It is rightly said that ‘a good education can change anyone and a good teacher can change everything’. And Dr. Surya Chundi is one of them, a mentor who needs no introduction when it comes to mentoring or educating influencers in India. His perception of education is quite different from others-he has a clear ideology on what to learn and what to unlearn?
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Dr. Surya Chundi, has interacted and guided students across 700 junior colleges and 300 UG colleges in Telangana, AP, and Tamil Nadu
Dr. Surya, a humble person who sticks to his roots and considers his mother Kamala and father Srinivas as the strongest pillars of his success, has not only taken sessions with students in nearly 700 junior colleges and 300 UG colleges in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, but also motivated them to gain confidence, have clarity in what they want in life which sure helped them to identify their strengths, follow their passion to choose the right career and institute. For him, ‘Education is a journey to a desired destination and in this journey, it’s important that one makes a route map, have a vehicle and correct instruments to reach the destination.’
This is not it, Dr. Surya’s contribution has been acknowledged by ‘International Economics University, Malaysia’ where he was awarded a ‘Honourable Doctorate in Education and Leadership’. Moreover, he applies a bold approach when it comes to talking to his students and making them broad-minded, after all, education is suppose to bring broad-mindedness.
According to Dr. Surya, “Specialization means learning more about something less. Today, the world needs people who can see a larger picture and contribute in the overall development. Even though specialists are required to solve problems in specific fields, the greater need today is to see the problem as a whole and not isolate to a topic.”
He adds, “In India, there’s this saying that ‘the more educated we are the more narrow-minded we become’. Whereas, in the medical sector, the more you specialise, the less you can do for humanity.”
He makes it a point to ask one question always to his students who have finished their school and have entered into higher education – Why is education important? The immediate reply he gets from the students is – “to get a job, earn money, to earn respect, to help the society; etc.”
He again questions them-Is it only to earn money, name, fame, degree and status? “If we think so, we’re demeaning education and ourselves. Then why should we get educated spending 25% of our life time in it,” Dr. Surya explains.
According to him, “Education should transform an individual from being to becoming-that is what we are today and what we want to become in this lifetime or how we want to be known in the society.”
Then the question comes, What is becoming? To which he replies with another questions, “If I say football, what comes to your mind or if I say music what comes to your mind?”. The immediate replies are, “Messi, Ronaldo or AR Rahman, Illayaraja; among others.”
“When people ask about ‘football’ or ‘music’, your thoughts restrict to people who’ve achieved success in these fields instead of a ‘ball’ or ‘instruments’. This is called becoming! So you should pursue your education to become what you want to become or what you have to or should become in your lifetime. So who has to decide about your becoming? No one except you! Once you decide what you want to become, you’ll understand-why to study, what to study, when to study, where to study, how to study and how much to study,” Dr. Surya said and added, “When you become what you want to become or achieve what you aimed for, automatically name, fame, respect, honour, money; etc follows you-you need not chase them. You should live your goal to be the world champion in your particular field, it should be a continuous hunger to be the legend in the field.”
Henceforth, he believes that education is to “transform you from being to becoming”. That’s why we spend 25 percent of our life time educating ourselves. When we decide our becoming, learning starts and we research, learn and gain required knowledge. This clarity is imbibed by Dr. Surya in the minds of the students which gives them freedom from normal or confined thoughts to revolutionary thinking.
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