Changing your weaknesses to your Strengths – An inspiring lesson learnt from Hichki - What's your Tourette Syndrome?

Update: A Shorter version of this article is published at The Qrius Magazine

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. - Nelson Mandela

There is a famous quote floating in the social media - attributed to Albert Einstein that goes by “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid” - While the attribution is questionable, the message is very loud and clear. This quote highlights state of education in India and many parts of the world in an apt manner.

 I watched a Bollywood movie, "Hichki”, recently. Cinematic performances and brilliant portrayals aside, there were two profound thoughts that reminisced my mind about education. More importantly, are we doing the right things, personally, professionally and as world citizen? The movie is about the lead character with "Tourette's syndrome" a neurological disorder that causes a person with the syndrome to make noises that could be annoying to the person's watching their neighbors. To be honest, whilst growing up, long back, during one of the long journeys I had, I found it totally annoying to hear an older gentleman with continuous cough and decided to stand at a quieter place instead of a seated journey.

One of the key messages is passed by the lead character is how she is living with two characters. One - her normal self and second or - the person with the disability that she wants to avoid, as it is an item of concern, a tool of discriminatory action for others and something that can’t be corrected.

One of the brilliant dialogue that resonated well with me was. "I may have Tourette's in my speech, but not in my intellect!”. This is very true, if you take the key themes of the brilliant films such as "Dead Poets Society", "Goodwill hunting", "Finding Forrester", “Mona Lisa Smile”, “To Sir With Love”, "Taare Zameen Par" and hundreds of other inspiring themes, it's all about how you recognize the potential, give coaching to improvise to help people succeed. Another thing that comes to mind is how we enforce thoughts, values, beliefs and reasons to merge with one’s own Tourette's syndrome of mind. The challenge is that the mind, along with the growth in body weight, increases the weight of intellectual inability, garbage, and negative thoughts to gain prominence that results in various behaviours one emits.

All the great movies that focus on effective methods of teaching focus on one thing.  The individual needful stop. Some of the Nordic nations such as Denmark have no exam still the age of 14. What they focus on is the holistic development of creative confidence and individual capability development leveraging some of the concepts of the Montessori Method of education. Who is right is the traditional vehicles dating education system that focuses only on memory and ability to reproduce on the holistic system that I love people to think critically and developing a full-fledged human with a capability to solve issues creativity?

 Coming to the movie “Dead poet’s society” an iconic dialogue comes up – “Carpe Diem” – “Seize the day”. All it takes is for a “Good teacher” or a “Coach” to teach the children the right methods, approach and thinking mechanism to let their creative juices flow. All it takes is a good teacher or a principal to make the all-important decision that sets the context for innovation and growth and let the children “Carpe Diem”, day-in and day-out.

 What are the key takeaways for me from the movie “Hichki”?

 1)      Be supportive without giving differential treatment (positive or negative) - One may need to put in a bit of effort to make sure that people needing support due to a disability is given the due recognition, importance, information to understand better – without showing “special treatment”. Giving a level-playing-area where they can contribute equally matters a lot.

•  To this end, I want to highlight “Lemon Tree – premier” hotel in Hi-Tec City, Hyderabad where I stayed close to 15 days. This hotel has some of the best support staff who are a delight. They are hearing impaired but the cherubic smile they bring in every time, the energy and attention they give to the customer, the attention to details and care to make the experience (be it serving a food, checking in baggage or helping out with services) a far better one that a regularly abled staff I’ve seen in much bigger hotels.

2)      Build a Platform to grow, excel and succeed – The challenge of education most of the kids face in India is lack of access and missing a platform. If a right access, platform, right to education is given without a commercial mind-set but a success and growth mind-set, the number of brilliant students we get will be phenomenal. Not giving a platform may result in loss of talent, innovations and building of a brilliant legacy for future generations.

3)      Let the Children Challenge you. Good children follow instructions and orders that you give, based on your experiences, perspectives and directions on what you feel is best for them – in a command and control fashion. Great children challenge you, keep you on your toes, teach you to become more patient and help you to help them better. Take the challenge to make them better.

4)      Unlearn to learn more. Learn about the people you teach, coach. Learn about your teams. Understand their perspective. Understand what they come from. All of us have wardrobes. Some have huge wardrobe bigger than some of the retail outlets (smaller ones) with no use. Similar to the wardrobe, metaphorically we all carry baggage, values and beliefs as big as the wardrobe. Depending on the value we give to clothes in the wardrobe, which may not fit or suitable, the beliefs or thoughts one have may not be suitable. We need to unbox, unlearn and have minimal (or zero) baggage and be open to learning by unlearning and relearning. This is possible only when you get close to the audience or customer as they may differ across the board.

5)      Be Protective of your team. Everyone makes mistakes. As a leader of the pack or a teacher, coach or guide, you need to stand-up for the team. As the movie quote goes – “There are no bad students. Only bad teachers”. A teacher is a leader and the students get moulded based on how good or bad the teacher is. A good teacher helps you convert your strengths to super strengths and address your weaknesses

6)      Convert your weaknesses to your strength. Remember the quote about the “Solomon Island” ritual followed for tree felling - as espoused in “Taare Zameen Par”. Treating team members or your students fair and unequally is a very good trait. It is needed because every individual is unique and they have different needs, strengths and weaknesses.

• Take the case of Phil Jackson who coached at least 3 great basketball players to stardom – Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and Shaq O’Neill. If you take the example of Shaq, you have a brilliant story. NBA Hall of Famer, Shaq was known to be a very poor free throw shooter, albeit being a great center. He had an exceptional talent but was low on commitment due to his other interests such as rap music and movies. He was also trying hard to overcome his weakness of free throw shooting. Phil Jackson, a master coach, looked at this and asked him to improve his inside centre game and Shaq was a bit hesitant stating he was the best centre in the game and wanted to improve his free throws. Phil convinced him to focus on his strength and helped him become the Most Valuable Player in a years’ time. How many of us focus on our team, friends, family or kid’s strengths and not worry too much about the weakness? It is a supreme and remarkable athletic improvement if Usain Bolt can improve 9.8s in 100m to 9.6s that a normal person improves from 25s to 15s.

Conclusion

All of us have different types of Tourette’s we carry forward in our lives. For many folks, it is easier to find faults with others and expects others not to find fault with our own, especially when it is a visible fault. The goodness of humanity is the genuine, empathizing few who coach, guide and propel people to realize their full potential and deliver unbelievable results. From an education standpoint, it is very important for the academicians to really stand-up and deliver a 360-degree holistic development of children. What we sow now becomes the saving grace for tomorrow. It is good to move away from what has worked in the past to make it more relevant for current and future context. Towards this, a massive change in the education system is needed.

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing this. What is your take on this topic? Would love to hear your comments.

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