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This is the introductory portion of the book 'You are unique' written by Dr A P J Abdul Kalam. This portion contains his short guidances on culture of excellence, steps for achievement, creativity, righteousness, courage, building confidence, remaining motivated, managing time, working for others and hence developing uniqueness in you. In the text, he quotes various great humans and various poems. Later in the book, he emphasizes on each point in detail by quoting his own experiences from his jounney of life.

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"Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor."
―Thích Nhat Hanh

Yogic breathing is a fundamental practice in the study of yoga. As one of the limbs of Patanjali's eight-limbed path, yogic breathing, or pranayama, is defined as the "control of life force," and is aimed at increasing vital energy in the body and mind.

The benefits of yogic breathing are numerous. Students report feeling more calm and centered; they report that it can help mitigate intense emotional feelings, and help them sleep better. For most yoga students, the practice of conscious breathing is foundational to the practice of yoga.

Intrigued by these reports, scientists have begun to turn an eye to this practice. Why is yogic breathing so helpful? What are the key benefits to this practice? A key research finding is that yoga can increase stress resilience. But how? The answer to this question lies in understanding one of the primary systems affected by yoga-the autonomic nervous system.
The autonomic nervous system regulates our stress response.
The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is connected to physical processes such as digestion, respiration, heart rate, immune function, peristalsis, and sexual arousal. This system has two branches, the sympathetic system and the parasympathetic system.

The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is our fight-or-flight response. It helps us to mobilize energy to complete a task-whether it's a work-related task or the task of predatory survival. In small doses, the SNS is essential, but when it goes into overdrive, the body and mind suffer. The decreased blood flow to the gastrointestinal (GI) tract and prolonged high blood pressure caused by the fight-or-flight response can lead to digestive problems, cardiovascular disease, and anxiety, among other conditions.

The other branch of the system is the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), often called the "rest and digest" or "calm and connect" system, which allows us to recoup from the stressors of life. If you find yourself breathing slowly and deeply, feeling a sense of calm and peacefulness, you can guarantee that your PNS is activated, enhancing digestion, increasing blood flow to the GI track, lowering the heart rate, and enhancing sexual arousal.

This system also activates certain parts of the brain, dampening fear-response regions and increasing the reflective, responsive regions. The result? More reflective, conscious behavior and action; an increased feeling of calm; and greater mental flexibility and creativity amid life's challenges.

Stress resilience is a balance of these two systems. It's not that stress-resilient people don't have periods of SNS activity, but they can easily bring the PNS back online and de-escalate the SNS when the task, or stressor, is over. They experience a fluid flexibility between the two systems.
Yogic breathing techniques can support the nervous system.
The respiratory system is the one system of the ANS over which we have conscious control. And because air intake is essential for life, the brain responds to the respiratory system with urgency. That's why yogic breathing can make such an impact on overall health. It's a place where we can begin to plug into our nervous system and support its overall function and balance.

Most of us have noticed that the way we breathe can impact both our body and mind. Now there's a collection of research studies that backs up these effects. One pranayama technique that has been shown to improve stress resilience is Coherent Breathing, which is essentially full yogic breathing with a focus on finding the number of breaths per minute (usually between 3.5 and 6) to optimize the effect on stress resilience.

In their book, The Healing Power of the Breath, Richard P. Brown and Patricia L. Gerbarg argue that when this "sweet spot" is found, the electrical rhythms of the heart, lungs, and brain become synchronized. They report that this breath rate can "induce up to a tenfold improvement in heart-rate variability," a measure of stress resilience. Researchers have found that this sweet spot can open the capillaries to optimize blood flow, bringing more oxygen to the body.
The body impacts the mind, not just vice versa.
This impact on physiology has a "trickle-up" effect on the mind. Research shows that yogic breathing positively impacts mood. A few studies reveal that yogic breathing techniques reduce anxiety and depression. Why? Researcher Chris Streeter from Boston University believes it's because yogic practices stimulate the vagus nerve (which is part of the PNS), and this effect ripples out to the body and brain, increasing neurotransmitters in the brain that reduce anxiety.

This mind-body connection is central to yoga. Yoga teacher and writer Michael Stone wrote, "Physiology and psychology are two ends of the same stick. You can't work on one without the other." Nowhere is this truer than with conscious breathing, which acts as a medicinal tool, increasing well-being and peace of mind.
Find out about programs on the science of yoga with Angela Wilson.

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Breath, Body, and Mind: The Physiology of Pranayama

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"Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor." ―Thích Nhat Hanh Yogic breathing is a fundamental practice in the study of yoga. As one of the limbs of Patanjali's eight-limbed path, yogic breathing, or pranayama, is defined as the "control of life force," and is aimed at increasing vital energy in the body and mind.

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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-habits-of-highly-intu_n_4958778

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Decoding intuition
I have always been intrigued by what in layman's terms we call the 'gut' feeling. Stumbled upon this article on my bid to understand what distinguishes highly intuitive people from the rest. Hope you will catch a glimpse of your self or be reminded of someone who fits the bill...

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Triple Talaq- How Indian Muslim women fought and Won the divorce battle

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-40484276

I picked up this article because the central govt. passed a law criminalizing Triple Talaq which was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

This fight by Muslim women in India is a huge victory for rights activists and the struggle they went through for a couple of decades needs to be highlighted and appreciated.

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How working with hands can do wonders to brain.

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How working with hands can do wonders to brain.

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I've been working hard on a proposal for a new book. This involves a lot of sitting and thinking. Since I started working on this project, a strange phenomenon has emerged.

I want to clean all the time.

While sitting at my desk, I fantasize about scrubbing things. I long to get at the dirty-ish sliding glass doors that I stare off into space through, while pondering my writing. I cleaned the bathroom last week as a "treat" and got a high from cleaning the tub. It's really weird.

