Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Testimony of studiousness

Yesterday Chellu gave a glimpse of her dedication & studiousness especially when it comes to doing things she loves. In the evening the girls were busy painting Diyas for Dhanteras. I was in the kitchen busy cleaning and I heard a loud cry from Chellu. A glass bottle of white paint had broken while she was trying to open it and cut a deep gash on the fleshy part of her left hand behind the thumb. After the initial taking care of the wound when I asked her to rest she insisted on continuing with the activity. I left it at that and went about doing my chores. When I returned back after 5 mins or so to check on her , I was shocked at what I saw. The wound was profusely bleeding and Chellu was painting her Diyas with gr8 focus. I was really taken back! When asked she said that it didn't bother her and that she very much wanted to finish painting the diyas. Wow!

I've heard many folks say that unless kids attend school and face the pressure of competition or the exam system they are never going to develop focus, studiousness, sincerity, attention etc..But my kids have always exhibited these qualities time & again from a young age. Playing with blocks or play-dough,doing puzzles, painting , art & craft projects, cutting veggies , helping out in household chores, nature-based acitvity are some of the activities that hook on my children for a long period of time. And I've always been amazed at their attention span and their focus. Its like they forget everything else including hunger! I'm sure this is the case with other kids too as long as we allow them to do what they really like. We tend to term studiousness and such other qualities from the point of "studying" which essentially means the Rs ...its just a Q of changing our perspective again. I remember one time during the IVC co-op class..there were no other kids and Chellu sat through painting the pots for 2 hrs straight. That was last year when she was almost a year younger..I had gotten bored but she had not. Her focus was stunning..so much was going on around her but she refused to take her eyes off the activity..

Im starting to see this trait with Kunju too..2 weeks back while doing the 3 little pigs activity she wanted to build herself houses for the 3 pigs and she did so diligently without anyone's help. I was in the kitchen while Chellu was coloring her house ( again sitting thru one long session)..it would have taken Kunju a good 25 mins or so but she was completely engrossed in it. It was obvious that she had put in a lot of thought cause the end result was stunning! She had indeed built 3 very different looking houses with lotsa attention to detail..the brick house even had a clearly visible chimney. Yesterday when Chellu had gone down to play with Aayush , Kunju was totally engrossed in trying out different dresses for her doll..i had observed that she was doing it for a good 35 mins or so..She didn't want anyone near her.

Another aspect to this focus is their increasing self-reliancy. They seem to need minimum instructions and they can seem to take on the activity completely by themselves. I remember last sunday when they wanted to make a greeting card for my aunt's bday. They were given the chart paper & I left for a long shower. Chellu had decided what she wanted to do and went about completing the entire thing all by herself and it was quite a bit of work given the fact that the greeting card was a huge one. She had selected the " I can draw animals" books and had copied a bunny, lion, dog & turtle along with writing " Happy birthday " & " May god bless you"! This also included completion of coloring the background and adding borders to the pages! With zero help from me..

Self-reliance, focus, sincerity ..When these happen with no carrots or sticks or fear or compulsion or aping ( the other person is doing it so I have to do it) then it is "really" happening. One doesn't have to send their children to school to attain these . And does school really flower these qualities in our children? Carrots & sticks & peer pressure seem to be the dominating factors.

I sincerely believe that we don't have to send kids to school to attain the above qualities. One just needs to trust in the divine intelligence and the divine design that our kids come with and be patient. Everything unfolds gradually at its time & space....Beautifully ...

Friday, October 21, 2011

Trip to bhaji market- the learning afterwards

Two days back I did a lot of shopping in the local bhaji market. The full-time maid has gone away for good ( again!) and now its us again doing all the stuff as a team..the girls have been helping me with washing the bathrooms ( they did a fantastic job really!!) , cutting veggies, serving and cleaning up their toys. Now it was time to pitch in doing all the work that springs in India post-shopping for veggies in the local market..
First & foremost we set about separating the veggies..everything is mixed up becoz plastic bags are now banned in such markets. They set about meticulously separating the okra, beans, green chilies and all such similar looking veggies & packing them in zip-lock bags. It is such an awesome exercise in object recognition, sorting , organizing, size estimation. The girls had to try out a few bags before estimating the right size of the bag for each veggie..Many a times the amount would be too much for the bag they chose.
Then they helped me with the task of picking out curry leaves and methi leaves. The latter was strenuous. We talked quite a bit about farming- they were curious as to why the veggies were so muddy, how it comes to the market etc..
The whole thing would have taken a good 1 hr 15 mins..But they were absolutely engrossed in the exercise..Kunju learnt the names of a few veggies she didn't know earlier. Chellu seemed to get at these things faster. I can definitely see that she understands the task and completes in a much shorter period of time as compared to last year..I've always believed that paper examinations are such a false way of judging a child's progress. Day to day observation in a variety of tasks is more than enuff. The veggie sorting exercise only conformed my beliefs. My girls are definitely getting smarter by the years!!;))..no need of any exams to ratify this!

The past week since the maid's absence has brought us together again as a team when it comes to doing household work. But it does wonders to their focus and sense of belonging & importance in the family. Children really do want to help us out ..this is how it used to be ages back before the formal school system started. When people lived in villages and farms and when everything was literally manual children helped around a lot ...The Charlotte Mason method of Home education highly recommends involving children in household work..she says it helps a lot in character formation.

For me personally its about real education. I see a LOT of value in doing house-work. So much finger co-ordination, so much planning, so much physical fitness is involved. It brings the family together like none other task and I've always seen that the girls feel very very proud when a task is accomplished. Its like as though they really want to be like us and what else is a better way than house-work. They seem to fight much less with each other on such days. Probably becoz doing the work together brings them closer to each other. Self-reliance is a extremely valuable. I would ideally love my girls to be completely self-reliant where they do their own work completely by themselves whether washing clothes or vessels or anything else. HSing should involve knowing how to take care of oneself and the home. Its an extremely valuable thing to know. I am grateful to my maid to have left. She has given our family back what we had lost for a while:))

Thursday, October 20, 2011

The Little White Spot- Chellu's story in her own words

This story was created by Chellu when we were in the middle of the Three Little Pigs drama day. She saw the white spot made by the chalk rubbing on the rocking chair's seat and made up this story with great enthusiasm & spontaneity.

