Let me tell you about my trip to Bundelkhand, where I met alot of interesting people, saw some weird insects and had some life changing conversations.
It all began when poet, possibility creator and professional dreamer - Ankur Suhaniyo (Who's very name means 'The manifestor of imaginations' ) called me for a project. You see, he imagines a world where education is a process achieved through living in freedom. And so, he took the first step to bringing this vision to fruition when he organized Welcome Education at G.D. Academy, a mainstream private school in Rehli, Bundelkhand. He and I, were part of a team of Six individuals who took on the roles of educators for this purpose.
What began as a challenging and frightening experience, turned into a river of joyous expression.
Allow me to elaborate, I hadn't met most of the educators, nothing about what we were going to do there, neither the structure nor schedule were planned before hand. I traveled Twenty-Four hours by train to Bhopal, from there I had to take a Four-hour bus to Sagar, after reaching at Three-Thirty in the morning, I finally met the man behind this intriguing and inspiring initiative but the trip was not over. Proceeding a Four-hour wait, we got a bus to Rehli, in which we stood for more than an hour!
Exhausted, not having slept the previous night, I met the team:
Srishti Sundar Tikav, a Yogi from Dehli,
Pushpendra Patil, Programer, Introvert and Urban-Monk from Sagar and
Satyam Srivastav, a Swaraj Khoji and Founder of Adari Community from Mairut.
We also met the school staff:
Avinash, the Director,
Sagar, the Principle
and Twenty teachers.
After introducing ourselves at a moments notice, it was time to plan for the next day. We realized that the children should get a chance to run around, seeing as they are sitting through out their usual day. What better than football? And so, I facilitated the largest number of children I have so far. It wasn't as hard as you think... It was in fact much more challenging. Just try to imagine more than Fifty voices screaming at once. ):
After managing that, it was yet again time to plan for the next day. This involved dividing the children into groups and planning three parallel sessions. It only made logical sense that we named the groups according to an obscure metaphor involving beards and tailoring. The metaphor is as follows: When beards are small, they are pokey like needles, when they grow a little, they are soft like cotton and when they have finally matured, they are long like thread. Naturally the groups were named suee dhaaga kapaas. When we had group sessions, we would say that we are stitching. On the first day: I facilitated music, Ankur facilitated scientific thinking and Pushpendra facilitated philosophical questioning.
In my loud and energetic session, the children got a chance to express themselves through body percussion, we learned songs from around the world and we played fun and challenging games.
In Ankur's session, the children were presented with Four challenges
-The First was to find out why some objects sink and some float. To do this they were given a bucket of water and some objects.
-The Second was to find out why some objects stop when pushed along the floor and some objects continue moving.
-The Third was to make Four equilateral triangles using only Six sticks of same length.
-The Fourth was to turn One circle into Two, merely by looking at it.
Can you figure out the answers to these puzzles? If so (or not), what did you learn?
Pushpendra's session was quite interesting. The intention was to allow the children's curiosity to flow in which ever direction it chooses. He asked them what are the questions that you have no answer to? Many questions came of this, One of the topics was ghosts. The discussion started out like this:
"log bhoot kyun banjate?"
"meri nani kahti ki unke ichchha pure nahi hote isliye wo bhoot banjate"
"ichchha kya hota hain? aur waisa, sapne kya hote hain?"
"Why do people turn into ghosts?"
"My grandmother says it's because their desires are not met".
"What are desires? And also, what are dreams?"
After the children put out all their questions and discussed for a while, Pushpendra shared his thoughts.
Meanwhile, Srishti was teaching the teachers yoga.
At the end of the day, Srishti taught the children 'chaals' (animal walks) which they took to very much.
After the children left, Satyam held a workshop on 'samaj' (Understanding) with the teachers.
In the coming days we continued this format, adding new elements as we moved along. Suhaniyo held a session on poetry in which the children came up with this:
hamaare ghar mein nani hain,
nani ke ghar mein pani hain,
bhusse se bante sani hain,
maa sunaati kahani hain,
raja ki patni rani hain,
lekinnn, voooh, badi sayani hain!!!
Grandma is there in our house,
Water is there in grandma's house,
Mixed with flour, it becomes dough,
Mother tells us stories,
The king's wife is a queen,
And she is very wise.
Suhaniyo and I hosted a session on the interests of the children and we helped them plan how, when and where they could continue this even after we have left the school.
We hosted a similar session with the teachers to identify their interests and plan how they can teach through their own love of learning so that the children will naturally learn from the sharing of that interest.
Also adding value to the experience was Pratik Paddheya, Film maker and Photographer. He initially came to work behind the camera but he also took a few sessions where he talked about his travels and his work.
At the end of each day the bell would ring but the children wouldn't go home! "bhayya vo gana batao na" "nahi bhayya vo wala" "arre bhayya aapko karate aata hain kya? karate sikhao na bhayya" "aap kal aaoge kya?"
Yeh sikhao, vo sikhao, the children were clearly ready to learn anything that doesn't involve sitting.
They were very quick to pick up songs even in different languages but what they probably enjoyed most was the beats: dhum paa dhum dhum dhum paa. Not after long the teachers and even the director were doing it.
All in all it was an amazing experience. If nothing else, we made a lot of people really happy including Avinash, who hadn't smiled in Four years according to Pushpendra. And it's not like I didn't have any fun :)
In most private schools, the bottom line is paying the bills but Welcome Education being such a great hit could only be possible because G.D. Academy is not ordinary, in that, Avinash founded the space because it is his dream to do something for children. I find that very inspiring.
Soon, the children told everybody about us and the entire village got wind of our presence.
Photo credits Pratik paddheya.
Kids showing of their new yoga moves to their parents.