Could this be a new way to procrastinate on my writing that my sneaky brain has come up with?

Apparently not.

I took some time to research this phenomenon. Now, my urge to clean makes perfect sense.

First, when we use our hands on a task that doesn't demand much cognitively, it gives the mind a chance to relax and rest. As a knowledge worker (I'm a doctor, writer, coach, speaker, etc.), I'm constantly using my brain. It's gotten worse with the advent of the smartphone, as I spend so much of my downtime reading interesting articles. I also love reading novels. My brain rarely catches a break.

I get a huge sense of relief and pleasure from doing something with my hands that doesn't require me to think much about anything. It's magnificent.

Second, when my brain is "offline," it gives it a chance to work on problems behind the scenes. From a number of essays and articles that I read on this topic, it's not uncommon for people to have breakthrough ideas while mindlessly working on something with their hands.

My favorite Mind-Body Medicine expert, Dr. Herbert Benson, wrote about this phenomenon (and strategy) in his book, The Breakout Principle. When we engage in a repetitive task, completely taking our minds off whatever problem or issue we have been struggling with, the solution will often magically appear.

Third, working productively with our hands is profoundly pleasurable. There is something primal about this. We are made to be active, and have actively used our hands as part of our daily survival for thousands of years. With the advent of so much technology, many of us move through our days with minimal physical effort. We push a button instead of scrubbing dishes or laundry. Overall, we get far less physical activity than would be optimal for our bodies and minds.

Using our hands may actually be key to maintaining a healthy mood, and the lack of this type of activity may contribute to feelings of irritability, apathy, and depression.

Kelly Lambert wrote about this in her book, Lifting Depression: A Neuroscientist's Hands-On Approach to Activating Your Brain's Healing Power:
"What revs up the crucial effort-driven rewards circuit-the fuel, if you will-is generated by doing certain types of physical activities, especially ones that involve your hands. It's important that these actions produce a result you can see, feel, and touch, such as knitting a sweater or tending a garden. Such actions and their associated thoughts, plans and ultimate results change the physiology and chemical makeup of the effort-driven rewards circuit, activating it in an energized way. I call the emotional sense of well-being that results effort-driven rewards."
She also links a lack of hands-on physical activity to the onset of depression, perhaps contributing to the unusually high rates of mood disorders that we see in today's world:
"Effort-driven rewards and other real-world interactive experiences generate much more intense and pervasive reactions in your brain than the neurochemical alterations produced by a single pill. The result? You begin to feel more control over your environment and more connected to the world around you. This reduces stress and anxiety and, most important, builds resilience against the onset of depression."
Wonderful, isn't it?

I posted about this phenomenon recently on Facebook, and a number of people shared their experiences.

A friend of mine wrote that when she was going through a particularly stressful experience, an older friend advised her to "clean out some cupboards and some drawers." At first, it seemed like rather strange advice for dealing with a crisis, but according to my friend it "definitely helped."

Another writer friend shared that he likes to garden when he is stuck in his writing or having to face a difficult conversation. He admits that there may be some procrastination involved, but at least it's a "productive" form of avoidance.

What do you normally do when you're feeling stuck or stressed? For a lot of us, we default to eating comfort food, watching Netflix, scrolling through social media feeds, and so on. These things may be relaxing, sure, but I often feel regret afterward. I also don't get much brain relief.

Scrubbing a tub, though? Awesome. Invigorating. Gives me pleasure for days. I admit, I'm not very good about keeping a scrubbed tub, so it's quite an accomplishment when it's so clean that it gleams.

What works for you? It could be anything from painting, to washing dishes, to fiddling with a motor.

The next time you are feeling stressed or stuck, try doing something with your hands. It may be exactly what your brain and body need.
Copyright 2019 Dr. Susan Biali Haas

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Working With Your Hands Does Wonders for Your Brain

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I've been working hard on a proposal for a new book. This involves a lot of sitting and thinking. Since I started working on this project, a strange phenomenon has emerged. I want to clean all the time. While sitting at my desk, I fantasize about scrubbing things.

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Clearing the mental clutter behind 'Jack of all trades and master of none'

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Clearing the mental clutter behind 'Jack of all trades and master of none'

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Is it okay to try many sports before figuring out the best one?,  Is it the established truth that only those who make their career choices quite early in their life excel in their profession ? , Is it okay to let our kids experiment with different career options to find their passion? This article seeks to answer the above mentioned questions with real world examples of famous personalities who have carved a niche for themselves despite variegating their career choices.  The article endorses the ability to question as the integral ingredient of success, rather then being generalists or specialists.

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But wait, is there a third path that spells success?

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Missing tile syndrome - don't let it derail you. This syndrome has affected almost every person living on this Earth. Everyone of us is striving for happiness, love and fulfillment of our desires in this chaotic world. As human beings, we have a tendency to focus on what is missing instead on what we are blessed with. The darker side of this syndrome is that we may end up focusing and obsessing on that which is missing in our lives to such an extent that we miss upon our happiness. So, it’s always better to count on your blessings rather than lamenting on your worries.

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By: Priya Chetty Rajagopal

Always finding ways to lament what you don't have? Here's how to celebrate what you do

Sometimes you do get interesting forwards - I was intrigued by Dennis Prager's video called The Missing Tile Syndrome which talks about an issue that all of us encounter in our lives. Here we are in a waiting room, quite at peace, and suddenly we spot a missing tile on the ceiling - in a short while, and in the remainder of that wait, that is ALL we can see, as the missing tile slowly fills our horizon. You can stretch the example of imperfection to many things in our business and personal lives.

