What kind of 'homeschooling' is for me and my family?

I witness many messages everyday on various homeschooling groups. Everyone is asking the same question - how do we start homeschooling? what curriculum do we follow? How do we start teaching our children? Almost all of these inquiries come from parents who have jumped into 'taking their children out of school' without giving too much thought on the homeschooling approach. The underlying thought in most parents is - we can teach our children at home. Why should we pay fees to the school when they are going to make us do all the work?" And they dive directly into it without even understanding the homeschooling spectrum. 

So here I am touching a bit on it's history and sharing how my understanding evolved through the years.  

History of homeschooling in India can be traced back to the Gurukul system when the child would stay at his Guru's home learning and acquiring skills and knowledge. Some Guru's housed around 10 to 12 children at a time. Learning was not just a study of the scriptures, it also included daily processes of cooking, cleaning, household chores, tending to gardens, livestock, farming etc. During the British Era, many Britishers who resided in India homeschooled their children. They brought in tutors from their homeland to teach their children. Later post independence many expats preferred to homeschool their children until 'international schools' were established. Among Indians we have examples of Dr. Pandita Pamabai, Savitri Phule, Anandi Gopal who were self taught or educated at home as in those days Indian schools did not accept female students. Post independence the popular trend was to enroll children in schools and efforts concentrated on enrolling all children in schools. So children who had never enrolled in schools and those who had dropped out were labeled as 'out of school children' or school drop outs and not as 'homeschooled' children.

It was the year 2001, when I first met a homeschooling family in Goa. Janani and Commander Narayan had two boys aged 10 and 7 at that time. Commander had quit the Navy and had started a fortnightly newspaper called Vasco Watch. I was newly married at that time and my husband drew illustrations for their paper. I remember Janani telling me, "Homeschooling is very different from schooling. You do things differently from the way they are done at school." When Commander and Janani visited us when  we were in Mysore - she shared with me her secret - she said engage with your children, be with them, enter their world and see how learning blossoms (these are not her exact words - they are para phrased by me). Her children are grown up independent individuals today.

Talking to Ruchir about a year ago was an eye opener for me. Ruchir has just announced the arrival of his son and is in his early thirties. He runs a successful Graphic Design Company along with two friends. He has never been to school. He did not follow any text book or curriculum to learn. His childhood was spent in the wilderness - in villages. The village children were his playmates and co-learners. They discovered and learnt by living life freely. For him and his family as I understand - homeschooling was all about learning by being in nature and among people.

I heard the term unschooling for the first time when I saw the poster on a camp for homeschoolers, unschoolers and self directed learners. I didn't understand the term at that time. A couple of months later - Dola's session at LSUC 2017 at Bangalore helped me understand 'unschooling and how it is different from homeschooling. Dola's Facebook group Unschool India, Zakkiya Ismail's blog posts on unschooling and unschooling-as-social-change , Pam Larrichia's blog Living Joyfully and her book, 'What is Unschooling' has brought in more clarity and we as a family felt connected to the philosophy and approach of unschooling. This is what we have been following since we started this journey about three years ago.

I learnt so much by just connecting and spending time with many other families - Vidhi and Manish, Jim and Pashwa, Sumi, Deepali, Natasha, Siddharth and Smriti, Mohit and Bhavana, Seema, Purva, Vaishali and Ashutosh, Pradnya and Sameer, Sanjeevani and Shekhar so many others helped me in this journey. I not only learned from them - they became my friends - my tribe...my community.

Recently, I got to know a homeschooling mom Amruta. Her approach, enthusiasm and excitement about homeschooling and her child reminds me of Janani. She is so involved with her child and his learning and together they have created a world of curiosity, interest, inquisitiveness and learning. Her Facebook page Homeschool diary brings out the essence of creating a learning atmosphere that takes guidance from the child and his curiosity. 

Today I understand the homeschooling spectrum to be very large. One one end of the spectrum is homeschooling as originally understood and on the other end is radical unschooling. 

Homeschooling - The entire spectrum of 'living life without school' is commonly known as 'homeschooling'. While on one end - parents create a 'school at home' where the child has no say in what they are learning on the other end children experience complete freedom in making choices about their life and learning. Families adopt different shades of both the extremes. I prefer to call this school at home - as home based schooling or schooling at home. My friend Siddharth Maskeri calls it - House Schooling. 

Thus in this home based schooling - the parent creates a school atmosphere at home usually without the consent of the child. The parent here plays the role of a parent, administrator, teacher, housekeeper, examiner and assessor of knowledge. Parents buy curriculum or hire tutors to teach and do not let their children be their guide. 

