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Skill training in the domain of fine arts

As I spent half a day with the music, dance and painting teachers of our school at Dwarka, it was interesting to hear that the perspective of the trainers in these skills are no different from other skill trainers. It all starts with a natural refrain of trainers: "it is difficult to learn ". And when you discuss, you realise everyone is talking about the same thing, across skill domains.

One of the fundamental challenges is the attitude of the the learner and a certain sense of "helplessness" on the part of the trainers that a learner is naturally not willing to put in the hard work required to learn a skill - whether it is repairing computers or learning bharatnatyam. However, the trainer fails to understand that their own attitude to such learners need to change.

During my personal experience of training 1000s of learners, one thing that I quickly realised was that most of the students are not keen learners unless you can generate enough interest for them in the subject (/skill) that you are teaching them. This is where the expertise of the trainer comes into force, complicated by the fact that every learner is unique.

The fundamental premise of learning skills is that unless you have generated enough "interest" (read "passion"), you will lose the learner soon............a result that is noticed across classrooms globally. This brings us back to the same question of whether you can develop enough "good" quality teachers who ignite the passion for learning a skill.

To end it, let us revisit a simple skill all of us learnt in the early years of our life- how to walk. Most children are extremely terrified when they are asked to leave the support and walk on their own. However, when they  actually do it once, they develop a "passion" - my son walked the whole night...he was so excited to be able to walk!

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