Bell the ‘Bell’

Recently I was reading a book about an Airbus 320 landing in the Hudson River. As a bird hit it, the plane lost both its engines and the pilot had to fly the plane like a glider. He had to break a few standard protocols. And he even communicated the wrong plane number back to the control tower! And during those critical seconds, while the pilot followed his instincts that came from his experience, the person at the control tower supported him by not asking too many questions as per protocol and not trying to give him more procedural insights! Though the control room offered him a few runways to land, the pilot chose to follow his instincts and glide a billion dollar plane into the Hudson River!

I believe that every experience and learning we go through will have a residual effect on our next experience and the learning we have. There is rarely something we can call a ‘new experience’. Think about what actually happens in a vast majority of instances that you go through - the way you feel about it, the way you respond or react to it and the learning you ultimately take home. How many times is it really about a brand new experience? I believe that in almost every other case, it would be an amalgamation of the experiences you already had. And I believe this is exactly what Steve Jobs talked about while he spoke to those Stanford Graduates about ‘Connecting the Dots’.

In the book I referred to earlier, Sully talks about how his experience as an Air Force Pilot and, more importantly, his earlier experiments in trying to fly these commercial planes in the most optimal manner helped him glide the Airbus without either of its engines working. He also refers to another incident where the luggage door of the plane blasted out and a few seats on top caved sucking in some passengers into the Pacific Ocean. The incident led to debris hitting the engines and causing a fire. Here again that pilot chose not to follow standard procedure of turning on the engine fire switch on because he knew that he would lose two hydraulic systems by doing so. And his instincts told him that he would need those working in order to be able to manoeuvre the plane to the next air strip. He instead chose to turn off fuel. His decision saved the lives of the entire passengers who were left in their seats after the caving in incident!

I personally believe that Life is not always about standard operating procedures. It’s not bad to have them so as to put in a structure when you are dealing with lots of people, but breaking them and following your instincts when the situation so demands, is not a bad thing either.

But as parents we do not want our children to go through the experiences we went through as a child. We believe that we should give them all the possible protection and care and not let them go through any experience that we now perceive as ‘difficult’. What we easily forget here is that these particular experiences have played a major role in making us who we are today. It is these experiences that made us more mature and stronger to face whatever life throws at you. Just take a moment and imagine how you would feel, react and get over the things you face in everyday life, if it was not for those ‘difficult‘experiences! Now the billion dollar question is whether you have the guts to let you child fight her own fights alone and build her own share of experiences that can be useful in her future life?

I’ve had a father telling me that his son brings home and plays on a mobile that the father has not bought for the child. The father is scared to ask his child about this. What if he responds badly and does something nasty?  He wants the school to question his child and sort things out. Another parent does not want a teacher to ask his son questions in the class. What if he can’t answer and feels bad?

On the other hand as teachers we do not want to take the risk of correcting our students. What if they and their parents react in an unexpected manner? What if things spiral out of control? What if the media and the various commissions target you without even trying to figure out the truth? The other day a teacher was scared to ask her students to bring a scissor so that they could do a craft work in class. What if someone is careless and gets hurt? What if she is blamed? Another day someone was scared to question a girl who was blatantly copying during the exams. What if she jumps from the school building for being caught copying?

And what really happens in all these ‘what if’s’ is that our children are losing quite a lot of opportunities to learn and experience things that would otherwise have had a positive residual effect on their further ‘real’ life experiences. And ultimately when they move on into these experiences, out of the safety zones created by their parents and far away from the “what if’s” of their teachers, they are confused about what they face. Quite a lot of them end up depressed, committing suicide or as drastic failures.

This reminds me of a line I read somewhere on someone’s social media handle

What if I fall? Oh but my darling, what if you fly!

Our education system has systematically weeded out every opportunity and experience that our children can get to think, ask and create as they might wish to. From all the things they could think for an ‘A’, we have taught them to ‘say’ Apple. And for every opportunity the child gets to fail and fall and feel hurt, we fence him off and make him believe that life is fair! For every opportunity that he might get to feel inspired and be creative, we ring a bell and push him on into another subject!

This school bell and I have been enemies for quite some years now! And I believe it is high time we break the glass ceiling and move beyond these bells that we all know were invented due to the requirements of the Industrial era. Today, I think these very bells play a role in constraining our teacher to think beyond and do more. It pins down our children to focus on bits and pieces and mostly not be able to see the whole picture.

It is appalling that even when we have reached a stage where we are forced to talk about art integrated education and the dire need for bringing creativity, critical thinking and other basic skills into the class rooms, we are still unwilling to undo the basic evils that hinder us to think and do beyond those 40 minutes!

Now you might ask me, how do you ensure our children get an equal share of everything. My question to you is - who told you that they need to!

Life is not as simple as a bell. It does not come with standard operating procedures and the experiences it throws at you do not come in episodes. So unless your education is teaching you to face your real life, why go through all this? Because you believe you need a share of everything? Oh Dear! Have you ever seen life play safe? Giving equal shares of everything to everyone? You need to know what to do and where to be. You need to know what to say and what to ask. And more importantly you need to know what not to do, where not to be, what not to say, and what not to ask! And to be able to do all that in those few seconds that might be ‘that’ moment of your life, you need to have in your baggage a large asset of accumulated experiences.

I recently read of a new bell system being introduced in some schools. They call it the Water Bell. And what does it do? It tells students to drink water when this bell rings! Great idea right? Many parents would be happy that their child’s water bottles are coming home empty. Teachers would be happy that no parent can complain that they are not doing enough to make their children drink enough water. And the child who follows the bell rule would end up not feeling dehydrated. They would be free of urinary infections that are mostly a side effect of not having enough water. So a Win-Win-Win situation!

But I have a small question. What about the experience of a child asking a teacher to be permitted to go out and drink some water when he feels thirsty. And some teachers letting them go and some denying permission. What about the experience of sometimes hearing a ‘No’. If you really don’t want to go through the trouble to repeatedly tell your child about how important it is to be able to ask and drink water whenever they are thirsty and probably scold them when they come back from school with a full bottle, I believe you are denying them an experience that could aggregate into something bigger and better to be used at a later stage in life. Now if you want to choose the easier way of ‘teaching’ them to drink water at the ring of a bell, well God be with you on Saturdays and Sundays!

And more importantly, what kind of conditioning are you putting the child through by doing so? And what will be the butterfly effect of this on his behaviour, thinking and response instincts? You might tell me that you can’t have a scientific study done before implementing such things. What I tell you is that, you really don’t have to implement such things in the first place. So why even bother about the study!

I remember a story I heard about Classical Conditioning. If you Google that word I’m sure you will get what I am referring to. All I’m trying to say is that don’t teach your child that life is as easy as - a bell rings and you get to drink water! Life is harsh. Life is not always fair. Life is sometimes difficult and unforgiving. And unless you learn to follow your instincts and ask, do and say the right things at the right time, ‘your’ moment will just pass by and you will be the only person who will stand at loss.

I do know for a fact that many, especially girls, avoid drinking water because they don’t want to use the toilets. I’m not sure about the condition of toilets in all schools. And I won’t boast here about mine either. I know that we might have issues. But I don’t mind taking anyone into our toilets at any point of time.

As parents it is our responsibility to ensure the schools give clean toilet facilities to their kids. Sitting at home and cursing the school will not help. Life is just not that easy! Get out there and get your hands dirty. Talk to schools about your issues and listen to them when they tell you theirs.

There are some children who put bubble gum and toffee covers into the urinals. Some write on the walls. We repeatedly tell them to be responsible. And for the writing issue, I raised the wall tile height to touch the ceiling. Guess what they do now! They use permanent markers!

So Parents, give the School time to make the changes. Meanwhile teach your kids to be responsible. Teach them to ask questions. Teach them to demand change. And in the process, there is no point in finding blame with things like the bell not ringing or the toilets not being clean. Life is like that. And ‘life’ is what they need to learn!

Life doesn’t give you water at the ring of a bell. Nor does it turn good, like a filter on your Instagram. Don’t teach them to follow bells. Teach them to follow their instincts, their dreams, their beliefs. Teach them to grow wings and fly on their own. Teach them that it is OK to face rejection. It is OK to fall. It is OK if someone says ‘No’. Teach them to aggregate their learning experiences and teach them to go out there and try. And most importantly teach them that once they gain the experience, it is OK to follow their instincts rather than follow the SOPs. Teach them to stand their ground. And take responsibility for what they choose to do or not do.

Always remember, if Sully had focused on the operating procedures, today I’d probably be telling you the story of just another airplane crash!