Seminar on Raising Happy and Peaceful children, 2nd May 2009

Seminar on Raising Happy and Peaceful children, 2nd May 2009

The theme for the seminar was “Raising Happy and Peaceful children”. Weighty indeed! Everyone in the group had to contend with these two questions, posed by one of the presenters – Can I make anyone happy? Or Can I make anyone unhappy? And I think we all in our own ways kept reaching the same conclusion from different points that children raise themselves; we can possibly move towards happy and peaceful, only by being happy and peaceful ourselves. There is no easier way. This was a refreshing direction to take, considering also that the seminar was held in Chennai, generally thought to be a conservative city that tends to take a straightjacketed view of education, schooling and learning.

The seminar was organised by Relief Foundation, who were also celebrating their completion of 10 years of work, and positioning this seminar as a consolidation of their learning. Congratulations to Smt. Vidya Shankar, the founder of Relief Foundation, and the entire team on their hard work and achievement. The seminar was an indication of the same.

A quality of the seminar which is to be appreciated is the diverse nature of the gathering. There were - - many parents, some homeschooling their children, others who have put them in the ‘alternative’ schools (as different from the conventional ones) in Chennai, and still others who are simply questioning the mainstream schooling system

- heads of alternative schools (Rukmini Ramachandran, Navadisha Montessori Institute; Sudha Mahesh, Head Start, Marlene Kamdar, Saraswathi Kendra Learning Centre, … )

- educationists (Ratnesh, Geniekids Bangalore; Clive and Suseela, Centre for Learning Bangalore, others…)

- teachers (from Riverside to share their experience, Vivekananda school, Chennai…)

- members from the NGO fraternity having grassroot work experience …

Of course, most participants would fall into more than one category.

The glaringly missing participants here in my opinion were children. Deriving from an understanding that perhaps each one of us is responsible for our happiness and peace, it makes complete sense that children make a part of a seminar on happy and peaceful children. Qualifying the age groups and so on can of course come in, but first we need to have a sense of flatness, non-hierarchy, which is completely missing in the Chennai psyche. The Chennai psyche must learn to relinquish control as parents in homes, as teachers in the classrooms, and as principals in schools, give up control and work at being gardeners, only watering and mulching, then see how the plants grow and flowers bloom. This is an issue that needs to be taken seriously by parents and educators looking at true and healthy processes of learning and education. However, it must also be said that there were many in the group who were truly thinking and enquiring, for children, and for learning.

The other group that was missing was the mainstream – i.e., teachers and parents from conventional schools; as Rukmini Ramachandran pointed out several times during her session that she was “preaching to the converted”. Even assuming that this was specifically for the converted, i.e. those who are already thinking of issues of peace and happiness in education and schooling, then a substantial part of the day should have been for discussing the Why’s and How’s of dealing with and bringing into practice some of these fundamental questions. The Riverside and Geniekids experiences were very enriching in this sense. For instance, in the group discussion session, one topic was on how to make the home a learning environment. Now in a ‘converted’ group, this theme would without doubt bring in a suggestion like spending more quality time with children. But that is obvious isn’t it? We would need to go deeper into an issue like that to ask fundamental questions like, what do we mean by spending more quality time with children, how do we do this considering that in a middle class Chennai environment, both parents work and their work schedules are tight, so does this mean the mother will need to stop working (which is mostly the case, although I know of one couple where the father stays in and the mother goes out to work)… So a deeper understanding of the issues, of our own assumptions and our minds will only be possible when we go into such details; the ‘How’ of things. But this does not mean giving clear-cut 10 or 15 or 30 steps to making the home a learning environment like one of the bestsellers, whatever that means. This means a deeper enquiry and discussion, which would lead to each unit (individual, family, couple etc) creating their own solutions and also arriving at a collective understanding perhaps.

The issues that were touched upon to start a process of dialogue and discussion were profound and significant. I say “start a process” because these are not issues that can have conclusions and solutions that can be neatly packaged and presented in workshops and conferences. One such was very succinctly and simply put by Clive Elwell, Centre for Learning, when at the end of the group discussion, he asked the question, “where is learning in all these discussions? Is there some learning that is for learning’s sake and not accumulated? … Where is happiness? There could be an enquiry and dialogue into this, but is there a formula for it?”

Some of the interesting discussions that came up during the day included:

- Whether current and advanced research into child psychology is included in all the educational frameworks being followed by the schools, and whether such inclusion is really necessary all the time and is it not that some of our understandings of child and human behaviour are well observed and time tested;

- Whether individual is for society or society is for the individual;

- The philosophy of Maria Montessori and related themes, including its similarity with Gandhian ideals and thought;

- The different facets of running a school and integrating some of the alternative perspectives and thoughts and

- The problematic of competition, exams, a competitive world and preparing to enter this world of competition, if at all.

