A Child is the Father of Man

Hurt and wounded last night, with no other adult around to keep me warm, I looked to the only human being I knew, close to me.....my dear son. As I cried my heart out and yearned for the warmth of human skin against mine, I whispered to my son softly:"Pappa...I need a hug....a long hug.....will you give it to me?"
He was busy playing Minecraft, but he dropped everything he was doing, smiled softly, gave me a peck on my cheek and lay down on me, hugging me tightly for as long as I wanted. It was one of the most precious hugs.
And then I looked into his eyes as tears streamed down my face and asked him shamelessly:
"Will you be my appa (father) tonight? Will you go to sleep with me earlier than you usually do today? Will you hold me and sleep today, instead of the usual....my holding you? I think I really need that today."
He beamed, nodded his head, put his arm around my neck and shoulder, wiped the tears from my eyes and said:"Yes, I will."
And he did just that. For me. Without a word. Not asking me whys or whats or hows. Thank God for that, because I would not have known what to say.
So we went to sleep in each others arms, holding each other tight.....happy to be home. This one beautiful home that we have....each other.
And I woke up this morning with this thought - what would we do in this world without children?
For a child is the father of man. Naturally. No school or guru or book need teach him that.
Children simply know what we have forgotten and spend a lifetime learning.

I thought you were his sister!

Raghav and I were down today as usual, in the evening, to cycle round the block. It is a routine that both of us like now and have gotten into. We usually do a few rounds together, and then when Raghav needs a little break, I do some more while he times me. Then he does a few while I time him, after which I do a few more alone, and then we finish off together with a few more. Raghav loves this routine as it was created by him. And I love it because I am enjoying cycling after many years, and it nourishes my body, mind and soul with some happy hormones!

We had just done a couple of rounds, when a little boy on his cycle stopped me with his question.
"Excuse me....where are you going? Are you going to the park?", he asked me, with an endearing smile.
I smiled back, stopped in my track, and said," No....I am going cycling this way", and pointed the other way.
Raghav had meanwhile made a U turn and came back to see where I was. This little boy immediately asked if Raghav would come and play with him in the park. Raghav promised to play tomorrow with him.
I gently steered the conversation, asking him his name, and if he would like to cycle with us.
He immediately beamed and turned around to join us.

After the next round, Raghav wanted to take a break, and this little boy said he would wait with him. They got talking while I went on cycling. Suddenly, he ran up to me and said he wanted to race with me, and so we raced one round. As we were finishing and he was celebrating winning the race, I yelled out to him saying I was continuing my rounds of cycling. "Cheating! You're cheating!", he yelled back. I had no clue why he thought I was cheating, and smiled and rode on. He joined a little later and we went one more round. In the middle, he wanted to stop for a little break as he was tired. So we stopped. He asked me for the time, and when he realised that I had no watch on, he decided that it must be late, and told me he was going home. I waved and we decided to meet again tomorrow.

I finished my few rounds of cycling and joined Raghav, to find that there was a water bottle and a bag in Raghav's cycle basket. It belonged to that little boy. He had asked Raghav if he could leave it there and had forgotten. We only knew the name of the block that he lived in, not his flat number. So we decided to wait and see if he would come back in search of the bottle. He promptly did.

And we got talking a bit. We asked him (obviously) for his flat number. He promptly asked for mine and I told him. He then asked for Raghav's, and he told him.
"Oh! So you both live in the same flat?!"
"Yes, I am his mother!", I softly added.
His eyes opened wide and he beamed and said, "Oh! What? Mother??!"
He almost fell backwards in surprise and shock.
"What did you think?", I asked back.
" I thought you were ....what do I say?...his sister or something!", he exclaimed.
"How old are you then?", he asked.
When I told him my age, he almost fainted!
"My God! So old?!", he gasped.
And we all laughed! :)

This little boy made my day.

I realise that it does pay sometimes to go out and play with your kids like a kid. You make more friends who are young at heart and young in body :) And who also make you feel the same way! :)

Do children learn what they live?

