Humans can mostly remember 7 things at a time but ATCs at Atlanta have to handle 30 planes every minute.. they can’t lose focus..

Schools, Individuals and even countries can lose focus and fail... Indian schools and the country are in a similar situation..

As Reservations grow, merited students face a career dilemma. EF offers other career options for those who couldn't get their course choices.

Strengths energize a person while weaknesses deflate a person… You only enjoy doing what is your strength every single day…

There is a false belief that only weaknesses need improvement while strengths are permanent. Strengths too need improvement and can be improved too

Whoever tells the best story WINS! Story-telling is a Leadership Skill... Without it, one won’t get very far in any career…

Children inculcated in music perform much better in academics, especially Math… Music is nothing but Math in harmony…

Grandma’s tales, story-telling, reason & meaning of ancient Hindu scriptures and festivals are a must-learn for children…

Most schools do not teach children Hindu culture.. many mock Hindu culture.. It’s up to parents to help their kids retain Hindu culture..

In schools, jobs, auditions, team selections, relationships – everyone goes through rejection at some point… how to overcome it..

Aryan Khan’s deviant behaviour highlights the need for parents to watch the role-models their kids choose.. This applies to adults too..

Regardless of whether one is a student or professional, creativity will dominate the requirements in any domain post-Covid Pandemic...

Sports is a blue-collar activity but a much better paying profession than a factory-worker, coal-miner or delivery boy

Academics don’t offer great careers for all. Sports is now a great career. Parents must offer early guidance to those weak in academics

No video advertisement or movie is made without a storyboard but they can also be used in your profession and business…

The greatest business ideas often start with small scribbles… Writing down plans is important… Great minds explain in simple scribbles…

The most important decision in starting an enterprise is – who do you want as your customer? – The rich, the middle-class, the poor?

Starting an enterprise entails asking questions & writing down plans – we understand tho Qs from the assassin in “The day of the Jackal”…

Satisfying jobs are going to be very few in the future… the only way forward is to use your talents & skills for entrepreneurship…

Part-1: Unemployment & Unhappy Employment are now permanent reality of life ... EF analyses the reasons & offers solutions.

Cerebral fire-fighting can be taught & be trained for just as physical fire-fighting is taught & trained… It’s an important necessity…

The “Leaders of the future” as against “Future Leaders” will be inventors & innovators rather than the traditional leaders of teams…

Covid-like hardship affects a whole community than an individual.. That is a comfort that provides for greater learning & excelling..

Forced Covid vacations or idle-time can make one lose habits of excellence or acquire such habits… depends on the choices made...

Online classrooms are good only for a short duration... Longer duration online classrooms cause damage for children and also for adults...

Covid has forced online classrooms on many students & parents. While it will create difficulties, it is an added learning for children...

Encourage individuality & individual achievement; it is usually individual inspiration that drives and saves team efforts too…

Parents should not be carried away by the “glamour” of top institutes… It’s the student that makes an institute & not the other way…

The most frequent request we receive from EF members is for books for children to read... We present 18 such FREE books by age groups...

There is a wrong notion that Behaviour Analysis is all about Psychology… In fact, it is as much Mathematics…Sequences & Patterns…

Parents & teachers assess & predict/profile the behaviour of children... What they forget is, the kids also do the same with them…

Selling employs the most number of people worldwide... Yet, 80-90% of salesmen regularly fail to achieve targets for a single reason...

True stories of home-schooling experiences & the advantages that all parents can use with their children...

Every child goes through some form of home-schooling… Some are now going through it full-fledged… True stories of home-schooling..

Unattended bad behaviour can lead to alienation that has serious consequences & teens are the biggest target for marketers of junk…

The teen years 14-17 are the most challenging for the parents & also the child.. these years define the future behaviour of the child…

Parents are often perplexed by children lying. Often, they are at a loss to understand the habit but they will still need to attend to the habit sooner or later…

Zero-defect performance is not a quest for Perfection..Its a mental attitude towards getting the targeted outcomes with responsibility..

Whether a product, student or professional... It's possible for each one to set a zero-defect quality standard & achieve it...

Only self-driven create opportunities for others, are life-long learners, drive changes & impact society. They’re usually good orators...

Independence & Initiative are prominent traits of the Self-Driven… While Stability & Security are those of the Task-Driven…

Both Task-Driven & Self-Driven people can be good at their work but only self-driven get leadership roles. What about you & your kid?

If a student is not great in academics, there is now a world of jobs beyond White & Blue collar… There’s now a new world of “New Collar”.

With greater mobility… Girls face dens of vices at higher institutions & predators lurking around if they are at jobs away from home…

There is no school in the world that teaches a boy how to shave… He learns it by observing the best teacher at home…

MTV died under 3 decades. They forgot the fundamental principle – Music is meant for the ears & the mind and not the eyes.. .

From Abhimanyu to bird-seller Kaluram.. Fact that sounds impact learning & behaviour of children is embedded in ancient Indian wisdom..

