Town Mouse City Mouse

Last month en route to Goa, I spent an evening in Unkal. The contrast between the children I encountered in these two places was stark. 

Meandering through the town streets, I happened to enter a church. I expected it to be empty though was pleasantly surprised by a group of children old and young sincerely practising for their dance & skit performance. I asked them if I could sit and watch for a while. They were warm and welcoming. They made eye contact and smiled. 

We also had a brief conversation about what the kids were doing there late evening. I learnt they were part of the VBS (Vacation Bible Class). The church was a safe space for the kids to learn something useful and not fall into the wrong company. It made perfect sense. During my recent research conversations with mothers in Kanpur and Indore, almost all the moms I spoke to lamented about the lack of a safe space where their kids could hang out in the company of other children. The small townhouses open up on busy streets and that makes it not just physically unsafe but also exposes their children to language and behaviour that may not be age-appropriate. Hence most children stay indoors devoid of same-age company and free play. By contrast, the Unkal church kids spent their mornings and evenings at the church. The hot breakfast at church was a bonus. The church functioned like a community centre, welcoming even strangers like us. A few mothers were hanging out there too after their day's work. Posters made by the children, with empowering messages, adorned the walls. A whiteboard with the exact count of children across age groups who attended the VBS each day signalled to me that this was not a casual activity. 

The children (mostly 8-10-year-olds) were remarkably calm and less fidgety. The sincerity to learn something new was apparent on their faces. When their instructor asked them to observe her, I did not see their attention flitting here or there. They were all eyes on the instructor. “They are so distinctly different from us”, pointed my city mouse. “Many a time the city mice are constantly fidgeting, fiddling around with themselves or others and are easily distracted”. We explored why and came up with a hypothesis that this could be attributed to their lifestyle and environment that was not flooded with stimulation. We also observed a lot more independence and risk-taking in the town mice and their parents doing their own thing and not hovering around them. 

The next day at Goa was a completely different experience. There was a wedding to attend. My city mouse was looking for some same-age company. I assured her, going by my old memories of weddings that there would be lots of children to play with and even if we don't know them, they’ll end up befriending each other in no time. George Ball, an American diplomat, said “Nostalgia is a seductive liar”. Like a talented seductress, nostalgia will rope you in and cause you to lose sight of reality. And so it did. 99% of the children at the venue, irrespective of age had a personal digital device they were glued to. They hardly ate, ran, or even looked up and away from their screens. The adults around them chatted away amongst themselves. What was worse was even when these children were not with their devices they would not make eye contact with others or smile. Conversation with them was a distant dream. 

I wondered, how would they learn the art of making conversations that the town mice were so easily adept at. What would be the long-term effects of social ineptitude or a lowering attention span on their life, health and future? Is there a tipping point beyond which over-exposure does a disservice to a child rather than making him smart? In a generation growing up with devices, would simple skills like connecting with other humans, being able to read body language or sustaining conversations give someone an edge over the rest? 

I remember visiting Kashmir as an 8-year-old and another child on the bus journey between Srinagar and Jammu carrying a bagful of snow back home, only to realise somewhere along the way that it will eventually melt. As we crossed Unkal on our way back to Bangalore, I felt like that child who wanted to bag the simplicity, fewer choices and a more focused environment of the town and bring it back home as a gift for the city mouse who lives with me, though somewhere along the way, within a few days of having reached the city, that would all just melt or maybe I just needed a different metaphor - one that would last!

A big mess - what do children like about it?

Children have their own logic, their own sense of right and wrong, fair and unfair. It is fascinating to peek into their world. Mess is a child's best friend. I used to always wonder why. Then one day, I stopped wondering and asked a child and this is what emerged. LISTEN IN

Play! Play! Play !

Playtime is zealously guarded. Ask children to cut short their playtime by even five minutes and they would morph into master negotiators, number crunching the minutes and seconds they have been deprived of. The possibilities of what play brings to a child's world are infinite. Here are just a few. Listen in!

