Sleepy students and early morning class !

Today morning when I met first year student in lift, she was not active as one should be.

I casually asked, so do you have class now?

And she cribbed - yes, this morning 0900 class is bad. And it was not good, even when it was at 0930 last term. We normally jump to conclusion that oh they spend night in futile stuff like movie, Facebook, mobiles, parties and crib in morning.

But still it made me think!

I have normally morning class once a week and I can sense they are drowsy, sleepy and not that alert in the class. They keep up popping in the class even after scheduled time. What I found (thanks to Google) is that ‘darkness hormone’ melatonin is the cause behind it.  The level of melatonin reaches high earlier as people get older. Thus for your faculty who is in his late 40’s or 50’s (or more!) this melatonin begins its effect at 10 pm, while for students – who are not so aged, the same melatonin shows its effect at 1 am.

Moreover when you keep your mobile at fingertips, browse Facebook, pumps up caffeine this further disturbs your sleep cycle at night. 

Irrespective of hormone or behavior, lack of sleep surely leads your behavior to moody, impulsive, and you show  poor performance in academics. I am proponent of  early morning routine and myself trying to go back to it with New Year resolutions round the corner. I hope students also should learn to strike a balance in their night-activities and morning-routines. Here are some useful tips to start with. 

I too try my morning classes to be more participatory and action packed , rather than mere lectures !

Your thoughts, suggestions and comments are welcome. 

Image source: http://www.com.cuhk.edu.hk/varsity/0401/Periscope/school05.jpg 

On being a teacher ...

I attended  Gurucharan Das's  "India grows at night" book release function by BDB Book club.

I liked his style and picked up his "Difficulty of being good" for reading.

It is lucid and brilliantly written book. It uses Mahabharat - its characters, and the various dilemma they face in dealing with the ethical questions. Most appealing aspect of the book is the way author brings his learning from the stories to the ethical dilemmas that we face in our day to day life. Most importantly - why be good ?

To make his point across , he narrated the story of primary school teacher , published in "Times of India" in 2005. In his own words ,

..  a man who has bicycled 32 kilometers each day for the past twenty years without missing a single day of school. Because of his commitment, as well his ability to inspire students, a surprising number of his former students went on to become hugely famous.  When asked about the roots of his motivation, he answered, 'Teaching is my dharma,'..

I could not locate the original story online. But it is riveting. I can sense from my own experience and can see around that the teachers who do their work as "dharma" or "swabhaava" - are touching the life of their students.

Question that is more pertinent is - can this "calling/swabhaava" be nurtured in first place ? if yes , "how can we nurture this".  It is more riveting - when the same book points to the 2004 research of Michael Kremer of Harvard university along with world bank members that ,

One in four teachers in our government primary schools is absent and one in four, although present, is not teaching. Thus one in two teachers out of roughly 1.5 million primary school teachers is not doing his/her job.

If we repeat this for graduate and post-graduate teachers ,will the results really change to opposite side of spectrum ? Hence nurturing the calling for teachers - will be important question !.

(Image source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gurcharan_Das_%28as_on_26-Sep-2012%29.jpg )

A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on Importance of re-writing speeches

Speech re-writing is very important condition for successful speech.

Toastmasters Competent communicator manual also emphasizes the drafting of the speech.


Andrew Dlugun ,a famous toast-master also emphasized this point in his multiple blog posts on speech writing.

Inspiring and motivating speaker , A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, who won the hearts of millions of Indians by his visionary speeches had following comments in his recent publication Turning Points.  This also underlines the importance of draft versions of one's final speech. (Emphasis added)

... Preparation for the speech normally began well in advance. We would generate a theme, then would seek information from multiple departments and also try and get the international picture on the subject.  We would send a questionnaire to experts. Then we would collate the information. The speech would go into numerous drafts. It was not unusual for there to be ten or more drafts. The R-Day speech in 2004 ,for instance, had its theme on smiles on billion faces and went through ten drafts. The focus was on values. On 14th August 2005, the theme was energy independence. The speech went through fifteen drafts. One of the highest number of drafts was, of course, for my speech to the European Parliament on 25 April 2007. This went through thirty-one drafts.

No wonder that Kalam's speeches enjoys not only popularity but also coveted place in the heart of Indians. This really makes one to think on the efforts that we are investing in our own speeches.

Reference:
 1) Image : Wikimedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AbdulKalam.JPG
 2) Quotes : Turning Points, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam , 2012, Harper Collins, page 45,