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“Children need to get a high-quality education, avoid violence and the criminal-justice system, and gain jobs. But they deserve more. We want them to learn not only reading and math but fairness, caring for nature, self-respect, family commitment, and civic duty” … Colin Powell
General Colin Luther Powell was an American politician, statesman, diplomat, and United States Army officer who served as the 65th United States Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African-American Secretary of State. No wonder, being a hardcore army-man Powell’s first expectation from the children is about education, justice obeying & career but what he ends the quote is far more important as fairness, care for nature, self-respect, family commitment & civic duty, all these things make character of a person! This is why I chose his words to start my sharing which is about children & nature! Though the Covid threat is not completely gone yet now I can say we are learning to live with the threat as in one month’s time, twice I got the opportunity to address the children (read as students) & trust me if you really want to test your communication skills the try visiting any school or college as a chief guest, may it be any subject! It’s now nearly 40 years I am standing on stage & speaking to the audience yet whenever it's an invite as a guest speaker for students then I do get tense! And when the students are of 10th Std age group then more goose-bumps & the recent invite from Millennium School, Pune for their 10th std students, was no exception! First the topic was a bit odd & not just wildlife or environment but mixing it with my profession (read as earning) i.e., construction & then this age bracket students gets bored very fast & you can actually see it during lecture from their reaction but you can’t do anything about it once the train is derailed. The looks they give, the murmur among the audience, the unrest body movements, all these things tell you, “Man, enough, don’t waste your (read as our) time & just pack-up”, trust me that's the worst feeling a speaker can face! And exactly for this, I take such an opportunity to address the students of such age groups as a challenge also for the speaker in me (lol).
I used an audio visual presentation but let me tell you most people just read out the slides of presentation & that’s super boring as audience especially the kids can read faster than you onscreen thing & if you are repeating the same words then also they get bored, instead if you are giving a speech on any subject (other than study) or a presentation then make it like a story telling, this I am sharing from my own experiences as most children like a story (ask Disney & Marvel) & even the elders also but they may not accept it openly. So, build your presentation or speech in such a way that you are telling a story or it's about a story & chances are you don’t have to face the bored faces of the audience! I also built a story around nature & my profession i.e., construction as the school wanted me to speak about careers also in construction. Do mind, these were 10th std students who have yet to choose a career field for themselves & school is trying to make them exposed to the various avenues of careers & construction is just one of them. As well the school wanted them to have an exposure of the environment conservation, mainly the tigers!
This is why I chose the name, “Nature & Me” as “environment”, indeed an important term but it gives you dry, scientific feel while “nature”, the sound of the word gives a good feeling, making you connect with the term faster, is my own experience. I started with making them explain the term nature i.e., everything around us is or say makes nature right from air we breathe, water we get as rains, the trees, the earth, the sky, the wind all of these what we live in is nature, & unless we go in open & meet this nature, we won’t understand what we want to save just by sitting in classroom! Yet classrooms are important as they make us study & know about nature which later, we can experience when we meet nature in the open. Actually, nature has given us everything in wonderfully beautiful form, right from the grasslands, to snow clad mountains to clear blue sky & ocean, even the deserts are beautiful unless & until the humans touch (read as disturbs) the nature! Here there can be a conflict (children’s minds are full of conflicts) as if humans also have been created by nature just the way forests, ocean, mountains, rivers are created by nature then how can humans only be blamed for damaging nature? This is exactly what we have to understand (or say make the students understand) as then only we can save nature or know our responsibility towards nature. Let’s visit a piece of land where humans have not yet reached (very hard to find such space) or say humans have minimal presence & there are ample such spaces right around us or our city. If you can go some 10-15 km out of the city you can see open lands, hills, get down from your car or bike, park it on road & walk off-road for a few hundred metres in such landscape & what you experience or see or feel? Well, the earth, the trees, the grass, the sky, the stream, the hills everything are in such a harmony that you can’t separate out all these from each other’s & your body becomes part of it, this is what you can say you are creation of nature & its possible only by being one with the nature in your natural form!
And even if you can’t go out of the city, just visit any open piece of land in your nearby vicinity & observe it keenly, here also you will find some grass, insects, lizards, some local birds like sparrows & most importantly, you will find life! Now, imagine a bulldozer digging the earth at this very spot along with cutting the trees, driving aways every other specie living on such piece of the land like birds, ants, lizards, squirrel, all of them & filling the soil with concrete & steel structure & dust & glass & a building build on this very spot where you were standing few moments before as being part of the nature, how will you feel now? Well, this is what makes humans destructors of nature, even after being creatures of nature itself! And this is the major challenge in-front of you all, if you want to make a career in the construction industry i.e., to balance development & nature!
As agreed, we can’t make holes in the earth or build nest on the trees for our homes & we, as humans needs many more things than just a home & food to for our living but that’s why our responsibility to conserve the nature while we make our life comfortable is more as our needs are more than any other specie which nature has created. And all this change is possible by the children & that’s the reason I am here & bothering you on a Saturday morning, is what I told the kids. The best example is of fire crackers in Diwali, it's only because of the schools’ drive & awareness in children of all age groups that the burning of firecrackers has been reduced a lot, helping to restrict air pollution during Diwali all over the country, especially in cities like Pune. I think the construction industry is a great field for career as a home is one of the basic needs of any living species & not just humans & for any business or industry, demand or need of demand is the first criteria to make some money, right? Homes will always be in demand but so will the responsibility of saving the nature while we build homes, is what I want to share you. While you build homes for humans, see that these homes will accommodate other species, flora & fauna too, in those home; actually, this is what will make our homes complete! And for doing nature friendly development you must be well versed with govt norms & polices & ready to raise your voice where you find errors as then only you can consider yourself successful!
Coming to the last part of my story, it won’t be complete without the tigers i.e., forests! After I showed them images of habitats & other animals, I shared few clicks of tigers & could see the aww part on the young faces looking at my clicks on the screen. Why always it’s about Save Tiger, the answer is, because tiger completes the forest & path of saving the tiger goes through saving entire system named forest! And for that one has to understand natures best form which is forest & that is possible only by visiting the forests & for that one has to spare the time, right? And by visiting forests you learn so many things apart from just sighting of a tiger as in the forest nothing happens without purpose & everything is in proportion. This is very important aspect which helps us in every filed we will be choosing as your career & which no book can explain you by sitting in the classroom! Even the parents & the teachers also allow some time to the children to be part of the nature, that’s not time wasted, mind it please!
To conclude, I will share just one thing, education which comes to us via books & the classrooms is certainly important but more important is its application & for that, no better teacher than the nature; all the best, my little friends! Thanks Millennium School team for giving me the opportunity to share my views with the younglings & I am sure, someday they will take this sharing to a better level by applying their own minds to it!
You can check out the video or presentation at you tube link below...
Nature & Me
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Sanjay Deshpande
Sanjeevani Dev.
Please view my sharing about real estate in Pune at You Tube link below..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4xX7eopH5o&t=5s
Please do visit my blog links below to read about real estate & home buying!
https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2021/09/choosing-right-home.html
http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2021/09/blog-post_21.html
Creating Togetherness; team Sanjeevani Way (Click link below)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/albums/72157627904681345
For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below
www.punecorporation.org
Take your issues to Hon PM at link below..
Think Green, Think Life
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