Most parents these days are liberal and do not force learning on children. Some use a curriculum and text books to support them and yet let learning is paced on the basis of the child's interest, curiosity, needs and ability. These parents believe in connection with their children and believe that together they can create a learning environment at home. This is what Amruta and her family follow. This for me is homeschooling.

                                                  

World schooling or Road schooling - Families that have opted for a life of travel and keep travelling to different places are known as world schoolers or road schoolers. For them their travels bring in learning. Some do follow a curriculum but most rely on learning from life, nature, local communities and their current needs. A family from South Africa that I share a special bond with and have hosted a couple of times, followed a life of world schooling for a couple of years, before they headed back to their home country. They majorly followed principles of unschooling while traveling around the world.

Unschooling approach is adopted by parents who believe that their children are individuals who can think, feel, reason and make meaning of the world around them. Unschooling parents believe in the freedom and autonomy of their children and is pro-choice. Children can make their own decisions and own the consequences too. Consequences are not mistakes or triumphs...they are simply results of their actions that teach them many lessons. The parent doesn't consider themselves to be in a position of control or authority. They believe that children are equal partners in their journey. Learning is natural and all children learn naturally. Their children self direct their learning. Unschoolers are not dependent on syllabus or curriculum. They use multiple resources for learning that is directed by the children themselves. They believe that children have a right to consent and their voice is valued.

A few parents do not like the term 'unschooling' and prefer to call themselves life long learners, non schoolers, living without school. Radical unschoolers differentiate themselves from unschoolers too. according to them while in unschooling choice and decision making is limited to learning, the radical ones extend this to their entire life i.e. all life choices.

For new entrants all these terms might get confusing. What we learnt along our journey is to not try to fit into any of these labels. As I said in the beginning, we all need to create our own learning journey based on our personality types, family dynamics, learning approach and our ways of life. A word of caution to everyone - avoid making the choice to opt out of school without understanding the essence of living life without school. Reflect by asking yourselves the questions - why do you want to opt out of school? What are your beliefs about parenting, learning and children? Be open to experiences. Experience what they do to you and your children? How does this impact you all and let your insights guide you. Read more and learn from observing your children...They are your best teachers.

Also do read my posts on :

• tips for new homeschoolers
• Parents I hear you
• What about academic goals?

 

Tara is learning to read and write !

 

I am fascinated by the research work and the efforts of Dr. Peter Gray in the field of self-directed learning and unschooling. I keep myself updated through his articles usually posted on Psychology Today which he shares on his Facebook wall. Yesterday I read, ""Children Teach Themselves to Read" an article authored by him. The article spoke about how children learn to read and write without being taught. It gave many examples and stories to back this claim that goes completely against what language specialists have to say.

Since there were no stories from Indian families, I decided to write down the story of how my daughter is learning to read and write. I have mentioned about her language skills in one of my blog posts on thegreatkapok.blogspot.com and in one of my articles on medium.com.

So my daughter Tara is almost six now i.e. she will be six in October 2020. She has been noticing alphabets and numbers for a long time now. She started expressing her curiosity around alphabets when she noticed car license plates in the parking lot next to which we would take our dog for a walk. She was about 3 years old then. Initially she would point out to the alphabets and ask me to tell her what it was and this continued for a few months until one day when she stopped asking. She was probably bored or this activity no longer interested her. One day she noticed Diwali lights on the balcony of a flat. The string was arranged in a way that looked like the alphabet, 'W'. Look Mamma, "That's a 'W' said she. She started noticing this alphabet everywhere and 'W' became her favorite letter. A few months later, she brought up reading alphabets on license plates once more, just that now she wanted me to ask her to identify the alphabets and bingo - I realized that she knew many of the alphabets. 

Along side, she was interested in writing her name. She used to ask me or her brothers to write it over and over again. I think she was about four years old then. However she hadn't ever tried writing her name as yet. A friend asked her to write her name on a drawing she had just made. I was about to tell this friend that she didn't know how to write when Tara took her pencil and wrote her name down. Of course the spelling wasn't correct, but she got the first and the last alphabet correct. This is what she wrote:

I was overjoyed and struck with awe. At that time we didn't correct her spelling. We simply expressed our joy and our pride. Soon she had figured out how to write her name and was writing it everywhere.

Tara has never had the patience to sit with me to read a book. However, she has been reading many picture books with the 'read to me option' on her iPad. Probably that is where she learnt to recognize the alphabets she hadn't come across while reading car license plates. Or maybe she learnt them through the nursery rhymes or could be from her friend who went to school. a phonics App she downloaded on her iPad definitely helped her.

