reach it so that he is ready to traverse the important cross roads and hurdles that is expected on the chosen path. But this is not enough. He must also 'make' a compass that will guide him to the right direction when he is lost, confused, or faces unexpected hurdles ( or opportunities) on his path..

Why do you need both map and compass ?

Compass provides What and How direction

Imagine you are travelling from x to y. You need Map (coordinated set of actions) to help you prepare for crossing the inevitable & expected hurdles that may emerge on the path. But you also need Compass to act as North Star to find your path whenever you are lost. If, for instance, the student has set his direction of 'psychology', his Map should include a plan of which college to attend, why, what marks to get admission in the chosen college, how to get those marks and so on. Without a map, intentions cannot be converted into reality. But he also needs Compass to face unexpected hurdles and opportunities. Without the compass, one is likely to lose oneself on the path because one does not know how to react to the unexpected surprises. Let us understand how.

Compass provides 'what' direction ( of what to do) but it must be re-calibrated again and again

While travelling, the 'North' direction in compass is fixed. In real life, one has to constantly recheck if the 'North' direction set by the compass is right. This is the process of calibration.

For instance, a 10th class student may set North direction in choosing his discipline, say psychology, based on his native abilities. However when he starts working with schools during graduation, he starts liking 'education' very much( an unexpected event). Now should he re-calibrate his compass to change the 'North' direction to 'education' or should he keep the compass settings of North same as 'psychology'? In other words, should he use 'psychology' as a means to work in 'schools', or should he use 'schools' as a means to master 'psychology'.

Means and ends get exchanged midway and therefore we need to re-calibrate the compass accordingly. Although compass acts as a North Star, one has to constantly ask oneself if the "North star' is set at the appropriate direction. Or in other words, even when compass provides the 'what' direction initially, as 'end goals' and 'mean goals' change later due to our experience, we have to keep on calibrating the compass again and again. Psychologist call this as nested goals. Because of the nature of these goals, we cannot live our career with long-term goals.

Compass is however more important because it provides 'how' direction ( guidance on how to put the effort)

Compass setting also includes our values. Values are beliefs which we hold close to our heart and therefore they guide our actions. For instance, when the student is compelled to work deeper in a subject, say History, he should overcome the desire to 'work for marks' and study it deeply, even when his effort is not going to produce measurable result. He can do this only if he has accepted the value of 'mastery' or also called as growth mind set. For more details on this value, read this.

Or when a student is forced to work on a subject like English language, which does not fit in his plan, his compass should provide him the 'reason' to study English. I know of a parent who tells his children that 'Studying language is a waste of time'. Without compass offering appropriate 'how' direction, the student almost always gets derailed from his path, and fails to reach the destination.

Some parents unknowingly demotivate a child with wrong value. For instance, they may teach a belief such as ' Result based philosophy'. In this philosophy, parents advocate that 'results' are important irrespective of how they are achieved. For instance, they do not 'value' hard work if it is not resulting in 'high marks'. A student with such 'misdirected' compass ( values) cannot reach his goals, because he is so stressed with the possibility of failing that he fails to put in the requisite efforts.Or he may do 'anything' to achieve his goals, such as educated and highly paid Enron executives did.

Infact, success or failure of our careers depend on these 'how' direction, and therefore more on these 'values' which we accept without any questions. And they can derail us from our path without our knowledge. In this way, compass provides the 'foundation' in taking such small but  important 'decisions'. Without an appropriate compass therefore, a student cannot achieve his goals.

Conclusion

Most of the students lack internal motivation to reach their goals. Even when they are scoring high marks, they are not aware of what to do in their life and why. Depending on external motivation alone, they keep on chasing other's goals till the end of their life or chasing visible 'results' of success like cars, gadgets and foreign travels, but remaining dissatisfied with their lives.

How does a student with internal motivation behave? He manages his time actively. Knows how to use money. Whenever he does not know anything, he is confident to ask for help. He knows what he wants and why, which itself may change. He pursues what he likes even though it may not be part of academics. He is member of some group: meditation, clean drive, anti-corruption or something. He likes to read or see movies. He may even play some musical instrument. He reads newspapers. He has friends and he knows which friend can do what. He may not be 'talkative', but he can communicate his ideas and thoughts. He expresses his emotions and knows his triggers. And more importantly, he actively probes his 'values and beliefs', because he knows that they determine his success or failure more than anything else.

Maintaining internal motivation however is not a quick fix. Maintaining internal motivation is a constant effort. If you are serious in achieving anything meaningful in life, constructing a map and making a compass is the only known way to maintain your internal motivation. There is no short cut.

In the next blogs, we shall list down the steps in 'making the compass' as well as 'constructing a good map'.

Do not hasten your child to chose his/her education path after 10th at the last moment, instead give him/her enough time to equip

As we discussed elsewhere, our  subconscious mind takes the decision without our conscious knowledge most of the time. Psychologists believe that we are cognitive misers, people who are lazy in using the conscious mind. But this approach paralyses us because we are unable to face the unintended consequences of the chosen path.

Path is never right or wrong

This phenomenon happens with the student of 10th class. He/She unknowingly chooses his/her next path after 10th either by following his/her friend or by agreeing with the parents. But this does not prepare him/her to face the unintended consequences of a chosen path. 

Unintended Consequence 1: Chosen path cannot be continued because of lack of  ' necessary ability'

Jeevan's father wanted to become a doctor. So Jeevan always wanted to be a doctor. But Jeevan was very good in drawing. He stood 3rd in Maharashtra state in elementary exam. In 10th, he approched me to ask different medical colleges that he could chose.

Jeevan chose the education path of medicine, because of subtle and indirect pressure of his father who wanted to become a Doctor. Unfortunately, he could not get enough marks to take up MBBS. He chose Homeopathy. However, he failed in the first year of Homeopathy.

Students find it very difficult to assess the depth of their own abilities. Marks in the school, the indicator of ability, often mislead. Aptitude tests also do not measure these abilities any more 'accurately', because they are based on 'abstract thinking', which students cannot do because of lack of practice. It therefore takes time to understand the extent of one's ability. 

Unintended Consequence 2: Chosen path faces unexpected hurdles 

Sayali was an academically good student who had scored 90%+ marks in Xth class. She chose the education path of Engineering  without thinking deeply.
But in XIIth she failed to score enough marks in JEE to get a good college. So she was confused? Should she take a year break and try again next year? Or should she join a Tier-2 college but stick to her discipline of IT? Or should she join a college ignoring her choice of discipline? Should she chose a college where her better communication ability gets developed , as her logical ability was not enough to help her get good marks in JEE? Or should she join a college that will help her grow her 'logical ability' further? 