My grandmother was in town and I really wanted her to come and spend some time with us at home. She is 92 and in many ways I feel grateful to both my grandmothers for taking care of me perhaps when I really needed that the most. My father's mother was with me through my growing years and until my late teens, while my mother's mother took care of me up to the end of my first year, besides our numerous summer holidays in Bangalore. I felt that it was my turn now to do my little bit for her. But I had to ask Raghav, as that is what we usually do. We consider him as an individual in our house and family, with his own views on things and people. He is also a person who likes to be prepared for changes in routine or sharing of space at home. We have respected that all along, and we did the same this time too.

I was telling Raghav how my grandmother had taken care of me when my parents had left me for a month with her, when I was five months old and they had to go to Australia. I shared with him stories of how she had brought up nine children of her own, and how they also took care of me. I also shared how important is was for me to have her home with us for a few days atleast this time. He seemed to understand. In fact, he said he would love to have her and listen to those stories from her. She was special to him. I knew that from the way he spoke. I remembered fondly how she came all the way to be with him as a newborn baby, giving him an oil massage, bathing him, cooking for him, changing him, talking to him and rocking him to sleep with a pillow on her legs. Perhaps there was some kind of connection that he felt with her, for she is one of the very few who are privileged to hug and kiss him at will. I was happy that he understood. I spoke to her, and she agreed to come the following day.

Meanwhile, Raghav was on a building marathon. He had announced to us that he was going to build a farm today and set off. While I was busy in the kitchen, he kept coming to me with different things that  he had built, one after the other. There was a barn, a tree house, fields, a stable, a pig sty, a sheep pen, a farm shop, a compost bin, a tractor with trailer, a combine harvester, a cow shed and more! After building all this, he wanted to set it up in a space that wouldn't be disturbed and play with it. Since the best place for that was his own room, we decided to set it up there and cleaned and made the space for it. Raghav was very happy and we played our usual pretend game, making up dialogues for each person, weaving in a story et al.

Later, he wanted to get building other things again, but was frustrated that he couldn't use the whole room, as it was full of the things for the farm. He couldn't access his drawers and bricks, and also did not want to move the farm anywhere else, as he felt they would not fit in any other space. After a lot of back and forth, bouts of crying and the pain of not understanding how the same space could be created in another place, he finally agreed to give my idea of moving all of it to the guest bedroom, a try. I had to measure the floor area to show him that the space he had used in this room was possible to create in the other one as well. He finally understood. So I drew a map of the farm - where he had placed what, and we moved it all to the top of the guest bed. Raghav painstakingly set it all up to the last detail, according to the map, even pointing out an error on my part of not drawing one thing to scale!

A little later, I got a call from my mother, to say that she would bring my grandmother that evening, to stay with us overnight, until the following evening. I did not know whether to smile or cry. She was supposed to come only the following day, and Raghav had just set up everything to play. I expected a meltdown from Raghav. After all that measuring and setting up of the farm, so that it wouldn't be disturbed, now it would have to be disturbed as my grandmother would need the bed. There was no other space she could sleep in. I did not know what to do. I did not want to disappoint Raghav; and nor did I want to say no to my grandmother. I stayed with my feelings for a while, but started getting anxious. "How could I tell them that she could not come because Raghav needed that space for his Lego?" "How can I tell Raghav that she was more important than his Lego?" Both were important to me. I wanted to respect both. And yet I feared Raghav's reaction.

I called up my husband who was travelling on work. I was in for another surprise. For the first time,
he probably empathised with Raghav instantly :). He told me that I should call my mother and tell them that they could not come today, but could perhaps come the following week to stay. While I was relieved and happy about this new connection he had made, I still could not get down to saying that to my grandmother, who I had invited. I said okay and hung up.

I guess my heart knew that my son was ready to understand and respect another's feelings. I did not think anymore. I just walked up to him and told him what I felt and what had happened. He teared up a bit, but agreed to move all his stuff back to his room and not play with it the way he wanted to, until my grandmother had left. There was no long-drawn explanation needed from me. There was no meltdown like I had feared. He had simply understood. I was relieved and happy that I had followed my heart. It has not let me down till today.

We carried everything back to his room from the bed, and set it up in a corner, so he could access his other Lego bricks too. Everything had worked out peacefully and beautifully. I realised how the Universe had choreographed this so beautifully for all of us. I am grateful for that.

