Beware of student being branded as average

Marks are obtained by 'smart' studying and reproducing. To get higher marks, one need not understand a subject deeply. Students can earn higher marks by avoiding to 'understand' a chapter or chapters. Marks therefore act as an indirect 'benchmark' to separate good students from average students. Although higher marks only measure the student's ability to reproduce a subject's understanding in 'canned' manner, we mistake marks to represent 'intelligence'. This can cause three unintended consequences.

One, because a student is evaluated by marks, student with lower marks is termed as 'average'. This changes his/her self-belief, which rubs in other actions and relationships. This further makes him/her feel worse about himself and hastens him to become ‘average’.

Two, groups in a school are 'sometimes' formed on the basis of marks. Students of higher marks group together. They inadvertently isolate a student with lower marks. Being together with 'smart' students can hasten a student's learning. This 'contagion' effect on learning can hamper growth of an average child further, because he gets less chances to exercise his 'brain' because he is challenged less.

Third, a student who understands a subject deeply is paradoxically penalised by the system. Because marks are obtained by the ability to reproduce standard results, not exceptional results, exceptional understanding of a subject is not encouraged. Student's 'uniqueness' and 'exceptionality' is ignored. And therefore nothing is done to nurture it. Virtuous cycle of growing the exceptional talent is stopped unknowingly. We call these students 'average'.

In other words, average students may not be average at all. They just miss the boat at an early stage and fail to catch up with it later. Or they may have some exceptional ability which is ignored by the system. Or they have skills like ‘relationship skills’ which is not measured by any marks. It is therefore important to understand average students over a long period of time so that their ‘uniqueness’ can be identified. Because even the aptitude tests do not measure their uniqueness, as these tests also rely on the past experience of the student.

Do not confuse action with initiative?

I had gone with my niece to a girl’s hostel for finding accommodation. She had got admissions to JJ School of Arts. But when we met the concerned clerk in the girls hostel, she told us about the 500 odd applications received for 80 odd vacancies, how the process has happened two months back and so on. As we were talking to some of the persons in the hostel, we realized that getting accommodation in a girl’s hostel is not easy due to the constraints of budget, location preferences and other criteria.

But while moving out from the hostel, the clerk women gave us a list of ‘hostel addresses’ where we can find accommodation. We naturally wrote down all the addresses. Some of the addresses had telephone numbers. As soon as we reached the nearby local station, my niece wanted to go to all those addresses and start the search. I told her that these addresses may not represent the true ‘reality’, and they were given to the girl-applicants to give them hope and reduce their ‘anxiety’, instead of really helping them. Keeping an updated list of girl’s hostel is not the responsibility of that hostel, neither does the clerk women happen to be ‘part’ of a system which helps her get that information.

My niece however said that ‘we have to do something’ to make things happen. We cannot just go home and expect to get a hostel. Given her anxiety, any action was good for her, than not doing anything. This is a common pitfall of all the students (and even executives). Whenever they are anxious, they act. They confuse ‘action’ with ‘initiative’.

We therefore went to the first address recommended by the clerk women. We managed to ‘unscramble’ the address and reach the place in an hour and half. We climbed four stairs to the top of a building. We found that the hostel was boy’s hostel. We were shocked. The effort of reaching the place and the eventual outcome punctured all our enthusiasm. Instead of searching for another place, we headed homewards. This is how ‘any Action’ can also result into ‘failed result’, instead of intended result.

As my father used to say, ‘swinging arms’ alone does not constitute swimming. Coordinated action of arms can take you from one position to another position in water. The same is true with any action in life. ‘Coordinated action’ is necessary to produce result. Unfettered action can help us ‘release’ our anxiety, but is useless in producing any result. And action is not equal to initiative.

It would have been far more productive to sit with the list, call few of the available phone numbers, ask intelligent questions to them, and then expend energy on going to select places based on the received information. Smart action produces results better than uncontrolled action. It is far more important to control our anxieties and channelise the nervous energy into productive action, than promptly responding to the nervous energy.

