Funny Side (Hopefully) Up

I know what you're thinking. "Great, another post about education. Didn't we just do one last week? Jeez, Ritvik, come up with something new!". But I won't, because it's my blog and I get to decide what I write about, so there. This post isn't so much about education (rejoice!) as about how we - or rather I, because I'm not the entire human race - learn. Recently there's been this whole thing that video and audio are the best ways to learn anything under the sun. Personally, I don't entirely agree. However, I also don't exactly disagree. A few weeks ago, I was working at an orphanage (for free, because I'm such a good person, aren't I?) and was helping the kids learn to read English. The trouble was, the kids weren't exactly what you'd call fast readers, and the lady who ran the orphanage - a wonderful person by the name of Roopa Mahajan - wanted them to be. Not that there's anything wrong with being a fast reader, o...

A couple of days ago, I did something I haven't done in far too long: I picked up a random book out of the large collections that my parents have assembled over the years and began reading. Of late, I've spent most of my time watching videos and checking social media. I'd almost forgotten what it felt like to hold an actual, physical book in my hands and read (frankly, I was surprised I remembered how to turn a page). The book, as it happened, was Jeffery Archer's "A Prisoner of Birth". Personally, I haven't read a whole lot of his books, but intend to do so now. But I digress. The point is, reading the book was so much better - several orders of magnitude better - than any video I've ever watched. Needless to say, I finished the book in two days. Not because it was a great book - although it was - but simply because, after all these days of allowing the grey matter to turn brown with rust, I was finally exercising my intelligence and expanding my ...