Because Sayali had chosen 'Engineering path' unconsciously with her subconscious mind, Sayali was not prepared to face these tough questions which requires conscious mind. When subconscious mind makes such decisions in haste, one is not equipped.

Students like Sayali cannot change their own decisions because they are 'stuck' in their own beliefs of what is right. Identifying and altering these beliefs once again take time.

Unintended Consequence 3: Chosen path do not fulfill unrealistic aspirations 

Here is another case of Abhay, whom i met 5 years back.

Abhay did everything right to get into IIT. He went to Kota to get through JEE exam. He got in Mumbai IIT. 
But in the third year of IIT, he felt he had made a wrong choice because he did not wanted to do technical job after graduation, because according to him, "Starting pay after IIM is at least 20 lakhs pa". So he decided to go for MBA immediately after graduating.  

Abhay is just comparing himself with others all the time. He does not have the skills to find what he wants. So he chooses his wants by comparing with others. If you are not aware, more than 50% of the engineering graduates do MBA immediately after graduation. Abhay's case is therefore not unusual.

Aspirations change without our conscious intentions. Until one's motivation is intrinsic, not extrinsic, it is difficult to control one's aspirations.

Equip the child to face the consequences of a chosen path

No choice is right or wrong. Choice becomes right (or wrong) only if one is equipped ( or not equipped) to face the consequences - both intended and unintended - of a chosen path. Because every child is different, one cannot factor all the possible hurdles and help the child plan. We must instead equip the child to get ready.

I follow these three steps to equip the child:

Step 1. Build enough confidence in the child to help him ask the right questions

Because Jeevan was not confident enough to say " I cannot do medicine because my ability is less", he was not able to tell his father that he cannot 'manage the studies of medicine'. Because Sayali was not confident in saying that " I may get less marks', she was unprepared to handle the hurdle of low marks.

A child is not confident or diffident. It is not a natural trait. Confidence depends on two variables. One, when the child can 'express his thoughts and ideas', he feels confident. Two, when the child understands the events - social, commercial, political - around him, he can form his own opinions which makes him feel confident.

Not every child will need same time and efforts to build confidence. For instance, some children, who fare good in academics, have higher confidence than the children who fare poorly in academics.They require lesser effort and time.

Step 2. Help the child understand his own Motivation

Only when a child is confident, he/she can take this step to introspect and ask tough questions about his Self. Without the confidence, finding one's motivation becomes a bookish exercise.

Child is aware of internal triggers of motivation - his own emotions, interests, values - and external triggers of motivation - what is valued socially such as money. Over the period of time, the child has to be taught to shift the source of his motivation from external to internal triggers. This process of discovering self-motivation can be helped by helping the child understand his own emotions, self-beliefs, and self-awareness.

In Jeevan's case, he could not negotiate the hurdle in his Homeopathy path either due to poor academic ability ( which he did not acknowledge) or his motivation for Homeopathy was too low. Abhay's case is of inadequate self awareness. When self-awareness is inadequate, choices are made not on what one wants, but what others are doing, such as what Abhay was doing.

Step 3. Build the talent-unwrapping skills

There are many popular and unpopular beliefs (myths) of 'what is talent and how to unwrap it'. For instance, many students still believe that one has a 'unique talent', although it is clear that 'talent is not one single unique ability, but multiple abilities working together in tandem'. Every child absorbs these beliefs of talent unknowingly. This step helps him question his old beliefs of talent and institute new beliefs that help you unwrap your 'unique genius'.

For instance, Jeevan's belief that "Drawing ability cannot be used to make a career" stopped him in choosing the path of drawing career. Or Abhay's belief that " First job should fetch more money" forced him to leave technical field and join MBA without working in technical field. Abhay was not aware that once he 'masters' a skill, monetisation of skill can follow later. By mastering the skill first and then monetising it later, one can achieve both job satisfaction and monetary satisfaction. However, prioritising monetisation before mastery only offers money satisfaction. Beliefs are invisible and unconscious. Not aware of them we keep on making mistakes unknowingly.

Summary

All three steps build three different skills which require TIME. Give the child 2 years to equip himself/herself before 10th. Do not force the child to make his choice at the last moment in the Xth class. It is of no use.

And please remember that this choice will help him use his academic skills - whether he is the brilliant or average- to the fullest. Without making this choice in an appropriate way, even a brilliant student ( with good academic record) flounders. And by making this choice in an appropriate way, even an average student can flourish in his career.

How to find a better school for your child?

By now, you are aware, that the schools are fundamentally different only in two aspects: Teacher versus student centricness and Learning versus Development orientation. Other differences in the school are just superficial. Do not get misled by it.

However, because most of the schools at least in India are Teacher-Centric Learning oriented schools (TCLO) schools, you need better methods of evaluating them, without getting sidetracked by the superficial glossy-looking features of the school. Let us call this TCLO school as classical school because they are available in plenty around you.

When you are evaluating a school for your child, ask these five questions about the school: Instruction design followed in the school, System for tracking and correcting lagging students, Building inter-subject connectivity, Building Real-world connectivity of a subject and Student guidance available in the school. 

1. Instruction designs followed in the school : Instruction design is the design of teacher to help the student learn a specific lesson. The lesson could be of LCM or Fractions in Arithmetic, or it could be Radiomagnetic waves in Electricity, or volcanoes in Geography. Design includes elements like ' method of teaching, sequence of introducing content to the child, getting feedback from students to ensure that the progress of teaching is appropriate, and helping the student to connect with students outside the school'. School therefore has to set up a 'system' to help the student learn a specific subject well. If the 'system' is better, it helps the student to understand the 'content' of that subject in a more easier, faster and accurate way. All three characteristics of instruction design - or system- are important. Please understand that 'teachers' are just one part of the system; good teachers alone are not enough. 

Because setting a system takes time, schools tend to have good 'systems' ( which is formally or informally designed by Instruction designers) only in specific subjects or areas. That is why you will find some schools are known for producing better 'mathematics' students, while some produce better 'arts' students and so on. I have also seen some schools specialised in producing 'Sportsman' in hockey. Find out what the school is offering and match it with your child's needs.

