PERSONAL SPECIAL.... 5 Ways to Learn Something New

5 Ways to Learn  Something New I was in a classroom full of 13 and 14 year olds last week. And you know what was the biggest challenge while teaching  the kids? Keeping them quiet. It's amazing the energy kids have to keep chatting and amusing  themselves.  Just as you turn to write on the board, they're already engrossed in animated conversations! I must salute all those who do this for a living. Teaching takes a lot of patience.  It's a non-stop challenge to keep kids engaged and ensure they're  learning. And nowadays with the experiential teaching practised, creating  a loose structure that enables play and imagination and combining  it with facts and fundamentals is quite a balancing act. But teaching is deeply satisfying. Every time you see a child get up and say something different or add their own little take to an answer or activity, you can take pride in knowing you've ignited their young minds.  For all the challenges of teaching, that is reward enough.  Later, at home, I found myself thinking about education and how  to help  people learn better and faster. Not just kids...but everyone.  Of course, learning depends largely on mindset and motivation.  But it's possible to learn 'how to learn'. I was considering various tools that help us engage better with life  and learning when I suddenly had a eureka moment.  And thought I must share it with you. Learning is a cyclical process. In my view, this process has five steps. Here's how they go: PARTICIPATE Have you attended seminars and seen how some people constantly  get up and ask questions while another lot simply listen and seldom participate? It's easy to sit back and watch. It's easy to be a passive learner and  let everyone else stand up and take cues from the speaker.  It's also easy to start daydreaming!  But when you decide to be alert and participate with enthusiasm,  you take your experience to a higher level and learn much more.  SHARE Sharing relates to participation, because when you participate,  you share a bit of yourself... you share your ideas, your views, your talents, your experiences, and sometimes you share a bit of yourself that had been long hidden. Hidden perhaps even from yourself. While I was doing my masters in English, a poetry competition was announced. I had never attempted poetry in my life before.  Now, poetry is extremely personal. It requires you to look deep within, experiment with those feelings, and give them a palpable shape and form. I was hesitant to share my feelings; I was also trying a new style of writing and didn't know how it would be received. But I gave it a shot. And do you know what happened? A week later I was announced the winner!  DISCOVER If I hadn't decided to share what I felt strongly about - which was the Gujarat earthquake in 2001 - I may not have discovered the poet in me. But that's what happens when you decide to participate and share: You make discoveries. And not just about yourself but about the world around you. Not all discoveries will be pleasant. Some, especially as we grow older, can cause disillusionment. We might even begin to believe ignorance is bliss. But it's not. Discovery leads to knowledge, and knowledge is a tool. The difference between progress and disillusionment is what we do with the tool.  APPLY The best discoveries have practical applications. They fill gaps and make things easier. I remember as a child I was excited to discover that mixing primary colours created other colours. Blue and yellow made green. Red and blue  made purple. Yellow and red made orange. After that discovery, whenever  I ran short of a colour, I'd simply mix and continue painting. Imagine if we didn't apply the knowledge of Newton's discovery of gravity. We may not have been confident enough to build and live in skyscrapers today. This is the power of the correct application of discovery!  EXPERIENCE Method actors are said to never break character during the few months of  a film shoot. This might require them to take on the physical traits of the character and grow a beard, fatten up a bit, don the necessary make up, or  perhaps even live in the place where the character lived. This is all to bring in them a greater understanding of the character and more realism in their acting. Learning is like that...it can be a transformational experience. If you practise what you've learned, apply it to your life, experiment with it as and when  necessary, then the learning will be complete. Firsthand experience is one of life's greatest teachers... Play the character you wish to be and play it to the hilt! My experience teaching kids helped me discover and articulate the cycle of learning. The more you dabble in life and its challenges, the more you will make discoveries. Some of them, like mixing primary colours, have the power to transform your life. Some, like discovering learning cycles, could transform the lives of others. And some, like Newton and gravity, will transform the world!  By Ritika Bajaj