One day, she downloaded a phonics app on her iPad. This app started with recognition of alphabets (lower and upper case) and the sounds it made. She didn't take much interest in the sounds, but loved the alphabet tracing activity. As she learnt to recognize alphabets, we all started to dictate spellings of words, she wanted to type in to search videos, games, images or books on her ipad. Slowly she started remembering spellings and recognizing words by sight memory.

Tara also loves to make lists. Initially, her lists would have pictures she would draw and now they have words accompanying them. Most often she asks us to dictate and she writes them down. She does remember spellings of a few words she regularly uses.

Does she understand the sounds that alphabets make? She doesn't understand the sound made by all the alphabets - she has figured out some through the phonics app. But doesn't yet know them all. She yet hasn't figured out the role of vowels...in fact she doesn't know what vowels are.

All her friends in the neighborhood go to school and she wants to go too. As unschoolers, we believe that experiencing whatever she is curious about is her right and after the COVID crisis ends, we will enroll her in a school. She is super excited about that and often comes with a notebook and pencil and says that she wants to do similar work that she has seen her friends do at school. She has thus begun asking for repetitive writing of alphabets and numbers and much to our pleasure writes them once or twice and then says, 'I don't understand why schools make you write over and over again.' and turns her attention to other things.

At present, she knows spellings of words she needs - mama, papa, cat, ant, dog being among the first words she has learnt. She often interchanges the D and G in Dog. She recognizes her birth month - 'October' and words she regularly uses on her iPad. We are absolutely happy and content seeing her learn on her own without a teacher telling her. We are also looking forward to seeing her journey unfold and I am going to regularly document her growth and learning.

 

Parents - I hear you... Online schooling - new experiences - new questions ! All this is normal !

Since the onset of the COVID situation, I have been asking deeper questions around social change and learning, schooling, online learning, socio - political influences on life choices and meaning of freedom to live. I am deeply hurt to see parents attempting quick fixes to their current situation of having children at home 24 / 7. Parents who were averse to screen time are now willingly letting their children spend hours in front of screens in the name on 'online schooling'. Parents who felt schools were non negotiable are considering homeschooling only because they do not want to spend money on school fees as the entire burden of getting school work done has been thrown in their kitty. What messages are the children getting here?  

I am deeply pained to see that for some of the parents the 'CHILD' is nowhere in the picture. Not many are concerned about what the children want...how do they feel and how has the lockdown affected them. I reason this out by thinking that first and foremost, it is important for parents to delve deeper into what this new system is doing to them - how the unfolding of this system is bringing challenges and triumphs and in what way does this impact them. A few homemaker moms who I have spoken to several times, shared that atleast now they have something to do with their children. Get them ready, sit for sessions, ensure they complete their homework and prepare for tests. Online school keeps them busy. 

I wont say that the parents aren't concerned about their children. What I have come to reason out is that parents are feeling lost. They are witnessing the breakdown of a system they felt was non-negotiable - a must in the life of their child. They are facing an additional burden of waking their children up and getting ready for school - wearing uniform and all to sit across a screen subject to zoom lessons. 

A parent I spoke to revealed that she no longer wants her child to go through this as she has become a 'devil' in the life of her child. "I am always scolding and shouting at my child for getting distracted, for walking away from the computer, for not participating, for wanting to play online games during a school session." I think it would be better if I homeschool him and take him out of school as these online classes don't work for me." It is tough when there are two or more children in the family and resources have to be shared. "We seem to have no choice, but to buy separate devices for our children." shared a mom with two children. And in these tough times when businesses are collapsing and people are facing unemployment risks a fairly large additional expense it definitely not welcome.

Some teachers make it fun and worthwhile, while some teachers are struggling with technology and / or their own household challenges. A friend who is a teacher at a Delhi school shared, "I am taking classes from 8:00 am to 1:00 pm and then have to spend the entire afternoon preparing for my classes on the following day, checking their homework assignments." Since she is not used to online teaching, she spends a lot more time than others who are tech savy. "I am learning and getting used to this new routine, however I am so stressed out - I have to work and also ensure that my children are online and then I have all the housework and the cooking too."

Parents who call me to 'know more about Homeschooling' reveal that they are considering homeschooling only for this year. Their biggest fear is whether schools will take them back next year. They also want tips on how to teach their children, prepare schedules and buy resources and curriculums so that their children don't lag behind. When I tell them that homeschooling is different from regular schooling and one cannot expect to create a school at home - they seem unconvinced. So I simply share what has worked for us as a family and urge them to take things a bit slow and observe the rhythm that's emerging in their household. I tell them that if you see everyone happy and having fun - then whatever choices you have made are working out for you. However if not - i.e if you seem to be having a hard time and are always stressed out, your relationship with your child and other family members is deteriorating and your child seems to be unhappy, disinterested or is throwing tantrums or meltdowns - you need to start relooking at your situation and try something new. I also assure them that I am here and they can call me anytime to explore new ways of learning and parenting. 