I also realised today that my trust in my child has deepened, and so had his. I believe that when children have been given the respect that is due to them, they will understand and show respect to others. When they have been given the space they need, they will make or create the space that others need. When they have been listened to, they will learn to listen to others.

Many years ago, I had learned this from a little group of children in a sacred little space (not school) called Bhavya, in Bangalore, which we had gone to visit. That was one of the first few spaces where Raghav was comfortable instantly, and did not even need me. I believe that there are some spaces where he perhaps feels and senses the vibes and energies of people and feels drawn to be himself and explore. I want to share an excerpt from a blog post that I wrote earlier about our experience in Bhavya, that first opened my eyes to empathy, respect and trust and what they really mean. I realised then what extent kids can go to, to listen deeply, trust and show respect to another human being - even someone who they had never met before. Can we as adults even come close to that, I wonder?

Some of the kids were playing in the sand pit and Raghav wanted a spade and a bucket that they had, to play by himself. He just went up to them and asked without any hesitation whatsoever - something that he rarely does! I am usually asked to be his voice or mouthpiece - a role that I am quite used to now. One of them asked him to wait till he finished, while another handed one of the things over to him immediately. Raghav then dug a bit in the sand pit, imagining that he was cooking something, while some of the kids watched, and then wanted to move to another sandy area near the pit. Sensing that, my friend told him that the sand in the sand pit was cleaner and different from the other sand, and the other kids around asked him to be careful not to mix up the sand from the two areas. That was my first learning point from the kids - that little things that we might not really give much thought to, are SO important to them.

After Raghav had finished his cooking and wanted to go on and explore other things, he was walking around with the bucket and spade in hand, saying that he wanted to keep it in a safe place, where no one would disturb it. He tried putting it down in different places, and at every spot, the kids told him how that place might not be so safe as it was in the way of kids running or walking around. They also said that others may not know when they see that bucket and spade, that it was something that he had made and might take it away or destroy it unknowingly. Finally, my friend's son, who was much older than the others, offered to make a sign board that said "DO NOT DISTURB THIS" and stick it into the bucket of sand; he also suggested that the bucket be kept under the slide as kids usually would go only on the slide. Raghav was finally satisfied with these suggestions, kept his creation under the slide with the sign in it, and went away content, with faith that his creation was finally in a safe place.

The extent to which each of them went to understand how precious that creation was to my son, moved and touched me so deeply, that even today it brings tears to my eyes. And they did not know my son - that was the first time they were seeing him, and the first time he was seeing them. Yet, there was a huge effort to understand and interact with trust and empathy, spontaneously, without any adult intervention or facilitation.

So then, do children really learn what they live? What do you think?

Learning Happens....Shit Happens!

Yes, I have been a teacher. Yes, I have been worried out of my wits about learning and jumped for joy when I thought it had happened. Yes, I made elaborate lesson plans that had to be thrown out of the window, prepared objectives that never ended or were just too hard to reach, thought of strategies that often helped me more than the kid, created teaching materials akin to works of art and evaluated others more than I did myself!

All along, I had this awry notion that children were incapable of "learning" on their own and that they needed to be "taught". Everything that I did  as a teacher and parent, stemmed from that one notion or idea. While I thought I was being child-centric,  I was actually being self-centred. Because the whole process and joy of learning started with me and rested on my ability to "teach" them skills that were necessary for life...but, whose life was it?

Did I really know each of them (my students/ kids) so well that I could decide what they needed to learn and how? 
Did I truly give them control over their environment and learning? Or did I give them pseudo-control?
Did I have the time to sit with them and understand the core of their being and what drove their spirit?
Did I care enough to just sit and be with them and their feelings as they arose from their inner depths, without attributing any of those to "issues"or "behaviours" or "emotional problems" or even just "difficulties"?
Did I deeply "know" their strengths and their passions or gloss over those, to slot them (as "skills to be learned") into convenient holes in what I called and someone (who had no clue about them as people) framed as "the curriculum"?
Did I want to kindle their love and zest for life and learning, or "help" them  and frame them for life so they could ride the waves, without knowing what it was to get wet and messy and learn how to swim?

