"But I know where I am!"

The other day we, Laila, Ashraf and the scribe went for an evening walk along the picturesque by-pass road sprinkled with tea estates and trees practicing their own diet schedules. We told Ashraf, a non Malayalee student from Bangalore, jokingly, so as to lift the kid`s spirit up:

“We have kidnapped you! Nobody, not even your family knows where you are now….”
“But I know where I am!”
He replied with his angelic smile.

Photographed by Pooja Sheth

   

As I continued walking with my colleague and student I brooded on the sentence.

How many of us can confidently say ‘We know where we are”

How many of us are aware of the possibilities life has strewn all around?!

How many of us stop and stoop to pick a book from the dusty table, touch the soft petal of a dew kissed flower, marvel at the colored clouds of the evening sky?

And how many of us are happy and feel blessed to be alive on this blue pearl of a planet spinning majestically in the universe?

There are a lot of questions and it is sad there are less answers.

Can you see?

My math teacher, who solemnly held me for a true example of being the worst student in the class of 10^th, would meet the shock of his life if he was unfortunate to witness any one of my training sessions.

Only with trembling heart beats could I attend this teacher`s lessons.

“He is a bad example for all of you!”

He added fervently to my bench mate and a bright student in his standard:” if you continue to sit with him, you are going to spoil your life. Better escape!”

Self-esteem is the best asset any student can and should possess, I feel. I lost 50% of it in my math periods, but somehow balanced it with language and history classes.

I was a very introverted boy. Books were the best friends and continuous reading caused my vision to blur. Reading the chalk entries on black boards became an impossible task. Still I didn’t tell my family or friends about my problem. I couldn`t read the math equations and steps my teacher wrote on the board and naturally math lessons became living nightmares. All I could do was to copy my friend’s notebook. Whatever mistakes he made was mine too.

 My math teacher took a sadistic pleasure in tormenting me, especially in front of girls. He couldn’t identify the problem with my vision. He didn’t try to know why I was week in math; he didn’t give me a willing ear to listen to my problems in his subject.

This is the 15^th year of my life as a teacher. Almost all my classes I ask this question to my students:

“Can you see what I wrote on the board properly?”

"I looked, looked deep within...and I saw!!"

"You made me comfortable!"

And the two day intensive workshop for a group of teachers we organised in a public school in the neighboring district of Malappuram concluded with a touch of high optimism and many an eye sparkled with happiness. The climax was yet to come.

Session evaluation and experience sharing.

Expected, typical words of thanksgiving and joy. Then, it was the turn of Zeenath, the exuberant teacher, who missed day one of our session. She rose, shook hands with Laila and I firmly with the kind of a charming smile  possessed by the innocent only, looked deep, deep into our eyes and uttered these words: “You made me comfortable!” and then her eyes welled up and she cried. The cry of gratitude, tears of the marginalized and of the uncared one.

We were stirred beyond words, and wondered what did we gift this girl in such limited hours which should elevate her to such a state of intellect that she should open up and reward us with those wonderful words – You made me comfortable!

Yes, we made somebody comfortable! We gifted somebody self-esteem and courage to go ahead. We lent our hands to a pair of feeble hands so as to gather enough strength to embrace life. 

All the past 15 years of my life of chasing wild dreams came to a standstill as I received the greatest of the great medal that moment, when time froze and the key board of the piano got stuck, and the music rang in the air.
Zeenath made our day. She is an inspiration, a ray of light fallen unexpectedly from the cluster of dark clouds conspiring for a downpour

India Circle Education-Our Vision

Indian students are good in academics
But generally fail when life skills demand performance...
AFRC INDIA seeks remedies for Indian education maladies 
We Introduce India based training methodologies

Trainers

Milestones

LCL - Language, an introduction

                                                                    AFRCphotography

For a multifaceted country like India, the link language English plays a vital role for nation building. However, except in metropolitan cities, the language is not widely used in a progressive manner. Majority of the students across the length and breadth of the nation do not learn the language in a systematic and scientific manner which may value add to their lives.

