Want to share some thoughts with you today on learn-ability. How is your today different from your yesterday, and how is tomorrow going to be different from today? I expect the answer to be – No different. To grow older and wiser, today has to be different from yesterday.  

Not all change is for the better. Quoting Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. “Invention requires experimentation and experimentation implies failure. If you know it’s going to work, then it’s not an experiment,” So the first question: When did you last fail miserably? Definitely not yesterday, most probably not last week – maybe many months ago……… The second question: What changes did that failure make in you? Most probably – avoid doing that thing. But that is not the Bezos’ philosophy. Avoidance is the surest way to fail. What you need to do is to find another way of doing the same thing. And look forward to yet another way after that…

Learn-ability is closely allied to copy-ability. I love copying. All my best ideas are copied ones. An example of a copied idea – from Saima Yousf, who till recently was a colleague at Team Jammu. Saima was sitting with me whilst we were conducting an interview for teachers. On noting that I spent most of my time discussing a teacher’s strengths, she asked me why I did not spend time discussing their weaknesses. I replied: I wanted to find reasons to select, not reasons to reject. Her response: When a teacher talks about her weakness, offer to teach her something about that in the interview itself. Her response to the teaching, will show how good she is at learning. And we surely want teachers who are learners. I have been trying to implement that in interviews that I have done since then – and it helps! Many a candidate have I rejected, who seemed to be great – till the time that I get them on to the learning exam. Such people are not part of our team – thanks to Saima..

One more copied idea. 5 years ago, we had organised a training program for our newly joined teachers at Pune, and had invited Pankaj Sapkal as a guest faculty. As part of a brainstorming session, he came up with this marvellous idea of learning buddies. I have been a little bit slow on taking that up. I experimented with it myself for the last 2 years, before becoming the ‘buddy’ ambassador at Bulls Eye. And to you, my buddy, this is the message that I want to give you. Learning is always more fun and more effective when you have someone to share it with.

I will end with a lovely mail that I received from Jasmine, Team Patiala: As promised I’ve started implementing Group method in my classes (CAT-14 as well as CAT-15) . High energy levels and interaction are observed. For instance, I made groups of two and gave questions of Grammar basic. The average score was 19/30 in today’s session. I will continue with this method as it is not monotonous and inculcates healthy competition spirit among the peers. 

Great work, Jasmine. We need more buddies like you. Would love it if all my buddies at Bulls Eye start copying more often. Eagerly waiting for you to share your experiences about stuff that is copy-able.