Life is a journey and experience is the best teacher after all!

I feel so bad for parents. They are trying so hard to hold on to a system that is failing. They are not willing to see beyond and believe that there are other ways of doing things. Some parents are strong and resilient and are using humor to get past this circumstance. Some are also looking for other options. Some parents have adjusted to the new routine and rhythm and openly display the online schooling achievements of their children. I am happy for such parents. 

So those parents who are struggling and need some support do go through my article on tips on homeschooling...which at times I would like to rename as tips for new homeschoolers and online schooling parents. And to end I would like just say that "what counts is what matters." So parents do reflect and think about what is important to you and your family. What is it that counts?

 

More thoughts on Death and Dying !

Yesterday I celebrated the birthday of my son and today is my dad's first death anniversary. In one of my earlier posts on thoughts-around-death-and-dying, I wrote about the questions I had about death and life after death. I also mentioned what I went through when I saw my dad all helpless and cold...tubes covering him all over. 

My dad died due to old age and mainly because his organs started giving away. He wanted to live for a few more years and left this world without achieving all his dreams. He so wanted to see his grandchildren grow, he probably wanted to write a book, spend more time with his daughters and he definitely wanted to travel. Most importantly he wanted to see his ancestral home redeveloped. 

The year before he passed away was a tough one for him as he witnessed the passing away of many of his friends, siblings and cousins. It felt as though there was death of a near and dear one every month. When his nephew around 65 years old passed away, he went very quiet. I think he was shattered then. Somewhere deep down I felt he knew that it was time for him to go. He was scared. He did attempt to speak to me once about it and I think I handled it terribly. 

It is tough for a daughter to see her father dying. It is difficult to have a conversation around death and when my dad attempted to talk to me, I blocked myself from the thought of him dying and told him that everything was going to be fine and he was going nowhere. Instead of just listening to what he wanted to say, I started rambling and talking about all the wonderful things we were going to do together after he recovered and got better. Now I feel this was so wrong of me. I should have just been there with him and his feelings. I should have just listened to all that he had to say. The worst part is that I am never going to know what he so wanted to share with me.

Last year, my dad left this world on 16th June at around 3:30 am. I was at the hospital when he breathed his last. I saw him and held his hand a couple of hours before he died. I peered into his lifeless eyes...looking for hope, I so wanted to feel the warmth in the touch of his hands...but alas, it was time for him to go....

People die every year - some due to health problems, some due to old age, some die in accidents and natural calamities. Some die feeling fulfilled and satisfied with their life and some pass away wanting to live more.We also have people who choose death over life. These people give up on life and the experiences it has to offer. I get worried about such people. To feel that life has nothing more to offer and the best option is to opt out of living and choose death is something huge and says a lot about the ways of our society and its culture.

I have read so many comments and posts on Sushant Singh's suicide and most express sadness and some called him weak. All I felt was overwhelmed and angry at our current social structures and norms. Today in this scenario people feel that they are going to get nothing out of life and death is much better than life. Many young adults aren't able to cope with pressures of our society - pressures of expectations, pressure of not being able to work joyfully for a livelihood, pressures of keeping up an image, pressure of masking one's true self, pressure of being unwanted, rejected, ridiculed and made fun off. How many more suicides are going to wake us up to see that we need to change this system - we need to transform...

And thus was born a mother !

 

 

I was into the fourth year of my marriage and for the past year, I so wanted my life to expand and my family to have a new member. I had been trying to conceive and had undergone treatment for PCODs - and conception. All the injections and pills I was taking were not only making me fat, but also making me depressed and my sole purpose seemed to be to have a baby. I was unemployed and the repeated patterns of waiting every month to miss my period and then finding a red spot signaling the beginning of another month of waiting depressed me even further. My relationship with C was deteriorating as he felt helpless and was himself tired of giving samples every month at the infertility clinic. 

All this went on and on until one day I woke up with a realization that I didn't want to live my life like this and I had to do something about it. I resolved to get my life back. I quit treatment, applied for a job, applied for a course in management, joined a gym, adopted a dog and started living life in the present. Within a few months, I was happy and had moved on. My extra busy routine - early morning gym, day job, evening college and lovely romantic week nights and weekends ensured that I didn't waste anytime thinking of having a baby. I made new friends and was feeling on top of the world.

