What age does to you!

One more year gone, another started. The first thing I think is that I would become one more year older this year! It comes with a lot more ambition to me & a resolution to start working towards those personal preferences which throw guilt to me always since I am not able to give time to them! Hmmm...till I was a minor, I awaited the time when I turn 18 & I would be eligible to start working, ACTUALLY! I was the youngest always among the peer group (though I never looked like one thanks to my South Indian background! - no offence), I went to school one year earlier than usual, I skipped a class in between due to some stupid test for a higher standard that I passed & so I didn't know the Archimedes Principle till the end of next class (so, as per my peers I was 2 classes behind in knowing about that principle) and I faced desperate struggle to solve those quadratic equations in the next class since I was behind those memorized concepts from the earlier class. Well, not that any of the two above make a difference in my life now, but at that time only I know how I was not able to handle the pressure! I started my first job earlier than my peers, I finished my masters well ahead of my peers and so on.

After celebrating many new years one by one, when I started working in this company, we were too many people from the same college but different batches with about 2-3 years gap. We were all talking about things like 'oh you joined the year when I left', 'oh, strange we didn't meet on campus...' etc. etc. when a girl from another section of the office came in. One of our discussion group members generally asked her about her date of birth. The year she uttered spread a deathly silence across and we had our jaws dropped. One of my friends in that group & I shared a stare with each other, in that same shock! And my friend smartly said, 'okay, I better not ask that question again to anyone!' and that silence converted into a huge laughter with a hidden <tch> :)

Yesterday my school friend called up after a long time & when I shared the news of my younger sister's marriage, she got astonished & said, 'why so early!', I had to remind her it was not a child-marriage & we are much older now :)

Each of us from all my past friends groups have moved on to take different career paths & personal hobbies since then but when I think back one thing I realize is we are still the same people. The only thing I conclude is you change forcibly or voluntarily to adapt to the different circumstances that come to you by themselves or by your own creation, which has unfortunately happened to some of our friends. But you still have that 'yourself' within you and given an opportunity, you would want to remain that same you.

If we were 15 when John Abraham was 30 and we admire him, why should anything change when we turn 35 & he turns 60! [Like that news snippet about our elders (women) being sad & not doing household work for a few days when Rajesh Khanna died :) Deadly that was, whoever's thought that was!]

Happy New Year!

Learning with Understanding?

A kid sees and notices a laptop before anything else these days (actually I saw this in 2006 when a 2.5 year old kid was learning alphabets on a laptop).

You ask the kid to write A, the kid says "there is no laptop, where & how can I write A?"

The kid then opens a laptop & presses the button 'A' to show the alphabet. Well, now, if I understand & follow a bit of psychology, the kid associates the alphabet 'A' to a key on the laptop/computer. He learns 'pressing' a key but not 'writing', would he learn the curves & will he be able to write the curves, for which purpose the entire cursive writing classes & what not are held!

With such high exposure to computers/laptops in such early years in a kid's life, say you ask the kid to add 2 numbers. He opens up an excel spreadsheet & puts in the 'SUM' formula & adds the two numbers for you.

The kid knows that 'adding' is '=SUM(___,___)'. But would he know the meaning of addition. What it means to 'add' two numbers? There is a very high possibility that he wouldn't know that!

Compare 2 kids - one who grew up burning all the midnight oil to learn each & every concept with complete understanding. And there is another who learns the other way - the 'typing' & the 'SUM' ways. Considering that ultimately the kid has to grow up & go into this corporate world, do the way the corporate world function these days, barring exceptions, need any real 'understanding'? My guess is 99% of the time, not! I am not sure if we have enough corporates who can distinguish between the two - may be in the initial job when freshers join, they may have IQ tests etc. but later on, it is only experience that is seen & this cumulative knowledge of 'SUM' & 'computers' dominates largely (100% of the time almost) :-)

The intellectual who burnt all the midnight oil & can be called a 'geek' in the widely used terminology, forms top 1%(?) of the lot, needed to burn the oil to get into the top 1% of the best schools, colleges, universities, institutions. But has this other kid been denied going to school, college or university or good jobs? In fact, I am afraid this one has many more options than the 'intellectual'. After all, 99% of all this 'geek' fraternity, after his stints in the top 1% of the educational institutions, has to go where? The same world as the other 99%?

So, the BIG question is 'Is there a need for one to know what 'addition' means if he knows 'SUM' function & knows how to compute it? Is there a need to know & understand what alphabets/words/phrases/sentences mean in language if one knows how to type?'