#demystifyingchildhood, #earlychildhood #earlychildhoodeducation

Monkey see - monkey do

What are the dots that connect the broken window theory, unique baby names and a 200-square-foot cafe on a high street in the city? Behavioural scientists called it the ‘social nudge.’ In common parlance it is described as monkey see - monkey do :)

There is a (relatively) new cafe on 12th Main, Indiranagar. It is unlike the regular cafes that seem mostly empty, with inviting interiors and where one can spend many hours just looking outside the window. 

Instead, this one has a crowd of people not less than 50, on weekends it could easily go up to 100 standing outside, jostling for space for their share of their morning idli. Whenever I passed by, I always wondered what is so special about their idli? Turns out, many others think like me. I had a neighbour who travelled 12 km one Sunday morning to unravel this mystery. She did not come back with any revealing insights. The idli was the same as any other. Many days later, I happened to make a pit spot there. I noticed the cafe operates from a space that was 200 sq. feet. They have a partially open kitchen and a cash till. So by default, anyone who is a customer is standing in the outside space. They save on high street rents and also pull the crowds by the sheer number of people crowded there. Because monkeys see - monkeys do. Their crowds spill over onto the 12th Main. I guess that must have prompted them to rent out the space occupied by Naturals next door. A win-win for both. One business gets space, the other gets footfalls. 

Coming back to the ‘social nudge’ - what makes it such an interesting idea is while it is powerful, to unravel the power of a social nudge to create a desirable outcome, one has to wade through the sticky terrain of social norms, before one can taste sweet success. In some cases, like for the cafe business owners it could have been happenstance. How do we create this intentionally?

Norms become hardwired and become like the holy cow that no one questions. They are right because everyone is following them and because everyone is following them, these ideas start to seem even more right. Is there a circuit breaker that we could use to initiate behaviour change?

There is a school of thought that believes if we dig deep and think hard, we will stumble upon that one disruptive thought that would somehow create a behaviour change. I am not from that school of that and hence I don't believe there is a secret sauce that will do the trick. What instinctively makes sense to me and what I have seen over and over again is that like the wheels of time, the wheels of change also turn slowly. 

Overnight changes do happen but those are triggered by disasters staring at us in the face. We all learnt to wash our hands and wear a mask. People still do, which reveals another aspect of behaviour - that once behaviour change takes on a certain momentum it is difficult to expect a sudden halt or reversal. 

So what can break a default thinking/doing pattern? I got this answer from a Potato Trader in Agra who shared his native business wisdom as part of the interview I did with him. Stay with me!

The business of trading in perishables is not for the faint-hearted. Fortunes are made and can get wiped out overnight. What set him apart from the rest was his mindset. He said, “If I suffer a loss of 2 lakhs today from my potato business, I will find a way of recovering the money from the same business.” It sounded over simplistic at first but when he explained how; it made complete sense. He was living the maxim problems and opportunities are two sides of the same coin.  

The potato-trader logic made me realise - If any aspect of social behaviour has got intensified due to norms, the way to initiate momentum in a new direction would also come from creating new social norms.

It cant be just information or a catchphrase that creates the shift. If that were the case we would all have coloured hair by now because we are all worth it! 

The social behaviour comes from a belief (not a fact) 

Fact: 90% of Brain Growth Happens Before Kindergarten. 

Belief: Brain = learning and learning = read/write/recite numbers and words

Behaviour: Making children read and write as early as 3

The fact points to the idea that at that age play and exploration contributes to brain development. But the mental model (how we make sense of the world) that is based on a bouquet of beliefs gets in the way.

