Three monk – Chinese animation

The film is based on the ancient Chinese proverb "One monk will shoulder two buckets of water, two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to fetch water."

There was a small temple on a mountain and a little monk in the temple. His daily routine was shouldering water, chanting sutras, knocking the wooden fish, adding water to the holy water bottle on the table honoring the Goddess of Mercy, and watching over the mice from stealing food at night. His life was smooth and comfortable. Soon after, a tall monk came. He drank half of the jar’s water as soon as he arrived at the temple, so the little monk asked him to fetch water. The tall one thought it was unfair for him to fetch water alone, so he asked the young one to do it together. They could only carry one bucket a time, and they would only feel content when the bucket was placed in the middle of the shoulder pole. Anyway, they still had water to drink in this way. Then, a fat monk came. He wanted to drink, but there was no water in the jar. The short monk and the tall one asked him to fetch water by himself. He carried a bucket of water, and drank it up immediately. From then on, nobody would fetch water, so they had no water. Everyone chanted his own sutras and knocked his own wooden fish. As nobody would add water to the holy water bottle, the plant in the bottle withered soon. At night, a mouse came out stealing, but everyone pretended not to see it.

Different situation in the temple

 1 Monk in temple

 The first devotee arrives at the temple at the hilltop and sees a vase with dried flowers.

He quickly brings 2 buckets of water from the sea nearby. He fills the vase and the remaining water is poured in a container.

2 Monks in Temple

The second devotee arrives and feels thirsty, the first devotee provides him water from the stored container. But his thirst was still not quenched. The second devotee fetches 2 bucket of water from the sea.

Fig : Two bucket carried by one person using support

Next time when water in the container finished, both the devotees go to collect the water in one bucket. While bringing the filled bucket with a support each one of them tries to push the bucket toward the other person. So to avoid the conflict they mutually decided to keep the filled bucket mid way the support using a scale.

Fig : One bucket carried by 2 person using support

3 Monks in temple

 The third devotee arrives. He comes and immediately consumes water in the stored container. The remaining two devotees were shocked to see him alone emptying the container.

Although he goes to fill 2 buckets of water but consumes the same immediately.

LESSON - TEAMWORK

As a result, the mouse was so rampant that it knocked over the candleholder and caused a fire During accident they realised the importance of team work where they positioned themselves at different locations in the path to bring quick water to put off the fire. 

Fig : Use of rope-pulley to lift water

Only thus did the three monks make a concerted effort to put out the fire, and finally awaken. After that, they started hanging together and the temple never lacked water again.   

The film tells a simplest story with simplest lines and a simplest form. There is no dubbed voice. Even the background music is reduced to the occasional sound of wooden fish. But it is this simplicity that makes people unwilling to miss a single scene. When we review the Three Monks after seeing numerous Japanese, Korean, European and American cartoons, we will be shocked. We will even smugly say, look at our Chinese “silent movie”. Maybe, only Chinese water-and-ink painting has such a magic to depict a figure with distinct personality with just a few strokes. The film is based on a folk proverb. It has national features, a complete scene of mountain, water and temple drawn with traditional painting skills, and figures with strong characters. Although it is meant to reason things out, the film is humorous and void of rigid sermon.  

A Simple act but immense learning

Today, in lecture we carried out an exercise whereby 3 people crossed a valley using a pole. Although the act looked simple but it had many deep learnings. We even carried out the act practically in the class.

Some of the basic ideas which need to be implemented while performing this exercise can be:

a) Speed of the 3 valley crossers should be synchronized.

b) Real Time Communication should be there among them - where they could communicate to each other how and what steps to be taken while crossing the valley. Also this would help them be on the same platform of thoughts which is of utmost importance in this task.

c) Gap Size between any pair should be same/uniform/equal.

d) Closed Feedback Loop must be present (more or less the same as point b) of Real Time Communication).

We learnt the following management lesson out of the activity.

1) Develop a Shared Vision and Unity of Purpose 

• Team building comes from a clear vision of what the group is striving to achieve and is tied to

commitment, collaboration, teamwork, individual and mutual accountability

• A shared vision that has meaning and purpose creates synergistic empowerment

2)  Develop Pride in Group Membership and an Identity as a Team

• Point out sources and consequences of taking pride in group membership

• Get team to think about the “legacy” they would like to be remembered by this season

3) Develop a Meaningful and Inspiring Mission for the Team

• Mission statement: solemn unconditional agreement among group members that spells out meaning

and purpose behind groups existence affirming “This is who we are, this is what we are all about”

• “what do you want to accomplish this season, what will it take to get there?”

