Love for Learning Begins at Home

After listening to President Obama's speech last night, I was enthused to write this post. This not a politically motivated post. I just want to applaud the fact that he stressed the importance of home in learning and the competitive edge that America can achieve by focusing on education. These are his words.

The responsibility for education begins at home.

A good education is no longer a pathway to opportunity. It is a prerequisite.

These are powerful words because they highlight the significance of the home environment and how it affects a child's perception of learning.

How many of you believe that education is the key to success?
I'm not going into what constitutes success because that's a whole different topic, maybe for another post. I think that we can all agree that education is very important. Yes, there are success stories of people that didn't go to college but those are the exceptions not the rule. As to whether schools provide quality education, here's an interesting take on what schools are.

As a parent, I believe, schools are a place of learning but they are not the only place where learning takes place. Learning begins at home. Good home environments can foster a love for school by providing a place free of distractions and through the role modeling of good reading and writing habits that children can pick up on.

Families may be in situations where they may not be able to devote much of their time and energy on their child's academic enrichment. But, as a community we can step up and try to fill that gap and as parents we can provide encouragement and support. Here are some ways in which we can offer assistance:

As a Community

Volunteer at a local school
Helping out by copying class materials, reading to kids,and assisting with classroom activities, can provide much needed time for teachers to prepare for curriculum related work, thereby enriching the students' educational experience.

Become a mentor
Mentoring takes only a few hours every week but it can be so rewarding. There are so many disadvantaged kids that just need someone to talk to,someone to guide them, someone to whom they can express their fears. Talking to an adult who cares can make a huge difference in the choices that they make at school or outside of school.

Provide tutoring services
Use your special skills and expertise in your subject matter to tutor struggling students. Some students just need that one-on-one instruction to help them perform better

Use your voice
Participate in School Board meetings. Express your opinion if you think any new legislation or policies may affect children and their education adversely.

As a parent/Caregiver

Be an integral part of your child's life
I don't mean be in their face all the time, but know where they're going, who they're texting, and who their friends are. Since friends are a major influence in a person's life, make sure you're children choose their friends wisely.

Be Approachable
Let your children know that they can come to you and share whatever it may be that's bothering them, irrespective of the enormity of their mistake.

Communicate
Talk to your children's teachers, ask questions, and show them you are involved in your child's education. At the secondary school levels, a lot of teachers may resent this but show them you are doing it with the best interests of your child and not questioning the teachers' ability or judgement and they will happy to keep you in the loop.

Imparting a love of learning may be the best gift that we can give our children. In what other ways can we forge their enthusiasm for learning?

{photo credit: books by Hashmil}

Building Strength through Support

As Alina Popescu celebrates the 4th year anniversary of her blog by hosting a Blogging and Relationships writing project, I celebrate my 10th post by writing about the people in blogland that have helped me reach this milestone.

I first started my photoblog back in September 2006. My first post was my last post as well. I gave up because I didn't have any confidence in myself to believe that I could write well, contribute, make a difference by voicing my thoughts.

Two years later, in October 2008, a friend sent me a link to the Lauren Luke site on youtube. I was astounded, not because of her ability to do make-up tutorials very well( which she does amazingly well, by the way), but because of her courage and perseverance in pursuing her dream. I have an entire post on this, so I won't go into the details. The long and short of this is, Lauren Luke inspired me to restart my blog.

This time I didn't want to take on this task single-handed. I looked for resources on the web - resources that provided writing tips, encouraging words, inspiring stories, confidence building and the occasional kick-in-the-butt that I needed to move forward. I call them my online support group. These are a few of the authors from whom I've acquired a wealth of knowledge.

Sara, at OnSimplicity, writes such insightful posts that make me reassess what I already knew. Her writing makes me rethink what I believe of myself and helps change my negative perceptions.

BZ Riger at the Art of Allowing Mindset inspires me with her spirited attitude towards success.

Melissa Donovan's writing tips, ideas, and suggestions, in her blog Writing Forward, encourages me to write even when the muse is not present.

I find information on social media, and tools to promote blogs, on John Welsh's blog, These Digital Times.

And, of course, I have to include Joanna Young, of Confident Writing whose blog was among the first ones that I subscribed. I draw tremendous inspiration from her posts.

Though I've not had much personal interaction with these blog authors, I've learned a lot about, not just, how to write better but also how to be more self-assured and not stay in my comfort zone, with respect to writing as well as life.

I realize that I'm still new to the blogosphere and there will be changes and improvements as I continue to write. There will be moments of bleakness when I see no comments on my posts. But I take strength in knowing that it will not always be so. This time around, I have a wonderful support system that makes this journey so much more enjoyable and fulfilling.

(photo credit: stock.xchng)

My Two Homes

These photos were taken in India. I love these street photographs because they remind me of the intense vibrancy and vitality of life in India. There's always people walking on the streets, vendors selling fruits, vegetables, and flowers from their carts, and scooters, cars, bicycles, and cows sharing the road with people.

Your senses are bombarded with the heat, smell, noise, and colors that are all around you. I spent 24 years in India before moving to the United States, but I continue to be amazed at the sheer energy of the place, every time I visit.

What bothers me most about India, though, is the poverty that you see everywhere. It's such a heart-wrenching sight. But now, with the advent of the IT industry, there are numerous cafes, upscale restaurants, bars and high end-shopping malls as well. India can be such a puzzling contradiction.