Sadly, and even with the best of intentions, I perhaps didn't do most of  the above while I was a young teacher of kids with special needs and then a parent who relied heavily on her teaching background to bring up her child. Perhaps that's why I was burnt out and wanted to quit my job - because I wasn't following my heart; I was following my mind. Perhaps that's why I have now come to tread this path of unschooling with my son, who happens to be my greatest teacher of life and living. Is it perhaps a way for me to make peace with what once was? Is it the way it was meant to unfold and help me discover myself a little more? I don't know.

But I have come to ponder on some questions that I never bothered to ask before.
Why is there so much ado about learning?
Why do we want to simulate reality and prepare their lives or prepare them for life, instead of waiting and watching the magic unfold?
Why have we forgotten how to be children and stop and wonder about the little miracles that life uncovers for us every day, every moment?
Why do we want to "manufacture" and "produce" learning?
Why do we want to make learning a "package deal" instead of unwrapping the package like a child opening a gift, with love and joy and sweet anticipation?
Why do we fret and fume over something that seems to happen naturally, just like "shit happens"?!

Yes, that is how I have come to understand learning - the learning that happens with my son, and perhaps most kids in the world, if only we give them a free hand to choose what they want to learn, how they want to learn and for how long they want to learn. Do we give children a choice in these matters? Do we encourage them to follow the path they want to tread, even if it is not the one we as their parents are walking on? Do we trust implicitly in their ability to think and learn everything that they need and want to know?  I wish we did. For then, they would learn to fly like the birds learn to fly and swim like the fish learn to swim.....on their own, and not because someone taught them to do that.

Man is by nature a learning animal. Birds fly, fish swim; man thinks and learns.”

- John Holt from How Children Learn

Because learning just happens, like shit happens! It happens when it has to and how it has to. It is not something that can be controlled and coerced to happen or taught from the outside.  It is inherent; it is natural. Because that is how it was meant to be. That is what I have come to believe.

So, one is not bound by time and space for learning to happen. It happens in its own time, in its own space and at its own pace. It happens in the bathroom, on the road, while eating, or arguing, as one opens one's eyes to see the day, or in the wispy dreams that one dreams at night. It happens in the most unexpected places, jumping out to surprise you like a Jack-in-the-box! It happens quietly and surely, like the breath that flows in and out. It happens even when you don't see it happen - in the silent spaces that flow between doing and not doing. It happens when one is "doing nothing". It just happens, like life.

Learning happens as we live each day, unhurried and complete... when we are truly alive in this moment....just as we nourish our bodies and yet don't wait endlessly for something (like shit :)) to happen. It just happens.

So then, why do we feel this gorging need to "teach" or "do" things with kids and a nerve-wrecking worry if children will learn and how they will learn? I think it is because we have compartmentalized learning and packed it into neat, air-tight boxes, stacked in a particular order. We have as many theories and philosophies as there are people, one contradicting or critiquing the other. We have definitions and labels and norms and standards. Learning has become too complicated. We have killed its inherent innocence and simplicity. We have caged the free bird that it actually is, and then sit and wonder or worry about how and whether it will ever fly. We have dammed learning and evacuated free will and thinking. We have lost touch with ourselves and forgotten that it is in our very nature, to think and learn.

We don't need "teachers" today. We need more adults to become children, as "co-creators" and "co-learners". We need to find the child within each of us that is still alive and calling out for attention from some forgotten corner. We need to hold hands with our children and look into the gorgeous heavens with a fresh wonder and joy every single day....without that voice inside our head asking if it is a session on geography or nature study or poetry...We need to wake up everyday with love in our hearts and an unflinching trust in ourselves and our children - that we are human; that we are here alive on this planet, to learn from and with each other, in every waking moment, what we need to and want to learn....not because we have to reach for a star or be literate or pay our bills, but because we are here to discover what drives our spirit and hearts, to open the doors to a world of infinite possibilities.

"Next to the right to life itself, the most fundamental of all human rights is the right to control our own minds and thoughts. That means, the right to decide for ourselves how we will explore the world around us, think about our own and other persons' experiences, and find and make the meaning of our own lives. Whoever takes that right away from us, as the educators do, attacks the very center of our being and does us a most profound and lasting injury. He tells us, in effect, that we cannot be trusted even to think, that for all our lives we must depend on others to tell us the meaning of our world and our lives, and that any meaning we may make for ourselves, out of our own experience, has no value." ~ John Holt