Journey to Excellence

I am Tazeen Siddiqui, an educator and trainer from India, which is a beautiful land of different cultures and languages that has colorful festivals that allow us all to unite and enjoy our diversity all at once.

My passion for teaching started when I was in first grade, as my mother had opened a school for garbage picker kids in our garage. That was when I started learning the art of sharing knowledge and rising with Excellence. I remember we didn’t buy a car for so many years because my father used to say that the garage was being used the right way and we must continue to help children learn and be literate so they could face the future confidently.

I observed and learned how a child’s heart and mind fight to make decisions in situations of acceptance vs. disapproval.

I became the principal of a school, and I remember my first day in a class of high school kids. I heard a boy complimenting me as “beautiful,” but when I looked back at the class, there was silence. Though I could make out which student had said it, instead of being angry at him, I told the whole class to take out their rough book and write an essay on “Being Beautiful.” The idea was to channel the mischief into learning. As expected, I read wonderful essays on the topic.

In another incident, when a child hit another child, I gave the responsibility of the child who was hurt to the one who had hurt him for a full month. I observed the child who had done the harm take good care of the child he had harmed, which was satisfying to watch.

The idea was to channel the aggressive emotions into love and care.

These and many other similar experiences helped me in training teachers and principals across India so that our future kids are secure, nurtured, and brought up with a right approach towards life.

Later, I realized that it’s important to share my experience not only with teachers in urban areas but also with teachers in the interiors of rural areas. So I began conducting Skype sessions with them. All this experience sharing was very useful and helped me to write an article on multiple intelligences (called “Multiple Intelligences 54”), which extended the 9 Multiple Intelligences Theory of Howard Gardner. I presented my Paper on at Harvard university’s WEI International Educational Conference.

I believe that when you have passion in your heart, vision in your eyes, and dedication in your approach, you crack the real wonders of the world. With this thought, I moved ahead with a vision of quality education irrespective of rural and urban areas and decided to take great scientist fro the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) to interact with the children at an underprivileged school. I wanted them to know that the ISRO should not just be a dream or words in a book, but a great reality with which they could interact. I wanted them to be ignited to achieve the heights of success.

Believing everything is possible with great passion, I decided to launch Dr. Kalam International Vision India Reader so that principals across India can share their best practices and rise with excellence together through knowledge sharing. All my work and dreams came true when I was recently awarded an honorary doctoral degree in education.

I love to see people rising with excellence together by sharing knowledge. And now, I am on my journey to share with the world what a child has to say and express about his heart and thoughts with a book titled Know Me Maa!!!!

Learning is all about your understanding of a particular thing, and not just reading and writing. God gave us two eyes because he wants us to understand and watch the world through multiple directions and decide which way to proceed for the best of oneself and others.

Live with a smile and rise with passion!