I also advice parents about ‘smart action’ to seek counsel as to what their child should do in the holidays. Every parent wants to send their children in the program for dancing, acting or other courses. A course in computers has become a most popular course now a day. All these courses invite lot of action and help a child until VI-VII class to channelise energy in a specific direction. But after VIIIth class, parents must understand their child’s liking, potential abilities, and their resources to channelise their energies in ‘productive avenues’. Just action for the sake of action is not going to help their child find the right things to do in their lives.

Career planning is about building five skills

As we discussed in 6 July 2006 blog, for a single-edged individual it is fairly easy to decide the platform that you will use to generate work output. For instance, single-edged individuals in sports have to decide early in life which sport to focus on and thereby make choice of a platform that will help them generate the work-output. The same is true of single-edged individuals in music, painting or any art field.

On the other hand, multi-edged individuals (which incidentally form a majority) cannot decide which platform they will use in the future to generate their work output. Neither their self-info is enough, nor is their ‘maturity’ enough to help them make an early choice. Their work-platform emerges as they interact with the world.

If multi-edged students cannot focus and work on a platform-building path, what can they do. Should they wait for their careers to happen? Or can they do something to prepare for their eventual careers? They can learn five skills.

Outputs are not only created on work platform, they are also created in people-relationships. Understanding the dynamics of generating outputs in relationships is therefore a first skill that they can learn.

Second crucial skill they have to develop is the skill of managing their mental state. Emotions, stress and beliefs affect one’s mental states. None of three are in the conscious control of an individual. What one can do, at the most, is understand how he/she is affected by these three variables and learn to ‘anticipate’ the impending change and prepare for the situation. We call this ‘mental-state’ enablement.

Third skill is the skill of preparing for the ‘output’. When they are going for exams, they have to learn to ‘prepare’ well for the exams, and deliver the performance in a given ‘time-window’ so that appropriate marks result. This skill is skill of output preparation. This skill is most often used skill required later in building one’s career.

Fourth skill is the skill of taking decisions. Often individuals rely on wrong variables, search for redundant data, worry about inconsequential issues while taking crucial decisions in their lives. For instance, all bachelors worry about ‘whom’ to marry when they know that ‘eventual consequences’ will not matter the decision a bit.

Fifth skill is the skill of course correction. After they have ‘failed’ in an event or a situation, be it interview or convincing a friend, they draw wrong conclusions from the situation and therefore take an improper course for correcting themselves.

These five skills are the skills that one can acquire in the career planning phase of student.

Today's parents are partners in the career growth of children

Akshita is a fine painter, who passed her both grades of drawing exams easily. It was obvious that she would be choosing fine arts/commercial arts. For single-edged individuals like Akshita, the choice is not difficult to make because one of their skill dominates over other skills. But despite that, they have many choices.

Here were the questions she faced. The first choice of fine arts was obviously J.J. College of Mumbai. Every 'art' students dreams to join that college. But if she does not get admission in that college, what option she has? Preparing back-up plan is an important part of decision making.

The second question was: should she choose fine arts or commercial arts? A course in commercial art is better to get good jobs. The difference between commercial arts and fine arts is like a difference between training for a light music singer and classical singer. Everyone knows that ‘fine arts’ is the foundation of painting (like classical singing is foundation of singing), making a career in classical singing entails different challenges. A classical singer makes his/her career after 40, so too is the fine arts person. A fine arts person depicts ‘life’, therefore he/she has to be a well ‘developed’ person to become a good painter. I told Akshita about the challenges on these two paths.

What would Akshita, or any other person, do after hearing this? One chooses a path of least resistance. She chose ‘commercial arts’. And this is where the role of teachers and parents is important.

Only a long period of observation of Akshita can make one understand Akshita? What does she read? What are her other interests? Has she grown emotionally more than her colleagues in the class? Only if her other ‘behaviours’ are observed, can one truly guide Akshita? Because, unlike men, Akshita had no pressure of making a career, and could have easily chosen course of ‘fine arts’.

