Alif Laila Series of Ferozesons and my love for books

 مجھے سب ہے یاد زرا زرا-- تمہیں یاد ہو کہ نہ یاد ہو

کس کو یاد ہے ان 6 کتب کی قدر مشترک؟

ملکہ شہرزاد

حجام اور قزاق

چین کی شہزادی

گنجا لنگور

سندباد کے سات سفر

معروف موچی

1970 کی دہائی میں یہ کتب میری اسلام آباد میں "ملت لائبریری" کا حصہ تھیں جن میں بچوں کی فیروز سنز کی کتب کے علاوہ ابن صفی، این صفی، مظہر کلیم وغیرہ کی کتب تھیں

کل فیروز سنز نزد تین تلوار جانے کا اتفاق ہوا، تو یہ سیٹ خرید لیا--

کیا زبوں حالی کا شکار نظر آیا-- فیروز صاحب کے بچوں کی اگلی نسل کیلئے فکر فردا کا مقام

فیروز سنز کراچی کا پتہ:

تین تلوار سے دو تلوار کی طرف جاتے ہوئے الٹے ہاتھ پر شیل کے پیٹرول پمپ کے سامنے کھڑے ہوں تو سیدھے ہاتھ والے کونے کے سامنے کمرشل کے فرسٹ فلور پر

Tarzan and My Language Acquisition

ٹارزن کے جنگ اخبار میں روز شائع ہونے والے تصویری سلسلہ سے میں نے تقریباً 5-6 سال کی عمر میں اخبار پڑھنا شروع کیا-- یہ 1967-68 کا زمانہ تھا-- روز صبح امی، ابا یا بڑی بہنوں سے اصرار ہوتا تھا کہ وہ پڑھ کر سنائیں، اور شروع میں دو چار دفعہ ہر ایک نے سنایا-- چونکہ ہر کوئی اکثر اپنے کاموں میں مصروف ہوتا تھا، اور کہتا تھا بھئی خود پڑھ لو-- چنانچہ جھنجلا کر خود ہی پڑھنا شروع کر دیا-- اس کے بعد یہ چاروں فیروز سنز کی کتابیں IMSG سپر مارکیٹ اسلامآباد کی لائبریری سے لے کر پڑھیں-- بعد ازاں ٹارزن کی ان چار کتب کا پورا سیٹ خریدا اور بیسیوں دفعہ پڑھ ڈالا-- فیروز سنز کی ایک کتاب اسکول سے واپسی کے بعد کھانے کی میز پر شروع کرتے تھے اور وہ کوئی ایک ڈیڑھ گھنٹے کی مار ہوتی تھی--- ہماری imagination تخیل اور ایڈونچر کی آبیاری ان کتب سے شروع ہوئیں-- بعد ازاں اوریجنل بھی پڑھنے کا موقع ملا--

یہ چار کتب فیروزسنز واقع نزد تین تلوار شیل پٹرول پمپ سے خریدیں اس پیر کو خریدیں تھیں--

Playing with Fire: Confidence Building

Lighting up the fire for making tea during tracking and picnicking in the wilderness.
Food cooking in scouting.

We used to burn the bushes around our house in the wilderness when they have dried up in the autumn. They would grow during the summer monsoon to several feet high. Then they would dry up in the autumn around October - November. Especially during windy days. Just one matchstick would be enough to clear vast areas with these dried-up bushes. Once we were identified during such an arson adventure and abba (Ahsan Hyder) was informed that we were jumping over the fire. (Why would we, did they think we were stupid?) Anyhow, we persisted in this for several winters but were careful to do this when no one was watching. Imagine the crackling and swishing sound accompanied by swirling flames gobbling up vast swathes of dried bushes in a beautifully exhilarating scene with sights and sounds of jungle on fire. What an experience

Work in Process

How much time does it take to write an Exam in the LMS Based Online Exam Taken in Asynchronous Mode

How much time does it take to write a 3-hour exam in an LMS Based Online Taken in Asynchronous Mode?

