By Vandana Jain

• Interior Design Faculty

 “Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.”
― Aristotle

World is growing each moment, life is shaping everywhere, technology is on boom, time is running out and we need to pace up with it, researches are happening day and night, we learn from environment and shape create our immediate environment in and around us. We are in constant quest to exploring, experience and feel. And our aim to seek definite answers to each of these is the most elusive piece of our existence, so vast, influential yet so silent and faintly noticeable. We keep on looking to establish balance in life and seeking answers-how does life gets defined in the world …is it by wisdom of a being or by the material ranking in the society … or are these two in our control. It’s easy to jump into easy, convenient conclusions then to think with understanding. Knowledge is crucial and our perceived reality can become more enjoyable and fulfilling by understanding things.

Sometimes we become our guide and sometimes we need guide for ourselves. We are constantly seeking either answers or solutions to the various mysteries and problems. And in this journey, everyone needs a teacher who can declutter our thoughts but very few receive the guidance in the age of competition. Tug of war, rat race, contention, controversy …we all are sorted at the beginning of the life but we begin to get disoriented and entangled stress, injustice and other negative things all around as we move forward with our lives. This brings us to a question of how to achieve a balanced life. At a time when life is rated, ranked, classed, graded everyday in society …can there be a simple pattern in evolution? Should we always be ready for assessing or getting assessed? Media channels or daily soaps, are feeding everyone with one notion of thought which talks about no rationality, no humility. Primarily the quality and quantity are dependent on the sources of information tangible or intangible, company we are surrounded in, introspection skills our internal processors are conditioning. Human brains are equipped with very receptive and adaptive sensibilities. It’s not manufactured with a filter or a switch on /off button to control the input/ output in it. Mind takes the command to initiate it. It requires reasoning, reasoning requires efforts, understanding requires efforts and only a few capable beings are ready to propel this mechanism of mind judiciously. Its like some people use central processing unit of the mind to promote the next thought in string and some only uses what others feeds to them like pen-drive to a system.

It’s Important to be wise in learning the process and remain persistent in the journey. It is equally essential to get results through trial & errors of mind after incorporating abstract experiences, thoughts and setting priorities after deductions …as a loop in thoughts resulting in breeding a hopeful confidence over time.

Nowadays, a teacher is thus very important element in life for the matters of learning skills, activities or getting your inner working going of dealing with academic learning is not the only intended outcome of education. Teachers might set additional learning goals for individual students. These may be behavioral, social, cognitive, affective, physical, or perhaps something else entirely. These goals are negotiated by teachers with students, their parents, other teachers, guidance officers, support staff, administration staff, etc, and are mediated by mandated policies and curriculums. Classroom education provides wide exposure in terms of overall growth of a student by providing facilities such as co-curricular activities, variety of subjects, interaction with new people, etc. Classroom provides a safe atmosphere wherein one gets to be a team player as well as team leader during different group activities such as group study, presentations and brain storming sessions. This helps in building confidence, making individuals become prepared as well as adaptable when one steps onto the professional world. In early years of education a child needs physical entity around her for understanding the realities in the most conducive structure of thoughts. Distance education programs have a much greater scope in terms of the knowledge and information and which is not confined to the teacher. Along with saving time and money, a student gets the flexibility of studying in an environment that is most comfortable to her/him. Along with the classroom learning we are surrounded by the cloak of other invisible subjects deeply rooted in our mind for various reasons from the inception like body, color, studies, weight, height, looks, social skills, academic performances, physical activities, extracurricular talents, taste, social status, religion biases, gender inequality, communication and soft skills, interpersonal skills, exposure, nationality, ethnicity, fashion sense, emotional achievements, writing and reading skills …etc.

We are living outside our mind based on how our mind projects our thoughts colored by the external emissions and outpourings. We require to be aligned in our selves after years of tuition from life repeating the same instance on life and learning and sending reminders to make us believe in a way of living to learn from last failures and mistakes.

Life skills are necessary to be learnt before we learn to live the closed boxed life of ranks and titles.

A Few key life skills we need to hone are:

• Focus and Self-Control.
• Perspective Taking.
• Communicating.
• Making Connections.
• Critical Thinking.
• Taking on Challenges.
• Self-Directed, Engaged Learning.

UNICEF has rightly quoted that education that helps young people develop life skills having transformative potential.

Knowing‘ is the expertise and skill acquired by an individual from his experiences and education while ‘understanding‘ is a psychological process that requires an individual to think and use concepts to deal with a person, object, message, or situation. Understanding has a deeper level than knowing.

In other words, to develop a ‘well formed mind’ is more important than a ‘well-informed mind’.