So what's yours? A bald man seems to see a room filled with full heads of hair when he first walks in - that's all he notices, or at least the first thing he does. A brilliant salesman was consumed by his lack of formal MBA and let that influence and colour all his requests up the career ladder - he assumed any rejection was because of that and lay low, till a career coach showed him his missing tile. Prager talks about his own search for the 'perfect woman' to marry and as it turns out, and as he comes back with the perfect attribute he was looking for, it turns out to be the one quality that was missing in the woman he was meeting on that particular date. We seem to see the world from a vacuum, or from a tunnel view of what is 'missing' and that consumes our entire perspective.

This is typical for most of us in our lives - there's always a tile or two missing - either in our personal lives or professional ones, we define ourselves by what we don't have. That higher degree, that perfect health, the best relationship, that grouchy boss - something is always the missing tile that we believe is the cause of less-than-perfect lives. Before we know it, we have allowed it to define us.

So what does one do? As career women juggling work and home, we aim to be Biwi no: 1, Mommy no: 1 and Employee no: 1 rolled into one - in short, only the red cape is missing. So if you are one of the majority of people who can't have it all - it's okay, you are not alone for sure. The perfect life is a myth propagated only in Hindi movies or TV serials.

The old Simon & Garfunkel song about the much-envied Richard Cory from the eyes of one of his poorer employees in the factory is interesting confirmation. Cory shoots himself one day but the worker still curses his own poverty and would still rather be Richard Cory! Poverty is his missing tile, but we can take a good guess that happiness and life was Cory's. So what are our missing tiles and how do we put them into perspective?

The best way to avoid lamenting the missing tile is to do a balance sheet of life. The chances are that if you are reading this article you are better off than 98% of the population right away. Here are a few things one can do to feel complete and happy despite those missing tiles.

1. Count your blessings: And believe me, you have many of those. Likely you are educated, hold a decent job, are well-off, have a family and friends who care, have all your physical and mental faculties in working order. That makes you in a small minority on earth. Enjoy it and stop complaining. You are blessed.

2. Think positive thoughts: Whether you believe in the law of attraction or not, I see more positive people being happier than those who are not. It's not because their lives are perfect but they just believe it is. Being like a bumble bee maybe the secret - it's oblivious of the fact that it is aerodynamically all wrong for flight and flies anyway. Not like an eagle but further than scientists say it should.
3. Volunteer to help the less fortunate: The idea is to care genuinely about others who actually are badly off - economically, physically, and mentally - and give them a hand-up and not a hand-out. Your time and caring is more valuable than just some money sent to an entity to manage this. More importantly, treating them with dignity is being human. You won't even think about your tile in the warmth you feel. Someone said it right when they shared that: 'Happiness is like jam. You can't spread it without getting some on yourself'.

4. Try something you never have before or were scared to: How about that hang gliding or white water rafting trip? Or maybe something less energetic like learning French or the piano. Anything that takes you out of the comfort zone will make you focus all your energies on mastering that new activity that there will be no time to worry about the tile.

5. Stop comparing yourself to other people: Most of our sorrow comes from feeling a lack of something someone else has but you don't. Let's face it. There will always be someone smarter, better looking, richer than us but it isn't the people with more that are happier. Don't worry about what someone else has as you never know someone else's life until you have walked a mile in their shoes as they say. If only the richest and most famous people were the happiest there wouldn't be so many suicides and drug overdose deaths among the glitterati.

6. Don't hang out with The Missing Tile Club: We tend to stick to people who have the same lacking and then further widen our missing tile. People who are consumed with real or imaginary health issues tend to get into a corner at a party discussing new cures and experiences, thereby compounding their preoccupation. Those who fancy they are poorer or unappreciated tend to grumble together about the sad knocks life has given them. Don't do that - your missing tile could just become the entire ceiling.

Happiness is a journey, not a destination. Maximising our lives with the cards we were dealt with is the fun and the challenge of life. There is no win-loss game here but being happy is a great goal worth striving for. For that you don't need all the gifts in the world, just making those you have count. 'Knowledge is Power - use this input on The Missing Tile to be armed and ready about what could stop making you tick. Then forget about that missing tile and remember to enjoy the fabulous kaleidoscope that forms your own ceiling.

The author is a CXO search consultant and Women Leadership champion

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Pro Pointers: Missing Tile Syndrome: don't let it derail you

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By: Priya Chetty Rajagopal Always finding ways to lament what you don't have? Here's how to celebrate what you do Sometimes you do get interesting forwards - I was intrigued by Dennis Prager's video called The Missing Tile Syndrome which talks about an issue that all of us encounter in our lives.

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I had curiosity to know why did Apollo-11 took 4 days to reach Moon, Chandrayaan-2 taking 48 days.So I read this article.

Read more at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/70596699.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

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Importance Of Patience In Life

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https://www.wisdomtimes.com/blog/importance-of-patience-in-life/

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We just need to do our bit !!!Spark the curiosity , channelize the energies of the learners 

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We just need to do our bit !!!Spark the curiosity , channelize the energies of the learners 

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Give children strategies to stay calm in stressful situations, they develop strong habits that they can apply in the future  .

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Social & Emotional Learning (SEL)

Guiding students to create an ongoing cycle of growth in self-regulation starts with having them set explicit goals for themselves.

Self-regulation is a skill that takes a long time to learn and may take a lifetime, in truth, to really master. We can get better at it with practice, and our students' social, emotional, and character development requires that we provide routine opportunities in classrooms and schools for them to work on this skill.

1. Have students determine their goal-the aspect of self-regulation they'd like to improve. You can ask them to work on up to two out of the four areas below at any given point in time.

2. Have them create a plan for how they will improve in that area in the short term.

3. Ask students to review their goal and plan with a classmate who will act as their support partner and then get final approval from their support team-a small group that includes classmates and you.

4. Students should periodically evaluate the plan against the goal they set and determine whether their plan needs adjustment. They should finalize this adjustment after review and approval by their support team.