And one fine day I felt giddy and nauseous. I hadn't even realized that I had missed my period by ten days. A home pregnancy test and a visit to my aunt (a gynecologist) confirmed that I was pregnant. My Aditya was on his way to fulfill my wish to be a mother. 

After a fairly smooth nine months, Aditya came into our life on 15th June. If born 35 minutes later, we would be celebrating his birthday on 16th June. The doctor who delivered him called him the 'precious baby'. His birth brought so much joy in our family- my parents and in-laws and Cs grandmother were the happiest. We faced a small hiccup when I fell sick about six weeks after he was born...probably an infection I got from the worst deluge that Mumbai had faced in the year 2005. 

Aditya has been the most effective teacher in my life. He taught me to be a mother. He has been a major participant in all my trials and errors. Has witnessed my frustrations and triumphs, my love and sadness, my continuous fight with the system for a better learning system. He has seen all my vulnerabilities and has borne the impact of all my mistakes and yet 'I mean the world to him'. And today, he rejoices in my happiness, feels concerned when I am having a bad time and is super patient with me. He has struggled with his agency, his identity and his understanding about himself and the world around him. He too has faced tough times - especially when he has had to share me with his siblings, when I pushed him to do things he didn't want to and when I couldn't empathize with him and truly understand everything he was going through. 

He was four years old when we had shifted to Mysore and had enrolled him for kindergarten program with one these preschool chains. Three months of school and I had realized the mistake we had made by enrolling him in a chain school with a highly rigid and overtly standardized curriculum. I remember defending him during a meeting when the teachers complained that he had all his alphabet formations wrong and always disturbed the class by walking around in between sessions and not wanting to do what the teacher had planned. I had then learnt that he needed customized learning.

 

 

  

His next stint was at a international school and later in a new initiative started by a friend. He was the youngest in class and yet was way ahead of what his classmates were learning. He was skinny and frail and soon his heftier classmates started using their size to bully him and play pranks on him. For a long time, I didn't understand and always blamed my little boy for letting his classmates get to him. I had also joined his school as a teacher and often took the side of his classmates - in the fear of seeming partial - one of the biggest errors in my life.

As he grew older, I shifted to Bangalore along with my two boys and pets as I wanted to learn and educate myself on 'learning and education' and joined a program at Azim Premji University and enrolled both my children at a chain school. This decision was based on convenience more than my children's needs. However, we were lucky as both my boys had really sensitive and caring class teachers. Aditya did well in academics and slowly gained confidence in extra curricular activities too. Being a bright child, his teachers pushed him into various competitions including Olympiads. I was also taken by these exams. Looking back, I feel, it was me who found the Olympiads interesting and I took it for granted that my son would love them too. However, he didn't care. He did like solving practice questions, but wasn't happy about the exams especially when the examination center was an unknown space. Now when I reflect back - I realize that he didn't feel the need to demonstrate his intelligence. It was my need to see him achieve and get rewarded - this was my second biggest mistake.

My boys attended this school for only one academic year. C got transferred to Pune and I got pregnant with my third and we both took a decision to shift to Pune. The third pregnancy was a tough one. C too had received a raw hand at work and was constantly on tours or working late hours and once again my convenience took precedence and we enrolled the boys at the Pune branch of this school. The boys spent two years there - Aditya completed grade 4 and 5 while Siddhu completed grade 1 and 2. Both did well academically, had friends, had lots of fun with them and we lived in a lovely garden flat. While my new baby (Tara) took most of my time, Aditya struggled to keep his connection with me intact. He did have his moments of fights with other children and difficulty with expression of anger. My third biggest mistake was to justify why I couldn't spend more time with him and expect him to understand. 

As I slowly recovered from the stress of having a third baby and all the postpartum depression and the emotional chaos in me - I started finding my hold over my life - I started day care for my baby for a couple of hours everyday - just so that I could get some me time, I started exercising and planning for my career. At this time we found a new initiative that promised 'joyful learning' and self directed learning. Aditya immediately wanted to be part of this initiative. I experimented and failed at teaching at a regular mainstream school and as a family we felt that this new initiative was a good choice. 

The following two years were a lot of fun at this initiative. I joined them as a part time facilitator and we all were in a happy space. However as the initiative became popular - it changed to accommodate the needs and fears of many parents and brought in a curriculum and became more like a school. As it changed more and more into a school like system - Aditya started having problems. He lost interest in academics - got bored and wanted his freedom. He also started keeping to himself and spent most of his time in his room and I felt a loss of connection with him and became very anxious about his well-being. At the same time I was finding it difficult to adjust to using textbooks to facilitate learning and to constantly monitor children on the standardized learning outcomes. 

Our life took a 360 degree turn when we came across a poster announcing a camp for unschooler, homeschoolers and self directed learners. Aditya attended the camp as a self directed learner along with his friend and our journey into unschooling began. We all took our time to understand and completely surrender ourselves to the new found path. We initially experimented with starting a learning center, only to learn that the learning center and its demands were actually taking me away from what my children wanted and their need to just be and heal from everything that a controlled environment had done to them so far. We soon closed down our experiment and decided to give ourselves completely to the freedom and autonomy of our children, see them as alive individuals and not mere beings who had to be told and molded into the system.

 

 

Its been three years into this journey and never once has it occurred to us to go back to our earlier life choices. Today Aditya is 15 years old. He has grown to be a mature individual who loves his own company and space. He treasures his privacy. He is loving and caring toward his siblings and is now giving some thought to his future in the sense he is thinking about what would he like to do when he grows up. He enjoys cooking and he loves digital character sketching. He games for fun. He does have his moments when anger takes over and is learning to use safer ways of expressing his frustration. 

He usually doesn't like having his pictures taken and today he willingly posed and happily gave me permission to post a picture of him and me on Facebook. He stayed awake the entire night as he knew we were planning a surprise for him and had a big smile when he saw his surprise - a drums theme cake and his favourite sushi and momos. 

I look back at all those 15 years and recall so many fun and lively moments with him - his obsessions with his learning, his curiosity and the way he never gave up until he felt satisfied with whatever he was engrossed in at the time. It was such a joy watching him spend time with snails, draw spiderman faces over a hundred time, make me read certain books over and over again and watch reruns of movies such as Lion King, Cars, Dolphin Tales, Spiderman. His interest in volcanoes, dinosaurs, snakes, wildlife, beyblades was unbound and kept him occupied for hours and days together. 

It has taken sometime for both of us to recover from the damage of our earlier notions about parenting and all my earlier mistakes. And today on his 15th birthday, I feel super proud and completely in love with my boy. I wish him all the strength and patience and love to experience things as they occur in his life and I wish that he emerges through all his life experiences as a happy and satisfied individual. 

This is the boy who taught me to be a mother !

Tips for new homeschooling parents on 'How Children Learn'...

Last evening, my oldest son, Aditya (15 years old) made pizzas. We had purchased pizza base from the local bakery and I was too lazy to make home made pizza sauce and told my children that we could buy some ready made sauce. Aditya made a face of disgust and committed himself to make pizza sauce."I will make the sauce" said he. I was a bit reluctant as I didn't want to end up making the sauce myself (my laziness had overtaken my enthusiasm). "You do not know how to make the sauce and we don't have enough tomatoes too" replied me. "Mamma - I am making the sauce. I know how to make it even if I haven't done so earlier" he assured. About an hour later, he presented me with a simple yet super yum pizza. 

When and where did he learn to make the sauce? How did he know that he could improvise and use alternate ingredients when he fell short of something? How did he learn when he wasn't taught? 

My daughter Tara (5 years), is fascinated by numbers and we often involve her in solving simple addition and subtraction problems which we encounter in our daily life. She came up to me and said, "I want to learn something new in Math." She remembered the place value kit I had made using Rajma seeds for my students when I was teaching a few years ago and said that she wanted to make her own kit. Luckily I had a packet of Rajma seeds and we got going with our activity. We spent sometime sticking ten Rajma seeds on every strip of thick card paper we had cut from a box we recycled. While doing so we engaged in cracking jokes and discussing various things that had caught her attention. We didn't speak about our activity at all. After completing our activity of sticking Rajma seeds I asked her, "So how many Rajma seeds have we used?" I expected her to count each and every Rajma seed we had used. But to my surprise she counted the strips and then counted in tens and gave me an accurate answer. I was thrilled. I further said - could you show me 45 using the Rajma seeds? I thought she would put together 45 Rajma seeds and once again to my surprise she used 4 strips and 5 Rajma seeds and said 4 tens makes 40 and 5 seeds make it 45. I tested her a couple of times by asking her to form different numbers and each time she gave me an accurate answer.

Where did she learn about place value? How did she know about counting in tens? I hadn't taught her anything about place value - so how did she learn without being taught? She was a baby when she had seen me teaching place value to my students. As far as I know - she hadn't seen any videos on place value. Maybe she had seen something similar at her learning center - but I am not sure.

I have observed children and seen so many such examples of learning without being taught. I have also spent some time thinking about "How do they learn?" here is a list of five ingredients required to enable learning.