Parents are usually aware what learning goes into the heads of kids… But are they aware what “Sounds” go into their ears and minds?

Travelling with kids is a joy & also a challenge…The cases of missing kids are on the rise & so are cases of minor or serious injuries…

Being systematic & methodical is the building blocks to performance & success… flair is useful only when there’s a stumbling block..

The relationship between performance & confidence is eternal...they both chase each other in a circle..Learn how these cycles keep changing...

“Creativity has much to do with experience, observation & imagination, if any one of those key elements is missing, it doesn't work”

Acquiring knowledge apart, every writer has always included some bits of his life-experiences in his work, even if in works of fiction...I share mine, incl from my hometown...

Being a successful writer requires 4 essential ingredients in a person. Adults can catch up with extra effort but children can learn these easily...

Nobody goes to a Bata to buy T-shirts. Nobody goes to KidsKemp to buy adult-wear...Business or personal life.. FOCUS is inevitable for success...

When you cook as “work” you merely finish a task – when you cook to feed someone dear, you seek excellence

"Creativity is intelligence having fun"... There are no borders to creativity & there are no limits to the ingenuity of the mind and brain...

All parents want their kids to be creative. Everyone can indeed be creative... the question is how. The future belongs to those who are creative...

Ten Tips & Rules that can help anyone become a decent speaker.... and turn a good speaker into a great one...

Good looks, good clothes might go some distance... But a person really gets introduced when he opens his mouth... Speech can make or break careers...

By practice, values & principles are "investments" parents make in their children. These investments keep bearing fruits throughout the lifetime - both intelligence-wise & emotionally...

POPs at a shop aren't read so much by customers. These are read daily by the retailer who internalises the message & sells the same message to you...

Unnoticed by many, the ordinary washing powder has compelled the most dramatic "value change" in our lives... discover how...

Patience is what wins the "Endgame".. But like talent, patience cannot be transferred..Good things come to those who wait..

Research on memory & intelligence is never-ending – What matters most to parents is, if their kids are intelligent…

The "Working memory" & "Fluid intelligence" combined create the best performers among children and adults... We try to understand how and why...

Memory is a natural gift and exists for a reason...Use it well... Routines are the arteries of everyday life...

Kids know courts & judges only from movies. School books aren't much different. Reality is far from both these mis-educators...

Your Nose doesn't just breathe and smell - It can tell a lot more about a person than one estimates.. And more about Behavioural Science...

A better understanding of crimes, crime-solving, understanding DNA profiling better & precautions parents can take...

There's a reason you will hear the term "Forensic Analysis" but not "Forensic Reasoning"... That explains the difference a lot...

Have your child take the challenge of solving the "Litter case". It will indicate the level of Reasoning Skills acquired by her/him so far...

Sharpen the mind and mental frame for the next year. Take the fun IQ test in the post. School marks do not reflect the intelligence of a student...

A true story of learning responsibility at a very young age. Some lessons learned young are never forgotten...

A child prodigy in science... also a Math genius and a National Merit-lister. By age 16 he had joined Harvard and graduated 1962. Guess where he finished & ended up....

Real-life lessons teach responsibility the best... And learning responsibility produces the best performers in school and elsewhere...

Violence in school... Even an Intellectually gifted teen can have anti-social behavioural tendencies.. Check out the symptoms..

What does influence success and a proper career fit? This is very hard to answer. Nobody really knows how the future will really turn out...

Sporting athletes practice and practice for “Muscle memory”. Scholastic performance is a “Mental” pursuit... In both case it's about practice, practice, practice...

The simple act of focusing the sunlight through a magnifying glass on a piece of the paper sets it on fire and burns it. That is the power of concentration. Success and accomplishment in any field needs concentration...

Lateral Thinking is not merely a creative pursuit, in many life-situations it is a necessity to overcome setbacks and solve problems or innovate. Thus, the onus is on parents to ensure their child not only...

One day, Shoba’s dad scolded her on being so stupid. He told her people are now laughing at her dumbness..“That is not so” said Shobha. She added “You see...if I pick the right coin, people will stop presenting the coins to me. So, I keep picking one Rupee coin so that people keep playing the trick on me and I get more coins”.

Children break things, they get up to mischief, they investigate and they even learn about fire by burning a finger..Movies can teach them a lot, without having to burn their fingers...

Movie experience can influence better learning of not just language or comprehension but it can also influence Maths and Science. The reason for this is that many good movies come with a bit of complexity in the plot or story which requires “reasoning skills” to decipher connections.

Young kids may not fully understand their learning needs or their lack of attention in the classroom or a specific activity but they are indeed aware of these issues. The child knows whether it’s good at reading or writing and knows whether it’s good in Math or enjoys topics that require deeper understanding of concepts and the underlying mechanisms..

. There is a misconception that confidence leads to performance. This is totally wrong, it’s actually the other way....

Indians in profession have long known to be poor team players. Be it in corporations or in politics, our “Joneses” get either jealous of prosperous groups and battle each other or try their best to pull down successful ones.

