grateful for this opportunity to share
our learning at bottom apothem we learn
through living and living simply dr. Ken
Robinson in one of his talks has said
that we are facing two major crises in
our life right now
one is the climatic crisis and the
second is the crisis of human resource I
think for both these crisis we can thank
our present-day education system as soon
as a child goes to school first things
competition and to pretend to pretend
that he is having a good life to change
his real nature into a nature that
everybody else appreciates it becomes a
dual person and this kind of consumerism
leads him to believe that happiness
comes from material objects that the
more you hold whether it is marks or
things the happier you will be but
actually happiness is a state of being
happiness is when you can pick up a
stone and pretend it’s a phone and talk
to a non-existent friend
Rosalind that kind of happiness is what
all children are born with they know how
to be happy they know how to be content
and through our education system we
slowly pick it out and make them
dissatisfied competitors who are
struggling for success which they don’t
know what it really means what is
success what education really be doing
life is so wonderful so much is there to
wonder about in a school we slowly
remove slowly it is your life the wonder
all of us have observed how children
learn I’m sure many of your parents from
the moment the child is born up to the
time it is about a year old we do not
teach we are loved the child to learn
why don’t we teach why don’t we sit in
front of a month-old baby and try to
make it learn gurgling sounds so that
later on the child can speak we wait we
wait till the child has learned on its
own how to understand us and once the
child can understand and we can intimate
the child intimidate the child actually
then we start teaching we teach out of
arrogance we teach because we can you
know once the child is one year old we
can we can dominate it we can force it
to learn what we think is important but
till then the child has been learning on
its own and it has been learning through
so if we really want to make learning an
integral process of our lives which it
is it is an instinct it’s like hunger I
don’t know one child in the world who
doesn’t want to learn of course he
doesn’t want to learn the math and the
science and all that but he does want to
learn he has a immense hunger who want
to know we have to cater to that hunger
we have to allow the child to continue
to learn the way it has learnt from zero
to one year old
do we have the confidence in ourselves
know what we do we send the child to
school and this child who has been
learning because learning is a need
suddenly has to separate what is
learning and what is life they become
too I wouldn’t even say parallel totally
opposite directional paths so we must
actually understand the nature of
learning what is learning how do you
learn you learn when you respond to a
stimuli you learn when you want to know
it’s a need within you and you learn
with the faculty and resources that you
have at that particular point in time
rabindranath tagore has very nicely said
that we do not remember much of what was
taught only what we learnt and that’s
really true I’m sure all of you will
agree with me so education in fact has
to be a complete experience it has to
start within and connect with the
outside education has to help us to
rebuild the world outside in our heads
to build the kind of world that we want
to live in honest since you’re
trustworthy beautiful and wonderful
world and why do we educate why do we
need education at this point of time we
need education that will allow
and help us to understand how we can
leave a simple life to help
sustainability on the planet a zero
waste life as much as possible how to
recycle how to apply ttle how to grow
your own food how to create rather than
destroy which our present-day education
system is teaching us how to create
rather than consume how to learn rather
than teach children love working with
nature you don’t need to coax them just
let them be they run out into the garden
and we have chosen agriculture as a
major activity in our school because
through agriculture you can learn
everything that you need to learn
actually your math your science your
physics everything and when you work
with both your hands all this list later
switch researcher said you know you need
to work with both your hands to develop
both sides of your brain it’s happening
and when you work with nature you touch
yourself you connect you become
sensitive to all other life forms and
it’s not necessary that you need a big
farm you can do it in parts there are
vertical gardens there are rooftop
gardens you can do it anywhere and
nature helps us to understand creation
that is another very very important I
would say medium we talk about English
medium thermal medium whatever but
really speaking all of us learn through
pictures we learn what the world is all
about my imbibing pictures and we store
information also in pictures so drawing
is a very good way of learning what is
happening outside and recreating it
inside creating crafts doing experiments
building construction all these are the
activities that we do and when they are
making doing they are actually
internalizing all the bits and pieces of
information that they have gathered
through the books or what is mandatory
in the schools nowadays and in art and
crafts there is no gender bias everybody
is equal and everybody has to learn to
we also make simple learning material
within our campus which we use when the
children have to be indoors mostly they
like to be outdoors creating knowledge
rather than eating it up is what we do
from our textbooks nowadays so we feel
the children they have to write they
have to see what is inside them
it has to come out so we give a lot of
importance writing in the first language
to creating stories poems and we take
them out as much as possible in nature
so that they realize how small a human
being is in the universe to understand
the place of the human in nature to
realize that without this abundance
which is there in nature we cannot
survive to make sure that the children
understand what is abundance there is no
dearth of resources on the planet but we
are taught that there is a huge resource
bottleneck and actually if you learn to
live simply and define your needs there
is abundance yoga and meditation
meditation is not just when you’re
sitting and eyes closed
meditation is when you are absorbed in a
walk
totally and you’re doing it with full
concentration children know how to be
absorbed children are little Buddhas
they know how to live in the present
moment and all we need to do is give
them space to continue to do that and
children can live in harmony with
everything around them there’s no
no violence we have created a kind of a
curriculum where we feel that subjects
have no place when learning is
segregated how can our character be
integrated so we don’t have people with
integrated characters so no segregation
of knowledge knowledge has to be created
by the child but it can be delivered in
the form of stories songs and a lot of
work work that productive work like
maintaining your campus growing your own
food creating your own fabric and toys
clay work art work all of this it takes
very little to keep that spirit of
discovery that the child is born with to
keep it alive like I said before we just
have to trust them we just have to leave
them that is very difficult for us as
people were adults and who think that
the child is an empty box and needs to
be filled when you go about education in
this way there is no violence in the
atmosphere because nobody is forcing
anybody to do anything there’s a lot of
freedom freedom of movement freedom of
choice there is no violence from the
first day that the child goes to school
and is made to sit in her bench and not
move that is violence if you ask me
because a child likes to run around
likes to you know discover you say no
you got a secure I feel that is the
beginning of violence against the child
and all the violence that we see in the
society today stems from that first
violence the pedo against the child and
freedom
also comes with a lot of
responsibilities it’s not like the
children are just free and doing
whatever they like when you’re free
you become very responsible you have to
take charge of your own learning you
have to become autonomous you have to
become self-reliant you have to be
creative and what really needs to be
learned Gandhiji has a very nicely
all you need to learn is first about
yourself your abilities your
capabilities your weaknesses and your
strengths then you need to know how to
live in the community how to support
other people how to cooperate how to
empathize how to be compassionate and
thirdly you need to know about your
environment to be able to support it not
take from it but to give to it to create
more rather than destroy to have a
balance to understand how much your
environment is supporting you if you
know these three things then all other
information I would not call it
knowledge all other information can be
gained any moment any time that you
desire now with all this internet and
everything available so why are we still
focusing on textbook knowledge the only
person who is really educated is the
person who has learned how to learn and
the child knows how to learn from the
first moment of its birth it knows how
to learn all we need to do is not
I’ll leave you with this thought thank you