AFRCresearch                                                                                                                                                                                               

LCL - Communication, an introduction

AFRC graphics

Communication skills form the corner stone of soft skills. Every human being has to essentially and effectively communicate with others. Effective communication is hall mark of one's education. the ability to speak fluently using the right word in the right order sprouts good communication. Except a limited few , majority of our young generation are weak in communication. The reason can be attributed to poor educational background, lack of exposure to English, fear psychosis, inferiority complexes etc. Our educational system is more or less theory oriented and during their study time students are not initiated to communication and other activities which may enhance and sharpen their life skills.

AFRCresearch                                                                                                                                             

LCL - Leadership, an introduction

AFRCphotograph

Individuals are left behind because of their lack of leadership drive shown in professional and personal life. Many organisations stumble and falter as the top management gets confused when they have to make crucial leadership decisions. Though leadership skills can be learnt through training, dearth of effective training programs hamper students`, individuals` and organisations` march towards success. Students of India desperately need leadership lessons and training, matching international standards,  so as to be qualified as global citizens. 

AFRCresearch                                                                                                                                             

Art for education- an introduction

                                                                             From AFRC India archive

                    Our philosophy of education

After 12 years of grassroots level training and research, we observed that students who gathered confidence with their language and communication skills easily related with the world through various activities. With AFRC - LCL training methodology, students are encouraged to read and review classic literature, listen and appraise international music, watch classic inspirational movies and their creative talents like painting, sketching, writing and editing skills are honed through house journals, wall magazines, web journals and blogs.

Introverted students too find it a great way to express themselves in many activities like theater, literary appreciation, music and film criticisms. We have been successful in introducing various personalities from different walks of life and students collected first hand knowledge and skills from the maestros to widen their creativity and broaden their vision. Art is an essential tool of education, and education, we strongly believe is all about seeking the self.

AFRC research                                                                                                                                                            

Liviing Books

                                                                     AFRC India Photograph

Living Book is a concept of education introduced by AFRC in 2005. over the years many personalities across the world came forward and happily became part of this educational movement. The concept behind Living Book is very simple and easy to adopt.  Through the Living Book concept individual are treated as books and students are encouraged to "read" them. Once the student reach the stage in which they could communicate well through this methodology, they are introduced to a new avenue of meaningful interactions. Living Books proved to be of great help when students required expert guidance in specialised areas. Once trained, it is then the turn of the students to be Living Books. By interacting openly with fellow students, the Living Books gain self awareness and we have found them more self motivated and the level of self esteem races ahead as they are considered not as mere students, but as individuals who deserve attention and listening years.

Besides being used as an effective communication training tool, we have found Living Book concept extremely useful to train slow learners with the help of `student Living Book` who are well advanced in their studies.

AFRC India                                                                                                                                                              

India Circle Education

Indian students are good in academics
But generally fail when life skills demand performance...
AFRC INDIA seeks remedies for Indian education maladies 
We Introduce India based training methodologies

Communication Tips

Ask friends about the people and places that shaped them, and summer springs up quickly when they tell their story; their first kiss, first beer, first job that changed everything.


Nancy Gibbs in Time

Redefined for you

If you have always put limit on everything you do , physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.

Bruce Lee

Grandma`s books- Thomas Hardy`s Jude the obscure

Art for education


Hello there!!
This is Nina, your friendly guide, back again, with bucketful of new year greetings!!

Today we start a new, and extremely useful column for the eternal learner. As each day passes, we miss many things precious, of which we are aware of, but have no time for. Books belong to one such category. People used to read a lot, before the advent of TV, mobile phones and internet. Then, those days, I was told by my grandma, an avid reader, that people were more good and kind. They were less self centered and far less selfish. My grandma also added that its not people, but the life around them that make everything a mess. So fast and less time. When I reached high school the first book grandma thrust into my eager hands was `Jude the obscure'

A book that made me cry, a book which created pangs of desperation deep within and a book which proclaimed the eternal value of education and search for knowledge.