Mental model: 

Some of the mental models around learning that we have internalised over the years 

1. Memory strengthens by retrieval. Retrieval only works if there is something to retrieve. This is why we need books, teachers and classes. 
2. Knowledge grows exponentially. How much you’re able to learn depends on what you already know. (If my child learns the alphabet and numbers before entering school, once he is there he will be able to build on this foundation)
3. Practice at a task makes you better at it. (Hence make the child do the same reading and writing again and again)
4. Success is the best teacher. We learn from success more than we do from failure (hence stick to the tried and tested and do not venture into unchartered territories) 

Unsurprisingly, despite so much information about brain development in early years linked to play, parents and even schools still make little children read and write. And while a large majority operate in auto-pilot mode, there are always cracks in everything and that is how the light gets in. The crack could be making an occasional change, testing the waters and building on that success. Or it could be thinking about the possibilities that fall between the two extremes. While dirt is generally associated with bad and clean is considered good, Surf decided to use ‘mother earth’ to make a point that there is something between the two extremes that straddles the two worlds of dirt and good. The cracks could come by accidents but the stories could be amplified for others to follow. 

In her talk on ‘The Secret Life of Social Norms’, Michele Gelfand points to an important truth. “culture is not destiny, harness norms that are getting loose and loosen up norms that are getting too tight. Humans invented norms to better their lives and we need to go back to that truth”. 

#socialnudge #behavioralscience #socialnorms #earlychildhoodeducation

Functional entertainment

Functional / Useful entertainment was seeming like an emerging trend in 2017. The cusp between use value and entertainment value. For a long time, brands have tried to occupy this middle ground between 'do good' and 'feel good'. Maggi tried to say taste bhi...health bhi. The die-hard Maggi fans still have it for the sheer joy of slurping those long-winding noodles. Health is hardly on their mind while consuming or making the decision to buy it. The line taste bhi health just assuages some of the guilt then. 

Functional entertainment I feel is when the product delivery lives up to that value. For a lot of folks out there, WhatsApp serves the purpose. For me, a brand that really lives up to the idea is TedTalks. 

Time is the last frontier that humans have not been able to conquer. Ironic since time is a man-made concept. Everyone is starting to experience time in fragments and brands that perch themselves in these fragments will start to be viewed differently. 

What can I do in the 15 minutes of wait time I have before my next appointment? 
What can a rickshaw driver do while waiting at the traffic signal? 
What can a street vendor do sitting by the pavement while waiting for his next customer?

Right now - they purely entertain themselves with Insta reels or YouTube videos. 

As long as time remains a precious commodity, the category of functional entertainment will grow. 

What have you experienced in the space of #functionalentertainment?

Money can't buy you love and happiness and a good education or healthcare

 The other day I had a chat with a driver Anthony, who was ferrying me across the city so that I could drop my child at school. After we dropped her off...

He asked me, "madam, is this school very good? why do you come so far?" 

I said, "yes, it is very good and worth coming this far". 

He asked, "Madam, what are the fees charged?"

I did not want to lie to him, yet I did not want to make him uncomfortable with the real picture so I decided to quote what many schools charge these days for primary education in Bangalore - about 1.5 Lacs!

He looked disappointed but the reason was different from what you and I would have imagined. 

He said, "Ma'am my son goes to XYZ private school (a very well-known name) and I pay 1.5 lacs as fees there but padhai achha nahin hota madam (the education there is not good)"

I asked, "why what happened?"

He said, "My son doesn't recall anything he learnt at school...when I ask him a question, he cannot answer, when I see his books, I see incomplete work, when I talk to the teachers, they don't give me a proper answer."

It was astonishing to first realise he has stretched himself to pay 1.5 lacs per annum as school fees for his son and despite that he does not feel his son is learning. 

Just like paying more money to a doctor does not guarantee good healthcare. Unfortunately, we don't even have enough clarity on what good healthcare means or what good education means. Many years ago illume was engaged in research for the Aastrika Foundation and the starting point of the research was some of these questions - does shelling out a couple of lacs for a delivery guarantee a pregnant woman ethical, evidence-based maternity care? Does one have a choice about even having a normal delivery? Is writing down the birth plan the right of a mother-to-be? Unfortunately, the best-in-class hospitals do not even talk about these aspects. 