1. Children learn when they want to learn - Probably if I had 'taught' Tara place value system a few months ago - I would have failed. When children aren't interested in learning a concept or a skill, they often resort to finding excuses to do something else - could be asking for more toilet, water or snack breaks or anything that comes to their mind. Some children get distracted and aren't able to focus while some children rebel and just refuse to comply. Such children get into trouble and often get labeled as hyperactive children, slow learners, rebels, disobedient etc. Homeschooling parents too face this problem when they attempt to force learning on their child and now with schools going online - parents witness this everyday. My worry is that this results in a discord between the parents and the child and both end up in a lose lose situation.

2. They are completely in charge - In both the examples stated above - the children were completely in charge. While in the first example, I stepped away and my son had complete autonomy, in the second, I became a willing participant in what my daughter wanted to do. My role was to just help her in the activity and let her call the shots. What happens usually, is that we adults attempt to take control of the situation and start governing the way things should be done instead of being okay with our children having a free hand. I wonder if my son would have made this yummy pizza if I had decided what ingredients he should use, their proportions and for how long he should cook. In case I would I have done so - all it would do is cause a block in his ability to think and reason things out in his mind and take decisions. It could have lowered his confidence and belief in self. Most importantly, it would have added to his kitty of experiences that ruin his relationship with me.

3. Our belief in them and what they want to do - I believed that my son would be able to make the sauce. I trusted that he would ask for help if needed. Had I not believed or trusted, things would turn out to be different. Maybe my seasoned ability to cook would have produced a delicious pizza - but it would have resulted in him feeling that he is not able. 

4. Choice in selecting their learning environment - my daughter chose where she wanted to sit, she selected the material needed and she felt absolutely comfortable in it. My son ensured that no one disturbed him and requested me and his siblings to stay away from the kitchen. What usually happens is that children do not have the freedom to be in an environment of their choice. At schools their place is decided by the teacher, the classroom is assigned by the teacher. Homeschooling parents are a lot more relaxed on this front through some do insist on a certain posture and a confined space.  

5. Choice in seeking help - Children decide whether they want help in the activity or whether they want to do it independently - While my son preferred to make the pizza independently, my daughter wanted to make the place value kit along with me. Children know when they need help and also need to feel comfortable asking for help. We adults intervene unnecessarily as we assume that our children cannot do things independently or will not know that they need help. 

My advice to all parents who have opted for homeschooling this year and are eager to do their best to ensure that their child is learning. Here are some of my tips for you:

• Relax - you already have too much on your plate. You currently have minimal support for completing household chores, cooking and cleaning. You are not used to seeing your child at home all day and you are definitely not used to being at home or having your spouse at home 24/7. Life is not the same. Do not overburden yourself.

• Your children do not consider their home to be their school. Their home is where they can be themselves... a place where they do not have to follow too many rules and have a lot more freedom. 

• Your children find it difficult to see their parents turning into teachers. Their mom is their mom  and their dad is their dad and not somebody who makes them learn. 

• Many profit making initiatives will try to sell their curriculum to you. Some curriculums may suit the needs of your children and some may not. So don't hurry into subscribing or buying a curriculum. Explore and involve your child in making curriculum and syllabus related decisions. Ask for trials to check whether your child likes those curriculums.

• I prefer customizing learning for children. I let my children be my guide and let my children's curiosity decide what we learn. Remember - every child is unique and learns differently.

• They definitely want to learn. Learning comes naturally to them. They just don't want to be forced to learn and cannot learn when they are not ready.

• I do not let age specific syllabus limit my child's learning. Many a times I have observed that my child wants to learn a lot more than what is given in the textbooks - this happens when we let their curiosity guide us in selecting concepts.

• Concepts are concepts and knowledge is knowledge and facts are facts. Do not get overwhelmed by boards and their curriculums. Like I always say - plants will not have different parts in different curriculums and animals will have the same names and features across curriculums. Grammar does not change in CBSE or ICSE or SSC or NIOS or any international board.

• Engage with your child, connect with them - be as curious as they are and explore together - you will see a whole new world opening up.

Now for an example:

When my son was around four, he got interested in planets and the universe. This interest developed when he happened to spot a book on planets at the local library. We issued the book for him and his exploration and fascination about planets, solar system and the universe began. We started watching videos, read more books together and made a solar system on the ceiling of his room. We painted T-shirts with planets and the solar system. He learnt mathematical concepts of quantity, size, weight, shapes, counting, skip counting using this theme. His vocabulary increased as he understood the meaning of various related words and concepts. A visit to the planetarium and watching space movies added colour and fun to our learning. As he got comfortable with this theme - his interest and curiosity moved toward our planet Earth and what followed was understanding how Earth and its elements, life on Earth, maps, continents, countries, states, districts, cities and villages. He was then interested in different landforms and water bodies and this took him to another topic - transportation. One theme led to another and we surely had a wonderful time learning. What he learnt is alive in him even today as he wasn't learning because some curriculum wanted him to learn - it was because he wanted to...