2. System to track and correct lagging students in time:

Despite a brilliant 'system' set by a school, not every student learns at the same pace and time. Some students understand a 'lesson' faster, some slower. Some students may also miss a lesson, because they are not 'attentive' on that day. Variations in understanding the lesson in a class of 30 student are enormous. When a student lags behind in specific lesson ( say LCM), they have to be corrected quickly because that also slows their learning of next lesson , say in fractions. In other words, the effect of 'not learning something' in time can be cumulative. It can set a student progress behind by considerable amount. This is an inherent weakness of a teacher-centric system, in comparison to student-centric system.

To overcome this inherent weakness, a school therefore has to set up a 'feedback system' to track a student's grasp of a specific lesson - after the lesson is taught to students - and then 'immediately' correct those lagging students who have fallen back. Spotting the lagging student and correcting them are both required for a teacher-centric school. Swedish schools, who have ranked the best in the world, have alternative teachers who are responsible for both tracking and correcting the student. But this system is practically absent in many schools in India. But some schools, using e-learning packages, have set up a system to at least track the progress of student's learning and spot the lagging students.

3. Building Inter-subject Connectivity 

Although subjects - Mathematics, Science, History, Biology - are taught independently in a school by separate teachers, in real life they are connected with each other. When a school helps the child to 'see' these interconnections of subjects, learning of student deepens. For instance, teaching geometry while teaching solar system in Geography helps the student deepen his learning of both subjects. Or teaching History and English together, or teaching Algebra and Geometry together. And so on.

Montessori schools (which are student-centric) deepen the students learning because they help students connect the apparently disconnected subjects. Some classical teacher-centric schools, like IB schools, also follow this practice. Many school teachers follow this practice informally at their individual level, but until the school formally adopts this system, this is not very useful for students.

4. Building Real world connectivity of a subject

A concept in a subject can be understood best by a student, when he sees it's practical life application in the real world. For instance, the concept of longitude and latitude is best understood by understanding the coordinates of one's 'house in a city'. Or one can understand understand the concept of light while constructing a camera. Or understanding the concept of compounding by understanding its application in the multiplication of money.

Many schools have caught on this idea . Some schools, who practice this a lot, call themselves 'Experimental schools'. But many schools follow these principles in bits and pieces, only in certain areas and subjects. Therefore, while evaluating these schools, ask some probing questions to ensure that the school is indeed following these practice.

5. Student guidance available in the school

Because of teacher-centricness of the school, a school has to help a student to focus his efforts. Not all children are alike. Some are better at mathematics, some in language. Some learn better by doing, some by observing. Some prefer to be in student groups, some prefer to be alone. Some like to study in the morning, some in the evening. Some are good in understanding a subject in depth, while some are good in scoring marks in that subject. Although emotions help learning, some children are too emotional while some are too rational. Both require separate guidance. Morever, negotiating the transition of 'adolescence', for instance, is one of the toughest hurdle of a student which can derail a child's learning. Without this guidance on different aspects, the students cannot utilise the facilities of the school, even when they are available.

Surprisingly, despite plenty of availability of such guides, only few schools utilise them. Many schools instead have counselors whose job is to deal with 'problem children' in the schools. But a TCLO school requires this support for their 'normal children' so that they can focus their 'efforts' only on chosen areas. We shall discuss about the features of this Student Guide later.

Summary

Whenever parents meet me for the first time, they ask me 'Which school is better of my child?'. I hope these five criteria of choosing a school can help these parents. 

Help your child to learn

If your child is in school, then the most important objective of yours should be to Maximise his/her learning outputs. For this one needs a Continuous learning plan, based on the child's background of his abilities.

This sounds simple. But there are many hurdles to cross. One is the confusion between teaching and  learning. Second is the blackbox of  'earning?'. Let us try to decode learning bit by bit.

Open the blackbox of learning

Learning helps the child to understand 'something' and use it to achieve his personal goals. In other words, it changes him in some ways. To help you understand learning, it is useful to know that Learning occurs at five levels:

1. Learning of content ( what )
2. Learning 'why' of the content ( relevance, context, purpose)
3. Learning of how to use the content ( how to use counting to give money)
4. Learning of behaviour ( habits)
5. Learning of beliefs and mindsets

These five levels are inter-dependent and inter-related. But understanding them separately helps you understand and correct the child's mistakes that occur in learning. Lower Level learning ( say level 1 of learning content) takes much lesser time than higher learning levels, say learning a new belief. But higher level learning hastens the learning of 'lower level'. So sometimes, you have to spend time in 'teaching' higher level learning even though it takes longer time.

Learning has four characteristics:

1. Using multiple levels of learning consolidates learning faster

For instance, we often marvel at the 3 year old's ability to remember and recognise 'car names', or 'a for apple' or '1 to 10' numbers. At this age, the child is learning 'content' and 'replaying' it again and again. This is level 1. This is just 'using memory'. There is another way to consolidate learning. For instance, if one uses different 'senses' to connect with a word 'car', memory becomes deeper. Recollection is easier.

But if the child moves to 'level 2' when he understands more about cars. For instance, when he understands why a car is called 'Jeep', and another called 'taxi', it helps the child understand the finer distinctions of 'car', because the purpose of each car is different. Now he understands car a bit more. Earlier, in level 1 he is only using memory to 'remember' car. Now he 'understands' the meaning of car a bit, and therefore put this in 'working memory'. His learning consolidates as he can use this 'data' of car.

The more levels a child uses in learning, better the consolidation happens. For instance, let us say she has learnt counting numbers. If she uses it to count chocolates, which is both level 2 and level 3, learning consolidates better. If he learns to count money while taking it from shopkeeper, it improves even further.

2. Learning 'how' deepens learning very quickly

This is level 3. While learning radio magnetic waves from the books helps, Learning is deep when the student builds a FM radio transmitter. Learning ' the principles of L:ight' from books is helpful even with experiments, but it is very deep when the student builds a camera. Learning 'programming' helps, but learning is multifaceted when the student uses it to program 'robot'.

The first two levels, even though understood at a conceptual level, can be consolidated well if the student uses the 'how to use the concept' in a real object.

3. Learning of appropriate behaviour helps learning

Learning also helps if appropriate behaviour - habit - is accompanied while learning. ( This is level 4). For instance, habit of keeping things in order helps in learning , because it helps the child to take a step at a time and reach the final step ( sense of order).

The most important habit that helps learning of content is the habit to sit and work patiently. This also includes the habit of managing the distractions. Emotional distractions are the most difficult to manage for the child where parents can contribute the most. Without adopting this habit, as the child grows, learning stops abruptly.

