Islamabad painted Autumn!

Natural beauty is normally associated with greenery and water, but nature knows how to play with Autumn colors and re-create the green scene. When natures paints Islamabad Autumn, the photographer in you wakes up! The shades and hues of Autumn create such a beautiful effect that everyone is bound to notice the scenic beauty.
A few captures follow

Nature's art beautifully shaping the branches of the tree

Its lovely walking on roads carpeted with dried leaves

The hues of Autumn on an otherwise green tree

The beauty of a tree does not die if it loses its greenery

Team work does it all!

Many thinkers and critics have lots to say about education and how the method and content of teaching be varied, as Pakistan stands as a suffering lot when it comes to education. From methods of teaching, to teacher training, to classroom environment, to evaluation policies to academic policies everything needs to be changed and revisited.

But the point here is although a small one but has a grave impact. ‘Teamwork’ is something that has tremendous effect on your personality, your ability to co-exist with different mindsets and beliefs. Team work is about recognizing and celebrating ‘diversity’. The diversity can be in thinking, behaviors, beliefs, perceptions, experiences, backgrounds, attitudes, opinions, interests and so on. Interestingly inclusion of team work in education does not require any resources or investment just some management is required. As for the current education scenario students never experience working in a team unless they pursue higher education. By that time it is really new for a student to work collectively in a team, moving from independence to interdependence is difficult for most of them. If a student has been working in a team since his early school years then this not only helps him into teams but also makes him a balanced individual.

Co-existence is very important either you study, work or you stay at home, because no individual can live in isolation, you are bound to interact and deal with people. That is why behind every successful venture, project, relationship there has to be a “we-worked-and-we-cooperated” and no “I-worked”, if a person has brilliant ideas and skills but cant work in a team then those skills and ideas are simply good for nothing most of the times. Now let us have a look at how team work does it all!

First of all the individual has to shift from ‘me’ to ‘we’ actually this is the basic attitude shift which teamwork is all about. In a team you learn to be with the team, and you should not expect the team to be with you!

Team members have to share their ideas and thoughts they must be able to communicate and express what they have in their minds, your ideas might get a unanimous ‘no’ from the whole team or you might get a ‘vow! Yes!’ a lot depends on how you convey, if you are being bossy people might not like hearing whatever you say, and if you don’t put forward your idea in a strong enough or confident enough manner then you would probably be ignored most of the times! So once you get along the team then you get to know a bit of the art of public speaking. For example rather than saying “lets do this” or “we should do it like this” one should say “why don’t we try this?”, “should we consider this option? Because being assertive never helps, in a team opinion of each team member is equally important before reaching a decision.

This thought sharing process is very helpful for building speaking and listening skills, because referring to public speaking some of us just speak, i.e. we are not willing to listen to what others have to say and some of us just listen!

Respecting each others views is also very important, because if you don’t listen to anyone then no one will listen to you as well, so you not only have to listen to and discuss but seriously consider even the most stupidest of the suggestions! In this way team members give each confidence to express themselves and taking part in the decision making process.

The most interesting and teaching aspects in working in a team is ‘conflicts’ this is a point where the team members could be heading on opposite directions where the team should be collectively moving together, and its only about time that team members learn that in order to move forward we have to ignore a lot and keep our common goal in focus. This common goal is something which can get the team out of the darkest of times. Resolution of disputes is the critical factor, and both sides should first of all agree that the dispute should be settled in the interest of the team. Once this is agreed upon then a solution is bound to evolve through mutual consultation and discussion. But it is very important to openly discuss issues if any. Another thing worth mentioning here is that a team cannot avoid disputes they can only resolve them because we have many conflicts even within ourselves so when people interact they are bound to encounter clash of opinions. In order to solve a problem it must first be recognized as a ‘problem’. Conflict in team is a vast topic and a domain in itself and much research has been done on it and whole of its details can not be dealt with in this scope.

Conflicts are beneficial as well because through them new things are thought about and the team discovers new ways and as a matter of fact conflict is the very base of ‘thinking’ so the team should not fear conflicting rather they should resolve them and keep figuring out via medias. 

Responsibilities need to be shared, in order to produce results every team member has to recognize and fulfill his responsibilities to prove himself as a constructive member of the team. Team members learn to focus on their own responsibilities rather than wasting time and effort in blaming each other.

When you are working in a team, your mistakes are more exposed and you have to admit what you have done wrong. But the good or bad consequences have to be shared! But everyone learns from each other’s mistakes. Every team member has to let go of his/her personal desires and goals as personal objectives are overshadowed by team objectives. A team should straightaway focus on ‘recovering’ rather than mourning the loss!

Gradually a group of people emerges as a ‘team’ and give each other the due space and start to co-ordinate and co-operate but this comes of time. Adjustability of a person increases tremendously once he/she is exposed to teamwork, as he learns to discuss, decide and work in a group. But it is very important to establish balance of power, there has to be an authority for final decision making to which the team members turn to give the final word. A good team leader leads from behind and manages the activities of the group without being authoritative like the leader should impart instructions not only through words but through deeds! Leader keeps himself informed without interfering. There are endless qualities of leadership which are again out of the scope of this article. At student level leadership gradually emerges as unknowingly there is a leader in the team which the members sometimes don’t realize but there is one member who tends to lead and makes the rest follow!     

Finally, Sharing and coordinating being the name of the game, in short, team work helps to build personalities and groom attitudes. It can be used as an effective tool in our education system and should be incorporated as a regular feature. But this is only if those educating really want to educate and groom healthy thinking minds!

Thinking about the poor and the plenty

        There still are people who think beyond their personal wishes and goals, and such an example that captures your attention is seen in the sector F-6 in Islamabad.

