Basic 16 attributes that are important for life education
Perception
To learn conceptualization
The human brain’s capacity for abstract thought helps us mould reality in useful ways. An apple is real, it can be seen; the Earth’s gravitational force can be felt; but the explanation of gravity is abstract. For complex tasks, we need to understand abstract concepts. This requires us to train our perception.
Curiosity
Exercises built around inquisitiveness
Curiosity is the quality to explore, investigate and figure out. All human development depends on it. It’s what drives learning, knowledge and skill. It is an emotional reflex that responds to conditioning. These games are designed to promote curiosity, to acquire the comfort with the unknown that’s essential to thinking afresh.
Personality
Focused around evolving a sense of self
For a person to make a valuable contribution requires independence of thought and action. An independent thinker doesn’t just demand space for himself/herself; he/she gives space to others for their personality. Such a person is more confident; less likely to feel insecure in the face of criticism and failure, more likely to convert negative outcomes into positive learning.
Imagination
Activities to ignite it
Everything civilised - a skyscraper, a culinary dish, a software program—begin as ideas imagined by people. Each baby is born with a fertile imagination. It needs nurture. Instead, regimented schooling nullifies our children’s ability to be imaginative. We offer a series of games - that encourage children to imagine. To set the mind at ease with originality. To make a habit out of creativity.
​Patience
Exercises to help concentrate & apply ourselves
​Concentration is called a ‘soft skill’. In itself, it does not seem to hold much value. But it is critical to the working of other, ‘core’ skills. When the imagination or observation or ideation is not yielding results—as will happen to everybody—the person needs persistence and application. In an unfavourable situation, an impatient person is more likely to feel helpless, falling into an unproductive pattern, even being self-destructive. A calm person with concentration will hold his/her nerve. He or she will know how to find help, be resourceful. These games help children learn to be slow and steady to win the race.
Observation
Activities that help make sense of data
Anybody can see; Sherlock Holmes observes. This detective fiction trope is actually based on an important distinction. The seeing-observing difference is fundamental to learning. Seeing is merely absorbing information. Observation combines visuals with thought. It provides a certain mental acuity. To observe is to refer what the senses sense to a mental library, making useful meaning by identifying patterns. These games inculcate the habit of observation.
Ideation
Activities to match problems with thought
It is one thing to have ideas randomly. It’s quite another to think up an abstract idea that solves a material problem. Ideation is the habit of experimenting with the input from the senses and—playfully—match them with concepts and thoughts. People who acquire this habit of mix-and- match find it easier to think of novel solutions than those who are used to thinking along familiar lines. Ideation is fundamental to creativity and to transformation. It makes us friendly with problems to the point that they do not intimidate us, to the point we can think independently.
Sensorial Development
Activities about seeing the world
Concentration is called a ‘soft skill’. In itself, it does not seem to hold much value. But it is critical to the working of other, ‘core’ skills. When the imagination or observation or ideation is not yielding results—as will happen to everybody—the person needs persistence and application. In an unfavourable situation, an impatient person is more likely to feel helpless, falling into an unproductive pattern, even being self-destructive. A calm person with concentration will hold his/her nerve. He or she will know how to find help, be resourceful. These games help children learn to be slow and steady to win the race.
Emotional Intelligence
Activities that provide social adjustability
Intelligence sets us apart. Emotional intelligence unites us, making it possible to operate in large 3 groups with people who are different from ourselves. It also makes us more self-aware, recognizing our own emotional reactions that lie beyond rational thought. Individuals with high EQ (emotional quotient, different from IQ) are better at reading, understanding and empathizing with others. They
are capable of leadership, of getting things out of other people that even they do not know about themselves. These activities help children read others, communicate better, employ empathy.
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Expression
Exercises that facilitate articulation
We express ourselves in many ways. We sing, engineer, dance, sculpt, play sports...language is merely one form and a very recent one at that. Our expression has evolved over millions of years and we are primarily visual creatures. The articulation of our feelings and thoughts is the basis of society. An articulate person forms better relationships, more productive collaborations with a wide range of people in different countries and cultures. Expression is central to both social life and professional skills. These activities are designed to help your child express himself/herself better, communicate across multiple platforms.
Collaboration
Activities that teach teamwork
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced us to find new ways to collaborate because we cannot manage without working together. Collaboration requires several people to focus their energies and talents for a common task. This, in turn, requires leadership and direction. Because without that, interactions lack structure and cohesion. Good leaders have a way of encouraging their associates to introspect about their behaviour, directing their expression in a productive mode. These activities are designed to inculcate the sharing of resources for mutual benefit, to figure out common goals and work to achieve them.
Empathy
Group exercises for cooperation and collaboration
There’s a fine line between confidence and vanity. Just as we need our children to be confident, we want them to be considerate of others, appreciative of others and their confidence, too. Pomposity and ego-mania can be countered with empathy. These activities are performed in a group; they help 4 students appreciate differences of opinion, acquiring ease with those who differ from oneself. Creating art is an act of sharing and subjectivity. By definition, it invites people to abandon their isolation and meet others on common ground. Empathy extends this connectedness to other experiences; to opinions, reasons, joys and sorrows of other people.
Lateral Thinking
Activities that promote thinking differently
Some problems just need straightforward efforts to resolve. Others are different; they require thinking up a fundamentally novel approach, a restructuring of understanding the problem. This is lateral thinking—it can be learned, practiced and deployed. Just as mathematics has more than one way to resolve an equation. These activities as designed to provoke children into using indirect and creative reasoning to problem solving. Take the unobvious route. Adopt ideas that may not come from the familiar step-by-step method of logic.
Reasoning
Activities that help in logic and argumentation
Falsehoods can be very attractive. It is possible for the human mind to lose itself in lies because they are convenient or comfortable. Objectivity rescues us from getting lost in solipsism. It drives us to look for evidence to examine claims. It can help us face our own mistakes; it can also help us demonstrate to others how they might be mistaken. Besides teaching the skill of validating claims against proof, these games are designed to encourage the faculty of reasoning, the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of things. The faculty of argument—with ourselves, before we argue with others—is critical to problem solving.
Critical Thinking
Activities that inculcate the positive habit of criticism
Creativity thinking appears to be the opposite of critical thinking. One is about art and subjectivity, the other about criticism and objectivity. And yet a critical approach is part of the essential toolkit of creativity. It is a habit of productive and positive people; they seek the reactions of others, are open to criticism because it helps them cover something that they might have overlooked. At the same time, their critical thoughts are sought by others looking to widen the scope and intensity of their work. These games are designed to get children into the habit of critical appreciation, to feel the positive force of critical thinking.
Problem Solving
Activities designed around the question of answers
The art—and artisanship—of the possible! While lateral thinking is a habit, problem solving is a skill. It seems certain people are better at solving problems than others; they seem to have a taste for puzzles and are comfortable with problems that seem daunting. Yet it is a skill that can be learned through practice. This is the faculty to find new information and bring it to a given problem, restructuring the approach to its resolution. These games are intended to get children into the bodily 5 habit of solving puzzles like it’s their second nature.
