Almost nine months before November 2021, the month we got incorporated as a company, we sat down to discuss, debate, and formulate Innerkern's mission.
Our big question: Why do we want to do all that we want to do as an applied education research and learning solutions company? As we sat through one thoughtful, often fervent, and at times reflective conversation after the other, we had two ground rules that we had laid down to give us a sense of direction. First, we wanted our mission statement to be simple, straightforward, and straight from the heart. Second, we wanted it to be authentic and doable.
We had hours of meeting transcripts to read and process before we converted our scattered ideas and plans into an intelligible and organized vision map and drew our mission statement out of it. We sat down to annotate and analyze our thoughts on what Innerkern must be and do. When we tried to crystalize what our team had discussed about the purpose, strategies, and scope of Innerkern, we suddenly encountered a curious problem.
#Hope is a strange thing, like water.
It takes the shape of the mind that holds it.
By the time we got to the point of freezing a mission statement, after nine long months of daily negotiations and pointed questioning, we were clear that our work must inspire #hope about learning in everyone we engage. However, #hope turned out to be a problematic word.
An infamous misconception about #hope is widespread among us. As a result, #hope is the most misunderstood word in the world. This misconception prevents us from seeing the ubiquitous role of #hope in #learning as it is. As badly as we wanted #hope to be on our mission statement, our team was split about using it as we were wondering what if you assigned a negative meaning to our usage of #hope and misconstrued our purpose!
We hang the weight of uncertainty around the neck of our #hope!
What is the the problem with #hope? We usually give up, sit back, and #hope when we run out of every possible option. In other words, we #hope when nothing else is possible. We tell ourselves that the most predictable result of our #hope, every time we do, is unreliability unless we get lucky. We #hope when we know that it is impossible. In other words, habitually, when many of us #hope, we #hope against our #hope.
However, at Innerkern, when we talk about #hope, we are thinking of #hope as a part of your everyday living and #learning and not as something you do when you have no way out. We are talking about the #hope which makes you feel that better is always possible. #Hope is what drives you everyday to try, persevere, not to give up. #Hope drives you to wake up and show up, no matter what. #Hope helps you learn.
Dare to #hope!
Schooling is an act of #hope; so is parenting.
In India, we inadvertently promote a culture of schooling and parenting that draws damningly limiting boundaries around a person's ability to learn. Aligning to this worldview, many of us grow up placing restrictions on our potential and possibilities as individuals. Most of us do not survive this learned helplessness about learning, embedded in our social psyche through centuries of caste-based parenting and decades of test-based schooling. Yet, the science of learning establishes beyond any question that everyone is capable of learning anything, even if they may not be on the same day or the same way. Hence, through our work at Innerkern, we nudge the school leaders, teachers, and parents who engage with us to make incremental changes to their limiting worldview on schooling and parenting so that they inspire #hope about learning in everyone.
What do we do to 'inspire' #hope about learning?
Shane Lopez, famously known as the #Hope Scientist, said once: "#Hope is the leading indicator of success in relationships, academics, career, and business—as well as of a healthier, happier life." His research suggests that #hope is the most critical factor in learning. Students who perceive their #hope right do academically well. Shane deconstructed the elements of #hope to help us understand its impact on learning. According to Shane, #hope assures three habits. Innerkern, as an applied education research and learning solutions company, makes it our mission to #inspire these three habits in everyone we engage:
Habit One
#Hope makes you set goals.
When you are hopeful, you know what exactly you want. You set your unwavering eyes on those goals. Through our work at Innerkern, we want to #inspire you to connect the dots that will let you discover your goals without placing any limitations on your possibilities.
Habit Two
#Hope channels your agency.
When you are hopeful, you earnestly believe in your ability to accomplish your goals. You will accrue the inner strength to exercise your power or influence, in other words, your agency, to achieve your goals. When Innerkern connects, collaborates, or engages with you, we want to #inspire you to believe in your possibilities and build your agency.
Habit Three
#Hope shows you the way.
When you are hopeful, you seriously think about the ways and means to achieve your goals. The clarity in your goals and the faith in your agency serendipitously reveal the pathways you must follow and avoid. When you are clear about what you want to learn and believe in your ability to learn it, the how of learning magically appears for you. In this context, we want to #inspire you to hustle towards your purpose and always fail forward.