FROM DILIP MUKERJEA

"Genius is in-born, may it never be still-born."

"Oysters, irritated by grains of sand, give birth to pearls. Brains, irritated by curiosity, give birth to ideas."

"Brainpower is the bridge to the future; it is what transports you from wishful thinking to willful doing."

"Unless you keep learning & growing, the status quo has no status."

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

CHAMPIONING STUDENTS: INVITING PARENTS' INVOLVEMENT & GARNERING THEIR UNWAVERING SUPPORT

[continuation from the Last Post ~ in connection with the recent launch of a series of new programs intended for parents as well as their school-going kids/teens, under the auspices of 'The House of Creative Brains'.]


The program originally intended for parents is also designed to coach & equip parents as "learning facilitators", so that they can fulfill their parenting role more effectively & efficiently by virtue of being their children's first teachers.

Dilip believes in the philosophy that parents who learn together with their children will earn together, as well as stay together.

More importantly, this philosophy builds on the concept that high-performing parents nurture high-performing children, as parents become the worthwhile role models.

Taking such an active role in their own children's education, & working closely with other parents with the same interests & concerns, will engender a larger, growing community, which can then help to sustain one another in the long run.

The aim is to inspire the creation of brain clubs as "learning communities", across the neighbourhoods of the nation.

By drawing upon senior citizens, who are still active in life, the community can evolve into multi-tier generational self-help networks, in line with national aspirations of making productive use of everyone's contributions in making Singapore a 'Learning Capital of the World', as Dilip likes to put it.

Through participation in projects or events, such "learning communities" will naturally enhance the "cognitive fitness" of our senior citizens through their Third Age till their Fourth Age.

To end this post of mine, I like to share a fascinating & yet valuable lesson which I had learned years ago from productivity guru Stephen Covey, who wrote his magnum opus, '7 Habits for Highly Effective People', during the late eighties.

As I had understood his penetrating insights, life is essentially a never-ending mental toggle between a stimulus in the our surroundings, to which we have first chosen to see & subsequently directed our attention to it, & our interpretation as well as our finally chosen response to it.

However, between the physical stimulus, as captured by our body senses, & the mental response in our mind, there lies this wonderful metaphysical dimension - as some sort of "space-time", at least from my perspective.

This is the metaphysical dimension within which we always make our daily life decisions.

As writer P J O'Rourke had put it so aptly:

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences."

That's to say, in explicit terms, we all have that wonderful freedom - our power to choose, so to speak - to exercise our response to everyday situations, but we must also bear the consequences of our action, because every action has a consequence. This is a universal truth.

To all the parents out there, the ball is now in your court!

[to be continued in the Next Post.]

[For more information about the series of new programs under 'The House of Creative Brains', please get in touch with Ms. Faye Yeoh via her email faye_yeoh@yahoo.com]

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