5. When students meet one goal, have them set another and create a new plan to share with the support team.

Developing self-regulation as a skill is for everyone, not just those who are experiencing difficulty in some area of their life. The concept here is one of continuous improvement. Self-regulation means identifying and taking steps to help one get better at things that are important for that person's individual development. Everyone, at all ages, no matter their degree of accomplishment or shortcoming, can participate in an improvement process.

In helping students learn to self-regulate, consider following these five steps, which are to be repeated in an ongoing cycle for continued growth and improvement.

Four Areas for Self-Regulation Improvement

While improvement plans can be made in any area, I suggest focusing on study skills, social and emotional competency, physical health, or citizenship. I've designed improvement plan worksheets for these four areas .

Study skills: Everyone, no matter how committed or organized, can improve their study habits. Perhaps that means learning to take notes better, or finding the most suitable space in which to read, or developing ways to remember unfamiliar vocabulary words, or improving one's grip on a pencil. When studying is less burdensome, we're more likely to do it.

Character-social-emotional competencies: Everyone, no matter how virtuous or socially and emotionally skilled, can be kinder, more responsible, more appreciative, more empathic, and more solution focused. As more and more schools adopt social and emotional learning competencies and character virtues, students will benefit from learning to improve in these aspects of their lives.

Physical health: As a complement to what is learned in health classes, students can set goals around fitness, nutrition, and healthy habits. By learning self-management as a part of health education, students will come to understand that improving their health is an ongoing responsibility, as is helping others become healthier.

Community member: What better way for students to understand that they can and should be positive assets to their community than to have them participate in that community? In preschool, all children have jobs and understand, at their level, that the class needs and benefits from them learning to do those jobs, doing them well, and helping their classmates become better at their jobs. After all, if the cups are not put out right-side up and flat, the juice pourer will not do his or her job very well.

Sometimes these important lessons are lost in secondary education. All students, preschool to 12th grade, need opportunities to develop at being good citizens-in the classroom, in extracurricular programs, on teams and in performance groups, and in their communities.

The improvement plan worksheets are meant to be modified so as to meet needs specific to different groups of students. They can and should be tailored to students' developmental levels and current status in each of the four areas. There is little point in setting objectives that are clearly beyond a student's capacity. The point is to set up a process and mindset of gradual improvement and self-efficacy, as well as to promote an attitude of helping classmates and colleagues as a way of making them, and ourselves, better. And this applies to the adults in a school as well as students.

While the examples provided are geared toward students, every aspect of the process applies to staff members (and parents and caregivers). There's no better way to encourage improvement in young people than the visible modeling of improvement strategies by adults.

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Guiding students to create an ongoing cycle of growth in self-regulation starts with having them set explicit goals for themselves.

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Changing our perspective can bring a paradigm shift.

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Greetings,I was browsing the internet ,searching for something interesting to read .I realized that this article is significantly interesting.Almost each one of us finds it hard to have time .After reading this article I realized that time management is a skill which we all should develop in this fast paced life.This article will help you to balance between your work,family ,hobby,recreation and what not.Go ahead,read it to have a well managed life
https://www.jacr.org/article/S1546-1440(08)00581-4/fulltext

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Journal of the American College of Radiology

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Realistic time management and organization plans can improve productivity and the
quality of life. However, these skills can be difficult to develop and maintain. The
key elements of time management are goals, organization, delegation, and relaxation.
The author addresses each of these components and provides suggestions for successful
time management.

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The suicide by the CCD founder talks of economic slowdown, liquidity crunch, but what about the precipitating factors of suicide. Is suicide the culmination of unrecognized, unaddressed stress? Is it a matter of bad choices, unrealistic goals in life?  What stops us from taking help for our mental health in such times of crisis?

Dear friends this article has led me to read more on the relationship between financial health and mental health. See what aspect of mental health is triggered when you read about VG Siddhartha’s final struggle.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/business-news/death-of-cafe-coffee-day-founder-reveals-strain-of-india-s-cash-crunch/story-E1Qthr6yXm5rxHNLR3oSXP.html

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Review
Success is a relative term. According to me, it is ones passion sprinkled with the spice of self-motivation and perseverance that accentuates the chances of being successful in life. Also, the level of success and satisfaction one derives from it in itself is a debatable term. It varies from individual to individual.
Saying that, I am not opposed to either of the specialist or generalist approach. Only that, following a unidirectional path does not ensure that the goals one sets for oneself can be achieved faster than those who have the genaralist approach.
In today's context, where innumerable opportunities are available, one is free to experiment and experience before taking a final call or even succeed in multiple avenues. Why can't we be master of  many and be jack of some? Why not? Life follows no pattern and there no age to innovate and follow what you aspire for. So friends...be unpredictable and explore and expand.

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It was an interesting read indeed. I completely agree to the author’s closing statement ‘The future does not belong to the generalist or the specialist. It belongs to the curious mind’. The mind which is eager to learn more, gains more.Knowledge and its application are the fundamentals of success. They go hand in hand.They are incomplete without each other. Not only that if the efforts are genuine combined with determination, success is certain. Let me quote a dialogue from Three idiots which states ‘don’t go for success, go for excellence’”Qaabil bano ,kaamyaabi jhak maar kar peeche aayegi”.

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As you butter your bread everyday... Hope you paid attention to the Cute Amul Girl :)
Here is her story... Utterly Butterly Delicious !

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In a world which is rapidly changing, it is imperative that we have an exposure to a variety of experiences. As Abhijit puts it, "Several problems need an interdisciplinary perspective", a prerequisite to ensure we emerge as problem-solvers and take the future head-on.      While reading the examples cited in the above article, I would say, keep a 'Generalist' approach for a lifetime, even if you find your true calling !

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In a world which is rapidly changing, it is imperative that we have an exposure to a variety of experiences. As Abhijit puts it, "Several problems need an interdisciplinary perspective", a prerequisite to ensure we emerge as problem-solvers and take the future head-on.      While reading the examples cited in the above article, I would say, keep a 'Generalist' approach for a lifetime, even if you find your true calling !

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Sushmita

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The amazing world of Cartoons! -Lessons from Calvin and Hobbes

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Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes has got to be one of the best comic strips of all time. The storyboard follows 6 year old boy named Calvin and his best friend Hobbes the tiger. Since 1985, the duo has graced us with their epic pranks, witty banters and unadulterated wisdom.

The list below highlights 10 times Calvin and Hobbes taught us profound life lessons that make total sense after growing up. Check them out!

1. Sometimes life is just not fair.

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10 Calvin & Hobbes Lessons You Can Relate More To As An Adult

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Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes has got to be one of the best comic strips of all time. The storyboard follows 6 year old boy named Calvin and his best friend Hobbes the tiger. Since 1985, the duo has graced us with their epic pranks, witty banters and unadulterated wisdom.

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Reading your article, was reminded about mankind's eternal quest for happiness. What a pragmatic approach in pursuit of the most elusive of things! That "Happiness is cultivated" and "it involves unlearning as much as learning". Profound!😊 

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Reading your article, was reminded about mankind's eternal quest for happiness. What a pragmatic approach in pursuit of the most elusive of things! That "Happiness is cultivated" and "it involves unlearning as much as learning". Profound!😊 

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Hi Anjana, your article made me recall my academic and professional journey. I always carried contrasting interests in my life and used to think a lot, whether is it normal or am I heading towards nothing or something unknown, is it okay to get a second prize in painting and third in drama or should I focus on polishing just one to get a first prize?
I kept on wondering but could/did not give upon exploring my varied interests till I encountered the phrase "being multidimensional". I then established the thought that it is alright to wander multidirectional because it enriches you with multidimensional approach/perspective towards any idea. Very much relatable!

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Hi ma'am, the article requires downloading because of being in pdf

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Better late than never! Finally joined the bandwagon and can't wait to read all the articles posted by the ERD family.

As teachers, we face many challenges, and one of them is how to be effective in the classroom. This article takes us back to basics and emphasises the need for well prepared planning before a lesson. Its very simple to read and comprehend. Awaiting your ideas and comments.
Happy Reading.

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Brain training games...do they really help?
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322648.php

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All dreams come true, if we have the courage to pursue them. Self belief and hard work always helps in achieving our goals.  Achievements without hard work are impossible. Constant vigilance and preparedness to work is the price we have to pay for success in life. There are few people who start early and prosper in life.  Whether one sets goals early or late those who toll are eventually rewarded in life. God has gifted us with brain, which should be continuously exercised. The future as they say belongs to the curious mind.

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All dreams come true, if we have the courage to pursue them. Self belief and hard work always helps in achieving our goals.  Achievements without hard work are impossible. Constant vigilance and preparedness to work is the price we have to pay for success in life. There are few people who start early and prosper in life.  Whether one sets goals early or late those who toll are eventually rewarded in life. God has gifted us with brain, which should be continuously exercised. The future as they say belongs to the curious mind.

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Everyday experiences affect the cognitive development in a greater way than playing games or using apps. By limiting distractions and interruptions while performing a task improves our focus and attention span.  Observing the environment sparks our curiosity. Interaction, problem solving are few other means which enhance the cognitive development, as it is all about learning.

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Everyday experiences affect the cognitive development in a greater way than playing games or using apps. By limiting distractions and interruptions while performing a task improves our focus and attention span.  Observing the environment sparks our curiosity. Interaction, problem solving are few other means which enhance the cognitive development, as it is all about learning.

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While understanding that ‘happiness can be cultivated’, I was first trying to comprehend what happiness is.

Some say Happiness is an art, some say it’s a science. It won’t be an exaggeration if I say that happiness shows the most diverse range of definitions, and needless to say that every individual has a different one for her/himself.

To quench the thirst of obtaining happiness, ways and means also project a wide range. Courses have been introduced in some states’ curricula to increase the happiness quotient in classes. A National Board is trying to bring in happiness in classrooms through happy teachers thus trying to bring out some programs to make them happy.

But this information does not suffice the prerequisites for its comprehension and necessity.

Does degree of happiness also vary?

A Paradigm shift has taken place in its measurement methods. A research paper by Sissela Bok mentions that some researches have been done by scanning brain images to see changes in brain during happiness which mentions hormonal changes during that state.

Another perspective is, according to Biology’s general principles, any hormonal change is marked by change in body’s physiology which is bound to come back to normal, which communicates that it is just a state and by homeostasis, the body will revert back.

That makes me question myself again, is it a feeling or a state of mind (which could only be temporary and not permanent)? Also, is it dynamic or static?

If put in biological terms, continuous exposure to the same stimulus which gives happiness may gradually reduce the intensity with which the happiness is felt.

Is it driven by any external stimulus?

WISDOM; can it overpower happiness? Can it contribute to my experiential learning towards building inner peace?

Can I replace the word happiness with peace to show its absoluteness?????

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Although I am the very last one to contribute from my end to this journey of collaborative growth...I feel it would be more of just the same as others before me who have posted already. I wouldn't keep any of you too long as you go through this piece. The key graf is ...Diversity adds a positive stimulus to a successful environment.

P.S. I am already making all of us smarter in our ERD khandaan by bringing the gender diversity.

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(Editor's note (1/30/17): In response to President Donald Trump's immigration order to close U.S. borders to refugees and visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries, which has impacted scientists and students, we are republishing the following article from our 2014 special report on how diversity powers science and innovation.)
The first thing to acknowledge about diversity is that it can be difficult. In the U.S., where the dialogue of inclusion is relatively advanced, even the mention of the word "diversity" can lead to anxiety and conflict. Supreme Court justices disagree on the virtues of diversity and the means for achieving it. Corporations spend billions of dollars to attract and manage diversity both internally and externally, yet they still face discrimination lawsuits, and the leadership ranks of the business world remain predominantly white and male.

It is reasonable to ask what good diversity does us. Diversity of expertise confers benefits that are obvious-you would not think of building a new car without engineers, designers and quality-control experts-but what about social diversity? What good comes from diversity of race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation? Research has shown that social diversity in a group can cause discomfort, rougher interactions, a lack of trust, greater perceived interpersonal conflict, lower communication, less cohesion, more concern about disrespect, and other problems. So what is the upside?

The fact is that if you want to build teams or organizations capable of innovating, you need diversity. Diversity enhances creativity. It encourages the search for novel information and perspectives, leading to better decision making and problem solving. Diversity can improve the bottom line of companies and lead to unfettered discoveries and breakthrough innovations. Even simply being exposed to diversity can change the way you think. This is not just wishful thinking: it is the conclusion I draw from decades of research from organizational scientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists and demographers.

Information and Innovation

The key to understanding the positive influence of diversity is the concept of informational diversity. When people are brought together to solve problems in groups, they bring different information, opinions and perspectives. This makes obvious sense when we talk about diversity of disciplinary backgrounds-think again of the interdisciplinary team building a car. The same logic applies to social diversity. People who are different from one another in race, gender and other dimensions bring unique information and experiences to bear on the task at hand. A male and a female engineer might have perspectives as different from one another as an engineer and a physicist-and that is a good thing.

Research on large, innovative organizations has shown repeatedly that this is the case. For example, business professors Cristian Deszö of the University of Maryland and David Ross of Columbia University studied the effect of gender diversity on the top firms in Standard & Poor's Composite 1500 list, a group designed to reflect the overall U.S. equity market. First, they examined the size and gender composition of firms' top management teams from 1992 through 2006. Then they looked at the financial performance of the firms. In their words, they found that, on average, "female representation in top management leads to an increase of $42 million in firm value." They also measured the firms' "innovation intensity" through the ratio of research and development expenses to assets. They found that companies that prioritized innovation saw greater financial gains when women were part of the top leadership ranks.

Racial diversity can deliver the same kinds of benefits. In a study conducted in 2003, Orlando Richard, a professor of management at the University of Texas at Dallas, and his colleagues surveyed executives at 177 national banks in the U.S., then put together a database comparing financial performance, racial diversity and the emphasis the bank presidents put on innovation. For innovation-focused banks, increases in racial diversity were clearly related to enhanced financial performance.

Evidence for the benefits of diversity can be found well beyond the U.S. In August 2012 a team of researchers at the Credit Suisse Research Institute issued a report in which they examined 2,360 companies globally from 2005 to 2011, looking for a relationship between gender diversity on corporate management boards and financial performance. Sure enough, the researchers found that companies with one or more women on the board delivered higher average returns on equity, lower gearing (that is, net debt to equity) and better average growth.

How Diversity Provokes Thought

Large data-set studies have an obvious limitation: they only show that diversity is correlated with better performance, not that it causes better performance. Research on racial diversity in small groups, however, makes it possible to draw some causal conclusions. Again, the findings are clear: for groups that value innovation and new ideas, diversity helps.

In 2006 Margaret Neale of Stanford University, Gregory Northcraft of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and I set out to examine the impact of racial diversity on small decision-making groups in an experiment where sharing information was a requirement for success. Our subjects were undergraduate students taking business courses at the University of Illinois. We put together three-person groups-some consisting of all white members, others with two whites and one nonwhite member-and had them perform a murder mystery exercise. We made sure that all group members shared a common set of information, but we also gave each member important clues that only he or she knew. To find out who committed the murder, the group members would have to share all the information they collectively possessed during discussion. The groups with racial diversity significantly outperformed the groups with no racial diversity. Being with similar others leads us to think we all hold the same information and share the same perspective. This perspective, which stopped the all-white groups from effectively processing the information, is what hinders creativity and innovation.

Other researchers have found similar results. In 2004 Anthony Lising Antonio, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, collaborated with five colleagues from the University of California, Los Angeles, and other institutions to examine the influence of racial and opinion composition in small group discussions. More than 350 students from three universities participated in the study. Group members were asked to discuss a prevailing social issue (either child labor practices or the death penalty) for 15 minutes. The researchers wrote dissenting opinions and had both black and white members deliver them to their groups. When a black person presented a dissenting perspective to a group of whites, the perspective was perceived as more novel and led to broader thinking and consideration of alternatives than when a white person introduced that same dissenting perspective. The lesson: when we hear dissent from someone who is different from us, it provokes more thought than when it comes from someone who looks like us.

This effect is not limited to race. For example, last year professors of management Denise Lewin Loyd of the University of Illinois, Cynthia Wang of Oklahoma State University, Robert B. Lount, Jr., of Ohio State University and I asked 186 people whether they identified as a Democrat or a Republican, then had them read a murder mystery and decide who they thought committed the crime. Next, we asked the subjects to prepare for a meeting with another group member by writing an essay communicating their perspective. More important, in all cases, we told the participants that their partner disagreed with their opinion but that they would need to come to an agreement with the other person. Everyone was told to prepare to convince their meeting partner to come around to their side; half of the subjects, however, were told to prepare to make their case to a member of the opposing political party, and half were told to make their case to a member of their own party.

The result: Democrats who were told that a fellow Democrat disagreed with them prepared less well for the discussion than Democrats who were told that a Republican disagreed with them. Republicans showed the same pattern. When disagreement comes from a socially different person, we are prompted to work harder. Diversity jolts us into cognitive action in ways that homogeneity simply does not.

