Oh Yes, Mary Poppins!

On the stormy evening of November 21, 2015, I decided to walk down the memory lane with the movie, Mary Poppins, one of my favourite childhood books and movie. As a child, I had enjoyed the movie’s narrative, its special effects and its song and dance. While watching the movie again after a span of forty years, I found that I was able to relate it to many aspects of my life and even as an adult, realise its relevance in my personal as well as professional life.

While watching the movie I thought, use of movie clips as a tool in training sessions is quite popular both with the learners and the trainers/facilitators. So is the use of fairy tales not only in schools, but also in corporate training. So, why not use a complete movie in experiential form of learning both for the children as well as the adult learners?

 This very reason has inspired me to write this post. Story or theme based experiential learning through a movie, where the learner group first goes through the learning objectives along with the points and queries to observe and note while viewing the movie and then discuss them post the movie viewing session.

I had enjoyed this movie as a child and now, when I viewed the movie now, I realised how effective it is to aid corporate or adult learning even today:

The movie can be an integral part of the learning intervention where the learners are given the learning objectives along with points to observe in the movie. After viewing the movie, the learners under the guidance of the facilitator discusses their observation also juxtapose them with their own experiences to draw learning through the discussion. For instance, for a learning intervention on leadership skills, the learners view the movie ‘Patton’ a biopic on US General George S Patton during World War II, and have an analytical, guided discussion on the various aspects of leadership with learning objective to develop leadership skills. It is an effective form of experiential learning as the learners are able to share their experiences to analyse how they could apply the acquired skills in the given situation. 

Likewise, Mary Poppins, can be an effective means to train the learners on behavioural as well as performance management and organisation development:

Few of the learning objectives that the learners can achieve through Mary Poppins are:

1.       Self Discipline can be fun and rewarding

2.       Work-Life Balance

3.       Innovative and creative ways to coach and mentor

4.        Team work

5.       Humanism in professionalism, even in corporate work culture

6.       Emotional Intelligence and Happiness Quotient

7.       Use of creativity and innovation in performance management

8.       Employee Engagement

9.       Cultural and Gender Sensitivity

10.   Communication Skills

11.   Happy Work Culture that should ensure the employees’ efforts and creative innovation is appreciated. Functional accountability and transparency is maintained, self worth and integrity even through positive sense of humour is maintained through flat organizational structure. Proper mechanisms are used to reduce work stress and negative work environment such as office politics, sycophancy, etc.  Proper opportunities are provided to the employees for career planning and development along with self development.

12.   How all of the points listed above contribute to individual as well as organisation development.

For example, the movie opens with Bert (Dick Van Dyke) as a one-man orchestra playing music to entertain the visitors at a public park. This works as a good example for how to multi-task when needed, without enduring stress.
Effective functions of a change agent and change management.

Mary Poppins has very famous songs such as:

1.       Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down: It is a good example of communication skills on how to drive home a message, without hurting its receiver, rather making him realise its benefits. Quite effective for Transaction Analysis in Interpersonal and Communication Skills.

2.       Chim Chimney, Chim Chim: An effective anthem for chimney sweepers on their dignity of labour, likewise, people from other vocations or professions can be encouraged to create and sing their vocational or professional anthems.

3.       Step-In Time: Good song and Dance on team work, team dynamics and coordination

4.       Feed the Birds Tuppence a Bag: Excellent example of incorporate humanism to personal and professional life.

Likewise, the movie, Mary Poppins can be included in the learning sessions of school and college students for few of the following learning objectives:

1.       Self Discipline

2.       Self Development

3.       Communication Skills

4.       Emotional Intelligence and Happiness Quotient

5.        Cultural and Gender Sensitivity

6.       Humanism
This edutainment method of learning can be quite effective too.

I now request you to share your thoughts and insight on this method of learning.

 REFERENCE:

Following is the link to the movie, Mary Poppins on the web (Internet)

http://sockshare.net/watch/RGbYKYxY-mary-poppins.html