Saturday 25 June 2016

Styles of Training

Styles of Training – something you may wish to think about 

Let’s look at what trainers do:

1. Procedural statements
a. ‘Raise you right hand in front of you and then move it up above your head….etc’
2. Demo
a. ‘Watch me and observe the right procedure. First, you begin with…..then……’
3. Giving Information, sometimes using rhetorical questions?
4. Seeking Information. This can be done by asking questions
a. Direct question – to someone
b. Indirect question – posed to the group
c. Relay question – who would like to answer this?
d. Reverse question – And what do you think?
5. Summarizing, ’so let confirm where we are so far’
6. Check Learning – quizzing / testing

At a process level, trainers tend to:

a) Propose
b) Build on an existing proposal
c) Agree
d) Disagree
e) Bring in – ‘what do you think, John?’
f) Shut out – ‘let’s hear what Jane has to say first, Peter’

Depending on what situation you find yourself, you would need to vary the intensity of 1-6.

As a teacher, you would be doing a lot of  giving information, and check learning.
As a driving instructor, you would be doing a lot of demo/procedural statements.
As a facilitator, you would be doing a lot of seeking information.

Varying your style for each learning event is what’s important especially in adult pedagogy.



Wednesday 15 June 2016

Be Sincere, not Serious

Be Sincere, not Serious

‘Be a joke unto yourself’, said Osho jestfully adapting from Buddha’s last words, ‘be a light unto yourself’. 

Life is not to be taken seriously, instead be sincere. 

In being serious you mortgage yourself to the other, an expectation that arises not from the self but from the other. Seriousness is a psychological disease. In being serious you confirm to expectations that you make unto yourself: to be perfect, in every way. This idealistic notion is a phantasy, a most subtle enemy that continues to ever remind you, ‘I’m never good enough’. What is there to be serious about? Seriousness requires effort: you need to be trying all the time, to live up to an occasion. There are many, ‘who take themselves seriously’. They want it all: Power, recognition and wealth. Seriousness is about belief. Making an assumption around something. What is really true about beliefs? Beliefs are about notions we hold. We replace one belief with another: the process goes on. Replacing one false notion with yet another. Pause for a moment, close your eyes and reflect: what is the one thing I am really sure about? Are you sure? If you wish to be rich, you have to be a beggar. In other words, unless you have no beliefs, unless your glass is fully empty, you will never know. Being a Knower is different, then it is no longer a belief. A knower knows, he does not need to believe. You need to believe only if you have a doubt. Wonder why we believe in a God, but know it is now daytime? One is belief, the other is knowing. 

Life is not a problem to but a mystery to be lived. The serious have questions. Life is not to answer the question: instead life is about answering the questioner. Philosophers have gone on churning questions they pose to themselves, and then they go about answering it. What do you call that: 'fool o sophy! Drop the question, life is then accepted. You don’t find the answer. You get an experience. And the experience is more blissful than an answer. Every question has a short-lived answer, held true by the assumptions of the context. Change the assumptions and you recreate doubt. As I said often on my blog, the mind can never trust, the heart can never doubt. When the question is dropped, you connect. Bering serious, is about being a questioner.   



Be sincere always. Sincere is acceptance of yourself and of the other. In being sincere, you drop, being appropriate: to be something else. Sincere allows you to amplify your commitment, in your own unique way, and without the pressure of pretense.  Being sincere is accepting, who you are. To accept, ‘I’m evolving and growing within. Good enough, and I could be even better. Better than I was yesterday’. Life is to be a playground, a dance, a love affair. Life should be a circus, everything should be in playfulness. Life is too short for this. What really matters? Someone once shared a wise thought: remember in every act, how does it connect to your beginning or to your end. If every act is held under probe with this lens, what would really matter?

Life needs to be lived in spontaneity. Here today, gone tomorrow: in between be Sincere, stay playful. Enjoy the mystery of yourself. 
Be human, unto yourself and others.

Live Now Here, not there in Nowhere! 



Tuesday 7 June 2016

Rules - what are they really for?

Rules – what are they meant for?

Why have rules at all? Rules provide a reference point for how a game is to be played out. Imagine a game of soccer or cricket with no rules: it would be chaos.
Even when we have a boxing bout that avoids the queens rule, its is with a rule: that no rules exist. Nothing is to be regarded as ‘fair play, you can do anything to bring the other opponent down. You may Spit, bite, kick, punch, whatever. The only objective is to win.

When you lower the set of rules, you lower the standards of fair play, period. Refer to one of my posts on the Mahabharta war, wherein almost all rules of fair play, was violated by the Pandavas. As someone said, all is fair in love and in war.
http://stevecorrea7.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/all-is-fair-in-love-and-war.html

We do need rules to govern our lives: to play its game. These rules are fair conduct, morality, ethics or law, or Company Policy. They are created for consistency, fairness and an opportunity for a level playing field. Often the rules provide for a handicap, where the forces are unequal or dissimilar in terms of natural endowments. Like in the case of horse racing or golf. These are affirmative actions to create a balance. Same could be said for the reservation policy. We all like rules, it allows for a pattern of order (traffic rules), builds trust and respect around how each person can hoped to be treated. When we bend rules covertly, we signal, unfairness, arbitrary whims and fancies and we end up being distrusted. However, for the rich, the powerful, rules are disliked: they wish to find loopholes: through Jugaad. Imagine all of us succeeding through jugaad, we never would. Most of us wish for our rights, what about our duties?

Rules are put out by a community to guide collective action. At and individual level these rules turn to personal principles. Remember, there are no eternal rules: everything rule lies in its context, and needs to change once context changes. ‘The old order, changeth yielding place to the new, and God fulfills himself in many ways, lest one custom should so corrupt the world”, write Lord Tennyson.

Rules are to be followed as a general principle but abandoned if dysfunctional. Stake not your life, but your meanings about life, said Pulin Garg, my beloved teacher and Guru. Like goals, they provide direction but are meaningless by themselves. Read more about this in my post below: http://stevecorrea7.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/another-perspective-on-goals.html

Society is governed by rules, at the level of the individuality, there is no need for rules. Read my post on ‘Be part of community; but foremost be individual’. 

Conceptually, rules come from ‘location’ in context: they are prescriptive, often stale and anachronistic. Uncalibrated, and without reform they become draconian, living in staleness, living corpses of the past, of dead traditions and rituals whose original sense and meaning have been lost to obscurity. 

Remember this one rule: there are no rules. Everything is contextual.