While kids quickly adapt to modern gadgets... It is important that they be exposed to good reading. Reading is a great enhancer of social skills

Social Skills are important assets and influence the level of success or failure. Many people who fail in certain situations or assignments would do well to analyse their own social skills apart from other related factors...

Schools are not all well-equipped to encourage creativity... because schools have set routines and patterns of functioning whereas at home the child has more freedom to do illogical things or think beyond the normal.

Schools can at best teach functional or mechanical writing.... Creative writing is best taught at home by parents/siblings...

Comprehension skills are not merely related to language. They affect learning in all subjects and all communications. Some home-remedies in this post...

It's not failing an exam but lower percentages that is now causing great worry among parents and students. Failure is just a situation, just an event and not a person. So how do we handle our children who get those 60 or 50 percent marks that is now frowned upon?

Cosmos by Carl Sagan is an extraordinary video-journey of our cosmos, space and universe. It's a must view for every middle and high school student...

Speech at IIT Bombay - Part 3 ... Q&A with audience.

IIT Mumbai Part -1 - Interaction with Students and some Faculty members of IIT-Bombay in September 2016

Part 2 of the speech at IIT Bombay in September 2016.

In Steven Spielberg’s landmark movie “Close encounters of the third kind” alien space ships have captured some humans and taken them away. In a different secret mission a group of scientists are trying to reach out to such alien space ships. They try finding a signal to reach out to the space ships. Where do they go? They go to Dharamsala and capture the chants of Swamis and Gurus that reach out to space. They turn these Hindu chants into a signal

How does a child learn to lie or steal? There is nothing tangible about lying, so it is purely a mental habit. Stealing may involve taking something physically but the habit is still a mental process. Nobody teaches children to steal or to lie, unless the teacher is Fagin from “Oliver Twist”. How do they learn it then? Many a times, a gentle lie by the young one is funny. It is okay to enjoy the cheekiness as long as it doesn’t get out of hand.

Habits can be defined as something we regularly or routinely practice every day. They become such an intrinsic part of us that most habits become reflexes or a matter of existence. Waking up early, jogging or doing yoga in the morning become habits for many. Being punctual or late for office or other events is a habit for some.

In the two previous parts, we have attempted to understand how observation skills impact and improve attention span among children. And by itself, observation skill is a great life-skill. Looking, seeing, listening, thinking all add up and contribute to observation skills. Observation is also a mental skill.

Observation and attention are quite fairly related. Sometimes they overlap. They are also both intangible except that at times attention can become tangible action. A patient admitted to a hospital is usually kept under observation for 72 hours.

Parents often hear from teachers that their child is not attentive in class. Sometimes this comes as a remark in the school diary which parents have to read and sign as acknowledgement.

In 1975 Bill Gates quit Harvard when he saw the opportunity to write software for a home computer. He also established Microsoft and the story is that he had visualised a computer on every desk in the future.

Some days back a friend sent me a pic about school classroom at a PTM meet. The event was a PTM meet and girls in KG were asked to write something on the board. This was not a regular board but one laid out standing on the floor.

Let’s imagine a class of say 40 students. The science teacher walks in and writes down the topic for the day on the board, “Reptiles”. Hushed murmurs heard around as the teacher brings the class to order and announces the topic for the day.

Recently, the Delhi University announced its admission cut-offs for some courses at 100% marks. Many colleges under DU had cut-offs between 90% and 100% to different courses. This meant two things – that there are many students routinely scoring those kind of percentages and there will be many students who will find getting admissions extremely difficult.

Couples often go out for dinner with their young kid. Imagine a couple with a 5-year old at a restaurant. They usually ask the little one what she wants and then proceed to order their own preferences.

In the previous part we explored the PMIs (Plus, Minus, Interesting) of any project or situation before handling them. It’s an easy exercise to encourage thinking skills in children on weighing various aspects.

If you have watched political debates on TV or any in any other forum you will find that people defend or oppose a view depending on their political persuasions. Intelligent people often take a view and use their intelligence to defend that view.

Some years ago I was with a school principal waiting for our discussion to start. It was early morning and she was signing the usual papers and registers with her green pen. Principals sign all documents with green ink for some reason.

With so much written against rote-learning and the way school tests are conducted, “rote” has almost become an evil word. Rote is not really as evil as it is made out to be, it is just how we use it.

Little boy got a guitar as a gift from his music-loving mother. Sometime later his parents separated. A few years later his mom was killed in a car accident and he had to live with his Aunt.

Young boy of around 6 used to come home from play every evening and narrate some stories. Let’s call him B. He would narrate this to two siblings in his same age group and sometimes his elder brothers and sisters would also drop in because B would insist or out of sheer curiosity.

This blog-site will be a long journey. Before we go on to the nitty-gritty of our schools and how they transact with children, some sharing of our understanding of children would serve us well. In the previous post we talked about “How children fail” based on the landmark book by John Holt.

The fear of failure in school afflicts almost every parent and a vast majority of students. We have known teenagers to commit suicides over poor results or even over failing board exams. This is an avoidable situation.