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Wednesday, August 10, 2011

TO CHANGE OR NOT TO CHANGE


Change is the only permanent thing in life. We learnt so many things in the past but many of the things that we learnt have become obsolete and not useful now. Now it has become necessary for us to unlearn many things and learn many things to get on in this ever changing world. New methods, new techniques, new gadgets, new ways are coming into existence and sometimes we find it difficult to cope with the situation. But change we must if we have to survive. This is a comment written by me in KAY’s blog MUSINGS under the heading SHOULD WE REALLY TAKE CURSIVE OUT OF THE CURRICULUM? Please visit Kay and check out her lovely blog by clicking HERE.
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In India, exams are written on paper which includes long answers, essays, compositions and so on. If the hand writing is good there is a chance of getting good marks because the papers will be easy to value. If the writing is bad the person evaluating the paper will not bother to read and therefore the chances of getting good marks even for a good answer is less.Besides, I understand cursive writing helps in developing certain parts of the brain.

Having said this, we should also understand times are changing and changing rapidly. Most of the children are sitting with a computer either browsing or playing games and their typing skills are excellent. Good jobs these days require excellent computer and typing proficiency. Since we are moving forward to a faster and faster world many old things which we thought important will be given up and new methods will take their place.

17 comments:

  1. Change is happening everyday Joseph, looking at the London Riots this week saddened me yet it's another change that has suddenly happened.Life has changed for me this year I have "Lost" a son and three grandchildren why I haven't got a clue neither has my daughter who speaks on a regular basis with him. I have accepted this change as it would have made me bitter and that is not good.There are good changes also , I have started compiling my next book, I have to re-type all the submitted poems to make sure they are mistake free but I am enjoying it.
    Hope the changes in your life are good.

    Yvonne.

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  2. i think that we have to be careful on what we give up learning. i do think it is great kids are getting computer skills as it will be wildly helpful, but there are fundamentals that will come in handy should times get hard...

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  3. Last year, IIM entrance exam, CAT happened online...
    Lets see change would come in near future...
    Smokey Eyes with Lakme
    Dhenupurishwarar Temple

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  4. Good to come here after a long time Joseph.
    I am ardent believer in change: changing for the better. I feel we should have cursive writing as well as computer skills too.
    I often wonder why do Doctors always have very bad handwriting, didn't they specifically never have cursive writing in the schools they studied?
    Funny, can you give me an answer for that?
    Have nice week Joseph.

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  5. Namaste.....
    "change is the only permanent" quite an oxymoron won't you say? As by the definition itself it contradicts itself. Though I am understanding your point, just needed to shed some light on that particular piece.

    I do not believe that knowledge is ever obsolete, as there is a time, place and always opportunities where all knoweledges can be accessed and shared. I do thing that like evolution we have to march in time with the continuous changes and update and refresh our selfs and skills. I think the mistake many make is to throw out the old in preference of the new instead of finding a way to incorporate both or to archive the old in the event it is required. A great example of this is in the banks, when the computers are down none of the tellers are able to do the simple basics. It is usually an old worker who was there before the new system was implement who is able to work. As a result customer service suffer because it becomes slow and tedious as she/he is only one person trying to serve many and the new workers with the "new technology" training are useless and right there in the moment is hardly a time to train them on the basics. In short it is as we say in the Islands, "don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

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  6. Don't you think, we have changed a lot, may be we were compelled to. As Rhapsody B has said, knowledge is never obsolete and this needs to be archived so that we can fall back in case of need. Incidentally I was wondering if you are going to tell something about the Chinese fishing nets.

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  7. Hi Joseph! So, We, The People who are not in holidays, keep the blogosphere alive... ;)

    The times they are a changing... But already in the 16th century, Camoens, the Portuguese epic poet, said «Mudam-se os tempos, mudam-se as vontades... Todo o tempo é composto de mudança...» (literally: Times change, wills change... All time is made out of change...)

    Blogtrotter Two just crossed Corsica from North to South. Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend!!

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  8. Joseph, how very kind of you to put a link on your blog to mine. Thank you so much. I still think it's important to teach fine motor skills and penmanship to children. Yes, we need to keep up with technology, but it doesn't take that much time to teach correct writing either in the early grades.

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  9. changes r inevitable..
    Some we find good and accept it.. while there are some changed we find difficult to cope with :)
    Enjoyed reading !!!

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  10. I try very hard to keep up with the changes but so many of the electronic things are expensive and keep changing almost overnight ... so I sit back and stick with my old desk computer and try to read up on it all.
    I hope you are well.

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  11. Hi Joseph, yes changes are inevitable, but this does not make it any easier.

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  12. I also believe that changes are also inevitable. Some changes are good if they are not to severe. We are in a changing world and sometimes it is hard on us. In our country we have so many people coming in and a lot of them want to change our American ways. These are ways and laws our fore fathers have set before us, I don't want them to change too much. Very nice post and makes us think.

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  13. hi Joseph hope all works well there!! yes the world changing every day!!

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  14. Dear mr J,

    change is a permanent part of life, that' s what life is all about. Without change life would become dull and stagnant. I enjoyed a change when I went on a short holiday to Lucknow.

    These days we are witnessing Anna Hazare 's revolution which he hopes will bring about change.

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  15. Hi Joseph, thank you for your comments on my job problem. It is difficult now , but I must look forward. Change sometimes out of our control.

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  16. change is the name of the game and the way we adapt to it shows the way we are on.

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