My expectation from faculty members is that their question needs to be a 3-hour exam, the "estimated" writing time for the answers should be 3 hours. The exam paper is typically loaded on LMS as an assignment or some other activity. It should be visible to students on the stipulated time and date and with a clear specification of the end time-date. The duration doesn't have to be exactly 3-hours. It needs to be much more as the exam is being offered in an asynchronous mode because of connectivity issues, power breakdowns and technology issues. Depending upon the severity of such issues, the time period can be extended to half a day, full day or even few days as per the university's policy and particular geographical spacing of the students. This is what HEC is grappling with in designing a policy governing big universities whose students hail from poor demographics and far flung areas where there is only 2G or even no internet.

Why There are so Many Assignments on the LMS

A reply sent to the student who was complaining about excessive assignments. 

An assignment in each session is typically given by a faculty member for the benefit of students. Assignments provide opportunity to students to get their attendance for a class session because students can not be "forced" to "attend" the "synchronous" class session on zoom/Meet/Teams because of the "connectivity issues" (internet, power, equipment issues).

Furthermore, teachers expect that students come to the class session prepared with assigned course material for that student as given in the outline. Evaluation of class participation in physical classrooms typically points out those students to the teacher who are coming to the class prepared. As a "synchronous" class session attendance of students can not be guaranteed, therefore the assignment provides the students with the opportunity to impress their class teacher about their preparation and that they are engaged and connected during a class.

Which Option You should Choose: Pass-Fail or Letter Grade

This post describes when to use a pass-fail option and when not to use the pass-fail option. It gives you scenarios in which to select what.

Examples of How Children Fail

In "How Children Fail", the acclaimed author John Holt describes how children stop using their mind, and fail. It is quite evident from the example pic below that the child was using his mind. Unfortunately, the teacher was grading "mindlessly" from the key that he had. This example is not an isolated case. There are scores of examples in the book and of various subjects where this occurs. With these kinds of wrong answers to wrongly phrased/formatted questions, the child learns that it is dangerous to use his mind. It is much better to be solving the problems "mindlessly" to get good grades, instead of "mindful application" which can often result in wrong answers. There are just too many students' papers to check by the teacher, and too many questions in each paper to give space to the teacher to drill down into the thinking of each child for each answer to see whether the logic in child's mind was correct or not. Too many failures like this and child stops thinking, and starts resorting to mindless application of formulae which also results in random grades. The child realizes that whether I use my mind or not, my grades are random. It is dangerous to use my mind, the child concludes. This is "How Children Fail" and we see so many people around us proudly proclaiming "I hate maths".

What Should New Students of a University Must Consider: Essentials of a University Education

Why Education and Why Higher Education

• What is the Purpose of Education
• What does it mean to be well educated and what is our mission
• What is Higher Education
• What is Impact can you create
• What Impact on Society
• What Impact on Industry and Economy
• What should be your personal Impact 

5 Challenges for Designing your Professional Lives

Faculty, Parents and my dear students:

As I look at your beaming faces full of hope and aspirations and great expectations of your future after four years of university life, I first invite you to try to soak in this environment of this marvelous infrastructure at IoBM. You are sitting in the building which is name after the founder president of this institute Mr Shahjehan S Karim who left for the hereafter two years ago. This campus, which is spread over 10 acres and consists of several buildings like this one, is a concrete realization of the dream of Mr Shahjehan S Karim, who envisioned IoBM to be one of the the leading institutions, nationally and internationally, renowned for its contribution to education and society. Please note that he envisioned this around 25 years ago in 1994, after he had retired from a long illustrious service with the government! Mind you, the age of 60 is the time when most think of retiring and folding up their lives with reading or writing. SSK starting a new professional endeavor and working vigorously into his 80s should be an inspiration for all of us. If he can envision such a grand project at 60 and bring it to realization over the next 20+ years, you can also dream big and work for its realization. You have much more time and energy, you are in your youthful late teens and early 20s. You are about to embark on your professional life. You too can create a similar vision and work for its realization over the rest of your life. As I say this, I am reminded of my start, some 40 years ago at NED in early 1980. For me those last 40 years have passed within a blink of an eye. I wish my professional education would have started with a concrete inspiration like this vision. But, as Mr Shehjehan S Karim's life tells us, it is never too late. [Sep 7, 2019 Orientation for Fall 2019 Intake at IoBM]

How to be a Change Leader and a Job Creator

[IoBM Orientation for New Students Sep 1, 2018]
As I look at your beaming faces, your youthful energy, and your ambitions for shaping the future of our nation and our dear country, I am filled with hope. I am sure that our future is destined to be better than our today. It is also welcoming to see that "change" and "job creation" are among our top national priorities today. Today I would like to share with you how you can be a change leader and how you can be a job creator.

A Tribute to Cricket for Spearheading my English Language Acquisition - Sports and Language Learning

I often see parents worrying about language skills of their children. A closer look at the hobbies of such children will indicate that they are not passionate about any hobbies especially sports. Here I would detail the role of cricket in spearheading my English language acquisition.  As my interest grew, with cricket and started following the cricket there were some milestones.

The book that I read in 1980s

[Work in Process]
Coming soon

A Tale of Two Live Performances of Pastoral- 6th Symphony of Beethoven and My Musical Journey

Here I recall the two experiences of my life while attending two live performance of Beethoven's 6th Symphony, "Pastoral" and how they stimulated my love for Beethoven and classical music. The two experiences are spread apart by nearly thirty years. First was at UT Austin's Bates Recital Hall in 1989 conducted by Louis Lane and the second was at the Hong Kong's Cultural Center Concert Hall conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy in 2018, and this is a tale of my musical journey with Pastoral.

Louis Lane, Director Orchestra atThe University of Texas at Austin from 1989-92

Sir Najmul Hasan of IBA and How to Determine the Extent of Your Success in Life

Yesterday, during my PhD class with students I was trying to explain the complexity of real world and how models (and theories) help us in making sense of this complexity by focusing on a few concepts and their relationships. The discussion moved towards perception and reality and from there to this phenomenal lesson by Najmul Hasan Sb about how to determine the extent of our success in life. Sir Najmul Hasan did his MBA from 1955-57 as part of the first batch of IBA, Karachi offering the very first MBA program outside North America in collaboration with USAID and University of Pennsylvania. He served as a faculty member of IBA from 1969 till 2006.

Sir Najmul Hasan of IBA. Photo taken for NIC card in 1972-72 

How Readers are Created. Ecosystem that Produces Readers

How can we create readers and an ecosystem where readers can thrive. How do we make reading a contagious disease when our educational institutions from schools to universities have become mass producers of functional illiterates [1]. Universities complain that they are getting intake that has studied English for 12 years but have no reading comprehension and no expression. The employers are complaining that graduates coming out of the universities can not even write a single page of correct English. This is a dismal situation. How come we are producing functional Illiterates who are defined as people who know how to read but are not readers, and those who know how to write but are not writers! How can we reverse this?

How Schools Teach Students to Hate Reading: Mass Creation of Non-Readers

Schools are producing graduates who know how to read but are not readers. They have become non-readers (functional illiterates) because the schools have taught them to hate reading! 

Functional Illiteracy

Schools typically use a curriculum and methodology that consists of senseless and meaningless worksheets and exercises which the students are forced to do repeatedly, continuously and ad-nauseam. And, when they resist, they are punished with F-grades, labeling and humiliation. These meaningless tasks and exercises and their resulting punishments teaches the students to hate reading and convinces them that ALL reading is so tedious, so boring, so frightful and accompanied with so much punishment that it is inconceivable that reading can ever be pleasure and fun. This is how we are producing non-readers, who believe that reading books is unreal, irrelevant, and disconnected with the challenges of life. We are in fact producing functional illiterates. 

