A New Blogging Journey from an Educationist

Hello!!

My name is Phyllis.

The meaning of my name is ‘Green leafy shoot’. This meaning has had and will continue to give direction to my life, even though I am 69 years, have a top of scanty grey hair and creaky knees.

I have two main passions in life, i.e. the child — from toddler to adolescent and the other education — education philosophy and psychology. Through the years, ever since I started working I have married the two passions and what a marriage it has been!

My main focus is the child and I use various pathways to reach the child:

I go through teachers, by school consultancy, teacher training, curriculum development. All of this while keeping child Psychology and development in mind.

I go through parents with parenting workshops. They are my favourite target group as most parents find it difficult to be objective when it comes to their own child giving rise to helicopter parents.

I reach the child through the child. This is done by conducting workshops mainly for the tweens and adolescents. A lovable group, just waiting for someone to reach out to them and show care and understanding and then comes the sparkle in the eyes.

I also reach them through one to one counselling or mentoring — whether it is study skills or career counselling or handling relationships or peer pressure. All of this to help them clarify their values to make informed choices.

The word ‘workshop’ has been repeated a number of times. This has been possible as I have a tremendous God given gift to communicate. Yes, I am proud of my public speaking ability. I have not kept track of the number of children and adults I have spoken with. Put me behind a sensitive mike and I am in my elements. And as Anil Kapoor says, in an ad “I like it, I like
it”.

Writing was never my forte. Let me put it this way; I had been made to believe that I was a poor writer and the belief stuck. Till one day, one of the editors from Times of India asked me to write a column on career related issues. She even offered to hold my hand. I could not refuse such a generous offer. That column continued for a few years and was popular. I then was an agony aunt for another newspaper. I now do sporadic writing.

This has been and is joyful work, both for myself and I believe for others. Joyful work cannot be easily given up. However, the corona virus has tried to play spoilsport, and it has, in that my interaction and contact with my stakeholders in the normal is lost. I said the corona virus has tried to play spoilsport with the emphasis on the word — ‘tried’. I am not going to let that happen. I am introspecting and thinking of various ways to reach out and stay relevant. One of them being a blog, but I must confess that I started writing during the lockdown more as a coping mechanism for myself. The idea, for publication came from my husband and son. And so, the birth of a blog, where I will try and publish one entry a week (at least).