The author
Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, the son of a stone mason, was born in Upper Bockhampton, near Dorchester, in 1840. He was admitted to the local school at the age of eight. after being qualified as an architect, he moved to London and found work with a company that specialized in church architecture. During this time he started writing poetry, and though it was sent to many publications, but they all rejected his works.

Hardy`s first novel, Desperate Memories was published in 1871. The book received almost no attention and failed in the market. Hardy`s true success stories started with the serialisation of Far From the Madding Crowd in the Cornhill Magazine in 1871. His noted works are the Return of the Native(1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge(1886), The Woodlanders(1891), The Well-Beloved(1892) and Jude the Obscure(1896)

Jude the Obscure
Jude Fawley is a rural stone mason with intellectual aspirations. Frustrated by poverty and the indifference of the academic instituions at the university of Christminster, his only chance of fulfilment seems to lie in his relationship with the unconventional, free-thinking cousin, Sue Bridehead. But life as social outcasts proves undermining, and when tragedy occurs, Sue has no resilience and Jude is left in despair.

Hardy`s portrait of Jude, the idealist and dreamer is one of the most haunting and desperate of his creations. Going through the pages of Jude the Obscure is like taking a pilgrimage through the dark alleys of human endurance for the sake of  seeking knowledge and love.

AFRC Art For Education                                                                                                                                 

Redefined for you

A message

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Photo poems - photographed and penned by Pooja Sheth and Anil Emage

The colour of I

Death passed through

Souls remained

Spirits meandered

When death passed through

For a moment I saw it

There it was, dark and black

All was white after

Was I dark and shady?

Or was I pure and serene?
Or even grey?

Going back

Going back

To where I belong

Going back

Where I have pet names

Going back

Where I love to saunter

Going back 

To where I can hear the birds

To where

I can smell the rain

To where I can see green

To where I can touch the earth

Going back

To where love is not just a word

Going back

To where I am made to feel like

I am God`s very own

Best friend gone

Immersed in Shelley
Perusing Britsh romance
Me all alone in my
Cozy world
When the call 
Proclaimed
"Thy best friend gone..."


The phone lay dead
Pages of Shelly remained still
My best friend was gone
And so I was

The story behind photo poems

"This is a slender volume of photo poems photographed and penned together by Anil Emage and I. Anil is a dear friend who channelised my violent mood swings into something that transformed into this. Hence, the blog has been christened so. It is a world not so real, yet not too far from real"

This is how the introduction to the blog, which was created for the sake of photo poems by Pooja Sheth. Photo poems, indeed, was a fantastic journey undertaken by two relatively unknown persons, who were bonded with a passion for photography, words and colours. What the morning dew drop to the sun kissed tender grass, each comment was united gracefully to form photo poems.

I still remember how my communication with Pooja Sheth, started via the social networking media. It was slow, then like wild fire, it spread, when we started commenting on our photographs with short poems. It happened accidentally, but then accidents sometimes lead  to invention and thus born the strange literary form we christened  photo poems .

In Pooja`s words:

"It is observed that artisits who express through one medium often attempt to express through another. For instance, a dancer can usually sing. It is wonderful to experience a blend of two media. One complimenting the other.
Such a burst of expressional blend Anil and I were pushed into by our, then, lonely and moody selves. The blend seemed unique. Something out of the books. A blend of photography and poetry. We christend it photo poems.
Both artforms need extreme stimulation and motivation. The sheer abundance of subjects stimulated us to click more pictures.Inspiration for photo poems come from each of our lives. While motivation, comes from one another.
Photo poems are nascent. but they have a potential to reach heights. this has been our baby. nurturing it together, stanza after stanza and pixel after pixel is our dream!"

The subject of photo poems vary from social comments to nostalgic trips to one`s home and from lonely country roads to violently depressing moods. Both Pooja and myself do not claim to be poets, nor do we call each other photographers. But we shall be very proud if some one call us `photo poets', the mood swinger sort of art form!

Anil Emage with Pooja Sheth

SUSO launched in Wayanad

    Leadership Village Design

VISIT                                                               http://leadership-village.blogspot.com/