26 Nov 2021

Dear all,

Hope all is well at your end. Today we would like to share with you an inquiry that every parent goes through or seeks. How to make our children intelligent and responsible for this world? Or What is the best way to educate our children? The answer to this is ever exploring, but to make it easy for you is a youtube video where J. Krishnamurti shares his views on education. There is also a book by him in our library, if you are interested. Meanwhile, here’s the link...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQGdEvhZl1U

Hope you enjoy listening to this. Now, here are updates of this week...

Ground Day

The highlight of this week was our playground day, which is going to be every Tuesday. All of us had super fun. This is going to be our weekly feature. All of us played virus-virus, which is like a tag game. See-saws, swings and slides all were occupied. It felt good to sweat it out first thing in the morning.

Project Day

Some of the presentations were very basic this time. It seemed to us that kids have lost interest in doing Project days. Though we were constantly guiding them and reminding them to work on it. Still on the day of the presentations some of the kids arrived casually. Not all was bad, apart from the 5-6 presentations which needed to be rethought, rest all of them put on a decent show. Topics were Amazon rainforest, Red list, Diwali, Wild Boar, Cars, Computer, Taj Mahal, Touch-me-not plant, How to make rotis, Bank Accounts, Plastics, Butterfly. There were a few singing performances and there was a gymnastics demo with a presentation. With our guests, Nitin and Amita, all of us had a circle time in the end to give honest feedback to each other. Some were honest. We all congratulated the ones who did well and gave critical reviews to those who lacked content and enthusiasm.

Judiciary

There were a few agenda items this time. One of the main ones was arriving on time at 9 am. Everyone expressed that they want to arrive on time and feel good about it. We also asked how they feel when they walk in late. Everyone said that they go through embarrassment or shame in their minds. I think we served our purpose by bringing this emotion on the surface instead of calling on people when they come late. Hopefully it will take effect in the coming weeks.

KKS activities unfortunately, are stalled for this semester. Their team consisted of college students and office goers, now that life is getting back to normal, they will not get time on weekdays. So we have been discussing the alternatives to KKS or if possible alternate days. Let’s see what we discuss and decide.

Trial sessions

One more week of trial sessions will be going on. After that they will sign up for sessions.

Friday Food

Vegetable salad, that's right, you might wonder what such a healthy option? And we facilitators don’t have any role to play in it. I think it was meant to be something like a russian salad but the chat masala twisted it around. Some of the kids who didn’t opt to take food turns took it this time. They also served the guests generously.

Guests

Jinaya had got two of her cousins along, Priya and Kay. Both of them are older and go to regular schools but they wanted to experience the alternative schooling way for a day.

Lara, 8yrs old with her mother, Chantelle had come to visit us from Kihim village. Chantelle wants to start a similar set up like ours in Alibaug. All the best to her!

One of our grandparents got Chaitanya Swamiji from Vallabh school along with Dineshbhai, a Rotarian had come to meet us all and see us in action. Both of these guests are trustees of traditional schools and were greatly impressed to see how kids could be self directed.

Lily Maushi, one of our friends and supporter had come along with her friend Mr. Milind Chindarkar, who is an ex-principal of a Bandra school. He also happens to be a homeschool parent and now wants to contribute to our space.

Ruchita, who is a parent of two kids, also came to explore how an alternative education space looks like.

Reminder

Gentle reminder to deposit the fees that was due the 1st week of November.

That’s all for this week. Until next time, take care!