INTERVIEW
SR: You touched on the education system there. How
would implementing different techniques in exchange
for outdated ones, be transformative to education?
TB: The mind map is a network of images, colours
and associations. It saves you around 90% of your
note-taking time, you don’t need any irrelevant words
for your memory, but just the keywords. If we want
to transform our thinking, we need to transform
back to what we were when we were kids. So, the
mind map changes and transforms everything. Now,
i have a question for you: What’s the prime use of
thinking tools?
SR: Is it for coming up with ideas?
Here, how can we use mind maps? If you want to
generate ideas, then you do a mind map and zap! you
get it. If you want to fi nd solutions to problems-mind
map it out.
SR: There’s plenty of ways they can benefi t people, but
can people become happier by doing them?
TB: Believe you me, that defenitely happens
alongwithh a lot more. Mind maps reduce your stress.
For example, say you’ve got a lovely project you want
to do. And you know, if done right, it could make you
money and bring you success. If you sit down with
sheets of lined paper and a one colour pen, within ten
minutes your brain will say this is really boring. This
project is going to make me a drudge.
TB: Ok. What else?
SR: To come up with Creativity, the spark that makes
something attractive.
TB: And what are you going to use these tools for?
SR: Learning, I suppose.
TB: Learning. Learning is the key. And not only
learning but learning how to learn! Most people don’t
have the faintest idea of how to learn.
SR: So, you’re saying that we’ve been learning wrong
all these years!
TB: Yes. Which is why, we need to transfor m.
Transforming is a keyword to be remembered.
Another thinking tool is ‘solution fi nding’. Apart from
that, what about the dangerous activity of enjoyment!
Whereas when you take your coloured pens and
you do your mind map; keeping in mind the main
branches or areas where you will possibly fi nd the
solution, you will feel at ease. And when you put down
/ utilise one of the ideas, a new one blooms out of that
area. So, you can see, it grows like a fl ower or a tree.
It’s not just a drab list. It improves the functioning
of your brain , specifi cally, the memory.
The mind map is like a panacea, a cure-all, the best
medicine for the brain. The education system has
simply got stuck in a rut, it hasn’t changed for over
hundred years. Now everything is beginning to
transform. Parents have fi nally noticed that children
are getting bored of the monotonous syllabus that is
being anyhow covered in the schools, without any
signifi cant changes in the teaching learning methods.
Every kid is on the lookout for a mentor and a good
leader - only a good teacher can fulfi l that need.
Mental literacy refers to the knowledge
of the brain’s physical and mental
function, and to the application of this
knowledge to all aspects of life. Put
in another way, mental literacy refers
to having the “correct formulae”, the
proper operations manual for the brain.
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| Vol. 10 Issue 3 • MARCH 2019, Delhi NCR