Once upon there were four little bears. One day the rocking chair had a white spot. Mommy came and sat on that white spot. The mother's butt got stained with the white spot ( Chellu's words- the mother's butt come white acchu !) The sister comes and sat on the rocking chair. And then the little sister comes and sat on the rocking chair. Then the little sister said to the elder sister " What happened to your bums?". Then the elder sister said to the mom "What happened to your bums?". Then the mother said " This rocking chair had a white magical spot..see my bum..i got it in my bums.. a white spot".

In the evening the daddy comes . The daddy said to all of them "What happened to your bums?" I know what to do to this rocking chair. You have to throw it because this is very dangerous. This spot is very dangerous. Because if you keep it so much day , this rocking chair will have full white spots. This is a magical white spot. Then you will sit ..then your body will stain full white spot, white spot, white spot !!! Then the mommy comes holds one side and the daddy holds one side and they threw it through the window. Then everybody cheers. Then the mommy washed her bums ..the elder sister washed the bums. And the elder sister washed the little sister's bums. All bums are clean. And they put new clothes and gone to walk and happily ever after lived. And put the old clothes in the washing machine. THE END.

Stroll in Aditi Garden- Day 2

As promised to Chellu I finished my cooking real fast today to be able to take the girls to Aditi Garden on our way back from her camp. The girls were very happy & kept reminding me that today there should not hurry.
We visited it from the Deccan Harvest side and chanced upon a tree fully abloom with beautiful orange flowers. A lot of them were fallen down & so it struck me that we could gather these flowers & others to try to make home-made dye/color. The Mystery of Blue is a story book that talks about traditional dye making in India and that's what came to my mind when I saw all the diffn colors of flowers. On sharing my idea with the girls they were as usual very enthusiastic. Chellu immemdiately remembered the name of the little girl in the story as Kanku and we talked a little about it. I chose a shady spot and the girls went about collecting the flowers with great enthusiasm. One thing led to the other & they soon started to collect leaves ( for green), dried leaves ( for brown), pink flowers ( for pink)..Chellu even crushed the pink petals in her fingers & was thrilled to note that pink dye does come out!! then came twigs and seed pods etc..Finally they were off collecting their favorite - baby coconuts and stuffing it into their pockets!

I always love taking them to Aditi Garden and leaving them loose..They invariably end up checking out a lot of plants and other stuff- a lot of observation & reporting and collection happens automatically. I think this is real science. Where one's curiosity is piqued.

After all the collection they wanted a picnic from the snack that Chellu had saved in her camp. We chose a cool spot & sat down. We tried out a small thing from Science Play! I asked the kids to go hug the trees nearby and tell me their experience. They did so & precisely labeled the coconut bark as soft & the other tree as rough. I asked them as to what the tree told them and kunju went" Amma it asked me to take it to the park to do jhoola!" & Chellu went" Amma it asked me to go away from here since there is a lot of smell" ( from the recycled water used to water plants in Magarpatata). When asked what was the uses of trees they gave some very interesting answers..Kunju answered that the coconut tree gave coconut..Chellu gave a few uses of the coconut tree- monkeys use the shell to scoop & eat stuff ( again from a story), the brown hair on top of the coconut can be used in art & craft for representing a brown moon , it can also be painted white & then be used a white moon. then it was Kunju's turn..she said that one can paint their hands with pink paint and make its impressions on the bark..she showed it with action ....I loved their out of the box thinking..this is what i really want !! ;)) We then talked about how villagers use the coconut hair for washing vessels and the ecological sense behind it and recycling of water in Magarpatta.

We talked briefly about what we could do tomorrow when Chellu asked if we could act as animals..She asked us to mention our favorite animals..myself- elephant, her- giraffe & kunju- Rory the tiger ( again from a story)..She mentioned that we could act like these animals waking up in the morning, eating their favorite foods which she mentioned precisely ( sugarcane, leaves from treetops & hunted animals) respectively & then going to sleep in the forest..Then came a request for acting like butterflies back home. Kunju wanted to do drama of amma tiget, appa tiger, akka tiger and thangai ( younger sister) tiger too...Well i guess this evening will see a lot of theater in my house!! :))

We read the "Desert Contest" in the afternoon and talked a lot about desert life, how diffn life forms conserve water,God's wonderful & clever design, water scarcity etc...

I look forward to another day at Aditi Garden! One of my favorites of HSing..Nature study. :))

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Trusting the Divine Design- Taking Role-Play seriously

Chellu & Kunju are sooooooooooooooooooooooo busy these days ..they've been playing together like crazy , sometimes the whole day to the oblivion of everything else including me. What have they been unto? ROLE-PLAY. They just immerse themselves into it & sail of to another times whether they are in a diffn land, in diffn characters..they becomes moms & dads, hotelwallas, relatives, doctors, nurses, teachers ,animals, even God sometimes & what not. Every lay item becomes a something else. The grill on the window becomes a chimney, a rope hanging from a door becomes a milking cow!!!!, empty oil bottles become perfect for water-play, the sofa is often a train or an airplane , Appa's belt is a snake, Amma's dupatta is the leash of a dog ( Kunju is always the dog & Chellu always the owner taking her dog on a walk!) , blocks become chutney & sauce bottles, toys become various foods..the list is endless..unimaginable!I once caught the girls making beautiful Rangoli designs from leaves , another day they were busy scrubbing the terrace floor from their small shrubs that they had turned into a floor brush, another day making perfectly symmetrical structures from cloth-pins, tents from bed-sheets , giving perfect oil maalish to their dolls & bathing them, again the list is endless....

So many books on HSing from the western thought pool talk about how parents must include role-play in thier children's lives. They say we must have diffn types of costumes and ask our children to take on those roles. It benefits their imagination, their creativity , their vocabulary , their observation...Amen! I agree a 100% ..only that in my house ( and I'm sure in most other children too who are left to lead a child's life) this happens automatically..All I have to do is to take a step back and let it happen or participate in it as requested ..Also allow that they use anything in the house according to their wish including my masala- dabba.

