Train the Brain before you Buy the Audi
I happened to attend a promotional event at a private primary school today in my colony. The school invited all the kids from 4 years to 12 years to participate in the event where some games were organized. I also reached the venue with my 6-year-old son. The first game in which children were participating was musical chair. A teacher explained the rules of the game according to which music will be played while all the participants will move around the chairs. The number of chairs will be one less than the number of participants. The music will be stopped suddenly by a teacher who was blindfolded, and all the participants would try to sit in any chair that they could. Thus, every time music stops, one participant would be out of the game. And finally, there will be a winner.
As the game begun I started observing the behavior of the kids that were getting outed after every round of the game. I found them getting disappointed. The disappointment was natural as everyone wants to win. As participants were getting outed of the game, I asked questions to each of them, “Why did you get outed?” “What should have you done to remain in the game.” “Why others are still in the game?”
After the game was over I reached among all the kids present there and probed them on the factors, attributes, and actions that caused the win of the winners and defeat for the not-winners.
After the first game was over, another game was played. This game was almost like the first game except that there were chairs equal to the participants and under every chair there was a paper slip with a name of the cartoon character. Another teacher had a box contained with the paper slips with the names of the cartoon characters that matched with the names written on the paper slips under the chairs of the participants.
This time also music started playing. Participants started moving around the chair. Music stopped, and participants hurried tried to sit in the chair that they could. Since, there were enough chairs for each participant to sit and the teacher also repeatedly announced and guided the participants not to hurry, still all the participants hurried, one broke the rule also. After this the teacher asked a spectator to pick any one paper slip, read the name of the cartoon character, find out the chair under which the paper slip with the same cartoon character is kept and asked the participant sitting in the chair to get out of the game. I was reading the face of every participant that was ousted. I reached to her/him and asked, “What caused your ouster?”