Brain, Human and Social development of Kids

Brain development is a continuous process and is superset of the academic development, learning ability, common sense, imagining, emotions, art, reasoning, analysis and problem solving.

Schools help only in the academic development of the brain but, all other parts of the brain develop over the time, the development of brain is based on practical experience, exposure and trainings.

The development of brain is fastest in first 7 years but then learning ability decreases as the age progress. At one stage it is very difficult to say whether a 35 yr old has more IQ than a 25 yr old.

All major selection entrance tests like CAT /GMAT / GRE etc are based on brain development and not pure academics. Even the IAS entrance exam is proposed to be on the same format.

In India, schools only help in academic development, but lag in the brain development.

With the current state of schools there is no focus on the IQ development / brain development or testing of the IQ levels.

Brain development and expected level of capabilities is studied under a special branch of psychology – Educational Psychology. In developed countries schools have educational psychologists associated.

I would like to explain the concept of the brain development here with a few examples:

Ace cricketer Sachin Tendulkar has not performed academically greatly but his brain is developed enough to analyze and judge the ball to select the shot in milliseconds. The developed brain has the analyzing and reasoning capability, applied to do different actions.

Another example is of brain development is presented in the movie “Taare Zameen Par” where the brain development of the central character, eight year old boy Ishaan Awasthi, played by Darsheel Safary is portrayed. The character ‘Ishaan Awasthi’ in the movie has high brain development and great power of imagination but limited ability to learn symbols.

This gap in the education system is helping some of these institutes mushroom

1) http://www.sipacademyindia.com/

2) http://brainobrain.com/Photo-gal.htm

3) http://www.buzanpune.com/index1.php

4) http://www.ucmasindia.com/

5) http://www.alohaindia.com/

6) http://www.maths-n-abacus.com/about_us.html

All these institutes have a model of franchise and parent involvement is still lacking. Also these are very much focused on mathematical ability of the kids.

There is clear gap for the parental involvement for brain development of the kids. There is no way to detect early issues in the child psyche and work with kids to improve the same. On 27^th Nov, the “Times of India” – “The Crest” section cover story was based on the lack of capability of schools / parents to detect the early signs in problem kids and deal with problem kids at any level. This inability is clearly due to the lack of school focus and capabilities for brain / human development of the kid. The parents are not well informed about the brain development pattern of their kids and have minimal or no knowledge about detecting early signs for the kid’s development.

This gap / need opens up a big opportunity for businesses.

Earning vs Making Money

At first look one will say there is hardly any difference between these two terms. However, I (or rather we) have realized that there is a stark difference between Earning Money and Making Money.

Well people might disagree with me but for the purpose of this blog I define these terms,

1) Earning Money: This is an act where an individual takes up an employment and gets fixed / variable money for his/her services. These services could be directly / indirectly engaging in business activities and /or engaging in non-business activities. People earning money are job seekers and they consume jobs created by people making money.

2) Making Money: People making money are self employed and contribute in job creation. They could be businessmen, freelancers and or any other professional who sells any product and or his/her services.

Now, lets consider the following professions and see under what scenarios they earn / make money.

Software Engineer (SE) works for a big IT firm and earns a monthly salary, so to earn money he will have to work year on year. One fine day this SE develops a product or decides to start his own company, works hard and builds this company, hire people to work for him. The product and services of his company go on even if he is not working intermittently but the salary earners work for him and make money for him.

A Taxi Driver could be a salaried employee then he earns a monthly wage or he works hard to build a fleet of taxis and hire other people to work as salaried people for him and make money for him.

The list is endless, Teacher, a Marketing Personnel, an HR Manager, Engineer or any other profession and one will realize no matter what profession s/he is in, s/he can either earn money or make money.

Earning money was way more easier than making money... trying to make money, hopefully will start doing so soon :-)

Customer Behaviour

“The customer is always right” – As a salesman you are moulded into the habit of not questioning the customer, rather sheepishly nodding in unison. The rebel in the salesman; you need to appreciate that he falls into the species of human beings, sometimes rises up.

India, a rising economy with quintessential Asian ethos and culture. Family and social bindings take centre stage in the list of priorities. There is no cost cutting when it comes to spending on children’s education, trying the best to make them adept to run the race of competition.

Along with regular schools, there is a huge presence of educators and education companies catering to the space of providing training to students in subjects such as mathematics, logical thinking, English etc. These companies, who are mostly in niche areas of skill building in young minds, have their roots to passionate individuals who want to contribute to the existing vacuum in school curriculum. Even as a distant observer one cannot be oblivious to the passion over pouring in their course-ware, teaching style or delivery model. A market already exists for these players and more often than not, money is neither a problem nor a deterrent for business continuity.

I have always been a big admirer of such offerings and fully relate to their passionate contribution to the overall development of the budding next-gen. And I saw a lot of synergy between their contribution in this niche market segment and our technical offerings in the education space. And then is when I saw the difference.

Most, if not all, of these education companies were in a way contributors to “Learning 2.0”, the next phase of revolutionary wave sweeping the education space. However, they were unable to appreciate the contribution or need of technology and perceived it as an unnecessary spending.

“We don’t need this now, we want to take it forward but will it help,” most of these educators quipped as I met them. From Delhi to Chennai, the message was the same. As more of these meetings progressed, the rebel salesman wanted to walk out of line and show light to a bunch I perceived who needed to adopt technology – adopt it now!

­What was the problem?

As the rebel settled down and slowly but surely was giving way to reasonable sensitivity, I decided to look at the problem from a different angle. Here is what I realized:

1. A huge fraction of these educators were essentially teachers or from similar backgrounds to whom teaching using a chalk & blackboard came easy rather than typing on a keyboard. What I mean essentially is that came from non-technical backgrounds and could hardly perceive technology to be a facilitator.

2. Even if some were from technology backgrounds or tech-savvy, terms such as “Learning 2.0”, “Digital Content”, “Learning Management Systems” & “Cloud Computing” seemed to be alien, equivalent to forgotten Latin languages.

3. Their passion in delivering a “particular” courseware in a “certain” way made their thoughts restricted and wary of course structure essentials lost in the technology Broadway.

4. However, a pivotal reason that I noticed that deterred them from doing business with a technology company like us, let alone using technology – was the inexperience of working with IT service sector companies.

All summed up, there needs to be an approach customized for these players and moulded to be more of an educative one rather than an offering. And there is when, the reformer takes over the rebel and chooses a path unknown till now. So, the path is:

1. Behave as partners rather than vendors and do not infringe into their passionate space, the space considered sacred – the education content and structure.

2. Help them understand technology, if even it takes to stoop to very layman terms, so be it. More so, make them understand the IT services business model – use simple allures, such as how a carpenter renders his services.

3. Last but not the least, walk the talk. Behave as a consultant, partner and vendor to the customer.

And so, the journey begins..