4) Develop Complementary Roles and Synergistic Teamwork

• Everyone working together with a collective desire/passion to succeed

• Understanding and appreciation of each others roles (role clarity, role acceptance, role importance)

• Create weekly reward system to recognize athletes who excel within their roles (effort awards)

5) Individual and Mutual Accountability

• Everyone must be on the same page, working together to achieve goals that are deemed important 

6) Positive Team Culture and Cohesive Group Atmosphere

• Psychosocial factors that influence team chemistry both on and off the field

• Note distinction b/w task cohesion and social cohesion

• Do things socially together, build a real sense of camaraderie

7) Strong Internal Leadership from Within the Group

• Genuine sense of peer helping and social support, stepping up for what is right, moving team along

in the right direction

8) Ongoing Communication about How Things are Progressing 

• Talk openly about the commitment and discipline required to reach team goals

• Monitor, evaluate, and adjust goals as needed (goal boards)

9) Open and Honest Communication Processes and Trust at All Levels 

• Many communication problems on teams arise from miscommunication and/or misunderstanding

• Effective communication involves mutual sharing and mutual understanding

• Athletes respect coaches that are open, honest, genuine, sincere, and direct

• Listen to others, they will listen to you (demonstrates that you care)

• Non-verbal communication just as important as what you have to say

• Encouragement and support: Find things people are doing correctly and acknowledge it!

• Remember, just because you have communicated does not mean you’ll always get what you want

Khan Academy – Future of Education

Sal Khan is a math, science, and history teacher to millions of students, yet none have ever seen his face. Khan is the voice and brains behind Khan Academy, a free online tutoring site that may have gotten your kid out of an algebra bind with its educational how-to videos. Now Khan Academy is going global. Backed by Google, Gates, and other Internet powerhouses, Sal Khan wants to change education worldwide, and his approach is already being tested in some American schools. Sanjay Gupta reports.

Vision & Mission

With its digital lessons and simple exercises, he's determined to transform how we learn at every level. One of his most famous pupils, Bill Gates, says Khan -- this "teacher to the world," is giving us all a glimpse of the future of education. Mission is to have every precocious 13-year-old in the world have access to every bit of information they could ever want. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxJgPHM5NYI

Problem and inspiration

Among student there is lots of frustration with how information is conveyed in textbooks and lectures. As per Khan there would be connections in the subject matter that standard curricula would ignore despite the fact that they make the content easier to understand, enjoy, and RETAIN. Fascinating and INTUITIVE concepts are almost intentionally being butchered into pages and pages of sleep-inducing text and monotonic, scripted lectures. Intelligent peers memorizing steps and formulas for the next exam without any sense of the intuition or big picture, only to forget everything within a matter of weeks. The videos posted are his expression of how the concepts should have been expressed in the first place, all while not compromising rigor or comprehensiveness.

Innovative solution

In the process, Khan has fueled the debate over tech's growing influence on education while garnering the support of powerful friends.

"At 3,000 lessons online, Sal's personal ability as a teacher is remarkable," says Bill Gates, whose mention of Khan Academy put the website on the map. "Bringing this kind of creativity and new assessment tools for teachers could make a profoundly positive difference in education."

Where he once was an army of one, the staff has been ramped up to 32, including the recent high-profile addition of Google's first hired employee, programming ace Craig Silverstein. The staff's immediate mission is to further broaden the site's content and improve assessment and feedback features so the Khan Academy experience becomes more interactive.

Strategy and future goals

Khan's plans are no less ambitious on the ground. This summer, he'll launch the first Khan Academy Discovery Lab in Palo Alto, Calif., a small, project-based summer camp "that's like a lab for us, so we can learn more about how kids learn," he says. If it's a hit, the labs will expand nationwide next year.

And after, perhaps a bricks-and-mortar Khan Academy. "I wouldn't want to be the headmaster of such a place per se, because I want to work on stuff that scales," he says. "But it's a cool idea. A place where teachers make what an engineer would make, where the ideas we have can be on display."

Those ideas have caused friction in the education community. Though critiques vary, most hinge on the inference that classroom-based teachers aren't as important as we thought.

Khan's timing is perfect, because students and parents are living in the age of YouTube, where video watching is routine. Certainly schools need to evaluate what's best for their kids and curriculum. That said, technology is here, and doing the same old thing just won't work.

"We have 6 million visitors a month, so we think that students helping each other is the future," Khan says. "That community can become as popular as the videos themselves. It'll be like having free private tutors in the cloud."