This afternoon pre-lunch they collected a lot of bags ( torn bags, zipper-less bags)and were furiously packing them including dolls for children, food, clothes , toys and many sundry items. When asked they said they were going on a trip to Africa! I was like what???? They board the "bus" ( how funny is that??) and the rest of the game included all the stuff they did while on-board. Like feeding their baby, eating, collecting fallen items & rearranging their stuff, buying food on stations etc...

Yesterday we went to Aditi Garden on our way back from Chellu's camp. It was meant to be a casual stroll amongst the trees but turned out to be another fun-filled, rather serious role-play. They chose a spot amongst the trees as their house & asked me to be thier guest for dinner. I " call" them and fix a time for dinner. In the meantime Chellu chose the bark of a fallen tree as her "tava" and went about collecting all sorts of leaves and other stuff for cooking . Kunju invited me to their house , chose a large stone as the seat ( ouch my bum still hurts from all the sitting!) then meticulously searched the surroundings for plateware. A perfectly flat stone becomes a plate, a small elongated stone becomes the cup for water , another stone for orange juice , a dry eucalyptus leaf becomes the spoon. The sisters serve me " paneer pakodas"!!!! with great care and revel in my praises..all while talking in fluent, perfect Hindi. Previous to this they chose the open amphi-theater for thier picnic spot and ate apples from Chellu's snack while singing " Hum do chalne lage" ( from Jab we met) loudly , much to the curiosity of the onlookers. Then they chose the stage of the amphi-theater for dancing & singing & giving various other performances including reciting shloks. Ofcourse I am always the ever-praising, clapping audience.

In the midst of all this we observed many jumping frogs , collected coconuts, observed flowers and admired nature. When asked why the frog's skin looked just like mud Chellu said " camouflage" & when asked what that means she said " matching matching"..We talked about God's design, how He takes care of every single creature and the wonder of His creation.

To anybody else what we did yesterday would hardly seem like any learning. But for me it was HUGE. HSing to me is basically trusting God's divine design which essentially means letting children be children. I started out as a freakishly stressed out, worried mom who thought that HSing means replicating school at home. And these past two years I've moved from that to a mom who is more trusting of what God has designed my children to be at their various stages. And this means taking play very very seriously. If the girls are busy playing I will take a step back & watch. Never interfere with " come lets do studies". Its started to dawn on me & Mahesh that if we want to school them , then its better they attend school. Its ridiculous to try to be a teacher at home. Very stressful actually. And not at all organic. If children are left to themselves without TV they achieve far more than we can even imagine. But only if we are ready to trust in Divine design and value what they do. Not estimate everything from our adult point of view which basically values everything according to their future or a job or an outsider's( adult's) perception.

So many people Q me about syllabus. What's my routine? From when to when do I sit for studies? These Qs come from a lack of understanding of children in essence. What's studies to us? The 3 Rs. Anything apart from that? Do we ever try to understand SERIOUSLY this world from a 5 yr old's perspective ? From a 3 yr old's perspective & then go about learning ???I don't think so.That's the most unjust part of today's children's lives. We as adults refuse to be children but we expect the vice-versa all the time. Never let children be children. If they are playing in the park its a waste of time. Role-play is timepass. Playing in the mud is dirty work. But yes "workbooks" are a must. Can she read? can she write? Kitna counting karthi hai? Addition aathaa hai? Kaunsa classes mein jaathi hai? Our estimation of human intelligence is so pathetic , so limited. Everything has value only from an adult's perception. We fill our children's days with school and the rest with classes. Free time practically dosen't exist. And thus the ability to be children also vanishes. So if a kid gets up early and boards the school bus , attends school, then does his home-work to be followed by extra-curricular classes and has a sprinkling of play time then his day is very meaningful. Again this justification is purely from a adult's point of view . We get up , go to work, come back , see tv and sleep off. Everything else is not good enough. The same thing applies to our kids too..Basically they are mini-adults from age 2.

For me intelligence in my children is their ability to imagine the most weird things, bring it to life, plan the events of their play, turn mundane things into various objects...Can we even imagine doing something like that? How come we don't see great value in this? And whether its a slum kid or a village kid or a kid attending expensive International School all they REALLY want to do is play and if they are kids of Chellu & Kunju's age then its role-play. By allowing them to do what comes naturally to them we enable them to tap at the utmost ability what intelligence at that age is meant to be. When they are at their most imaginative & creative stage , we force them to think logically & then when its time for them to be logical at a much later stage , we ask them to come up with creativity & out of the box thinking. How is that gonna happen?

A close HSing friend of mine has a 10 yr HSed daughter who has now started attending school.And she says that child is doing wonderfully well. The child has spent her childhood very meaningfully playing a lot and doing things that interest her. No strict curricula, schedules this that. The child is actually very enthusiastic to learn, very studious. Her mother attributes to it her daughter having had her share of childhood in its entirety.

And that's what regales my heart THE MOST about my children skipping school. They are such happy kids getting their right to play and be kids without any intervention. Of course we do arts & crafts and reading & writing and drama & what not. But everything happens organically, according to their pace & interest. Many days flash by in playing non-stop, experimenting non-stop , quenching one's curiosity non-stop...and these days are the most productive according to me..cause science, language, drama, geography, happen automatically. All I have to do is shift my persepective and see value in what they do.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

My lone time with Kunju

Today Chellu left for the first day of Diwali camp. So it was me & Kunju and I decided to make it special for her, which of course means giving my 100% time to her. We started with reading stories, then doing puzzles , rhymes, action songs & then finally playing shaadhi-shaadhi with me as the boy & her as the girl. She loved every moment of it & I could clearly see that she was basking in the attention...away from her sister it felt like she was somewhat different. More spontaneous, more focused, basking in every minute of attention. She made some very quick answers for some of the Qs I asked.
The shaadhi shaadhi game was really funny. We get married then go home. She prepares my dabba in the morning and gives me directions to get to work ( go on Magarpatta road, the a garden will come & in that is a office. You walk straight in there) and then she will get ready in the evening to go to eat pizza!!! hahaha! I had such fun..we had to go in the lift and then in the bus to Pune (!!) and the to the restaurant. This is one cycle and then the next cycle repeats with getting married again. We must have done this like 4-5 times!!
I loved my 2.6 hrs with her. I don't even remember the last time I've spent quality lone time with Shreedhari. It felt very different spending time with a single child like after ages..And i think Kunju has never got this from unfortunately. I feel very guilty about this from time to time and I think this Diwali camp of Chellu will give me the chance to do something about it. I look forward to another day of me and Kunju time. It was awesome and the delight in her eyes is worth every moment of it.
But what really surprised me is Kunju's reaction when Chellu left for the camp. She was wailing aloud that she didn't want to be left alone at home with me. She kept saying that amma will not play with her...hmmm..for the guilt I have gone through for not spending lone time with Kunju!!! Isn't it ridiculous? That we torture ourselves over parenting and these kids are on a totally different tangent!!! ;)) The sisters love each others' company and are soon becoming "two bodies one soul". Good for me! :))

Monday, October 17, 2011

Three little pigs- drama

We attempted the narration and drama of Three Little Pigs. Chellu told the story quite well in English . We then did the drama beautifully. The girls absolutely loved it and they were begging for more by the end of it. Chellu suggested that we do the reverse story of the Three Little wolves and the big fat pig. I acted like though I had forgotten the story and then she recounted the whole thing back to me. We did the drama and that was also such a hit. What's amazing me is the active participation, understanding & enthusiasm of Kunju. She is clearly getting very involved and if given a chance she always attempts whether she knows the stuff or not. Her attempts at narration of the story in English is really hilarious but worth a lot of admiration!

The best part of the drama was when Kunju acted like the wolf trying to climb down the chimney. She aptly chose to climb up the grill of the window above the sofa. She would come down slowly and then climb up again very fast..she kept doing this several times..and when asked why , she replied" Oh Im scared that Ill fall into the boiling water and burn my bums!!! " We had such a hearty laugh. Chellu then arranged the pillows like the big pots and the girls kept doing the wolf falling into the water several times!! It was such fun watching them...kids are so good at imagination.

The it struck them that they should add the fireplace and the pot to the drawing of their house and they did so. Chellu answered correctly when I asked her the use of the chimney!

Then we played the thing- its house game to which the girls answered correctly.

Overall a very wonderful HSing day!

Friday, October 14, 2011

Chellu's first self-written letter

I'm back . Chellu made me do so. Yesterday was one of those days when in the middle of the day , it felt like HSing my girls was such a privilege to me. . To witness their "firsts" in its totality and spontaneity . We were doing the Three Little Pigs story activity and Chellu talked beautifully about her house. While doing so it stuck her that she could also add a pool and a playground which she did so promptly. At that moment we made the connection again ( which was kinda lost due to a fight between her & Kunju & me getting angry with her)and she came to me excitedly admitting that when she talks or says things aloud a lot of new ideas come to her head. And we talked about it and connected big time.
She then said she wanted paper to write a letter to me and wrote a letter on her own ( invented spelling style). It said "Mom I am sorry"!!! I would love to freeze that moment..cause this was the first written communication from her in the real sense. One that conveyed her feelings . Isn't this why writing was invented at all? To put on a solid interface what one can't say otherwise?
Then came 3 other letters which said " Mom you are beautiful", " Mom your house is beautiful" and " Mom I love you!" Which then lead to Kunju giving Chellu her own 3 "letters" and Chellu also writing a letter to Kunju which said " Kunju you are so beautiful & kind".
The joy, the connection, the enthusiasm, the pride, the love & excitement in their eyes made it history of sorts for me. We go about begging our children to write in workbooks etc..and forget that true writing happens when its personal. When thigns are made personal then children will be very enthu to write. Whether it's making b'day cards or sorry letters or diwali greetings , they are always enthusiastic.
Yesterday was truly a historic moment for me. It has again convinced me that its best to drop things temporarily ( especially academic stuff) with little children and focus on what's interesting for them. Then one day they surprise you BIG time with their abilities.
Im extremely proud of my little girl. She wrote all her letters completely by herself with captions. And I also realized that she writes when left alone. My presence next to her breaks her focus , her drive & enthusiasm to write. My constant corrections frustrate her & end up turning her writings from personal to robotic. That's definitely not true learning.
I shall certainly remember yesterday for the rest of my life. It was a major milestone for us. :))

Friday, April 22, 2011

Hanuman Jayanti

This week we celebrated Hanuman Jayanti for a couple of a days. The first day saw Kunju dressed as Hanuman and Chellu as Trijata (the friendly raakshasi who took care of Sita in the Ashok Vaatika). Shankar's mother who is visiting us also participated in the drama as Sita. We took all our sweet time in dressing up . Trijata turned out very beautifully and Hanuman looked extremely cute. I've always seen that the kids loved to get dressed up..thats why dressing up and drama features regularly in our HSing routine.
We enacted the Hanuman giving the ring to Sita scene. Chellu seemed tired by the time the drama started. She preferred to sit near her grandma and quietly watch the drama. But Kunju was in full form. She told the dialogs very well and aptly chose to eat the banana while sitting on the tree!This was followed by other scenes like Hanuman returning to Ram with the choodamani and building of the bridge scene. Kunju participated very well in everything.
That afternoon we also worked on making the Himalaya mountain. My MIL made a nice paper mountain which Chellu then proceeded to paint. The kids also watched the movie on Hanuman that day.

The next day Chellu wanted to become Hanuman and enact lifting the Himalaya mountain scene. So we had a fun time dressing her up as Hanuman and Kunju as Laxman. We proceeded to do the scene but the only hitch was that Kunju refused to play unconscious. From then on we a lot of other scenes including giving the ring to Sita, building the bridge, war scenes with Ravan, first meet of Hanuman with Ravan and burning of Lanka, waking of Hanuman's inner strength , Hanuman's refusal to return from Ayodhya after the coronation of Ram, waking up of Kumbhakarna etc...The kids had a gala time and we kinds spent a good 2 hours enacting all the scenes. The kids then watched the second part of the Hanuman movie in the evening....

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Of Castles and Royalty

Last week during the RamNavami week we decided to build a castle. It started as that and ended up being a castle for Ram and Sita and the rest of the family. We built it entirely from cartons and thermocol. Chellu's zest at building it was really worth noticing! She was into it a 110%. She provided with most of the ideas. I mainly contributed in giving the idea of a wall surrounding the palace and a basic structure of two boxes side-by-side to start with.. She carefully selected each piece of thermocol for whatever she conceptualized in her mind. She mostly took it on from there. Her Castle included the following:
1. Two gates at the entrance
2. A high wall that would open to allow friends of the king and block enemies. The enemies have to climb over the wall which she thought was an impossible feat
3. Two layers of fountains on the roof of the palace. The kings and queens could roam around in the evening on the roof.
4. Behind the palace I suggested the idea of a bath for the queens . They would come out and proceed through a narrow slit in the wall to a changing room. She initially didn't think about the changing room , then I gently reminded her that queens can't obviously change in the open!
5. After the changing room she then placed a high seat and watch a puppetry show. The piece of thermocol selected for the puppetry show was really interesting. It was square like piece with a big hole in the center. She said the puppeters would stand on the top and do the puppetry such that the puppets would dance in the circle provided.
6. Two fountains to the left of the puppet theater
7. A garden to stroll by . I provided benches for the tired parents and grandparents to sit on
( from personal experience of course! ;)) and a wide tiered bench for babies to sleep on ( I've always wished for that in all the parks)
8. A planetarium with steps that took the royalty at the base of the structure. They would watch the stars and if sleepy would then sleep in a nearby bedroom. Otherwise they could proceed to their royal chambers
9. I provided a huge piece of thermocol nearby claiming it to be the kingdom of Ayodhya
10. She then made a tea stall near the entrance for the tired guards
11. Finally she placed a paper alligator that we had made months back to attack any enemies who would climb the wall.

At the end both of us were extremely pleased with the result. When Shankar arrived in the evening she showed him around enthusiastically and explained well each aspect of the palace...

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Festivals and Holy Days

We have been doing the "Rama Navami" theme for this past week. This is one of the things I love about HSing. Festivals and Holy days can be celebrated grandly instead of the usual " get things done fast " style. We celebrate every festival in a child-friendly way. Thats the best way to get their interest. I used to always find it funny that the elders in the family would do their own little puja and include the kids only for the prasad part. In our house the kids are part of every aspect of the celebration. This is where Divinity based education gets deeply ingrained in. Where festivals are not simply for eating prasad but for reliving the characters and learning from them.

We have had wonderful HSing runs of Janmashtami, Ganpati, Navraatri , Ram Navami, Pongal, Republic Day , Diwali to name a few. The Ram Navami theme has included amongst others the following over the past few years:
1. Dress-up as Ram, Laxman, Sita
2. Reading a lot of the Ramayana
3. Listening to Ram's bhajans
4. Enacting various parts of the Ramayana. Sita being captured, Hanuman giving Sita the ring, building the Sethu while singing " Sethum vande Sethum vande Sethum vande Re O Rama", Bharat refusing the throne and worshiping Rama's sandals as the King, conversation between Laxman and Rama before leaving Lanka ( "Janani janmabhoomishcha..."), Jatayu saving Sita, Sita dropping her jewels while being captured by Ravan etc...
5. Drawing of Rama , Laxman and Sita and coloring . This year Chellu took the picture and copied it herself over the black board. She also drew Ravan.
6. Making a cut-out of Ravan and hitting him .

We have had our share of funny moments. While Sita ( my niece ) was captured by Ravan ( myself), Shreedhari ( Laxman) started to cry! "Laxman" after drawing the Laxman Rekha chose to hop over it and stay with "Sita" instead of running for the rescue of " Ram" ( Shruthkirti). While "Bharat" ( Kunju) was asked by Kaikeyi ( myself) to take the throne she readily agrees to it jumping and saying " Yes yes I will be the Raja!!" ;))..The sisters constantly kept arguing over sticking with Sita since Sita is their favorite cousin sister!! Much to the chargin of " Ram" ( Shruthkirti) who kept telling that it is Ram who loves Sita and not Laxman!!

Last Ram Navami Chellu ( Shruthkirti) mastered the art of bow and arrow. She would practice for days and finally could shoot the arrow exactly wherever she wanted to.

During Janmashtami celebrations this past year we had tried to inculcate Lord Krishna's virtues through daily activities. After enacting the " stealing of butter" scene we did a small drama where two kids weren't given butter while Chellu was. She then proceeded to share it with them. After enacting the Kalika destruction we tried to do a huge A to Z puzzle to learn what it takes a little kid to do something much harder than her capability. We dressed as gopikas and danced, we acted like as though I was Yashodha and the kids Krishna and Balram for days ..It was like we were reliving the days of Gokul......

During Ganpati we talked about what it is to have God Himself as guest in our house, did plenty of lovely art and crafts on Ganpati, watched the movie on Ganpati, by-hearted two shloks and a bhajan ( and sing it till date during morning prayers), did an elaborate theme on the elephant as a sequel to Ganpati week , talked about the significance of the elephant's head, made play-doh modaks. Wow that was such a fun week..Ditto for Navratri.


During Republic Day celebrations we have practiced march-past, enacted the freedom struggle with shouts of " Karo ya maro", listened and watched "Vande Mataram" and "Mile Sur Mera tumhara", studied the India map and learned to locate England , talked a LOT over love for country and culture, the pain of the freedom fighters etc.

