How a group of blind students reminded me of paradigm shift

The other day I took a train from Kottayam, my hometown, to Ernakulam in an unreserved compartment. As soon as the train pulled into the station there was a big rush. Two men and two women got in with about 20 bags, mostly small airbags, and a harmonium. For drinking water, instead of the usual plastic bottles often seen in our trains, they were carrying two large plastic jars. Soon after entering the train they began frantically placing their bags on all the empty seats.

I kept watching all this with an irritated eye and a wrinkled forehead. Why do they want to grab the seats this way? Might is right? All kinds of annoying thoughts and indignation formed in my mind. Fortunately, I got a seat and kept track of the drama that was unfolding before me.

One of the men came and placed two children (school students in uniform) on the seats right in front of me. Similarly, they brought about 20 students to sit on the different seats they had ‘reserved’.

They were all blind, from the Olassa School for the blind, Aymanam, Kottayam.

About half the students were girls. I looked at them with a sense of compassion. One of them kept his head down throughout the journey, another had an occasional vague smile lighting his face.

Goodness! I started blaming myself for the way I initially looked at the group. I realized that the two men and two women I mentioned initially were teachers. They had asked the children to wait as a group on the platform while they got in and ensured seats. 

As the train started to move, I saw one of the teachers going to each student and dropping some banana chips into their hands. The boy who held his head down now had a smile on his face.

I started a conversation with the lady who was distributing the banana chips. She told me they were taking the children to the State-level Youth Festival for Special Schools.

REFLECTION 

In TCI we often use the word paradigm, because TCI itself is a paradigm. Ruth Cohn’s four-factor model of I – We- It globe is a compass that helps us to see where we are and where we want to go. Paradigm literally means ‘the way we see things’. The way we see decides what we see. What we see decides what we think or our attitudes. Thoughts and attitudes decide action. Action repeated becomes habit and habit, in course of time, becomes character. And as the saying goes, character is destiny.

The way I initially saw the two men and two women was a paradigm of ignorance. I did not know what was happening. My irritation was ill-founded. When I came to understand the situation my paradigm shifted. Irritation gave way to comparison. I felt sad about the children who could not see this beautiful world. I admired the teachers who were taking these children to a youth festival with tender, loving care. I could imagine the trouble they had taken to give special training to those children, to make them competent to participate at the state-level contest.

A change happened in my outlook, and instantly there was a change in what I felt. Paradigms make all the difference. Three cheers to Thomas Kuhn and his concept of paradigm shift!