For this reason, diversity appears to lead to higher-quality scientific research. This year Richard Freeman, an economics professor at Harvard University and director of the Science and Engineering Workforce Project at the National Bureau of Economic Research, along with Wei Huang, a Harvard economics Ph.D. candidate, examined the ethnic identity of the authors of 1.5 million scientific papers written between 1985 and 2008 using Thomson Reuters's Web of Science, a comprehensive database of published research. They found that papers written by diverse groups receive more citations and have higher impact factors than papers written by people from the same ethnic group. Moreover, they found that stronger papers were associated with a greater number of author addresses; geographical diversity, and a larger number of references, is a reflection of more intellectual diversity.

The Power of Anticipation

Diversity is not only about bringing different perspectives to the table. Simply adding social diversity to a group makes people believe that differences of perspective might exist among them and that belief makes people change their behavior.

Members of a homogeneous group rest somewhat assured that they will agree with one another; that they will understand one another's perspectives and beliefs; that they will be able to easily come to a consensus. But when members of a group notice that they are socially different from one another, they change their expectations. They anticipate differences of opinion and perspective. They assume they will need to work harder to come to a consensus. This logic helps to explain both the upside and the downside of social diversity: people work harder in diverse environments both cognitively and socially. They might not like it, but the hard work can lead to better outcomes.

In a 2006 study of jury decision making, social psychologist Samuel Sommers of Tufts University found that racially diverse groups exchanged a wider range of information during deliberation about a sexual assault case than all-white groups did. In collaboration with judges and jury administrators in a Michigan courtroom, Sommers conducted mock jury trials with a group of real selected jurors. Although the participants knew the mock jury was a court-sponsored experiment, they did not know that the true purpose of the research was to study the impact of racial diversity on jury decision making.

Sommers composed the six-person juries with either all white jurors or four white and two black jurors. As you might expect, the diverse juries were better at considering case facts, made fewer errors recalling relevant information and displayed a greater openness to discussing the role of race in the case. These improvements did not necessarily happen because the black jurors brought new information to the group-they happened because white jurors changed their behavior in the presence of the black jurors. In the presence of diversity, they were more diligent and open-minded.

Group Exercise

Consider the following scenario: You are writing up a section of a paper for presentation at an upcoming conference. You are anticipating some disagreement and potential difficulty communicating because your collaborator is American and you are Chinese. Because of one social distinction, you may focus on other differences between yourself and that person, such as her or his culture, upbringing and experiences-differences that you would not expect from another Chinese collaborator. How do you prepare for the meeting? In all likelihood, you will work harder on explaining your rationale and anticipating alternatives than you would have otherwise.

This is how diversity works: by promoting hard work and creativity; by encouraging the consideration of alternatives even before any interpersonal interaction takes place. The pain associated with diversity can be thought of as the pain of exercise. You have to push yourself to grow your muscles. The pain, as the old saw goes, produces the gain. In just the same way, we need diversity-in teams, organizations and society as a whole-if we are to change, grow and innovate.

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(Editor's note (1/30/17): In response to President Donald Trump's immigration order to close U.S. borders to refugees and visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries, which has impacted scientists and students, we are republishing the following article from our 2014 special report on how diversity powers science and innovation.)

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Finally after years of being oppresses by a male dominated society, did women get the much awaited freedom. A long sought dream for many muslim women, hope for some to set things right. I'm happy at least some men realized this too. 

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Finally after years of being oppresses by a male dominated society, did women get the much awaited freedom. A long sought dream for many muslim women, hope for some to set things right. I'm happy at least some men realized this too. 

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I completely agree with the author when he says a good idea doesn't guarantee success. The second most important thing I feel is that there is no recipe which can guarantee success. I feel we should allow our children to experiment, make mistakes and then make a choice.  

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I completely agree with the author when he says a good idea doesn't guarantee success. The second most important thing I feel is that there is no recipe which can guarantee success. I feel we should allow our children to experiment, make mistakes and then make a choice.  

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With due credit to Prof Manjul Bhargava, an American Canadian Mathematician, who is a game changer in the field of teaching of modern Mathematics, I would like to partially deviate from his perspective of Mathematics in India. His opinion is research based but my opinion is patriotism infused and thankfully, I have no restrictions in voicing my opinion on this platform of collaborative growth (as mentioned by Soham).

We belong to a country of Ramanujan, Aryabhatt, Bramagupta, Bhaskara and Dr Majul Bhargava himself who has roots in India. We are the discoverers/inventors of Astrology, Numerology and Vedic Maths. We are in no dearth of creating Magic in Maths and we had been doing it since time immemorial. I feel this is just a ‘pause’ which Dr Bhargava perceived to be an alarming situation and advocates to bring in cultural change to overcome this.

When Alex Bellos and BBC are discovering and understanding Indian Mathematics, we surely can tinker and reinvent ourselves.

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‘Correcting a historical wrong’ - truly a victory of gender justice and dignity, made 2019 a historic year in the life of biologically superior entity in our society who continued to be inferior for no cause. Such a relief.......

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‘Correcting a historical wrong’ - truly a victory of gender justice and dignity, made 2019 a historic year in the life of biologically superior entity in our society who continued to be inferior for no cause. Such a relief.......

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Diversity, resonates with viability…..

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One more reason to curb and combat climate change

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One more reason to curb and combat climate change

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Found an interesting video that accentuates the gravity of climate change concern for one and all in context of its debilitating impact on mental health of human beings.

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Britt Wray: How climate change affects your mental health

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"For all that's ever been said about climate change, we haven't heard nearly enough about the psychological impacts of living in a warming world," says science writer Britt Wray. In this quick talk, she explores how climate change is threatening our well-being -- mental, social and spiritual -- and offers a starting point for what we can do about it.