        This person Mohammad Ayub runs and teaches in an open air school. He runs a roofless school amid lavishly done pieces of architecture in the posh sector of Islamabad. Children from a katchi abadi nearby benefit from his free school.

        This unique school one of its kind has a history of 26 years! It all started when Ayub offered two children in supermarket to teach. These young boys were cleaning cars.

        Mohammad Ayub born in Bhera near Sargodha, studied in Mandi Bahaudin’s degree college till FA. Later on he did a teaching course and left studies incomplete when he was a student of Allama Iqbal Open University. He probably is more ‘educated’ than many of the degree holders who pass put from well known universities of our country!

        Initially Ayub was the only teacher here but later on as many of his students graduated they also started to join the noble cause. Now this school has almost 330 students.

        Most of the children are taught between 3-5 PM and later on Students of 9^th and 10^th class arrive and Ayub reaches home around 11PM. His ‘home’ is a store in his office in secretariat where he works during the day and earns Rs.9500.

        This school continues to operate in open air even in Chilly weather as of now, There is an offer for a bigger place for which he needs Rs. 150,000 out of which Rs. 25,000 have been paid by him.

         There is lots to be learned from this example for everyone especially for students who complain about their institution and teachers who complain about their wages, we should also stop complaining and start doing! As our efforts can change the lives of the deprived and underprivileged whose sufferings never seem to end but are equally human.

        Even if we can’t be like Ayub still we can be amongst those who support his cause and help him out.

Location: Street 9; F-6/3 Islamabad (Near Hill Road)

The 'Person' today

Society consists of interconnected interacting individuals. There is a wide array of the reasons of interconnection, and not talk about the ever increasing modes of interaction with the passage of time.

Technology has empowered this ‘individual’ to his full and the person today is not what he was a decade back. Despite the intentions behind technological advancements is not concerned with the betterment of mankind but is a result of ever increasing competition and race to be ahead or to leave others behind. This empowerment comes through media, communication technology and internet. So let’s have a detailed look at what this empowerment means and how it can be beneficial.

One is more connected through ever increasing options of communications. You can virtually meet your relatives living abroad through a variety of free software through which you can talk to and see the person at the other end without having to pay for it. All you have to pay for is the internet! Moreover telecommunication is becoming more and more affordable. Telecom companies offer competitive packages and deals for their customers.   

Being connected the person today is more informed about what is happening around him. Information and news reaches each and every individual through media, internet and most interestingly text messages. Many news channels now provide the facility to get important news through messages. Apart from news information is the cheapest commodity today, though validation of information is slightly an issue for researchers. Name the topic and you can get plenty of information and opinions within a few clicks.  Despite the fact, that media has its own agenda and follows its own vested interests, it definitely has encouraged people to think and speak.

Short messaging is gradually emerging as a phenomenon and many a time one comes across very though provoking and meaningful messages, which in turn helps to initiate a thought process within an individual. Many important issues regarding society, religion, governance and so on are raised by these messages, so much so that our interior minister had to take note of it!

                People are more opinionated today, a decade back most of us either knew nothing about something or even if we knew, the meaning was never clear. But today a person likes to have an opinion; the availability of information urges the person to think. We can scan through a variety of different opinions and thoughts presented by people. But there arises another implication that once you have an opinion some thinking then our feelings require to be conveyed and the person wants to be ‘heard’. Most importantly media represents clash of opinions, which is something really vital to make a person think about his surrounding and circumstances.

An individual is ‘being heard’ today, if you have feelings or thoughts then there are plenty many exhausts, text it to your friends in bulk and the message would definitely reach many people easily and if you want to go global then facebook, twitter, MySpace are always there. Sharing is so easy and flexible now, thanks to the internet. Post your thoughts as your status message, a note, a tweet or start a new group on facebook, start a blog and you will get response and more insight from what others think and perceive. Plus media has taught people that they should and can protest and they will get exposure, though media has its own agenda and goals but still it has taught people to think, and speak for their rights. That is why we see on television people protesting and presenting their demands. Now the maturity to protest peacefully would come of time. The first step was learning to protest and the next hopefully would be learning how to protest, because if not in the correct way the protest won’t get you anywhere!

Now the utilization of this empowerment is left to the individual himself, either the individual chooses to capitalize the opportunity or leaves it unnoticed! This rosy part of the picture also has another side, the side we should be aware of.

Today we are more exposed than we were ever before, intelligence agencies, or other government organizations can turn to social networking web sites to gather information besides the security loopholes these websites pose. Privacy policies of social networking websites are continuously revised, most users are not aware of this, so users should continuously review them. Social trends and mindsets can be clearly seen from these websites. So, one should be very careful before making your information public.

People can now pretend more, that web gives a person undue anonymity and one should not take unjustified advantage from this anonymity. A person can pretend more in this age and can pretend to be any one anywhere and fool others. It is a nice practice to comment on Blogs etc with your real name. If you have something to say you should be able to say it from your true identity.

Besides pretention one can be miss-understood more, your tone can never be clear in the text you write,  that is why an ‘n’ has been added to etiquettes and a new term has been evolved called:  netiquettes. Briefly it tells how to make your tone clear in your text like using emoticons, avoiding upper case text (it would be taken as shouting!)  And so on.

Gradually we are becoming more and more impatient and intolerant. We unintentionally demand mechanic precision and accuracy from people as well! And want the speed and authority that only a machine can give!  Furthermore people are becoming more anti social; the need for social interaction is reducing as a new mode of so called social interaction is emerging, the interaction through social networking sites, which is to the detriment of our social existence.

Now the person should learn to fight with the drawbacks and exploit the advantages of present age on him.