Infact because our schools do very little to 'help' the child to increase his attention span, most of the students suffer from very poor attention span. For such a distracted child, the only way to increase attention span is to use the child's internal motivation. For instance, parents can use the child's motivation of learning Tabla or drive a bicycle to increase his attention span.

4. Adopting learning-friendly beliefs is very important for learning 

Learning is never sequential. Learning involves making lot of mistakes and learning from them. But, if your child has a belief that 'Performance matters" then he tends to do activities, or study subjects, where he 'performs well'. He does not take challenging activities where he is likely to fail. Carol Dweck calls this performance mindset. On the other hand, when the child has a belief that 'he can always improve himself', he keeps on doing activities for becoming better at them. This is improvement mindset.

Carol Dweck has done lot of research on these two mindsets ( beliefs) and how they impact learning. If your child has 'performance mindset' and has a fear of performing, then it is important to change his mindset. Because, if not today, his learning will get hampered.

Summary

Because learning occurs at five levels, one has to be mindful of the level of learning one is trying to achieve. Most of the schools work at the level 1 and 2. Some schools have some activities at level 3. These schools call themselves practical learning schools, experimental learning schools, or even Project learning schools. Very few schools work at level 4/5 and expect the parents to contribute. Parents can do a lot at level 4 and 5 to help their child 'hasten' their learning later even though they fall 'behind' in class. Unfortunately, like schools, very few parents know how to help child learn new habits or new beliefs. Their only method is to instruct, admonish or 'blackmail' children which never works. 

Help your child unfold, not discover, his talent

Many parents believe that potential talent can be 'detected' at an early age. This assumption is simply untrue. Benjamin Bloom's study of 120 high performers proved that even 'potential' of high performers could not be detected at early age. Child prodigies make us believe that 'talent' can be seen at younger age. But the conversion of child prodigies to adult performers is so 'rare' that one cannot rely on potential talent at lower age. 

I have researched the process of unfolding of talent over 10 years. I have found large differences in how people discover their talent. Some like Boman Irani discover their talent at a later age. He discovered his talent of acting at the age of 35. And that too by chance. Last year, i met a corporate professional who discovered his talent of writing at the age of 40. Some discover it by chance and at early age. For instance, Jaya discovered her talent of drawing when she met a drawing teacher in her 8th Grade.

I have seen bigger surprises in the process of talent unfolding. Some discover their talent at an early age, but once they start their work-life, they find that it does not suit them. For instance, Jessica spend 28 years of life pursuing medicine, but once she started working she found that she is not ready for using her talent. Every year i meet countless students who pursue IIT courses after grueling preparation, get into IIT, and then find that IIT does not suit them. Abhay is one such student i met.

In other words, the process of finding talent is not a straightforward path of sequentially taken actions. It is path of tangled threads. Some deliberate , some unconscious. Even when the path is understood, one can 'influence' it, one cannot control the process of unfolding of talent. I therefore call the process as Unfolding of talent.

So how can you help your child to unfold his talent? 

Here are five basic rules that are practical and useful:

1. Accept broader view of talent: Talent was earlier seen as a narrow acquisition of cognitive ability like mathematics or programming. Lewis Terman's study of 1500+ high IQ students has proved that IQ alone is not the prime cause of any success. Meaning of talent, as we have discovered now, is much more wider and holistic. It is definitely not just one single skill. It consists of cognitive abilities, character traits and conative traits. For some more light on the subject, see this view of talent.

2. Making the right choice of education path at 10th grade is less important than making the most of a given choice: Our path of unfolding of talent goes through three stages. Stage I is choosing an education path after 10th grade. Stage II is choosing the work path after graduation. And stage III is choosing the career path after exploring various work-paths. If stage I directly leads to Stage III, your child is lucky. But if you do not want to depend on luck, you must take right actions during graduation instead of spending time on finding the right education path of graduation.

3. Maximise your child's learning outputs in school: There is a huge gap between teaching and learning. See this difference and help your child in learning. Help him contextualise his understanding of a subject be it Mathematics, English or History. Help him use his knowledge of subject to manipulate real life objects like radio and bicycle.

4. Tackle the bottleneck of emotional distraction in child's learning in advance: Bigger bottleneck of learning at school is not inadequate efforts or insufficient willpower. The bottleneck is the distraction that is caused by emotional upheavals that are part of growing with other friends. The transition of a student to adolescence during 7/8th grade causes huge hormonal changes that distracts a student the most. I meet many such students who have got distracted from learning because of their misdirected interest in sex-related articles. Help your child tackle emotional distraction by practicing empathy.

5.Actively manage the child's 'motivational engine' to guide learning: A child's motivation is very important for his learning.  But we cannot use his motivation to guide him because we do not know how to use the fire of motivation. For instance, the child's love of bicycle at the 4th grade can be used to motivate him to learn some of the basic principles of physics. Here are some ideas. 

If your child is not fond of academics, help him PLAY

Schools and parents lay huge emphasis on training of cognitive abilities like logic ( science), numerical ( mathematics) and linguistic( languages). Indeed they are critical cognitive abilities that can help the child train his mind and then later use it for more producing productive outputs. But what if your child has fallen back in academics and has therefore lost interest in pursuing academics ? Do you have any option? Yes, there is. 

Second law of success states that talent can be built by combining COB ( Cognitive Abilities), Character Traits ( CAT) and Conative traits ( COT). In other words, if the student is not good in developing his cognitive abilities, we can use his school time to develop his Character traits. Three character traits are important later in life. These are to think creatively, to cooperate with others effectively, and to regulate oneself ( i.e to control their own impulses and emotions.) . These skills cannot be taught like subjects. So where can we learn this?

They are learned and practiced by children in play. Not structured play, but unstructured play. 

Structured play is the play where one competes at the highest level, but unstructured play is the play between the children where more than competition, getting along is more important. Structured play has strict rules and regulations imposed by the play, unstructured play have the rules that are decided by the consensus amongst the members who are playing.

Unstructured play is important because it develops three critical character traits that are important for building the talent in the later phase of life:

1. It nurtures creativity in the child

We can’t teach creativity in schools, because schools centers not on answering children’s own questions but answering those questions dictated by an imposed curriculum. In a school, all questions have one right answer and everyone must learn the same answer and repeat it. Surprisingly, in today's economy, we no longer need to perform routine calculations (we have calculators and computers for that), or to answer already-answered questions (we have search engines that can perform the same function). 

But we do need children who can ask and seek answers to new questions, solve new problems and anticipate obstacles before they arise. These all require the ability to think creatively. The creative mind is a playful mind. And where are the children most creative ?