In such a situation, where the path of least resistance is not the best choice, support of parents is very important in helping the child to make the right choice? Parents cannot leave the choice in the student’s hand by saying ‘the choice is ultimately yours’. The child is just not mature enough to make the choice of ‘high resistance’. Parents need to display ‘tough love’, as the famous child psychologist, Haim Ginnott says.

Infact parents have to negotiate many such points of high resistance for the child. Should a child study in Mumbai or Pune? If a child was not staying in Mumbai, a child will always choose Pune, because that is the path of least resistance. The child needs a support of her parent to choose the path of high resistance. The parent’s responsibility, in such situations, is to reduce the risk of staying in Mumbai and help the kid to reduce the ‘resistance’, and not scare the child by saying ‘it is your decision’.

Parents cannot absolve their role in decision making of their children’s career choices. They need to make up back-up plans for the chosen decisions. They need to identify the ‘high resistance’ points and support the child in negotiating them. They need to ‘control’ their emotional biases and fears and not let them influence the children. They need to understand the challenges of career-making in 21st century and help their children develop those career-proofing skills.

Today's parents, unlike our parents, have to be partners in their children's career growth.

Understand data from information

Currently, all newspapers are abuzz with articles on different careers in radio, teaching, shipping and so on. I also read about different career workshops which talk about the different careers in information technology, biotechnology and so on. On the surface, this looks helpful in enabling students to choose careers after secondary or higher secondary levels. But if you dwelve on it a bit more, you will realise that students are inundated with ‘data’ and not ‘information’.

Giving data about different careers at the age of 15-18 is like gifting a student with box full of different chocolates, and telling him that he has to choose only ‘one’ without tasting any of the chocolate. He is most likely to walk away from the chocolate box confused.

Although he is rightfully angry because he has not been given any meaningful information to make a choice, he cannot even ‘articulate’ his anger. The counselors, on the other hand, can smugly put the entire onus on the student with a look of ‘ I told you so’. They may even increase the pressure on the student by telling the student that ‘in their times, they never had so much of information’. The counseling process, instead of empowering student, only makes him/her feel inadequate. I am sure that this is not the intention of a counselor, but this is exactly what he unknowingly achieves.

When I was approached by a student, Jyoti for choosing a discipline after her higher secondary level, I went through a different process. I found that she is extraordinarily good in drawing and music, but she was also considering ‘medicine’ because her father wanted her to become a doctor. From her performance in drawing, Fine arts or commercial arts was a better choice.

I gave her data about the different courses, and to help her experience ‘what a work in commercial arts or fine arts’ mean, I helped her meet two/three different experienced professionals in advertising industry, animation industry and even ‘painters’. She met them, asked them silly looking questions, went to their work place ( 3D animation shop ). She imbibed the various data I gave her on the people who have made their careers in these. It took her more than 4-6 months to get the ‘feel’ and the conviction to make that choice. I have always observed that it is easy to make mainstream career choices like engineering or medicine, however it is extremely ‘difficult’ to make niche career choices such as arts and music.

I therefore always advise students to approach career choice over a long period of time. Sometimes, when a student is talented in more than one fields, he or she may even take a longer time to convert the ‘data’ into meaningful ‘experience’. The student needs to be given enough options to 'taste' the chocolate before he/she can decide which 'chocolate' is right. The student not only needs to know what is possible in that career choice, but what it will demand from him/her in terms of skills, competencies and mental set.

Data of different careers is useful, but meaningless without the context of a student’s mental make up.

More the talent, more difficult it is to make choice

Single-edged individuals are blessed with one single deeply etched skill. For them, their other skills are overshadowed by their single skill and therefore remain unnoticed. It is therefore easy for them to focus on one skill, because the choice is automatic. As focus is intense and automatic since early age, one skill grows at the expense of others. Because of their one skill growth, they choose an outcome platform relevant to that skill; zero in their effort, which naturally increases the probability of excelling in that platform, thus achieving eventual success. Sachin Tendulkar, Shakuntala Devi or Vishwanathan Anand belongs to this category and so does Steven Spielberg.

