This weekend was dedicated to interviewing. My wife manages a school and she was recruiting teachers or as she calls them, Montessori Adults. She wanted me to meet a person, who she said will change the way I look at life. This was a person who went through a "special school" because, by birth, her mental faculties are slower than most others. She got through 12th grade in the school and then has completed a rigorous 1 year Montessori Programme.
I met the person and as she recounted some of her experiences in life, it just hit me like a locomotive. I asked her as to why she had wanted to become a Montessori Adult (read Teacher) and she said that she wanted to teach children with difficulty in learning better than how she had been taught. She recounted that she had studied in a traditional school and, though she did not want to say that the way she was taught mathematics was not the best, she felt that this Montessori Method would have done her a lot more good. She grew averse to maths at that early age because, as she put it, "The teacher asked me to count 2+3 mentally and tell her the answer when I could not and had to use my fingers." The sheer force of honesty and the innocence that came with it in her discussions was the locomotive that hit me first. I was dumbfounded. I just wanted to continue listening to what this young lady was telling.
She said, "I want to do so much for children. I love them and can talk to them without any fear because they are honest to me. Any child I deal with likes me." The burning passion that I could see in her eyes was something I have experienced very few times while interviewing.
She had given me a resume and in that I had noticed that she loved dance, painting, music..different forms of art. So, I asked her as to what art meant to her. Her reply was, "Just as we all need air to live, I need air and art to live." For someone to whom mathematics, money, inflated egos, position, desire to conquer the world, etc. meant nothing, art was a life giver...it was a form that she could relate to and express herself. It created a meaning in her life.
Then I asked her as to what her strengths were. After thinking for a minute or more, she replied, "I don't know," When I asked her, "Can I give you some hints?", she gladly accepted with a huge smile. I told her, that her disarming honesty was her biggest strength. The burning passion in the eyes was her strength. Her love for art and the different forms of it was her strength. I saw the raw excitement in her eyes when I spelt these out as probably no one had told her that she had tremendous strengths. She had only heard her inability to comprehend subjects like maths or science. Her abilities to absorb art, music and dance were not understood by our traditional schools. This was the first time in my life, I had met a person who could not articulate her strengths...such a shame that, we as a society, refuse to accept people for what they are and boost their confidence by focusing on their strengths.
When I started de-briefing with my wife, she asked me with a mischievous smile, "So, what do you think? Should we consider her for our School and can you tell me why we should do that, if at all?" She had already guessed my answer but wanted to hear it from me. I told her that she is a definite hire. The reason was not because we needed to give a chance to a differently abled person but because of the burning passion and the disarming honesty that she brought along. She was someone that any organization should consider hiring and we were lucky to chance up on her.
To me, the chance that life gave me to meet few people, Passion, Truth and Honesty, face to face, was one of the best experiences that I have ever had in my life!!!
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