The Island Game

Written by Kamyar Wednesday, 21 January 2009 18:22

It was December of 2007 and I was working as a consultant for a new company in Dubai. My main responsibility was building and leading the technical team. Every Sunday we used to gather in a weekly meeting to discuss the company progress. Our team was an interesting mix of different nationalities; out of 12 members we had three lovely people from Philippines and the rest were from France, Zimbabwe, Britain, Portugal, Lebanon, Pakistan, Ireland and Iran.

Usually the meetings were facilitated by the CEO. On a Saturday night, I received a call from the CEO saying that he can not attend the meeting on the next morning and he asked me to take responsibility for it, and I accepted.

Children and Education

Written by Kamyar Sunday, 18 January 2009 18:39

Me and a dear friend of mine, Mohsen, have been engaged in a dialogue about education. Since his cute little girl was born a few months ago, Mohsen has been thinking about best educational practices, the same subject that I have been engaged with lately. As this dialogue has been unfolding, we have shared many interesting resources with each other, including books, websites, articles and inspirational speeches.

Here I am going to introduce three of them, all of which I have found very interesting:

• Edutopia.org, where you can find loads of videos and articles about alternative ways of schooling. You can also subscribe to the videocast and watch the videos on your iPod.
• Last Child in the Woods, a book by Richard Louv, about children's connection to the natural world and the importance of saving them from what he calls 'Nature-Deficit Disorder'.
  
• A 20 minute speech by Ken Robinson about creativity and education:

Music and Life - Alan Watts on Education

Written by Kamyar Wednesday, 14 January 2009 18:10

Please watch this short video, by Alan Watts. This is what we do to our lives, and our children's. Then we complain about the political conflicts, poverty, wars ... It seems like the source of our problems is embedded in our lifestyles, the enemy is us!

A quote by Ghandi:

We must be the change we wish to see in the world.

Reflection on Compassion

Written by Kamyar Saturday, 10 January 2009 11:01

I was just listening to Zencast, episode 189 about compassion by Jack Cornfield. In the middle of the session, he invites the audience to reflect on moments in their lives when they have been touched by someone through a compassionate act. So I pausesed the audio and decided to find 3 names that instantly come to my mind from my childhood. Beleive me, it took less than 10 seconds, and I was shocked by the results. Three people that I might have not thought about for years. Then I decided to write down the three little stories. Here they go: