On learning, online sessions and self directedness...

Last Year i.e the year 2019, I had consciously stayed away from various social media platforms. I was concerned about the amount of time I spent on Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram. The year 2020, saw me become super active once again courtesy: Lockdown. Motivated by the response I received by way of comments on my Facebook posts, I started a blog - thegreatkapok.blogspot.com. Somewhere in April, I also started doodling and then progressed to dotting. I started my own page https://www.facebook.com/theartistswithin/. My intention to start the group was simple - to share my creations with the world. I also became part of many dotting groups to help me learn and enhance my skill further.

I gave a few online sessions on 'our unschooling journey' and became an admin of  a Facebook group called 'Homeschooling India'. I also attended a few sessions on unschooling as a co-host or a participant, but gradually weaned myself away. Not that I didn't enjoy these sessions and its not that I didn't learn from these forums. It's just that they would tire me out completely. It would take me sometime to switch from the virtual session mode to the real world. My eyes needed adjustment, my posture, my body needed to get back to a mode of real movement. My brain needed some time to realign itself to other stimuli. It was hard. I understood that I was spending a lot of time sitting in one position, looking at one screen while writing my blog, during online sessions and a whole lot of time checking my WhatsApp and Facebook notifications. 

My children have been on their gadgets too for long hours. Infact they stay awake for most parts of the night and wake up post noon almost everyday. They are much younger than me. They take their breaks from their screens while making food or when they are engaged in household chores. Siddhu goes for a run early morning and Aditya takes little breaks every now and then. There are days when Tara prefers playing outside or with her toys and there are days when she is glued to her Ipad. 

We all are engaged with our gadgets by choice and have complete control over what we use it for. There is no adult telling my children what sessions to attend or what games to play or whom to interact with. This is what makes us different from most others. 

I see children in my neighborhood engaged in online schooling. When asked about his experience, a child trying to sound very important said, "We have to get ready and attend school on our laptop." My cousin who is a teacher at a reputed school in Pune shared, "Online schooling is a torture for both students and the teachers. We are getting our salaries and hence we are doing it." Another friend shared, "Its keeping my children occupied".  These parents keep their children conveniently occupied by enrolling them for more online activities post online schooling  or online homeschooling hours. Tara too attended a trial online session through a school. She said that she didn't like looking at the laptop all the time...and most often forgot to listen to what was being said. Tara could express clearly what she experienced, I wonder whether other children do express and if they do are they really heard?

I wonder what is the impact of online schooling on children. How is it like to wake up in the morning and wear school uniform (usually only the school shirt and sit in front of either a laptop, tab or a smart phone and log into a classroom app? Has anyone asked children? 

To add to this, I also see people who passionately believed in Self Directed Learning - commodifying knowledge and once again offering it to the masses that access social media platforms. What I observe is a new meaning being assigned to self-directed learning. Maybe it could be differentiated from the actual self directed learning by naming it differently - it is 'choice based sessions' - where individuals choose sessions from an umbrella of sessions being offered on one platform or as one event. 

So far I understood Self-Directed Learning as a path chosen by an individual to follow their passion and interests. To give an example - a child who is interested in mechanics follows this interest and works towards creating different machines. This is his learning path, designed and directed by him and only him. However now self - directed learning is taking a different meaning. According to this new understanding - Children have choices and a right to choose. However these choices have boundaries (i.e have to select from what is being offered) and children have no right to decide how they want to learn. Events are being created. Parents have access to these events. They enroll their children for it and pay high fees for the same. the Fear of missing out (FOMO) and the guilt of spending so much money pushes the parent to force their children to select a session. Some parents do take their children's consent. This consent is also a myth as the child feels forced to consent. Some children give their consent as they feel obliged to do so, some do so as they have been tamed to believe that only things that are taught bring in learning. Very few opt for these sessions because they feel these sessions will help them pursue their interest. 

Once children are online - they have to choose from a list of sessions being offered. Most often the parent monitors these choices. The parent believes that not opting for a session means a waste of the money they have paid. Then the child enters a session which is being taught by an adult. The content too is pre-planned and hence not choice based. 

I have been having questions about games too. I thoroughly enjoy games and love playing them by the rules. However I cannot term these as self directed learning as everything is in control of the facilitator. Children are not creating their own games or playing different games by making their own rules. They are simply following someone. 

Productification and commodification of knowledge has been going on since a few decades. Now the products are being transformed into online products. This transformation yet doesn't address the core issues of learning  - 'Control' - as yet the control over the design, content and implementation is yet with the adult. The child is in no way creating their own learning journey.  

Two years ago, I experimented with running a learning center. I used to organize many workshops for adults and children. I observed that parents often decided for their children. There was either a fear of missing out or a need to expose their children to anything new. There were many a times that the children would move out of the sessions and prefer playing outside or with my cats or my dog. I would never have the heart to force these children and always rejoiced in the wee bit of freedom they experienced in unsupervised play.