So parents chill...focus on your connection and things will be fine...

All the best!

Thoughts around death and dying !

We have entered the phase 5 of the lockdown and it feels weird to see everything opening up in spite of the alarming increase in the number of cases. I just received a message stating that area-wise non essential shops to remain open between 9:00 am to 5:00 pm on alternate days. I already have a list of non essentials ranging from underwear to umbrellas that I need to buy. My children are happy that toy shops would be open and I feel a bit guilty to see the consumerist streak making to the bright spot in my life. 'I was to learn to go slow and minimal during lockdown,' I tell myself and then get into a inner dialogue about how I need to replace certain things and that they have now progressed from non essential to essential goods.

The news about the death of the pregnant elephant and its comparison to the pregnant and yet jailed anti CAA protester numbs me. Am I becoming apathetic? Or have I given up hope? I turn my attention to my children who brought in our neighbourhood kittens and their mommy indoors as they felt that they were unsafe in the outdoors during the impending cyclone. The efforts and the focus with which all three worked to find them, bring them home and make them comfortable was so touching. I appease myself by saying, "I have no control over certain things happening around the world...what I can do is to take solace in the fact that I am doing many things right - as my children are growing up to be sensitive and empathetic individuals caring for the well-being of creatures around them. 

My belief in being loving and caring about all creatures great and small was challenged when my daughter woke up in the wee hours of the night complaining of an intolerable ear ache. The ache was so bad that she didn't want me to touch her ear to check what was was wrong. As the mobile torch was turned on and its light directed toward her ear, I saw a centimetre long insect emerge out of her ear. My reflex was to catch it and squish it so that it would do no more damage to my little girl. However I missed and the insect got into her hair. It was picked up by C and he set it free in the grass just outside our house. In fear I said, "Why didn't you kill it? Why did you let it go? What if it comes back again?" But the deed of setting it free was already done...

I slept the night in fear, waking every now and then imagining the insect trying to get back into my daughter's ear. I wondered whether people felt threatened by this pregnant elephant just the way I got scared of the insect. I read an update on the elephant that died in the morning - it said that the pineapple with the crackers was meant for wild boars and not the elephant. So we have a discrimination system with animals too and wild boars are way down in the hierarchy of animals. How insane!

Today is my dad's first death anniversary according to the Hindu Calendar. It's a year already. I miss him a lot and most often forget that he is no more. It feels like he has gone on a holiday and will return soon. A part of me is glad that he didn't live to witness this lockdown and see how a tiny virus has brought the world to a stand still. I shudder at the thought of him falling sick during lockdown and hospitals turning him away from being admitted. 

'Baba' has been the most stable and strong element in my life. He believed in me no matter what. He argued with me and constantly reminded me that one needs to scrutinize every angle and every perspective before taking a decision and yet stood by me on every impulsive decision I took. He taught me to be patient and open minded. He taught me that life has its ups and downs and one has to take all experiences in one's stride.

His last days were tough. He had a bypass surgery and he passed away in the ICU during post surgery recovery. He was on the ventilator and covered with tubes. I don't think I will ever forget the helpless look on his face. I entered the ICU to see him just before he passed away. His eyes looked lifeless and his hands were cold. The doctor said that the situation was not good and that they had no hopes. The ventilator was keeping him alive while all his other organs were giving up. He said that they would wait for a couple of hours. I was scared and I became numb. I mumbled something - which probably told the doctor to do whatever they felt was right. I walked out of the ICU and that was when I felt my tears trickling down. I knew that he wasn't going to survive. I realized that he had already left this world. 

My mother in law had passed away about a year earlier and was also covered with tubes - she was on the ventilator as well as dialysis. Seeing my dad all helpless brought back those images of her lifelessness. I felt I had wronged a second time. I felt that I had made a huge mistake and had tried to tamper with the process of death. Many questions arose like a forest on fire - Would my dad have been happier to pass away in the comforts of his home, surrounded by his loved ones? Why didn't I take the decision of not putting him through this torture? Why did I not discuss death with him and ask him how would he want to pass away? Can we ever win a fight with death? Do I want to win a fight with death? How would I want to die? Is there life after death? What happens to our soul after we die? Do we really become stars? Is there a place called heaven? Is he at peace? Is he happy now? Does he know that I miss him?

While I yet don't have answers to most of these questions, I surely know that I don't want to die with a cracker bursting in my mouth. I surely don't want to die after being squished. I don't want anyone to become George Floyd and I definitely don't want to die alone or in the confines of a hospital room.