I love this aspect of HSing and can see how much my children enjoy it. A western oriented school education does very little for cultural education. And by cultural education I mean education that throws light on " Way of thinking, Way of living and Way of worship" ( Source: Pandurang Shastri Athavele) . And one of the best ways to inculcate such an education is to celebrate festivals in a deep and meaningful way. Children in general love stories. They love to hear stories from the past, stories about their Gods but we pitifully neglect this aspect in our zest to teach the alphabets , the rhymes ( and that too ONLY British rhymes- the British have left this country long ago but we still sing the rhymes they taught us completely forgetting ours which are far more beautiful. I mean have you ever heard " Rock a bye baby " ?- its cruelty at its best) , the numbers and other academic stuff. Ofcourse how can we forget discipline, grooming and all that general nonsense which little kids are least interested in anywayz? School is so boring in a sense ..it excludes the daily happenings of the real world and puts education in a two-dimensional frame inside the four walls of a classroom. The British have changed their education system but we haven't yet!! We haven't learned to live it. It dosen't matter anymore that it is the birth of the greatest kings and human being who ever lived ( RamaNavami) but we think its more important that our children attend school and learn whatever the syllabus demands for that day.

Of course school also very successfully imbibes a strong sense of " I don't care" attitude for anything cultural or divine. After independence did those who carved out syllabuses really think about making it unique? Unique to India ,unique to our culture? Is patriotism even " thought " about? Do we learn anything beyond the British aspect of our history? Do we examine our kings , our rishis, our avatars, our architecture, our systems ( administrative, political, social) ? Do we know anything about them? And thus care to really know about ourselves? If the original greatness of our culture or for that matter any culture is not taught to its children how will they ever be proud of themselves? How will their self-identity shape? It will only result in the present "whoever is economically progressed is the better culture / better country? "..Thus the school system successfully imbibes the notion of the white-skin being better than us.
And what about Sanskrit? It is shameful to say the least that its declared as a dead language. We cannot really lament on the brain drain of our country. Cause our education system imbibes neither love for culture nor love for country. Cultural education is not considered " education" at all. The school thinks that its the job of the family and the parents think that if something is not taught at school then obviously it does not merit any value in their child's life. Gone are the days pf the joint family system when grandmas not hooked to TV serials passed on stories of moral values and of our past to their grand-children. Cartoons have replaced grandmas and with it an extremely valuable systems of knowledge management has gone down the drain.

My children are different from others. I can say that very proudly. My children play "Sita, Sita" instead of "Cindrella, Cindrella" or other cartoon characters. They beg to hear about Ramayana and love the Amar Chitra Katha. They can rattle off names of characters from Ramanyana, Mahabharat.Some time back when we went to watch ISCON's broadway like show on the Life of Lord Krishna , I was amazed at how Chellu could recognize most of the characters and could follow most of the story even though the show was in marathi . She knew characters like Jarasand and Rukmi who are hardly heard of. My children will pick up photos of Gods and copy them and color them. They find books like Great Women of India fascinating. They start their HSing day with prayers and Saraswati Vandana, with slogans of " Karenge karenge HSing saath mein Krishna ki bakthi haath mein".. They will name each other " Janaki", " Yashodha", " Kaushalya", " Shree" and such other names during their doll-doll plays. They will fight constantly with each other to be Sita and have finally concluded that both of them can be Sita.
Shruthkirti will look at a beautiful flower and exclaim " Wow amma look how beautifully God has made this." Chellu at the age of 3.6 yrs chose to stay alone at home for more than an hour while we visited the doctor nearby within Magarpatta city. She said she never got scared since God resides within her anywayz. " Don't we say that everyday before starting to HS?" she asked ..she was referring to the auto-suggestion we do.

Divinity based education which puts the Divine or God in the center of everything is our goal of HSing. Infact it is one of the strong reasons to HS. Our children have to have the curiosity and the love for their culture..They need to examine their history thread bare and not just skimp over history that happened just in the past 150 years. And what a way to learn ! To understand the systems , the environment, the thinking that shapes our collective Indian culture. I can't wait for those days to start when we shall pour over Chankaya Neethi for days together till our curiosity is quenched...when we shall dissect chronologically the happenings of the Mahabharat and the Ramayana and study the architecture & the political systems in place , when we shall hunt and hunt for any piece of information that can be available to us about our golden past...This is the way to learn ourselves, this is the way to learn history and this is the way to blaze a new path for the future. A future that stems from an EXTREMELY proud past. A future that stems from the thought of " I belong to a mind-blowing culture/country that lived the thought of "Aham Brahma Asmi".

And we owe everything we know , we aspire for to our teacher Pandurang Shastri Athavle or Dadaji. He is the one who infused us with patriotism, with the courage to go against the system. He is the one who made us think about divinity based education, to think logically , to think WITHOUT fear and believe that we can make the efforts and thus our dreams come true. He gave us a new way of looking at life and thus a fresh lease of life . And most importantly the courage to go after it.
"Dadaji a million thanks to you for everything"..we can only hope that our lives will justify the inspiration you have provided!

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Why Preschool Shouldn't Be Like School

Came across this really interesting article ....Read on..Affirms many of my views on how young children should learn or be left to learn.

************************************************************************************************

Why Preschool Shouldn't Be Like School
New research shows that teaching kids more and more, at ever-younger ages, may backfire.
By Alison Gopnik
Posted Wednesday, March 16, 2011, at 2:15 PM ET

Ours is an age of pedagogy. Anxious parents instruct their children more and more, at younger and younger ages, until they're reading books to babies in the womb. They pressure teachers to make kindergartens and nurseries more like schools. So does the law—the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act explicitly urged more direct instruction in federally funded preschools.