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How much of brain do we Use?......or rather understand we are using.

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How much of brain do we Use?......or rather understand we are using.

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https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-people-only-use-10-percent-of-their-brains/

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As all of us are in this quest to find what works best in our schools. I happened upon this article which goes into lot of details about what is conventionally believed to be true regarding teaching and learning. Yet, if one truly looks through the lens of research, there are key insights and who knows some long held beliefs could turn out to be nothing but myths.

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Here are eight key pieces of research that I've come across in the last few years, which have made me re-evaluate beliefs I've had about teaching and learning. I'll reflect on how below.

1. Student achievement
"Strongest evidence on student achievement = (pedagogical) content knowledge and quality of instruction."
I've returned to this report time and time again since 2014. I led an Inset session in April and asked staff to predict (before looking at the report) which of six teacher traits they expected would have the strongest evidence behind them for student achievement.

The room was divided. The results of this extensive study are as interesting as they are significant for professional development in schools.

2. Classroom decor
"Heavily decorated classrooms disrupt attention and learning in young children."
Prescribed knowledge told me that walls should be full to the brim with glossy shiny brilliance. But this study, and several later ones such as this research paper published in the December 2018 edition of the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, has made me question the impact of displays in classrooms. I never truly considered the distraction displays could cause to learners. I certainly do now.

3. Lesson content
"On average, around 50 per cent of content presented to students is known before it has been presented."
In how many lessons in my career have I presumed the students didn't know something? I'll hold my hands up and say: plenty.

Yes, sometimes I'll have dedicated time to diagnostic quizzing and questioning at the start of a unit or topic, but how often have I truly acted upon that for each student there?

Sometimes, I would simply forget to go through that fact-finding process with students. Being aware of this research has made me think again about how crucial establishing prior knowledge is and about how regularly I should do it.

4. Practice
"We rated practice testing and distributed practice as the two most effective strategies for raising student achievement."
I always saw the value of revisiting content with students at regular intervals, whether that be in consecutive lessons or "spaced" over weeks or a term or a year. Nevertheless, research studies like this one really bring home the message of how high the impact of "retrieval practice" and "spaced learning" is.

Yes, we can use new-fangled labels, but we are essentially talking about systems of reviewing learning with students so it's embedded into long-term memory - that's the ambition. Of course, that's easier said than done.

5. Cognitive load theory
"Cognitive load theory is a theory about learning built on the premise that, since the brain can only do so many things at once, we should be intentional about what we ask it to do."
This one has wide implications. Although I grasp the concept, the implications for the classroom and pedagogy are extensive. The Australian guidance document Cognitive load theory in practice gives an excellent summary of what it means for teachers, neatly summarised as:

Strategy 1: Tailor lessons according to students' existing knowledge and skills.
Strategy 2: Use lots of worked examples to teach students new content and skills.
Strategy 3: Gradually increase independent problem-solving as students become more proficient.
Strategy 4: Cut out inessential information.
Strategy 5: Present all essential information together.
Strategy 6: Simplify complex information by presenting it both orally and visually.

6. Written marking
"The quality of existing evidence focused specifically on written marking is low. This is surprising and concerning, bearing in mind the importance of feedback to pupils' progress and the time in a teacher's day taken up by marking."
Back in 2007, when I started my teacher training, if someone had said, "Let's stop marking so much and promote feedback (particularly verbal) as much as possible," they surely would have been scoffed at.

This would not have been because teachers didn't believe it: I think they've always known it. But Ofsted, the government and many senior figures in education truly believed the hype around quadruple written exchanges between teachers and students via green ink.

Since then, we've seen a shift, to the point now where many schools are fully embracing the "feedback not marking" agenda. The Education Endowment Foundation's highlighting of the gap in evidence for the impact of written marking has helped.

Teachers and students are seeing the benefits. Matt Pinkett, an English teacher, tweeted last week that he hadn't marked a book all year but students had achieved their best results. In my current teaching and learning role in school, I'm pushing the idea that it's always about the substance rather than the superficial. The evidence is in the learning.

Recently, I read an excellent case study from a secondary school in Walsall. Their marking and feedback policy was built around asking students two simple questions:

1. What are you doing well in this subject?

2. What do you need to do to improve in this subject?

If students could answer these two questions, in subject-specific detail, then they'd have benefited from effective feedback. Nowhere do they state anything about written comments.

7. Teacher talk
"The most effective teachers talked for considerably more of the lesson than less-effective teachers."
At the start of my career, it was common to hear things like: "Teachers shouldn't be talking for more than 10 per cent of any lesson." Barak Rosenshine's paper on the impact of effective instruction in class has really shone a light on such theories.

Mark Enser wrote last week for Tes about dispelling the myth that too much teacher talk is bad, by calling on the profession to focus on better teacher talk rather than less of it.

I echo this call. As I roll into my 13th year as a classroom teacher, I realise more and more that good explanations require time. Yes, I'm still a great believer that students need variety and structure, but I will no longer stop explaining something properly because it's "time for the plenary".

8. Behaviour management
"Behaviour is crucial: a student's behaviour is a much stronger predictor of future success than test scores. Teachers who helped students improve their behaviour were 10 times as effective at improving their students' final grades as teachers who focused on test scores."
For me, this report confirms what I've always believed: the behaviour of students within a school and classroom is more important to educational achievement than any pedagogical development.

Schools and individual teachers who intervene, challenge and focus on behaviour first will see students achieve higher in exams. Approaches to student behaviour can vary, but building a positive attitude, culture and ethos is surely key to major improvements in academic achievement.
Tom Rogers is a teacher who runs rogershistory.com and tweets @RogersHistory

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Eight key pieces of research for teachers

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There are a handful of research findings that have made Tom Rogers rethink his practice as a teacher. He presents them here