This issue of competition was the most felt in the group and kept raising its head through out the day in different ways. An interesting way of looking at this was given by Rukmini Ramachandran. She said that “in this race to get into all the competitive exams and institutions, do we know how many wildlife photographers are there in the country today? Five! In a country of one billion we have 5 wildlife photographers.” In a country of unimaginable biodiversity and such opportunity in the domain of environmental and wildlife science, we have five wildlife photographers.

Sorrowfully, even many of the supposedly alternative people in the country have fallen victim to this issue. There is talk of all the best inputs, the best and free learning environments, the interesting and most creative teaching and learning aids so that they can face a safe and secure tomorrow. A SAFE AND SECURE TOMORROW? Does any one of us know what is going to come on us tomorrow? This evening? The only thing that is constant in this world is Change, and I am saying this in a completely practical and material sense. And we have enough evidence of this. How have career opportunities and necessary skillsets changed in the last 5 decades? Given this situation, what about the child of Today? What about the child of Now? Who am I as a parent today? Who am I as a parent now? How can any “combination of good academic skills blended with attitudes and values” make superheroes out of our children, if this moment I am ranting at them to finish a particular task on time? What they will take with them is the rant, and our own understanding of time. Rukmini Ramachandran touched upon this aspect of time beautifully in her presentation. We are living in a No-Time age. Listening to music, “No time!”. Visiting relatives, “No time!”. Reading a book that one has wanted to for long, “No time!”. What do we have time for? There is a sure connection between this perception of a “competitive world”, and the common understanding of Time, and we need to investigate that connection. If as parents and teachers, we can concentrate on the children of today, and ourselves as the parents and teachers of today – then we would all be better off as human beings and excel in any roles that we want to take on tomorrow. After all, today had been a tomorrow that we had been working towards some time in the past.

An important issue that was touched upon in my view, was that of the aspect of reality and idealism in general and the quality of goodness in particular. Many ideals were looked at during the presentation by Ratnesh of Geniekids including the questions on happiness, but not dug deeper due to lack of time. In his presentation he spoke about how a child must be allowed to see that he / she is special. The adults around him must create opportunities and instances for this, especially also when he may do something that the adult disapproves of. This understandably resulted in heated reaction and questioning by the audience. In the discussion it came about that perhaps there is a difference between intention and behaviour, and while we may approve or disapprove of the behaviour, we do not disapprove of either the doer (child) or his intention. And that this discrimination must be clear in our own behaviour to the child.

One response was that in reality people do not treat others as such, and so the child must learn to deal with reality. I would think that the whole purpose of an alternative is to challenge certain realities. And so to the extent that alternative perspectives challenge, say, consumerism, or abuse of environment etc, to that extent, alternative situations need to be created and practiced. Only then would we be presenting any challenge. I am sure it is obvious that to show to ourselves first that we can live on collective and limited resources without exploitation and towards preservation, practicing such methods like reducing plastic, reusing materials and recycling what can be recycled, makes sense. Similarly, that people do not discriminate between the doer and the action in reality does not justify saying that this must not be practiced in our educational process. It makes it all the more necessary to practice the opposite force. However, the danger lies in challenging without an understanding of human behaviour, i.e. why people do not discriminate between doer and action. If children see only the challenging nature of an alternative perspective without the requisite understanding that must be the base of such a challenge or at least the process that leads to such understanding, then there would be no empathy or sensitivity to the reality. And this is when learners who come out of alternative scenarios find it difficult to cope with mainstream perspectives and end up issuing empty challenges and labeled best as rebels, or worst as terrorists or trouble makers. This is what is happening today.

The other response to the above discussed case was to his suggestion that we must also not disapprove of his intention since the child’s intention is intrinsically positive. He used the word ‘positive’, I would like to substitute it with the word, ‘good’. So he said that for example, if the child jumps on the sofa, then let’s try to understand his good motive, which is – to have fun! Now the reaction to this was much more heated than the earlier one in that most of the participants could not digest taking the intentions of the child as good. Some of course tried to say, why not be neutral saying that it is neither positive nor negative. The discussion indicates the spirit of society in general – how afraid we are to have faith in the intrinsic good of others. It is difficult for us to simply take at face value that a person, be it adult or child, naturally only has goodness in him / her. And that any behaviour or action is because of other cobwebs that have hidden this goodness. How cynical we have become. How can I be happy or peaceful if I am all the time ascribing all the actions of my child or friend or neighbour to bad intentions? To think that it is on the very base of inherent human goodness that our entire country went on satyagraha and got political freedom. One of the primary principles of a satyagrahi was to see the intrinsic goodness of the other, including the British. It is a very sad fact, but what Clive Elwell said is true, “we are not living in a happy and peaceful society”. So then how are we going to raise happy and peaceful children? Can we be happy and peaceful ourselves? This discussion cannot end.

Priya Nagesh
5th May 2009