In unstructured play, they design their own creative rules of play. They find innovative ways to negotiate the constraints like space or number of children. They convert their weaknesses into strengths by setting rules that will overturn the normal advantage of a over-aged child. They creatively find ways to bring in a strong partner to compensate for their weakness. They creatively find games where they have more specific strengths. 

2. It builds capacity to cooperate with others

Unstructured play, by definition, is voluntary, which means that players are always free to quit. If you can’t quit, it’s not play. All players know that, and so they know that to keep the game going, they must keep the other players happy. When players disagree about how to play, they must negotiate their differences and arrive at compromises. Each player must recognise the capacities and desires of the others, so as not to hurt or offend them in ways that will lead them to quit. Failure to do so ends the game and leave the offender alone, which is powerful punishment for not attending to the others’ wishes and needs. 

The most fundamental social skill is the ability to get into other people’s minds, to see the world from their point of view. Children practice this skill continuously in their social unstructured play.

3. It promotes Self regulation amongst children

In unstructured play, children also learn how to control their impulses and follow rules.

All play – even the wildest-looking varieties – has rules prescribed and negotiated by the members. In the play-fight you cannot kick, bite, scratch, or really hurt the other person; and if you are the larger and stronger of the two, you must take special care to protect the other from harm. Purpose of play-fight is not to win at any cost, but to prolong the play by keeping the other happy.

In socio-dramatic play – the kind of imaginary play exemplified by young children’s games of “ driving a bus” or pretending to be superheroes or running a house – the primary rule is that you must stay in character. If you are the pet dog, you must bark instead of talk and you move around on all fours no matter how uncomfortable that might be. If you are policeman, you must be rigid and harsh, howsoever you may feel really.  In these roles, the children learn the art of controlling impulses and behaving in accordance with social expectations.

Conclusion

Unstructured play, in the good old days, was highly in vogue when joint families used to stay together. Even though we did not stay in joint family, the families we lived in our town were so close that we practically knew every child in our neighborhood. We did not even know that most of the traits developed in us were through the unstructured play we engaged with our playmates. Thank God, we lived in good old days. But our children are not so lucky. They therefore need our help.

Peter Gray is a rare psychologist who has studied the role of PLAY in developing our character traits. He is also author of Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life (Basic Books, 2013). This blog has been written by using the ideas of his book. For more details, read his book. 

How to use free career advice available on internet and books?

Many believe that one can always get some useful career advice by listening to the story of an achiever.

They argue that we get tips and ideas to succeed by hearing their stories. By knowing how achievers negotiated their hurdles we find how to negotiate our hurdle, by listening to their responses to difficult situations we learn to respond innovatively, or after hearing the ideas of how they energised themselves after failure we can also use the same methods to buck ourself up after failing. But is this assumption really true? Can we really adopt career ideas and suggestions of others achievers directly?

Let us understand how we use health advice in our lives.

How do we use health advice of others 

In order to use someone's health advice effectively, I have to 'incorporate' the advice in my daily routine. I cannot adopt an idea as it is, I have to adapt it for my situation. For this, I have two choices.

• First choice is creating an intellectual framework. For instance, to use the advice of weight control, I must create a framework of "Weight control", the framework of 'cause and effect'. What causes weight increase and what causes weight loss. The framework consists of basic info like noting down the calorie impact of each food, estimating the calories we burn during the day, predicting the calorie intake by eating our normal food. Then i need to understand my own habits: both of consuming food and burning calories.  Understand my current weight scenario. ( if i am not overweight by too much kg, i can use less drastic regimes). Only after creating a framework like this, i can use an advice of a celebrity who reduced her weight by 20 kg in two months.  
• Second choice is based on Similarity: similarity of background. For instance, to copy the food habit of a celebrity, I must find a person who is more similar to me. If i am consuming South Indian type of food, i must get the advise from a South Indian. If i stay in Mumbai, I must copy the exercise habits of Mumbai-based resident, because i cannot do normal exercises at 6 pm! This is copy-paste method, except that you have to take care in the copying the right person ! 

Both methods have pros and cons.As you would realise, intellectual framework Method forces you to take more cognitive effort, but it can also help you incorporate advice of many celebrities easily. The Similarity Method requires less cognitive effort,  but you must spend more effort on finding the right person who is similar to your background. 

Take care while using similarity method (Copy-paste) for your career advice

Many individuals prefer to use the second choice, because it takes lesser cognitive effort.

But they ignore the essential rule of finding the right person. For instance, finding any south Indian person in Mumbai will not help, you must find such a person who has also lost his weight successfully. That is difficult. Finding a person with more similar background increases the chances of using the advice successfully , but it is also increases the difficulty in finding such a person. For instance, finding a person who has similar habits like you ( such as having desk bound job, because you work on computers) is not easy. 

Without finding the right person, however, most of the people use the wrong learnings from other successful achievers.  And that is why, despite so much of health advice on controlling weight, you will find so many individuals struggle to control their weight. Despite so much of health advice on stress control to control BP, you will find so many individuals suffering from high BP at low age. Despite so much of health advice on controlling a simple ailment like cold and headache, you will find so many individuals suffering from cold and headaches.

Similarly, there is plenty of career advice on internet.The same is true while using career advice of celebrity achievers. When you hear the stories of these achievers, and hear their ideas and struggles, you can use them by using either of the two methods of adapting it: Either create a Career framework to find which advice is appropriate for you or Use Similarity method to find the right achiever who resembles with your background and situation.

You will find that students use Similarity Method, when they chose the profession of their parents or close relatives. When a child in the family of actors want to be in entertainment profession, he can easily chose Similarity method of getting ready-made career advice. Being in the family, they find it easier to get the right customised career advice for their career. No need to find any other celebrity or an outsider. That is why it is easy to chose and succeed a discipline/profession which is followed by your father, uncle, grandfather or cousins !

Another option of using Similarity method of seeking career advice is to find a role model in your chosen work-path. That is why entrepreneurs find mentors who are successful entrepreneurs or Angel investors. Or find a role model of a Professor if you want to pursue a work-path of a Professor. Or find a role model of a researcher, if you want to pursue research. In technical language, this is called finding a Mentor. Mentoring is very helpful if mentor is found in the same work-path . This is how one can use the interviews of successful achievers. 

How to use generic advice of achievers 

But how to use career advice of other achievers, who are in not in your domain, or from your background, but who have achieved something in a very different arena?

There is a plenty of career advice available in the net, in the books, in the heads of achievers. It is a very good idea to use this advice. But most of it is not for you. How to separate wheat from chaff?

