It's Poetic Soiree time of the year again and the preschoolers are busy practising their poems. The two 4 year olds in Cubs class at SM Preschool were reciting their poem called Invention by Shel Silverstein, which goes like,

I've done it, I've done it!
Guess what I've done!
Invented a light that plugs into the sun.
The sun is bright enough,
The bulb is strong enough
But, oh, there's only one thing wrong...
The cord ain't long enough.

Post this recital, the Cubs weren't happy with leaving the ending in a way where the invention seemed useless. So together they solved the problem, and came up with an extension to the poem with the help of the facilitator,

' So I take six ladders,
Put them together as one.
Then I take a few cords,
Attach them together
And plug it into the sun!'

Children used empathy as a tool here to come up with solutions. They stepped into the shoes of the poet, became the poem and realized that they could help figure out what the poet can do to make the invention work! At first they were unhappy with the original ending, as they found it ending with a problem and not a solution. And almost immediately, with no intervention required, they started exploring various solutions for the same. They moved around the class, pretending the sun to be at a high place, having a short cord, asking each other what they can do. And in a matter of less than 5 minutes, they solved it together as a group! 

When children are invited to wonder, the world of curiosities open up. They step into that world and emerge out victorious with questions, solutions, answers...Perhaps that's all we need as children and adults, a safe space to wonder, be curious, ask questions and figure things out. 


Contributed by Sruthy Krishna, Learning Facilitator, Sparkling Mindz Global.

As children we are natural Kinesthetic learners. As adults too, we may not realize it but many of us feel drained and are unable to think of ideas unless we move our bodies around. Our mind-body is a connected system and for many of us restricting our body movements can lead to an inefficient learning experience. So, then, why are classrooms, conference rooms, training rooms designed the way they are? Well...that's an interesting question best answered through an interesting design that we used for our classrooms. Keeping in mind that children needed multiple kinds of learning experiences and not merely "Auditory or Visual" lectures we chose minimal furniture and a design that let children move around, dance, huddle in groups and achieve maximum learning through movement. We chose to use stories, role plays, drama, experiential and hands-on activities to engage students through multiple modalities of learning outcomes. Most importantly, we chose learning outcomes that would engage their whole being in the learning experience - developing a positive attitude, perseverance, focus, deep engagement and multiple connects with prior knowledge, a thirst to learn more, perspective to look at problems as challenges and more...

A child who can connect with learning outcomes higher than mere knowledge, use their entire mind-body to experience learning and work with others confidently to achieve desired results is going to be successful in any economy, any crisis, any situation that you put her in. In fact, she might be the one that chooses the toughest situations to spend her energy on because she can, because it is worth her while and because nothing LESS will do!

Seriously, as parents it is time for us to collectively decide, NOTHING LESS will do for your child. It is important that they experience learning in enriched visual-kinesthetic spaces with facilitators who understand the importance of visual-kinesthetic learning. It's upto you, you can choose to give them an EDGE today.

Quest for a personality development programs for my child

 A year ago, I was the distraught parent of a shy and timid child groping for answers to my questions. My five year old was not the exuberant, confident and outgoing child that I wanted her to be.  My quest for a sound personality development programme in the neighborhood was unfruitful. The prospect of sending my child to an activity center where children are herded in droves did not appeal to me.  About eight months ago I saw an ad for Sparkling Minds and it changed everything. Here was a fresh and innovative approach to a child’s development using an activity based approach centred around NLP and MI. It was very evident from their website and brochures that a lot of sound research had gone into the design of these programmes. Working in groups of ten meant individual attention to each child. Finally, the impressive credentials of the founders reassured me that my child would be in safe hands.

First exposure to 21st Century Skills - becoming greedier!

The first interaction with the coordinator opened a world of possibilities beyond personality development. They were offering to groom my child to become a 21st century citizen with attributes like interpersonal skills, independent thinking, sound decisions making, leadership etc. This was more comprehensive than any generic personality development program. The holistic feedback system would ensure that I would know the best way to work with my daughter. From being confused and worried, I became optimistic and maybe even a little greedy about this whole new world of possibilities.

New Learning Experiences & Lovin’ It!

It has been four months since I started this relationship with SM and I have loved every minute of it! My daughter loved going to Sparkling Mindz right from the word go. The facilitators, the activities and the carefully designed rooms made her very happy. In the first few days itself, I saw a never before eagerness in her to be a part of everything.  Even at home and at school, her social interactions and confidence improved.  She became enthusiastic to participate and perform without any inhibitions.

There is way more, if you look carefully…

While these changes were noticeable in the initial couple of months, imbibing attributes like self-confidence, not buckling to peer pressure, learning smartly, listening and observation, structured thinking etc. happened later.  About three or four months into the program, my daughter started displaying the above attributes in her own small ways. 

• She started becoming curious about learning the process behind any activity or product
  
• She subconsciously breaks down any given task into steps for better execution
  
• She figured out on her own that if 5+5=10, diving 10 by 2 would be 5 without any prior exposure to the principles of division
  
• She started using rhyming words to remember spellings better
  

This morning she stumped me again. We were watching a show called Mr.Maker on Discovery Kids, which was previously aired on CeeBeeBees. The final credits alluded to ceebeebees.com. Pat came the question as to why should ceebeebees be a part of the credits if the programme has already transitioned to Discovery Kids, why are they still referring to CeeBeeBees. That was a home run for listening and observation!