There are skeptics, of course, including some parents, many preschool teachers, and even a few policy-makers. Shouldn't very young children be allowed to explore, inquire, play, and discover, they ask? Perhaps direct instruction can help children learn specific facts and skills, but what about curiosity and creativity—abilities that are even more important for learning in the long run? Two forthcoming studies in the journal Cognition—one from a lab at MIT and one from my lab at UC-Berkeley—suggest that the doubters are on to something. While learning from a teacher may help children get to a specific answer more quickly, it also makes them less likely to discover new information about a problem and to create a new and unexpected solution.
What do we already know about how teaching affects learning? Not as much as we would like, unfortunately, because it is a very difficult thing to study. You might try to compare different kinds of schools. But the children and the teachers at a Marin County preschool that encourages exploration will be very different from the children and teachers in a direct instruction program in South Side Chicago. And almost any new program with enthusiastic teachers will have good effects, at least to begin with, regardless of content. So comparisons are difficult. Besides, how do you measure learning, anyway? Almost by definition, directed teaching will make children do better on standardized tests, which the government uses to evaluate school performance. Curiosity and creativity are harder to measure.
Developmental scientists like me explore the basic science of learning by designing controlled experiments. We might start by saying: Suppose we gave a group of 4-year-olds exactly the same problems and only varied on whether we taught them directly or encouraged them to figure it out for themselves? Would they learn different things and develop different solutions? The two new studies in Cognition are the first to systematically show that they would.
Advertisement

In the first study, MIT professor Laura Schulz, her graduate student Elizabeth Bonawitz, and their colleagues looked at how 4-year-olds learned about a new toy with four tubes. Each tube could do something interesting: If you pulled on one tube it squeaked, if you looked inside another tube you found a hidden mirror, and so on. For one group of children, the experimenter said: "I just found this toy!" As she brought out the toy, she pulled the first tube, as if by accident, and it squeaked. She acted surprised ("Huh! Did you see that? Let me try to do that!") and pulled the tube again to make it squeak a second time. With the other children, the experimenter acted more like a teacher. She said, "I'm going to show you how my toy works. Watch this!" and deliberately made the tube squeak. Then she left both groups of children alone to play with the toy.
All of the children pulled the first tube to make it squeak. The question was whether they would also learn about the other things the toy could do. The children from the first group played with the toy longer and discovered more of its "hidden" features than those in the second group. In other words, direct instruction made the children less curious and less likely to discover new information.
Does direct teaching also make children less likely to draw new conclusions—or, put another way, does it make them less creative? To answer this question, Daphna Buchsbaum, Tom Griffiths, Patrick Shafto, and I gave another group of 4-year-old children a new toy.* This time, though, we demonstrated sequences of three actions on the toy, some of which caused the toy to play music, some of which did not. For example, Daphna might start by squishing the toy, then pressing a pad on its top, then pulling a ring on its side, at which point the toy would play music. Then she might try a different series of three actions, and it would play music again. Not every sequence she demonstrated worked, however: Only the ones that ended with the same two actions made the music play. After showing the children five successful sequences interspersed with four unsuccessful ones, she gave them the toy and told them to "make it go."
Daphna ran through the same nine sequences with all the children, but with one group, she acted as if she were clueless about the toy. ("Wow, look at this toy. I wonder how it works? Let's try this," she said.) With the other group, she acted like a teacher. ("Here's how my toy works.") When she acted clueless, many of the children figured out the most intelligent way of getting the toy to play music (performing just the two key actions, something Daphna had not demonstrated). But when Daphna acted like a teacher, the children imitated her exactly, rather than discovering the more intelligent and more novel two-action solution.
As so often happens in science, two studies from different labs, using different techniques, have simultaneously produced strikingly similar results. They provide scientific support for the intuitions many teachers have had all along: Direct instruction really can limit young children's learning. Teaching is a very effective way to get children to learn something specific—this tube squeaks, say, or a squish then a press then a pull causes the music to play. But it also makes children less likely to discover unexpected information and to draw unexpected conclusions.
Why might children behave this way? Adults often assume that most learning is the result of teaching and that exploratory, spontaneous learning is unusual. But actually, spontaneous learning is more fundamental. It's this kind of learning, in fact, that allows kids to learn from teachers in the first place. Patrick Shafto, a machine-learning specialist at the University of Louisville and a co-author of both these studies; Noah Goodman at Stanford; and their colleagues have explored how we could design computers that learn about the world as effectively as young children do. It's this work that inspired these experiments.
These experts in machine learning argue that learning from teachers first requires you to learn about teachers. For example, if you know how teachers work, you tend to assume that they are trying to be informative. When the teacher in the tube-toy experiment doesn't go looking for hidden features inside the tubes, the learner unconsciously thinks: "She's a teacher. If there were something interesting in there, she would have showed it to me." These assumptions lead children to narrow in, and to consider just the specific information a teacher provides. Without a teacher present, children look for a much wider range of information and consider a greater range of options.
Knowing what to expect from a teacher is a really good thing, of course: It lets you get the right answers more quickly than you would otherwise. Indeed, these studies show that 4-year-olds understand how teaching works and can learn from teachers. But there is an intrinsic trade-off between that kind of learning and the more wide-ranging learning that is so natural for young children. Knowing this, it's more important than ever to give children's remarkable, spontaneous learning abilities free rein. That means a rich, stable, and safe world, with affectionate and supportive grown-ups, and lots of opportunities for exploration and play. Not school for babies.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

A vacation to remember- Chotti Haldwani

We spent a day in Chotti Haldwani (CH) after visitng JCNP. This is a model village built by Jim Corbett himself. Wow what a beautiful village. Acres and acres of green fields dotted with cute little houses. Canals of fresh river water runs through the village and the ofcourse the icing on the cake were the villagers themselves. Such down to earth, warm, friendly folks! Needless to say as soon as we reached the village the kids were excited to be there. After lunch we spent some time at one of the villager's house and then Shankar & I set off for the hike through the village. By then the village kids were coming out to play and Chellu chose to stay with them. Wow, she had made new Kumoni friends. We came back after a good 2 -3 hours but she enjoyed herself with the kids. I think this is true socialization- no barriers, no groupism..just enjoying somebody's company.


I do regret for not taking her on the hike. She would have loved it. We visited the house of Moti Singh ( Jim Corbett's dear friend and fellow hunter), saw and smelled various fruit & flower trees , walked through green wheat fields, talked to villagers and saw a calf that was born just 2 hours ago . Then with Chellu we saw silkworm harvesting. Just the walk through the village was heavenly. I couldn;t help but feel a pang of jealousy ..They are indeed very lucky. So many thoughts ran through my mind during the hike : Have we really progressed or degraded in our pursuit to so-called better lands and cities? Who lives a better quality of life- us or the villager? What have we gained by being weternised and urbanised, by our degrees and our work experience in multi-nationals? These villagers know which plant heals what, grow their own food, co-exist with the forest and respect the wild. They practice day in and day out zero waste management, recycling, water conservation & recycling, zero plastic use ..all the things that have become the "in-thing" in cities. Things that we cry hoarse but don't have a damn clue about .