Life Long Learning vs Sacrificing Interest
at the Altar of Technique Mechanics

How to become a Life-Long Learner: Mission of Developing Life-Long Learners

This is the first orientation of new students of IoBM over the last 23 years, where our founder president, Mr Shahjehan Karim is not present. He left us for the hereafter last month. Inna lillahe wa inna ilaihi rajioon. He worked tirelessly all his life to make a world a better place. This institution of IoBM is a testimony to his vision, his mission and his aspirations. One can talk about his achievements for hours. But, today at the Orientation for New Students,
I will focus on one single point; the mission and purpose of IoBM. Mission of an organization is the reason d'etre of why the organization exists. One can see in the following mission statement, Mr Shahjehan S Karim's love for learning, love for the youth, and through them his hopes and aspirations for the future: "The mission of the Institute of Business Management is to foster a learning environment where students are motivated to make learning an on-going life-long process. "
[Aug 26, 2017]

5 Major Misconceptions of Muslim Parents regarding Parenting Challenges of the 21st Century

[Themes of this post were presented at Forward Institute for Educational Bridgework Seminar on Jan 27, 2016. ]

Note: This post is specifically written for Muslim parents and presupposes reader's belief in Quran and Sunnah.
Over the last few years I have come across Muslim parents who are making extra effort in following Sunnah. However, their over-emphasis on "school education" seems to be backfiring creating several issues stifling the growth of their children. Their misplaced emphasis and strictness reveals several major misconceptions from the Islamic point of view:

What does a Child Need? Mother's Teacher-hood vs Motherhood

I am forced to write this post as I increasingly encounter cases upon cases of children with shattered confidence, broken personality and with severe personality issues and most of them emanating from the tremendous desire of the mother to relinquish her "mamta' (motherhood) role and assume the role of a teacher for which she is singularly unequipped! A child needs his mother's motherhood more than her teacher-hood. In their enthusiasm to make their children smart, and under tremendous peer pressure and the pressure from schools, mothers in Pakistan are assuming more and more the role of a teacher, at the expense of  their motherhood role. This is disastrous for the confidence and feeling of self-worth for a child, especially, because motherhood is a natural role for the mother, however, role of a teacher has to be learned and does not come naturally to everyone. Teaching requires aptitude, attitude, soft nature, quest for knowledge, magnanimity and  hosts of teaching skills. These skills are in short supply even in those who have had formal training in teaching.

• Other posts on Parental Counseling 

Top 10 Reasons Why Students Fail in Semester System- Survival Guide

About 5%-10% of students entering the university are unable to survive the semester system. The following list of top 10 reasons is based on my observations as a student from 1980-1994 at NED, IBA Karachi and at Univ of Texas at Austin. These are also based on my interactions with dropouts as faculty member from 1995-present (FAST NU, IBA, KIET, IoBM) with eighteen years as Deputy Director and Dean. I have given counseling to countless students. Often the students come when it is too late. At times their behavior compels me to think that they were asking to be dropped! You will agree too after reading this list. 

• See also: Who Fails when a Student Fails

Youth Leadership and Dave Ulrich-Orientation for University Students

[Presented at IoBM Orientation Session for Fall 2016 intake on Sep 3]

Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of attending a workshop on leadership at Karachi Marriott by Dave Ulrich, who is considered as the father of modern Human Resource Management. Ulrich is a professor at the University of Michigan and a consultant to top companies of the world. With over 30+ books on HR and leadership, he was ranked #1 Management Educator and Guru by Business Week, and was selected as one of the 10 most innovative and creative leaders, and was named as the most influential thinker in HR of the decade by HR magazine.

Dave Ulrich ended this Karachi workshop on leadership by presenting the three questions on which he had based his commencement speech at the graduation ceremony of a US university some years ago.

I will start my orientation speech with those three questions which I think are so fundamental to youth leadership that instead of you grappling with these questions at your graduation, you should be asking them at the very start of your professional education. The three questions that Dave Ulrich briefly touched upon in about ten minutes were: