Motivation and Education

Is a teacher supposed to motivate students or should it be the reverse?

By the time one reaches college, I expect that the person should already be interested in the subject.

Motivation by a teacher can be for a student to go beyond what is expected.

Queries from students about the minimum to pass makes one wonder - why bother :)

Or perhaps it is time to accept that the existing system of education is broken.

The most common questions I had to deal with or raise in my professional work have been related to time. Why will it take so long? Why did it take so much time?

Time is the constraint. It would be good to move away from a common amount of work in a fixed time duration and differentiate on the basis of the quality of work in this duration period.

Hour long lectures are boring. It is even worse with video lectures.  A few of the videos I saw on https://www.ai-class.com/ were wonderfully correct length! Less than 2 minutes each.

What if we moved to a system where each student has to be 'certified' in a course, rather than just passing it. The courses need not even have lectures or may have just a few lectures compressed in a short time. The lectures need not be followed by exams.

At the end of 3 or 4 years, a student can be given a degree based on some minimum 'certification' requirements. Differentiation between students would be based on the number of courses in which a student is certified or the time period in which he or she achieved the goal.

Parking at Chandigarh Airport - Cont.

Well, I got a response to my complaint though it tells me nothing that I did not know!  I may be required to park in the parking lot but I found many people did not. Furthermore, given the 20 minutes it takes to exit from the parking lot, it makes no sense to park in the lot. Oh, well.

Dear Sir

Reference is invited to your complaint concerning the Parking irritation at Civil Air Terminal Chandigarh.
In this regard it is mentioned that 5 minutes free time is allowed for pick and drop of passengers as per the terms of Parking contract. If you wish to stay beyond the stipulated time you are required to park your vehicle in Car Parking area.

Regards-
Public Grievance Officer
Civil Air Terminal
Chandigarh

UPDATE: Hurray, I got another response on 21st March, 2012.

Considering in view the inconveniences while extricating from exit lane (from Car Parking area) as reported by few airport users, AAI Management have decided to explore possibilities for converting the exit lane (from Car Parking area) into lanes besides deployment of additional manpower so as to ensure fast movement of traffic and to curb such complaints, in future.

The misery of parking at Chandigarh Airport

It seemed silly to complain to myself on the blog; so I had been reluctant to write about the Chandigarh airport. Finally, today I got the idea of writing to the officer in charge of the Airport. If I get any response, I will acknowledge it. But meanwhile, it explains the predicament of parking at Chandigarh airport, which is a pretty small airport.

Dear Captain,

I got your email id from the Airports Authority web site. I wanted to
share my experiences of picking up people at the airport in the last
few months. For a small airport, it is an unforgettable experience.

On first occasion, it took 20 minutes to exit from the parking lot
after I had picked up my  sons.

On the second occasion, it took only 10 minutes to pay - but I was
late and had just entered the airport, picked up the passengers and
exited. It was hard to find a spot to stop without blocking traffic
and hard to extricated my car and get out. It took more than 5 minutes
and had to pay Rs. 25. The amount is peanuts but to pay for the
nuisance involved  I felt cheated.

On third occasion, it took 20 minutes to pay and exit.

My conclusion, it is better not to park - keep the car in the pick-up
area. I noticed people stopping their cars and just moving away. The
security officer was totally helpless.

Last year, I paid on entering the parking lot and exited reasonably
quickly. The current system is flawed as everyone wants to exit as
soon as the flight arrives. It seems to be helping only the contractor
of the parking lot.


Regards, ...

Unconsoled - Experiencing what one is reading

While in the hospital, I was reading a section where the narrator in Unconsoled gets angrier over trivia - mainly because it somehow reminds him of the past and the same thing happened to me. I wonder if it was the impact of the novel or a coincidence.

I lost my temper over nothing and it was an unpleasant surprise/experience for me. It had more to do with some vague irritation from a past experience or an anxiety about a future possibility.

Need to take up yoga to stay calm :)

Unconsoled - Strange but very powerful

Kazuo Ishiguro's Unconsoled is probably the strangest book I have ever read. It was a remarkable experience. The impact of reading this book was similar to having a very vivid dream. I wake up and the dream is ridiculous and absurd. However, the emotional experience of the dream is profound and lingers.

This reading of a short story by Ishiguro can give a reasonable idea of the strangeness of the novel:
http://huffduffer.com/Clampants/53964

The impact of the book may have been greater as the environment in which I read it was abnormal. One of the threads of the book is the expectation of parents and children from each other. Here I was in a hospital room near my mother, who had had a severe stroke and was in a semi-conscious state. And I was frequently interrupting my reading, waiting and looking for little signs of recovery.

Complexity issue? - Deadlock at a crossroads.

I made the mistake of showing a little courtesy to the car which had taken half a turn to complete it. This would have cleared my lane so I would not have to abruptly risk switching lanes to go around that car.

Another car noticed that I had stopped and rushed to take the empty space. Now, no one could move at the crossroads - each car was being blocked by another!

For once, I was calm and amused. It was my passenger who got very upset. Anyway, a minute or more later, a police man came around. Forced the idiot to back up and cleared my lane. I am surprised at how often such deadlocks occur - can't people reason about the implications of their actions? Is it that complex?

If the turning is so bad, I would have just taken a left and taken a U-turn around a large circle. It might have added a kilometer to the distance but should have been faster. Is the cost of driving one kilometer so high that few seem to do it?

Discourteous, Callous or Just Simply Stupid

I have been trying hard to ignore minor irritants in India. With so many people, perhaps, such irritants are inevitable. However, it pained me when my mother was to be taken to her room on the 6th floor of the hospital in a stretcher. It was visiting hours and the visitors rushed into to the elevator. The attendants had to request and push them to make space for my mother.

Aside from the sheer discourtesy shown to an ill patient in a hospital, I was particularly bugged by a group of people who had rushed in first. They had to go to the first floor and pushed their way out. They were younger than me and healthy - so why on earth did they insist on using the elevator.