My child will stand out from the crowd – thanks to Sparkling Mindz!

My daughter has embarked on a journey of self-discovery and loves it. She is acquiring critical life skills which are essential to survive and succeed in today’s dynamic environment.  The children of today are all smart and intelligent. But the Sparkling Mindz programme will help to differentiate her from the rest.

The right program at the right age

I too have attended sessions on team play, structured thinking and interpersonal skills at work. However I have observed that these initiatives do not always generate the desired results because adult personalities are pretty much set and transformation is difficult and time consuming. By starting early, my daughter will have these traits and would not have to be tutored as an adult.  I am glad that she is developing an edge without even realizing it! 

Contributed by Roopa Balakrishna (Dhriti's mother), she is an equity analyst by profession and currently a full time doting mother,

You can imagine your child hunched up over his math sums. He seems to be stuck. I think you will agree with me that most often than not, he knows the operation but is unable to apply it in the word problem. Somehow, the connect is missing.

Recent research shows that your hunch as a parent is right. There are three reasons why a child may not be able to crack a math problem:

1. Does not know/makes a mistake in the arithmetic

2. Is unable to comprehend the word problem

3. Unable to interpret the word problem numerically

Majority of the cases it was #3 - inability to interpret the word problem numerically -that was identified as the problem. However we spend enormous amount of time & effort on getting them to be really fast and accurate at arithmetic calculations!

How will all the speed and accuracy in the world save your child if she can't interpret which operation to use or worse still understand that math is a language that enables her to interpret the world around her numerically and not the other way round!

For the past few years our team at Sparkling Mindz has been engaged in creating activities for children to enable them to think and communicate their thinking process. At the very outset we began an uphill battle with this simple thing called the "eraser". What we observed was that it was simple sure, but could severely limit the thinking process. How? You might ask and rightly so. We have all grown up using the eraser and loved its elegance, right?

As part of our activities there always comes a time that children record their ideas, thoughts, capture their imagination in pictures/words and time and again, we saw children looking up from their work because they had made a mistake and wanted an eraser urgently to erase it. Sometimes, they would go rushing about the room in the hope that they would find one that allowed them to erase their "so called mistakes". In fact the next class some of them even bought an eraser from home! Most of the times when we looked at the so called "mistake" they wanted to erase in their work, it was a very tiny little mistake – a wrong line here or a curve gone haywire there, a letter a bit shaky or a word out of place – nothing much compared to the quantum of thinking they just disrupted to go look for the eraser! (Sometimes, it was a clear indication of the fact that no real thinking was probably happening)

We did a nice little trick at our centers, we banished the eraser! We told the children the erasers had gone for a walk and would come back when they were ready to tidy up their work.

What we realized was that in our education system, it was easy for the teachers to focus on neatness, it was not a process it was an outcome. Easy to see, easy to grade, easy to appreciate. Hence, all attention was diverted to a neat outcome vs. a thoughtful one (which was of course process oriented). In fact, this amount of focus on a single dimension (neatness) cultivates an underlying assumption in a novice learner that ‘learning cannot be messy’

To me, it has greater implications in terms of stifling the very process of creative thinking itself – where mistakes are not only permissible, they are essential part of the thinking process. In fact there is no concept of something being ‘wrong’ or a ‘mistake’, else how will one generate lots of ideas? how will one think out of the box? if you are constantly self-censoring yourself and correcting what you ‘assume’ to be mistakes!

Additionally, it also shows a larger inability for the learner to let go of a small error and focus on the larger goal at hand of generating ideas, thinking and owning the learning process itself. After all in life, we cannot erase mistakes, we have to learn to live with them right?

Obsession with neatness is killing the learning process and the learner in our children. The eraser needs to be banished from classrooms until children have learnt to think for themselves – let them be messy!

As one of my professors in college used to say, "I know how much thinking you have done by how messy your book is!"

As the Junior Masterchef's end drew closer and competition intensified, lots of clarity in 'thinking' and 'strategies' began to emerge.

Jack, every time he faced a challenge, put on a 'creative hat', decided to do a twist on a recipe like 'snail porridge' that had taken the original chef himself over 10 years to perfect and came out in flying colors! It was because of his creative thinking capability that he was able to score 3 times 11/10 in the final challenge, a feat that not even someone in Masterchef has achieved, so far!

Isabella, on the other hand, every time she was faced with a challenge used her 'critical thinking' abilities. She fell back on the time-tested recipe's of her grandmother. Something that she knew she could execute to perfection, something that she knew that only she knew, something that would stand her out. It stood her too in good stead. However, for the final challenge, she was able to win it only when she combined her 'critical thinking' ability with a more open-ended 'creative thinking' process to achieve a perfect '10' from 5 of the judges and become the first ever 'Junior Masterchef' in history!

If you ask me, even Jack had to use his 'critical thinking' abilities to approach his 'creative problem' and execute it to perfection but his lead system was always 'creative' and Isabella's was always 'critical'! It stood them apart in style and brought their individuality out, so well! 

It was not just this, in the final moment when the results were announced, Jack showed such a unique interpersonal skill that not even adults show! He told Isabella, "You deserve it, Izzy. Friends going in, friends going out!" What better sportsmanship can a child, all of 13 years, aspire to show? 

Shows like this help create good role models for our children in India and don't miss the next show as it rolls in the next season!