Transcript

From Passion to Perseverance | Deepti Sawhney | TEDxYouth@HIXS

Transcriber: Joon Choi
Reviewer: Arvind Patil First of. So we live in a world of inequality. And so what do you do if you have a father
who is absolutely empathetic? He's very, very patient. He used to
sit with me on the dining table for hours while I finished my meal
and told you just one thing, that you can achieve everything
and anything and this. So I belong to an army family
and I'm an Army bigot, and I'm married to the olives that is. I'm married to an Army officer and I'm the
pizza honey CEO and founder of Mature. An educational transformation company. And I'm not here to tell you
a story of valor and grit. My story is about very little things, very
small things that mattered in life. That there is nothing. Nothing in
this world that a girl can do. I want to stress on that fact that we
can do anything that the boys can. And that was the ethos which was
instilled in me by my father, who still is the wind beneath my wings. So my book is about integrity
and perseverance. It's about small things that infused with the mind of this little girl who actually
got these qualities, values, and she made sure that they
changed her world. And I want this story to be about fashion
and about building relationships. So you're not married to the islands?
Like I said, my husband's an army officer. It meant a lot of things. 
You know, it has meant a lot of things. I've had hardships. I've had separations. And also, you know, you move even
before you start making friends. So when I was in class ten inches class,
then I'd already moved. So that is, you know, energized
like that is quite, quite a difficult thing
to relate to, right? To be able to not make friends, to
be not able to stay in a place. But this dockyard is not
about the negatives. I want to talk about how all of this, the
background actually got me involved. It actually got me to become more agile
and face hardships as they come. So being in the Army also gave me
the most beautiful memories. They've been posted in lovely
places and made, you know, connect with with nature.
You just name it. And we've seen it like we move so much. But I remember my mother telling
me that, you know, this is a this is something you
should india yourself, too. But I wanted this daughter that
I'm going to be someone. Who will be anything in this world?
What a teacher I did not want to become an educator
because I'd seen her and her life and the hardships and the separation
that she had meant. And I wanted to be like in one place and
do something which was innovative, creative, and I had that stability. But, you know, I got married,
like I said, into the army, and I didn't want to become an educator. But yet I am a stalwart for the
cause and of the things. So, you know, when I entered
the classroom, I knew that I wanted to do things
differently. I wanted to create. I am going to love God. I have become
an educator. I didn't want to. I wanted things to be extremely
innovative and out of the box. So I wanted the children of our country
so that the passionate, you know, feeling that I had for my country, I
wanted to do something for them, for the teachers and for the students
so that they would have the most beautiful education
that we can ever imagine. And I tried a lot of innovations
in my own classroom, but not only in in my own country. I wanted to get the best of
the world to this country. So I work with, you know, schools. I
made case studies, I did recitals. And I also worked with tech giants to
understand the pedagogical, you know, advancements that the education has
made in the world of education. So my journey here, as you can see,
was exploring. I wanted to explore. I wanted to see what's out there and then
getting back to my to my country. So but it was that was was also was. Even
then, it was about shedding light. I whatever little that I learned, I
made sure that I was, you know, sharing it with my peers. I was,
you know, talking to them, digging from them as well. I mean, there were so many people I
learn from this entire journey, and I'm thankful for that. But the community that I wanted to create
in a school, outside school was, you know, let's do this together. So there have been a few
defining moments as I look back at when these
moments were happening. Of course, I wasn’t sure that, you know, 
this is the moment which is going to
make this difference in my life. But there were these three or four
defining moments that I had, and then I now reflect back and thank
you for making me reflect because I sat down and I thought of these womans. When I look back, there are these moments
which very clearly tell me, you know, this is something which led
to what I am today. So the first instance was when I visited
Leila that I was still at the British school as a teacher. We got together as a group and we went to this school called
Maha Modi Residential School, The Amazing School. And
we may go, you know, thinking we are from the seventies
and we are going to go that and be able to do professional development
with these children and look their faces. I mean, they met
them is so peaceful, so serene. And I think they will be realised that,
yes, we can share with them, but we learnt a whole lot from them. You know how they were so concerned about
every little thing that they did? What impact did it make in their community
, in that ecosystem? So they are so giving. So this is
something which impacted me a lot. That was my first impact. The
second defining moment that I had in my life was when for three
years I worked in in Jordan. And these are the kind of people who,
you know, in the country, they believe that their values and
culture can't be compromised. That is something which
is a non-negotiable. You do what you have to do in your life,
but your culture should remain. And I love the way the present. KING When he and his coronation speech,
he said, you know, I will always love you. The humility the
humility in that speech was that I am there to serve you
and the well-being. And, you know, the interest of the
children is always on his mind. And I love that word. I
will always love you. So that was my and the other
defining moment. The time defining moment was that eight
years ago I realised the potential that a giant has in his own capacity. So I started this project called The
Design Thinking for Social Change, and we did a whole lot of projects.