One simplest way is to find answers to some specific questions. For instance, nested goals is often common in every person's life. If you therefore meet celebrities, ask a question " How did your goals kept on changing".

Second way is to ask questions about the important values of compass setting. Values such as 'Process is more important than Result' determine the course of life more than any other value. This value determines if you dream 'big' without thinking of the consequences of 'failing' in realising the dream. This value also determines the extent of 'ethics' that you may want to sacrifice to achieve your goals.

Conclusion

But what you want is the specific customised advice that will be applicable to your career, the advice that will be applicable to you, given your family and parental background, advice that you will be able to incorporate in your daily work practices, advice that suits your specific work path. In short, what you require is a 'Customised career advice'. Tips and ideas of career advice look good on the surface, but are not useful to most of us. 

We all search internet to discover a success formula that can help us surmount all our career difficulties. If there is one success formula you must use, it should be either developing your own career framework by using generic framework like Enlight.  Only your career framework can help you sort out good career advice from bad ! 

How to nurture your extra intense child?

In his new book, Enjoying the Gift of Being Uncommon: Extra Intelligent, Intense, and Effective , Willem Kuipers writes about XIP ( Extra intense persons).

XIP children share these four characteristics 

1. High Intellectually ability in a given subject or field like chess, maths, or music
2. Incurably inquisitive in anything they do
3. Require high degree of autonomy: they seem to have their own minds to take their own decisions
4. Possess excessive zeal in pursuit of their interests be it sports, arts or a s
   ubject 

As you would notice, Willem Kuipers definition of gifted-ness is not confined to intellectual ability or IQ. It includes conative traits like passion and character traits like inquisitiveness and autonomy. In other words, as discussed earlier, talent or gift includes the 3Cs of talent. 

I happen to meet many such children now a days. Parents often approach me because they note the intensity of their young child before they realize that their child is developing at a faster rate.

When they are progressing appropriately in their classes, they look normal although they may also seem to be different and compulsive in their behaviour. Please also read this blog of prodigies. Some of these children are also autistic on a range of spectrum. Please read this blog to tackle the wrong interpretations of autism. But when these extra intense children lose their path, they seem to display the worst of their behaviour: disobedience to elders, ruled by their changing whims and fancies, breaking the rules at the drop of hat, and always seem to be too much in a hurry. Sometimes, the child keeps the frustration inside and rebels against everyone and everything.

Parents of these children follow these three strategies to help their intense children: 

1. Understand that these children's emotional ability lags behind intellectual ability

Although their intellectual ability is growing at a rapid rate, their emotional ability always lags behind. And this causes most of the problems for these intense children. They are not in synch with their age-group children, their aspirations get mixed with competence, and they often have no cognizance of what they can do and what they cannot. Their social competence is often lacking.

Parents have to remember that their child is of young age although he or she may seem to accomplish something unusual sometimes. Even though they are doing wonderfully well in some fields, they have to be given the space to fail in relationships and in managing their stress as well as positive emotions. Although they seem to know what they want, parents have to remember that they are equally scared of failing on a chosen path. They need help in understanding and finding the right friends.  They are also seem to gel with elder children because the older children display more emotional maturity. 

2. Find an avenue, even if it is arts,music or sports, to express their creativity and high level of energy 

Many a times, it takes a long time to find a domain that will do justice to the child's talent. When this happens it presents a curious problem to parents. If a child is unable to express his abilities, he or she feels frustrated and vents out his frustration in dysfunctional manner. It is therefore prudent to find an avenue in which the child can dissipate his energies, even though the avenue may not lead the student to the final destination of his domain such as Engineering or medicine. For instance, students with extra ordinary cognitive abilities in mathematics, seem to love music. Parents of these students should let them develop their interest in music, even though music may not be the final domain in which the student will flourish.

3. Follow the child's cognitive growth closely and feed it on timely basis

This is easier said than done. It is important for the parent to understand what her child can do well and help her find a teacher or an activity where she is challenged in that activity. For instance, if the child is very good in logical reasoning, it is important to introduce him to the 'computing world' so that he can not only feels challenged enough, but also finds a medium to 'consume his energy and attention' on his own. The same is true if you find the child is good in numerical reasoning, spatial reasoning or verbal reasoning. Some parents find this difficult because it forces them to understand the underlying principles of learning and development and actively participate in their child's development. Some parents find it easier to take help of developmental coach who can understand the child well and appropriately find a path that suits the child's complex and idiosyncratic personality.

Why should students learn history and geography in school?

Often parents ask me 'Why should children learn history and geography?'. Especially, why are our students learning about the stories of Aurangzeb and Humayun? or about Egyptian civilisation? Or why are students learning about the different continents ? How were they formed? What do we learn from the wars that have happened in the past? Even students feel that getting this knowledge is not useful. They study history and geography at the last moment only to get passing grade. 

The real question is 'Why should students learn history and geography in school'?

Two major reasons to learn History and Geography in school

1. One, is to sustain the motivation of your child in the school. 

Initially, a child may pursue an activity for its own sake.  He/She may start doing an activity – such as playing guitar, or solving science problems, or playing cricket – just because it is exciting. But, after a while, she loses interest in it and stop doing it. 

To sustain motivation for a long time, some students have to find 'meaning' in learning that activity. These children are not motivated just by learning subjects like Algebra or Science.  Marks alone do not excite them. They get bored by solving problems in algebra, mathematics or English, because their mind keeps on raising a question 'Why am i learning this subject? What is the purpose of learning this?" 

I never liked History subject in school. That was until i was in VIIth. In VIIth, i got a new teacher. When i fared poorly in History, he surprised me by asking me ' You are so good in History. Why do you score poorly when you know so much in History?' When he saw my wide mouth look, he replied ' You always answer my questions such as who invented Steam Engine and how. That is History'. He completely reframed the meaning of History to me. He increased my interest in science by making me gain more information of how those scientific discoveries happen,  who makes them, how they happen by chance. I discovered Edison and his countless experiments. I found the bigger motivation to learn science. From then onwards, I did not study science to get more marks. I studied science because it was going to help me solve 'bigger problems' of mankind. 

2. Second, is to ensure that the future work-life is not stuck up due to lack of motivation.

In a school, our children require motivation to learn. In the work-life, we require motivation to do our work. But to sustain motivation , we need to find 'meaning' in that activity. Initially, money may help us get motivated to do our job. But we cannot do our jobs only for money after a while. We need to find meaning in our job. How do we find meaning in an activity? To find meaning in an activity, we need practice. 

In history, we get the practice of finding meaning in the events and situations that made history. Such as the small event of Salt Satyagraha in the India's Independence. Or knowing the evolution of a steam engine, through History, we understand the importance of learning the function of car engine. Geography enables us to connect with the dense interconnection of different elements of life, be it earth, air, water, animal life and forests. And Literature – novels, biographies, and other artifacts - is the source of knowing about how the leaders and big geniuses perceived their lives, what they considered as meaningful in life. 

Why do we need to learn these subjects in school? If we start learning these subjects in school, we tend to store them in memory. According to the fundamental rule of learning, the more 'items of a subject' we store in memory, the more easier it is to learn new things on the same subject. If for instance, you were initiated in Geography in school, you will understand the topic of global warming when you read it in newspaper. You will understand the impact of pollution on the air. With more reading, you will be able to appreciate the dynamics of pollution, and find a way by which you can contribute to the 'cleaner climate'. Through history and geography, we understand how a 'small' contribution in a field from our side can make a 'big' impact in the world outside. 

On the other hand, when we are not exposed to History and geography in our school, we get stuck up in our work-life like Manisha, Digvijay or Ramesh, because they are unable to find their motivation of doing the job. One cannot learn this skill easily at a later age. One must be building on this skill from early age.    

However, individuals who get this practice of finding meaning, tend to find their long term motivations in life more easily. This is how individuals like Larry Page of Google can make a bigger impact on society. Or help individuals like Nandan Nilekani find satisfaction in helping government by using their professional expertise. Or help rich entrepreneurs like Wipro's Premji to spend money in education.   

Summary

As you would have guessed by now, History and Geography help you develop your Conative traits, the third C that helps you unleash your talent. If you have not read the 3Cs of talent, read this. Conative traits are the traits that help you fire your torch, that motivate you in a sustained manner. Doing the normal routine of your life, be it work, play, movies, friends, can be made more happy and satisfying if you develop your conative traits. And the earlier you develop them, the better it is for you. Because if you do not develop them early, you will find it difficult to live your daily life. You will never know where and how you have lost the fire ! So if your child is in school, it is time to develop his/her conative traits by introducing him to History and Geography early in life.  

Helping student practice arts is a lifeline that can help him avoid mediocrity

Last week, I went to a program to listen to a friend's child who was playing tabla. He is just of 8 years. In his group,  children of the same age were playing tabla . Everyone was playing tabla with serious intent. In that program, one parent had come with her daughter. I praised her willingness to support her child's intent. She was almost apologetic and self-justifying herself when she said, 'Oh, it is just a hobby. It keeps her busy. She is so jumpy and energetic'.

Why do we misunderstand the use of practicing arts, be it singing, dancing, playing musical instruments, painting, sculpting, pottery, making artifacts like jewellery, purses, story writing or anything else? Why do we consider it as a 'time-pass' activity only? Why do we value it so less when it is so important even in becoming a good engineer or a doctor ? Why do we presume that  practicing arts is not just a luxury, but necessity of our life?

I guess we value arts less, because we are ignorant of talent-developing process. We therefore do not know the role that arts plays in developing our own talent. If we knew this process, we would not only take our 'hobby' of any arts seriously, but develop it with intent and focus. As we saw in our earlier blog, our talent-package is not just developing one ability, but includes developing a package that includes ability plus our character traits and conative traits. 

In other words Talent = Ability like teaching, programming or designing  + character Trait like self regulation and creativity + Conative traits like passion and purpose. All three are required together to develop a talent. Like we saw in the earlier blog, only ability like batting is not enough.

Practicing Arts like tabla offers a student three benefits for developing his/her talent of anything (be it engineering, medicine, or accounts) :

1.  It helps her practice and develop personal trait of Self-regulation 

In developing his talent, say in mathematical deductive reasoning, personal traits like motivation, patience,persistence, are as much important as the basic skill of mathematics. And the most important personal trait the student needs is self regulation, regulating his attention and energy into a specific activity until he can produce the desired result. I shall later show you the research of psychologists on why they think that self regulation is more important than IQ in excelling in our talent.

But, for now, let us ask ourself 'how can a student develop self regulation' ? It cannot be developed by reading books, or by saying any mantra. The only way to develop self regulation is to engage in an activity - like tabla, music, singing, dancing, skating, or anything else - and use the generated interest to learn that activity more and more. The process of engaging in an activity like arts automatically helps a student 'practice' and develop self-regulation.

For instance, when my friend's son plays Tabla, he forgets everything for that time. He is fully engaged in it. He learns 'concentration'. When his teacher wants to play a specific 'matra' in tabla, he has to try again and again and practice them for a long long time, until he gets it right. This develops 'persistence'. Every day, he plays tabla even at home without being told. That develops internal motivation. The child goes through the practice of self regulation every day. Where else can student practice this? Practicing tabla is therefore a playground where a student learns to develop self regulation.

2. Practicing arts develops another important trait to excel: Creativity 

Creativity is a character trait that a student badly needs to excel in anything. Psychologists have discovered that this is one reason why students with average IQ manage to produce extraordinary performance in their lives.

But students do not get any playground in their school-life for practicing this habit of creativity. Students observe something novel only in experiments of physics or chemistry. Their surprises are limited to observing the birth of chicken from egg, or seeing a butterfly coming from a caterpillar. Their creativity is therefore expressed only in one-off venture such as painting elephants white, making a birthday greeting, decorating a friend's party, or taking photographs. The closest these students come to create anything new is writing an essay on their first visit to Zoo.

On the other hand, while practicing arts, creation is the centre-piece of the work. Whether it is playing music, or doing a painting of flower pot, Creation is an experience. Initially the child imitates and copies. But slowly and surely,  the child learns to create something from nothing. More importantly, the child practicing Tabla understands the process of creation. Within the constraining rules of Tabla, the child learns to produce 'new' experiences first hand and learns the habit of creativity.

Last week, i had gone to a birthday of my creative coachee, Jaya, who is good in drawing. Her close friend had telephoned all the friends of Jaya, asking them to send back a video clipping of what they thought about Jaya on mobile, compiled a collage out of it, and presented it to Jaya on her birthday. This is creativity !

More importantly, because a piece of arts cannot be evaluated as right or wrong, the child learns that everything in life cannot be evaluated as 0 and 1. It is a lesson which is also useful to find his purpose of life. In my coaching, professionals take 40 years to appreciate that their life achievement cannot be measured only by the amount of  'money' they earn.

