THE PLACE BETWEEN YOUR COMFORT ZONE AND YOUR DREAM

















“Risk, then, is not just part of life. It is life.
The place between your comfort zone
and your dream is where life takes place.
-      Nick Vujicic

A ‘Certificate of Learning Disability’ (LD) can do more harm to a student than good. Well, that’s my take.

As a Commerce teacher, I get to deal with college students. When parents of some of these students tell me that their young ones have been ‘certified’ to be ‘slow learners’, I literally choose to be deaf.
This modern vocabulary has crippled more young boys and girls than illiteracy and poverty have done to them. For whatever reason, and under whatever circumstances, the Certificate of Learning Disability (LD) may have been given to your child, my take is this: ‘Let it not be a permanent label or a chain of confinement for your child’.

The old story about the 'Baby-elephant Syndrome’ perfectly fits in, here…

When a baby elephant is born, it is tied with a thin rope or chain to a tree around. Initially, the little elephant tries to break free. But, after some attempts, it gives up… It thinks that it cannot break free…

Many years later, when the elephant has become a mighty animal, it still continues to be tied with the same thin rope or chain to a tree around. The elephant has given up trying… It still thinks that it cannot break free, even though it can bring scores of trees down with it its might!

The elephant has just become a giant creature only physically… But, in mind, it’s still a baby. This syndrome is widely known as ‘the Baby-elephant Syndrome’.








When these .big elephants' are brought to me tied with the thin chain called ‘LD’ – or whatever that is – I, therefore, prefer to go deaf and blind, both.

A couple of days ago, in my eleventh standard class, I had to break free two elephants…

One was Rahul*. When I started teaching him, his instinctive response was ‘Sir, you are very fast’. I empathized... I slowed down. But, I kept a constant watch on this elephant… And, I realized, it was time to push the elephant out of its comfort zone…

Rahul was the only boy in my class who came from the farthest distance. He came by the fast train, and, therefore, was the first to arrive, always. I was very happy about it. So, in class, I shouted, “Rahul, do you time yourself to the fast train or does the fast train time herself to you?”

Rahul got it, instantly. He has stopped complaining, “Sir, you are very fast”.

I still remember, Rahul’s dad anxiously telling me about his son's ‘LD’...  

And, I remember my response, “Don’t worry’!

In the same class was another elephant, *Nirav. This elephant was not tied with the chain called ‘LD’. What I was teaching him, he had already learnt in his college, as the college teacher had already completed that chapter. So, from, the word ‘Go’, I sensed the resistance from this elephant… “Sir, I am getting confused,” was the complaint. Initially, I tried presenting it the way he had arranged in his college. But, he was simply ‘shut’ to my teaching. It was a mental block and the boy was refusing to learn afresh. Finally, I shouted, “Nirav, what if you had learnt this chapter first from me… Would you have remained shut to your college teacher? Get out of that mental block… Be open to learn through a new perspective… Grow more… Don’t remain in a prison.”

It worked!

The Certificate of LD, perhaps, was needed when the elephant was just a baby. But, why now?






*Names changed


GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic.: Inteernet

Videos: YouTube


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