Pan-india. And what it taught me was that yes,
we are back dated. We are not teaching by rote. We are, you know, debt for the children,
but we are not doing justice. So because the projects that the
children made were phenomenon, they are out of this world. And what informed me was that
these children need a platform to be able to exhibit that, and we are not doing that
in our classrooms. So the summit actually grew bigger,
and as the years go by, UNESCO's invited me for my case study
and we were actually presented. It was at the summit. Found
its way in the world, and it went on and on and it
got bigger and bigger. The forward who does not
have to stop it that. But I think what was the primary sole
highlight was towards the end. But just before the pandemic happened, we actually got a lot of leadership
policymakers all together and talk about it. And
this is was you know, this is something which was really
a triumphant moment for us and B, when we could get people to talk
about it and realize that, yes, we need to make these changes. And I think the fourth and final
defining moment, I mean, my my journeys on there now was
you when I thought that I have to get something from outside
from the other countries, which is rarely really doing well to make
the Japan self-reliant, self regulated, you know, give them instead
student leadership. So we had meetings and we met people in
Finland, we met people in Singapore. And my own experience of eight years
working with the national curriculum for England in England and in India, we
went through a number of education. We got constructive feedback from
people and very importantly, we wanted to contextualize
it to our own country. We wanted people to understand
that this is it. This is what we want to do, and we should
contribute to that and make it a very, very holistic program. So being in
classrooms taught me, you know, what's actually happening. So sitting there, breathing in,
finding out, you know, how innovation and enter into partnership
is actually integrated in, you know, school level. So this is your name as
something as you pass your your nine and you'll get into an entrepreneurial
college where you learn about hotel management and being a dentist
by actually doing it. So the children nod here on the
right hand side in a cafe. They're running the café while they're
studying in school and everything from the dental to the cook to the, you know,
managing the guests, everything was done by them. And and that got them future
ready that got them ready for what they wanted to be in the future. And, you know, if you see in this slide, what I want to depict is that the
whole community gets together. So this is an example in Finland. But, you know, this is an entrepreneurial
college and the people who are doing
well in the society, they come back and teach pro-bono.
So it takes a village, right. We know that everybody needs to get
together if we want our country's future to be better. So from these learnings,
I think I got, you know, my brain working as to what I want to do. And then I started doing that, my
commitments in great in Greece. But of course they were the happy
kind of commitments when the pandemic happened singularly. I trained 60,000 teachers to get online
and CBC and Google for education. We created a blended learning program
which had over 1 million views and one LAC certification and one goal. So, you know, got people online, got them
in touch with the with the children, was sitting at home and couldn't reach
the school for the other thing. So the commitment of course, when you start thinking about and
looking about the the product or the innovation that you are looking at, a people start looking at people
for advice or, you know, getting you to understand, become
a member of that think tank. And that is just what happened. I mean, people give me that kind of a
leverage bet that I could do what I had wanted to do. I wanted
to reach masses. And in a sense, that's
beginning to happen. And so so from this game, this curriculum
that we call create and my that was a curriculum actually is a skill based
curriculum. And it is an acronym. So we get the curriculum for the
children to be connected. So the children have connectedness. They are looking at, you know, how
do we how do we reach out? So how do we relate this to our own set? What is the responsibility
I have to my learning? So connectedness, responsibility. We look at engagement, authenticity
of the learning that we have, the transformation from knowledge to
learning and how to be events. So this is what actually happened, and I'm so glad that my father actually
got to see this curriculum before he passed away. And this is something which
came from his inspiration and his, you know, dream that he had for me. And as I said, the project
went higher and higher. The design thinking is on
the Eupen site now, and that is something which is the
only case study from India. I got invited by U.N. Graduate School
of Education to be a team member for the course that they did online course
that they did on innovation and end to partnership. So like I said,
the responsibility is increased. And this is something which
I'm enjoying doing. This is something which is
really a passion for me. And, you know, to see that name on
on the screen that it says India. And that still gives me goosebumps as
you have all the people in Asia and in Asia Pacific and your name comes
up with the country embedded in it. So, yes, commitments and responsibilities. We also managed to get the finished
diploma to India. Very I had experienced and I had got this added advantage of working
with different nationalities. I thought getting something like that for the Indian educators would be worthwhile. So this is something which
is successfully running. And to sum this, all the things up.
This is a picture of me. I drove Bangla in Sikkim and it says,
speaking from the heart, that's the bulls that is making. If you have the passion, the empathy, the perseverance to go along and the
integrity to make it happen, that is no way that it won't
actually happen. So that's my lapse of that entire
a reflection process that I had. I do have the responsibility of this
of this amazing team that I have. And for the people who are, you know,
working towards this entire thing. And then you really reflect and look at
it and you do know that you are doing the right thing and you have
a nice good night's sleep. And I always believe in this in this
a little saying by Margaret Mead, never doubt that a small
group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, that's the only thing
that ever happens. So you are not in a thought
better for something that I really didn't want to do. I never
wanted to be a teacher. And that's a humongous stuff, right? There are 250 million students who need
to be trained for their skills. So how many of you how many of you
youngsters out there are ready to join this thing? How many of you are willing
to become enterprise to change the country and to change the skill
set that our children need, our learners need, and they can
be as young as 15, 14, 15. I've seen the potential
in today's children. And how many of you are willing to change
the world? One little step at a time. And you.