27 Aug 2021,

Dear Parents,

This was a very exciting week and you all know why. This week seems fulfilled and somehow very complete. Today morning we had a facilitators’ meeting and that put me in a contemplative mode to think about success and failure. Also recently I found this TED video in my inbox. The talk is about how success and failure is at the end of the spectrum but somehow puts you in the same emotional state, which is vulnerability. Here’s the link to the talk...

https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_success_failure_and_the_drive_to_keep_creating?referrer=playlist-what_is_success

Now to the rockstar event of the week...

The Project Day

We try different ideas at LC. Like they say, throw all kinds of things at the wall and see what sticks. Project day is also one such attempt. And we are glad to say that it was actually a success. Ofcourse, it depends on the parameters of success we would define….:) still for a first attempt, it was a good one. Barring a few who got ill, everyone participated with enthusiasm. We needed to nudge, remind and coax them. But the previous few days kids were excited, at the same time nervous. All of them worked hard.

The big achievement was the fact that they could stand in front of a few people and speak. Secondly, they were able to organise their thoughts and ideas into presentations or displays. Thirdly, it is to defend their idea or stand in front of the people and answer the questions.

After it was all over some of them expressed relief, somebody said, “Oh I was getting nervous for such a small thing”, some expressed that we need a bigger audience. Some said they didn’t sleep the previous night and a few were as cool as a cucumber. They were bright and ready in formal clothes and on time.

We had a mixed bag of presentations, the list is here..

A Study on Cactus/Bonsai, Volcanoes_Earth’s power unleashed, Cricket - Batting average of top cricketers, Best out of waste_making of simple household items, Piano recital of 3 compositions, Sharks, Indian Star Tortoise, Piano recital of 3 Hindi songs, Icecream sticks toys and crafts, Cricket - The game, History of Cricket, My village, Hanuman_Animation in Scratch and Journey of artist. Also how can I forget the two facilitators who tried their hands…(oopps tongue) at speaking gujarati as their projects.

Judiciary

It was fun this time, pulling each other’s leg with casual bantering and sarcasm. The point we were discussing is what happens when guests come to LC. There are name callings and words like gadda, stupid fly around. How should we behave? What kind of language should we use? The need to show respect was expressed. Someone mentioned that we shouldn’t change our appearance and manners when guests come, because it is inappropriate to hide our true colours in front of them. Valid, we said. So a compromise was reached to address the guests coming as आदरणीय गधाजी । All were all rolling on the floor laughing. 

LC times

Things are going slow here. Shilpa mentioned something about the writer’s block and seems that she has put the finger right on the sore spot. There was a lot of enthusiasm and everyone was excited to see their names in the newspaper. But now it looks like that motivation is dwindling. To breathe new life into it she proposed story writing and hopefully you will all see some interesting things to read.

Matches

We play impromptu football and cricket matches in the play zone. It's always fun. But there is also a problem. Discussions on who will be the captain and who is going to play with whom, who will be the umpire takes up the majority of the time. The umpire is not always neutral and can easily be persuaded. These negotiations are so boring, the facilitators who are willing to participate are usually standing aside yawning…:) 

Friday Food

For the past two weeks there have been no volunteers for this activity. Now we overheard a few kids saying that there is a lot of cleaning up after the Friday food so everyone is opting out of it. Few were trying to persuade the gullible ones but they are smart and were not falling for the trick. Developments in this department for the coming weeks is something to watch out for. Is this activity going to stick out or fade?

Rodent problem

As you know we have a small patch of garden area, we want to start now with the rains receding. But there is a pest problem. The past few months rodents are burrowing the destroying everything that we have planted. We have tried a few tricks but nothing seems to be of any effect. If any of you know of how to get rid of them without poisoning them please share your know-how.

Guests

We had our friends from the group Tribe who visited us today. They are a group of parents with kids as young as 2.5 to 5 years old. They want to explore alternative education and are not going to any formal schools now. They don’t have a space of their own yet but enjoy meeting at each other’s homes, parks or places like ours. So there was Jinal with his son Khewansh, Dipti with her 3 year old daughter, Shweta with Savi, Sarah who is 4 yr old, Neha with her daughter and Poonam and Rahul with their son.

That's all for now. More later,