At the beginning of the COVID crisis in India. I felt that online sessions were doing wonders. It was my children who showed me a different view. On one hand I saw them willingly engage in discussions on learning with their friends on a virtual platform and on the other hand - everytime I requested them to participate in a forum - they would say no. On having a conversation with them they both clearly told me - we don't like it when other adults plan things for us. While my older son loves character sketching - he didn't want to be part of any session being offered. He told me that I can learn by myself by watching videos and practicing. My daughter too steered away from any zoom meetings and sessions. 

When I saw it from their eyes, when I truly put myself in their shoes and when I opened my eyes to their world, everything that they said made sense and I refrained from forcing them. I do send them event notifications on their phone. So far they have decided against being part of such online sessions and somewhere deep down I am glad. I am happy that they are not coming under the pressure of adults or their fears. They know what they want and are so aligned with their inner self.

Online learning Pic that went Viral.

 

No fixed plans, no fixed curriculum and yet Tara Learns!

                                        

It's been a while since my last post. Tara's friend Aadya is back and Tara doesn't need much of my time. The two are together almost through out the day. It's been raining too and rains bring in so many things to observe and experience.

Tara and Aadya have engaged themselves in watching plants sprout, observing trees, little creatures - bugs, insects, snails, slugs, earthworms all around them. They have attempted to make 'pets' out of these creatures by putting them into boxes and trying to feed them leaves, grass etc. I have been a silent observer, watching their excitement and fun. They have followed some of these creatures to check out where they go. Our cats too have added to their curiosity about insects and other small creatures and every time a cat brought in a creature, Tara, her brothers and her dad have worked together to rescue and release them in the place where they belong. At present her curiosity is limited to finding out what they eat and where they sleep. The other day, she made a video pretending to be one of the you-tubers she follows.

She has been asking questions too - not many about insects - but mainly about rain and about corona virus. She has displayed curiosity to know more about the solar system and volcanoes. I can see that her world is becoming larger and she is now prepared to let other things beyond her usual vision enter her world.

A few days ago, she came to me and asked, "Where does rain come from?" She had already watched a few videos and expressed that she didn't understand everything. Water goes up in the air because of the Sun and then clouds are formed said she. What she couldn't make sense was about how the water goes up in the sky as she hadn't seen water go up and has only seen it fall down. I watched the videos she had already seen along with her and then decided to do an experiment. We boiled a bowl of water and put a lid on it. After a few minutes, I took the lid off. We saw steam emerging out. I explained that the steam was also water in a different form. We then checked the lid and saw water droplets on it. She immediately said, "oh so the steam settled on the lid and became water again." and then added - "The Sun heats the water from the top, you heated it from below." She was happy with what she learnt. I know that she has a lot to process and make sense of and once she does so - she will have many more questions. 

I couldn't help thinking about my childhood days and asking myself - was I ever so curious? I recollected how I would get confused with the big terms of evaporation, precipitation and condensation. I realized that I had never really let myself experience and make sense of things for myself. All I did was try and memorize everything that was taught and also regarded it as the ultimate truth that can never be challenged. Unschooling has taught me to not 'give too much information' than what a child can process and gently guide the child in their process of learning. Thus for now I have to wait patiently for her to come up with her next set of questions about rain.

Last night, while I was working on a doodle mandala, she declared in a loud and firm voice that she was bored. As I had mentioned in my earlier blogs - she feels bored at times and often expects me to drop whatever I have been doing and spend time with her. Depending on various factors, I decide whether to halt and do be with her or to let her dwell in the feeling for sometime. Most often I let her stay with her boredom and most often she comes out of it all be herself. She did... this time too - she spotted her clay and engaged herself in making a figure and transformed it into a beautiful creature. Post that she went around playing with our cats for sometime and came back saying she wanted me to give her math problems. 

  

Usually when she is this specific about what she wants, I oblige. What emerged was an hour of math. We had been doing skip counting for a while now - we do it when she hula hoops, or is counting her toys or jumping and playing around. This time I asked her to circle the numbers she would say aloud if she was skip counting by twos. Then I asked her to do the same with skip counting by 5s. We did some addition and counting in sets of ten and then I just chanced to give her addition sums where the answer for all sums was 7. She immediately noticed this and found it very amusing. She said, "Oh now I get it. Lets do more. You give me a number and I will form various sums that have this number as the answer. 

We looked at various single digit numbers and she gave me the addition sentences. After one sum, she looked at me with a mischievous twinkle and wrote down a subtraction sentence that gave the same answer making me super intrigued and proud that she had figured this out by herself. There was no teaching - she had observed, made sense of it in her mind and associated it with what she already knew. Watching her do so increased my confidence in self learning. Children do have the ability to self learn. Keeping myself away from my urges to 'teach her' was bringing this beautiful learning in her. 

Here are some pictures of what she self learnt last night. If you look at her work, she writes mirror images for some numbers. We do not correct her when she does so. We do not want any obstacle in her learning journey and at this stage it is important that we focus on conceptual understanding. Also my past experience of children who mirror has been that they lose confidence when corrected and often stop learning. Children grow out of this as they grow up especially when we do not overthink their errors and work on correcting them and fixing them.

                                                   

 

 

That's all for now..I will write more about 'How Tara Learns' as I fill up my potli with a lot more experiences and pictures to go with them. Thank you for reading and hope this post helps you as a parent.