3. Practicing arts gives us first hand feedback on our 'minds' capability

In the school, children study subjects such as physics, mathematics and chemistry and reproduce their understanding in the test or exam. This feedback from exam of 'how their mind is functioning' is not accurate, because exams are merely reproducing what was taught to them. Exams are not good outputs. Exam does not show that a student has understood 'as-is' reality well enough to manipulate the reality.

But in practicing arts, outputs are excellent because they give us an accurate feedback. In arts, when we produce an output, we get a 'feedback' from others on 'how it looks or feels to them'. When we draw a picture, for instance, we are not praised for 'the right strokes' or the 'best use of colours', or the 'layout'; we are praised for the 'whole picture'.  The feedback is direct and whole. The same is true when we design a greeting, or write a story, or play a song on cello. Art offers this experience of producing outputs that we all crave for. Because it provides us a feedback that increases the capacity of our mind to understand as-is reality ( which can then be used to manipulate it).

Conclusion

When the parents are apologetic about their children practicing arts, like the parent i met at the program, i almost wanted to scream at her and tell her, "Please do not apologise for your daughter's arts. It is not a hobby. In Arts, she will find a key that will unlock the the doors of her talent, whatever her talent."

Arts is a beautiful practice ground to  practice personal trait of self regulation and creativity that is critical to succeed in life. Output of Arts offers us a first hand feedback ( and that too early in life ) that helps us believe that we have a 'capable mind' that can deal with as-is reality. 

Practicing arts is not for learning arts, that is a minor objective. Its main purpose in our life is unlocking the puzzle of our talent ! 

Who is more talented - Ishaan or Jeevan?

Ishaan, a VIIIth class student, scores well in Science, Mathematics and other subjects. In one of the IQ tests he gave, he scored in the range of 130. He is always ranked amongst the first three in his class. Ishaan however has few friends, in large part because he has very poor social skills. Ishaan has no hobbies to speak of, and is unengaged in significant extracurricular activities outside of school. 

Jeevan, also in VIIIth class, is in the same school as Ishaan. He does well in many subjects, but ranks somewhere middle in the class. However, he is active in football. He also is a highly talented guitar player. And his teachers feel that he can reach very high potential in guitar, if he wish to follow that path. Jeevan is very popular in the school 

Who is more talented? Ishaan, Jeevan or both? Or neither? In answering this question, three things must be kept in mind.

First, “talentedness” is a label—nothing more. Even if you ask this question to a psychologist, you will get multiple answers to this question, because there is no one absolute or “correct” set of criteria. Because of Lewis Terman, high IQ has got more equated with 'talent'. Even today, when a child does well in academic subjects in schools, we wrongly consider him/her as a talented student ( and forget to give him much needed support !)

But we must remember, that criteria for such labeling are a matter of opinion, nothing more, and there are many disagreements, even among psychologists, as to which label is right. By the way Lewis Terman had assumed that only students with IQ more than 135 are highly gifted and talented in his study. So even Terman may not have labelled Ishaan as 'talented'. On the other hand, we find many Noble Prize winners hover around the mark of IQ of 130. Are they less talented?

Second, the label can be applied in either a more general or a more specific way. Earlier, the student was termed as talented only if he does well in academic domain. His proficiency in non-academic domain like music and sports was not considered to be important. Now the psychologists generally agree that the talent can be seen in a very narrow domain like verbal domain or writing. Even within a domain, there are narrow domains. For instance, even in writing, you may be a good fiction writer or a non-fiction writer. So domain-specific talent has been recognised as an important criteria of talented people. By that definition, you may consider Jeevan to be talented in music. With domain not chosen, Ishaan is perhaps at a disadvantage, because he has to decide in which domain - accountancy, engineering, medical - he wants to excel?

Third, concept of talent depends on the context in which the ability grows. Forty years back, a child’s ability rapidly to learn a language like Sanskrit was an important sign of talent. Today, such an ability would be relatively less valued. A decade earlier, talent in computing was not even recognised because there was no 'software' profession. Today you hear about child geniuses like Tomar who dropped out from school because computing can be learnt 'without school'. Similarly, the skills that lead a child to be labeled as talented might be different in a rural village in Bihar, than in urban Mumbai. A child in Bihar, who is more street smart to live in hostile situation develops different abilities than a student in Mumbai where his environment offers him many more opportunities to explore.

Conclusion 

Talent at the VIIIth class is just a label. That does not ensure that the student will be able to 'realise' his talent and become a 'top performer' in the later age. Therefore many researchers call such 'early talent' as a 'gift'. I also call it a gift when it is seen in children, because it has to be 'discovered and then explored and utilised'.

As you would have realised, both Ishaan and Jeevan, can become excellent performers, but in different domains, if they manage to use the 'systems around them' to deepen their 'gifted' abilities. Because of the 'supportive systems' in our society for academic ability students, Ishaan may get better opportunities of excelling. On the other hand, this does not mean that Ishaan's future success is guaranteed. Because of his 'non social nature', Ishaan has to learn to find the right method to 'utilise' and nurture his academic abilities.

Jeevan, however, may require different kind of 'advise and guidance' to excel in his domain.Because music domain is highly risky domain to excel,  Jeevan may have to develop a fall-back plan. So both will face challenges that will have to be negotiated in their journey of 'utilising their gift'. Success is not guaranteed to either of them although, in today's environment in India, we may assume that Ishaan is more lucky!

But more importantly, we discount character traits, because we feel that they are less important in excelling. We tend to assume that only key cognitive abilities like - science or music- help us excel. But the psychologists have found out that  abilities are just one piece of the 'gift'. Our character traits are equally important part of the whole 'gift package' that help us excel, such as openness to experience that help us learn faster , or our communication skills that enable us to present our ideas and garner support of others, or our creativity to find new solution to existing problem. Our gift is not just one ability, but is a package that also includes our character traits. We have to use the entire gift package. 

In the above examples, both Jeevan and Ishaan may succeed or fail  due to their personal traits. We can easily see this phenomenon in sports. Vinod Kambli was supposed to be as talented as Sachin Tendulkar, but his gift package did not include the character trait of  'concentration'. If you see the stupendous success of Dhoni, which we discussed in the earlier blog, you will appreciate the importance of his mind set, which is part of his unique gift package.Or we also read how Andy Murray's success can also be related to his  character trait which combined with his tennis is a unique gift package.

The key to succeed in life is therefore in discovering, exploring and utilising the entire gift package of yours. Do you know what is the gift package of your child/student?