I visit India every two years. My first few weeks are simply bliss - staying with my parents, meeting relatives, shopping at my old, local haunts and then I slowly start missing my home, my friends, the quiet and calm life back home in America. And when I'm here, I miss being in India.


Do you have homes, in two different environments, and love both of them with equal intensity and passion?

(picture credit: Nithya)

How jump starting your car can have a profound effect on your view of life

Have you ever had your jump start cable burst into flames as you tried to jump start your stalled battery. Well, that’s exactly what happened a few days ago in my garage. Let me back up here a bit and get to the beginning.

One of our cars had a dead battery. We knew it had to be replaced; we were just too lazy to get it fixed. My significant other, my wonderful husband, decided that we had to jump start it as quickly as possible since we had get to our daughter's piano lesson. My husband connected the cables and turned on the engine, but, there was no response from our stalled vehicle.

All of a sudden, I noticed smoke arising from the cable. I screamed at my husband to turn off the vehicle as the smoke started to fill up the garage. The next few events happened in seconds and I know, this sounds like a cliché, but it seemed like an eternity.

As the plastic on the cable started to melt, a part of the cable caught fire and the flames started moving towards the car’s battery since the cables were still connected to both cars. I grabbed a heavy, blue, blanket, which luckily, happened to be lying in the garage, rushed towards the car, and started beating the flames out. The fire died out, and we picked up the burnt, remnants of the yellow plastic from the engine of our car and cleaned the floor of the garage.

The rest of the evening my mind kept going back to the incident. I knew that if I hadn’t been able to put out that fire, we were very close to having our cars blown up, and since this happened in our garage, our house would have also burned down, and we may have all been killed.

While I tried not to dwell too much on this, a few things struck me which, I know, is common knowledge but which we tend to forget.

• Life can cease to exist in a blink of an eye. This is, definitely, not a staggering revelation except to teenagers, who believe they are immortal. Everyone is aware of the ephemeral nature of life, but sometimes we need these experiences to contemplate what it means and take stock of what’s important and meaningful to us.
• Procrastination causes bigger problems. Never get into the habit of putting things off. It will only lead to messier situations.
• Be grateful for today. I never like to say I had a bad day and I advice my kids not to as well. All days are good if we have a roof over our heads, three meals, a warm bed, and good health. The other crappy things that happen are challenges that strengthen us.
• And Never Ever mix up the positive and negative terminals of your jump start cable.

Do you think we need to experience some kind of ordeal to see clearly, what is right before us?

Goal without a Plan

It's been a week since my last post. I have been tweaking my generic blogger blog, trying to add a better comment form, customizing my share button for easier access, reading up on SEO and surfing the Web for everything I can think of, except, doing what I should be doing...adding content to my blog.

All I've been doing is postponing the inevitable which is, staring at a blank screen. Oh, have I told you that I've also been reading hundreds of posts on writer's block and how to get past it. It would help if I followed some of the advice, instead I keep searching for that quick fix, where I'll have some sort of epiphany and words will pour forth without resistance. That has not happened yet.

What the experts say about writing is true. It's 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. I realize now that the three most important words in writing are structure, structure, structure. Attempting to write, during the 30-minute wait time in the parking lot outside my daughter's piano lesson, is not a very efficient way to write.

I read this bit of wisdom in the most unlikely place, on the marquee of an automotive repairs place. "A goal without a plan is just a wish". Those words made me drop everything and formulate my goals and strategies right away. I'm keeping it very simple, no lofty and unrealistic ambitions like 10,000 visitors a day or make $1million in a year.

Here are my uncomplicated and straightforward goals and strategies to keep on track.

Goals:

1. Write 3 posts a week.

2. Read blogs, news feeds, and twitter updates for ideas and inspiration.

3. Comment on at least 5 different posts everyday and make a positive contribution.

Strategies:

1. Allot a 4 hour window everyday for writing.

2. Allot 2 hours to read and comment on interesting blogs.

3. Find good online tools to organize thoughts, blogs, and notes.

4. Write a list of ideas with a brief blurb.

I think this is it for now, This list may change as I gain more confidence and add more content, and who knows, maybe even include one or two lofty goals at that time.
How do you structure you're writing process?

Fear Factor

My last post was on courage. So it makes a lot of sense to me to follow that one with this post on fear. We all fear many things. But, I think the real fear, the mother of all fears, is our fear of failure. You can even say that it is a result of perfectionism. To me, they are two sides of the same coin.

When we expect perfect results, we fear mistakes. And so we make sure that we don't make mistakes by not taking any action. All we're left with, in the end, are regrets. How true are those words, "What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail"?-Robert Schuller.

For the longest time I believed, that, if there was even, a slight chance, of accomplishing anything less than complete success in a venture, then I'd certainly not attempt it at all. And is there anything in life, worth pursuing, that is 100% failure proof? No, definitely not!

This blog is my attempt to throw out my old way of thinking. My new philosophy is to try, strive, push the boundaries, tell myself it's okay to make mistakes, and it's okay to fail, because these will become my stepping stones for the next venture.

I remind my kids that perfection is overrated. As Salvador Dali said,"Have no fear of perfection - you'll never attain it". So go out there and do your thing and don't worry about falling flat on your face in your attempt. You know you did your best and tried very hard and, now, you can say, you have no regrets.

Have you overcome deep-rooted fears to reach your ideals? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

(Photo credit: Caroline )