Learning Beyond Schooling

The 2nd installment of Amrita Soon’s Treehouse Open Mic is happening tomorrow! And we have 2 amazing featured artistes!!! See you there tmr:))

Bay Doucet (http://www.youtube.com/BayDoucet)
My name is Bay Boucet and I’m 15 this year. I started playing and writing music when I was 13. I’ve always loved music, especially folk and country, or blues. Anything that really brought out what the musician felt. I’ve always been scared of performing on stage but since I started my YouTube channel I’ve started opening up to performing on stage and I’ve loved it ever since.

Az Samad (http://www.azsamad.com/)
Guitarist-Composer-Educator Az Samad has recorded with Grammy Winners Flaco Jiménez & Max Baca; graduated & taught at the prestigious Berklee College of Music; performed in the United States, Europe & Asia; and appeared on 16 CDs ranging in styles from Tex-Mex, Contemporary Jazz to solo acoustic guitar. His works have been described as “richly textured, poetic and atmospheric”. Previously based in Berkeley, California; Az now lives in Kuala Lumpur.

“Some people I’ve met argue that doing music is a highly-competitive business. But isn’t everything? It doesn’t feel like a competition though. I’m learning so much from these artists and everyone seems to be friends. By the way, there are over seven billion people in the world so wouldn’t even living be competitive? There’s a quote from someone on the other side of the world from where I am, and it says:

‘If you give yourself a backup plan to fall back on, you’ll fall back on it’.

If I keep preparing for what I would do if I fail, then I would’ve have failed by not putting everything into what I actually want to do. Music is a very uncertain thing I am diving into. I don’t know what will happen next. I don’t know who would listen to and who wouldn’t. Nothing really goes as planned. I’m not even sure if this would work out; but getting to perform makes me feel that somehow in a tiny little way, it gives me a little reassurance. I’m learning to embrace the little uncertainties in life.”

www.strummingonsparklydreams.blogspot.com

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Ringing the temple bells for peace & liberation.

If we can do just these 3 things, we can make a great difference -

Do good.

Avoid the bad.

Free your mind!

“I as teacher I show you the path
To stop the pains of cyclic existence
You have to implement it.” (Buddha)

Blessed Wesak!

Sent from my iPad

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The day is done, the battle is over,
the winners are announced, the losers named…But who are the real winners?

Who are the real losers?

The winners are….

Not the big cheats who broke all the rules & regulations,
Who have no guts or substance to fight a fair fight,
Not the hooligans who spew hate and violence
To intimidate those who choose love and peace,
And certainly not the big fat self-proclaimed “saviours”
Who came to “save” the poor rakyat by throwing them
The left-over chicken feed from the big fat feedlot
That they originally stole from in the first place….
For these are really the real losers!°
These are the cowards who know they can’t win
without cheating!

The real winners are……

Those who fought brave and hard
Against the dark forces of greed, hatred and delusion!
The real winners are the simple folks who rose above themselves
To fight the battle of their lives knowing fair well that it wouldn’t be fair.
The real winners are the common-folks who had, for a very long time,
Cowered under a blanket of fear and hopelessness,
Who now emerged with renewed faith in themselves
And reunited with their fellow citizens of all ranks and races
to fight the battle of their lives for the future of their country.
These are the heroes our country so desperately needs!

To these valiant comrades, we salute you!
The battle is not over, the fight is not lost.
For you have succeeded in penetrating the strong fortress
Of absolute power that absolutely corrupts!
Which, with your continued chipping with small chisels and sore hands,
Will soon collapse in its own rubble of doom!
Keep on knocking, keep on hacking, keep on chipping!
And the ugly fortress will come down soon.
If not today, then tomorrow.
And tomorrow will not end in sorrow!

Picture by Amrita Soon
Learning Beyond Schooling

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When our daughter Amrita started speaking at one, reading at two and tackling chapter books at five, I attributed them to my efforts in our daily read aloud sessions and early exposure to the written word. But when our younger daughter, Sam, did not show similar milestones in her reading even at the ripe age of ten, it gradually dawned upon me that the earlier success with Amrita was more of the result of her brains being wired for the written word and less of my effort in teaching her! She could have taught herself to read for all I know! So, despite the fact that I didn’t really panic when Sam still could not, or would not read at the age of ten, it did not cancel out my efforts to goad her to read and write. (Sam dug out her old notebook to show me what I had made her write many years ago!) We had a good laugh!

But at that time, it was no laughing matter. Mummy was determined to make a reader out of this obnoxious girl! So determined was I that I drew out a reading schedule, enforced a reading quota, and started a points chart to entice her to read! Needless to say, older sister was way ahead in her points as she was a faster and better reader. So instead of motivating her, Sam had pretty much given up on trying! “What’s the point?” She must be thinking, zaza (older sister) will always be better than her! That explained the numerous tantrums and tears from her rebellion of reading and writing.

I had suspected that she had dyslexia when I checked the symptoms with a friend’s child who was diagnosed as having this condition. But I had refrained from having her diagnosed because I didn’t want her to feel that she was handicapped in any way. However, I did tell her that it was a possibility that the reason she was struggling with reading and writing was that she might be mildly dyslexic, as deducted by my friend. This somehow offered her some relief because she now realized it was not because she was stupid, but rather it was the fault of this thing called “dyslexia”! It explained why words made her brains tired and writing exhausted her more than running up ten flights of stairs. It also explained her description of how she thinks: “I think in pictures, not words. Words somehow mysteriously turn into pictures!”

When we accepted the fact that it was a condition of the brain that caused her some delay in this faculty, we eventually relaxed somewhat and gave her time and space to master the thing she dreaded most. Initially we did send her to a dyslexia center upon the recommendation of our friend, but after a couple of days there, Sam asked, “Why are you sending me here? They teach kindergarten stuff!” So it was back to square one: letting her learn at home.

And guess what? She DID eventually read and write better! Watching lots of Japanese Manga videos helped – she had to speed read English subtitles!) and playing online games improved her spelling because she had to spell correctly what her opponent was drawing online. Oh, and her interest in singing also helped because she had to read the lyrics! Yet she still does not like to read books – unless they come in the form of comics. She gets upset if we gave her books as birthday gifts instead of toys. But this was not the end of her story. The next thing we had to grapple with was far more severe than dyslexia……(to be continued)

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