Multi-edged individuals (whom we often term as all round talented individuals) , on the other hand, have a wider set of skills to ‘choose’ to focus on. It is a problem of plenty/prosperity. These individuals have a multiple set of skills each of a sufficient level of proficiency to be useful, but not deep enough to steer them in any particular direction. I call this Japan-India puzzle.

Someone once asked me in one of my Management Consulting seminars, “Why Japan with no natural resources and a small strip of land was able to succeed, while India with so much of natural resources and land could hardly achieve anything in the same time span?” Paradoxically, prosperity of India offered it too many options to choose from, which itself became a bottleneck in making the choice. Japan, due to its poor resources, had fewer options to choose from. India therefore could not make those choices, while Japan made them quickly. Japan prospered, India faltered.

Multi-edged individuals too face the same difficulty. As they have more skills, there is a natural desire to practice and develop every skill. Parents also unknowingly encourage development of all skills. With limited time at their disposal, multi-edged individuals therefore tend to spend less time on developing any particular skill. Consequently, none of the skills grows beyond the threshold level where it starts producing results. They falter, while single-edged individuals, even with less talent, succeed.

Talent is not enough to succeed in career, especially when the talent is expressed in multiple skills and areas. Talent in many areas throws many choices which students are hardly equipped to make.

Indian students face a difficult choice than American students

Indian students enjoy lot of advantages, but they face one big disadvantage. They have to commit to a choice of a discipline - engineering, medicine, entertainment, media - at the age of 15. Americans do it after graduation i.e after the age of 21-23. Even to do their medicine, they have to graduate.

This presents a difficult challenge to Indian students. At an age of 15 or 16, Self-information is not enough to make such a long-time commitment. Further, our methods of gaining self-information are also fraught with inaccuracy. For instance our reliance on aptitude tests to gain self-information is highly risky.

Aptitude tests tell us what has got developed in the past, given the situations we interacted with. They give no indication of what could have developed differently if we had engaged more with the world, or if we have worked in different cities, towns or schools.

Self-information is not a treasure that can be dug by serious effort or can be dug by smart experts. Self-info depends on the amount of engagement we have with the outside world. If we engage less, we get less self-info. If we engage more, we get more self-info. That is why you will find people at the age of 40 or 50 still change careers. For instance, ad film maker Prahlad Kakkar has found his passion of Scuba diving when his hair have turned grey.

If you have read about an individual, Abhijit Kunte, you will understand how the process of gaining self-information actually works. ( He has written his autobiograhy in Marathi) Because he failed in MSC, he went with his professor on an expedition in a jungle to collect some sample data. Because of his free time, he kept on meeting different researchers who researched on different aspects of forest, ecology and animal behaviour. As he went in the forest again and again, he discovered his passion of 'forest'. Now, unable to pass his MSC, he is doing a PHD in one of the subject related to ecology.

Aptitude tests are like snap-shot photographs, taken at a point of time. They fail to tell the ‘process’ that made us look ‘smart’ or 'careless' or 'lazy' in a photo. What we need is a video-shoot; the process to go through and find more about self.

Students need a structured process of gaining self-information: engaging with the world, meeting real-life people in different professions/careers, a method of understanding oneself beyond academic scores, developing on the wish list of what to do by asking intelligent questions to right experts, and by understanding the process of career-building.

We cannot short-cut this process of gaining self-info by attending one time career fairs. Or by understanding the multiple career options we have after Xth standard. Or by giving aptitude tests.

We need to start this process when a student enters secondary school at Vth standard and continue it, till he passes out in Xth, in order to gain enough self information. During these five years, he should be guided on his overall development, learning bottlenecks, strength areas, options available in the world, process of building career and so on. The process should be structured.