It is the same with education, do parents have clarity about learning outcomes? Do schools hide incompetencies under the facade of child-led learning? Is progressive education the same as slow, easy learning sans any pressure? Does the presence of computers and labs and playful equipment and colourful furniture guarantee a good learning environment? Or is it the presence of a bouquet of extracurriculars, the size of the building or whether there is a swimming pool on campus? What should learning outcomes look like as the country moves towards adopting new standards in education? Do parents understand the NEP? Take any discussion on NEP and the only question I heard parents ask is - will it apply to my child's school? Will they have to learn the local language? What is in it for me? Why are parents changing schools 2 or 3 things during the course of the 10 years of primary school years? Why is the search for schools clouded by confusion? Why is there dissonance even after making a shift or paying 1.5 lacs as fees per annum? What would it take to feel a sense of assurance that the child is learning and is being taken care of and how much is enough to buy that quality of education? 

There would be many Anthonys out there who contribute to the black hole of education each year in the hope that the black hole is in fact a tunnel and there will be light at the other end of it.

Our obsession with 'uniformity'

I have three stories to tell you today and about a thread that connects them all

Some days back I visited a flower farm and noticed something unusual there. Each of the rose buds had a plastic net covering it, and hundreds were in just one patch. On a little prodding, I found out that the farm labourers would go through the farm looking for ones that had reached a certain level of maturity and manually cap them. The ones that were too young were too small to be capped and those would be left to grow for a few more days. The whole effort of manually observing the rose buds, identifying the ones that were good enough to be capped and repeating this exercise day after day intrigued me and led to more questions. The net caps would keep the roses closed and give them a certain desirable shape. There were similar hacks they had to keep the length of the stalks to a uniform height. Ultimately, in the commodity trade, every product is graded, which determines the price one would get. With roses, the grading depended on the length of the stalk and how compact the flower looked. Only after the grading was done and the price was fixed the net would be removed. I could not help but think about the paradox - of how nature encompasses diversity and the acceptance of all kinds, while as humans there is a higher value on ‘sameness’. 

The second story is about being a witness to a discussion on cultural community celebrations. There were two strong factions of people coming from certain pockets of India who vehemently argued with each other - each wanted their festivals to be celebrated at a certain scale and were willing to go the whole nine yards while completely disregarding what the other set wanted. The discussion reached an impasse since neither was willing to give up their stance. The result - one of the teams retreated and gave up and the ones that remained were relieved to find they were finally in the company of like-minded. Diversity lost once again. What came as a revelation that day was such water-tight discussions left no room for objectivity - one that supported both sides was considered a hypocrite, an opportunist. Coming from Bombay, people always find it difficult to slot me - neither a North Indian, nor a South Indian. What adds to the confusion is the cosmopolitan secular values that are so ingrained. 

The third story is about a research discussion after the findings were tabled. The people we interviewed displayed so many conflicting tendencies. They gave strong opinions about something but in terms of behaviour did exactly the opposite. At times they practised something intuitively and with a lot of effort but when presented with the same idea written formally as a concept note, their enthusiasm for it nose-dived. How is all this possible - were the questions we received from the client team? It is because as humans we are a bundle of complex paradoxes that co-exist. We have individual preferences and socially postured responses and the need to conform and there are more than a handful of variables influencing any situation and decision at any point in time and the beauty of qualitative research is that it brings all of this complexity and chaos to the fore so that decisions can be made keeping in mind this chaos that is so real. As a junior researcher, during my first year of work at a research agency, my team leader looked at my research report and said - the story does not tie in - re-read the report and work on ironing out these contradictions. Over the years, I developed an independent point of view about this and would table research reports with the contradictions in their full glory. Since I felt it was the diversity that added richness to the understanding of the problem. 

So I wonder what is behind this human obsession with uniformity and sameness and why we are so uncomfortable around diversity even though it is such a strong part of our culture and society. Perhaps since sameness or a sense of constancy gives us a sense of ‘control’ and change and diversity - are rooted in the fear of the unknown. However this sense of control is fallacious, shortlived and superficial, and sometimes embracing diversity, randomness and change wholeheartedly can be very liberating. 

Have you come across, in your domain of work, the bias in favour of uniformity? It would be lovely to read about more such instances. 

Here is an interesting discussion on the subject of how ‘Outliers are treated in research’ if you wish to read more.