I loved the fact that the villagers live a wholesome life that includes plant & animal life. We have become so self- absorbed in the human aspect of things. It can be very humbling to live with animals around- cows, dogs, cats , birds, insects..They remind us of a much bigger aspect of this universe. Humans are not the only inhabitants- we need to co-exist. The villager's house where we were put up has 5 cows and the first thing the woman did in the morning was to get them out and feed them. To get up and think of other beings first thing in the morning! Wow, I saw a lot of spirituality in that.

Its certainly not easy living on the edge of the forest. We came to know about the constant struggle between the wild and the villagers. The animlas come in and destroy the crops leading to huge losses. In turn if the villager retaliates its a huge loss for the wild animals. Finding a balance is the key. There are so many issues to ponder about . I felt these villagers were cut-off from the main stream. Nobody really cared about them. We live in utter negligence of the majority of this country. But I am hoping that our attempt at HSing will make our children aware of this majority..aware of professions that enrich rural economies be it agriculture, native arts, forest management , wildlife management , rural education that is not westernised and so many more. I sincerely hope my children don't end up joining the herd of doctors and IT engineers whose first aim is to catch the next flight to the US.

The concern is not just about what profession they choose but also about the attitudes and outlook they should form. The lifestyle for example- the size of their homes, the carbon imprint,the eco-friendliness ,the amount of materialism. In this respect HSing prevents the "fitting-in" syndrome- I have to do because someone else is doing it. It provides for a lot of self-enquiry and decision making based on one's own instinct. I've seen this with many HSing kids. They are very comfortable not being like others. They enjoy being different and really don't care about what others think.
We have so much to do here . We need to dedicate our children to this country. Our children have to be ORIGINAL AND TOMORROW'S LEADERS who can think outside the box and contribute their skills to the fabric of this country -its villages

And in this sense Jim Corbett contributed a lot. He re-instilled respect for the wild in the villager's mind. He taught them how to co-exist with the wild. CH is a must see. It inspired us greatly. And has rekindled in us the desire to go back to the basics again. Hopefully that will happen some day...
When we visited the Jim Corbett Musuem which was his house we were impressed with his letters that show his strong love for this country. He cared a lot and did a lot. Shankar & I were discussing as to how our history never really delves on such personalities. Even amonsgt the British were those who loved this land very much. And did so much for it.

I personally think this is the way to learn history & geography. I hope to keep rekindling these memories forever in my children's mind . And I do hope to visit numerous villages across the lenght and breadth of this country with my children to learn firsthand its true nature. Cause in the village lies the true Indian culture and our true character. And in this respect I am extremely lucky and proud to have Dadaji's thoughts in my life. Swadhyay as always will show us and our children THE PATH.

A vacation to remember- Jim Corbett National Park

This was the second place we visited after Chandigarh. Chellu was very excited to head to JCNP. In fact it’s for the girls that we specifically chose JCNP. We as a family love nature and my kids revel in it. It’s the best thing ever for them. The freedom of space, the innumerable opportunities to explore, the mess and the physical activities it affords are all perfect reasons. And we have taken our kids to nature related stuff since they were babies. The one trip that I will always remember is of Algonquin National Park in the middle of nowhere, Canada. Chellu was @ 21 mos and I was 6 mos pregnant with Kunju. We had a blast. .We hiked a lot over plains and huge hills. Chellu was like a pro. That’s when it struck as to how much she loves to hike. She refused to take our help even then. She would balance herself beautifully on her tiny hands and legs, would slide down slopes, jump across puddles..It was like she was actually playing in a park.
We wanted to recreate all of that magic again in the JCNP trip and of course nature did it effortlessly.
We reached the Club Mahindra resort by late night. When the girls got up the next morning they were super excited to realize that they had finally reached JCNP. We got a room on the ground floor. They loved the easy access to the outdoors. Of course playing with stones was number one activity. I spied them playing role play games with the stones many times. That day they spent a lot of time rambling around the complex taking in everything new with the environment with great enthusiasm. Swimming in the pool was their first priority after the breakfast.
That afternoon we went for an elephant safari and needless to say they were super excited about it. The safari through the forest reserve made them aware of so many things..Animal sightings and a new found knowledge of flora. We all came to know for the first time the fruit from which sindoor is made. The girls plucked a lot of it and kept rubbing off the sindoor all over their body. Chellu kept shooshooing her sister incase we happened to disturb the tigers . They were amused by the langoors , and shouted “Bambi” when they spotted a fawn. Laadli the elephant we were riding decided to take a toilet break and the girls were surprised at how much poop and pee elephant excretes!! Hahaha..Kunju commented that Laadli is a dirty girl not knowing how to pee in the toilet! She asked “ Dosen’t laadli’s mother make her wear a diaper?” and I was like “Imagine how big that diaper would have to be!!”

The next few days we spent at JCNP was a true joy for the kids. They reveled at everything. The safaris, the swim in the kosi river, the sight-seeing, the stuffed animal museums, the star gazing in the night through our telescope. Chellu asked a lot of Qs and we discussed about camouflage, forest fires, animal life, rivers and their annual cycles, weather , forest management , birds ,wildlife and the dangers they face , pugmarks , water-holes , craters , stars etc.. Prior to going for the early morning jeep safari , Chellu was fast asleep but absolutely didn’t mind being woken up. The sisters loved the feel of wind while riding on the open jeep during the safari. The whole experience was magical in a sense- riding past acres of fields, rivers, valleys, quite hamlets and finally the forest.

Not once during the 3 hr safari that we took twice in different areas of the jungle did the girls complain about being bored. Their eyes searched with equal excitement as ours whenever the guide pointed to a creature. In fact he praised Kunju for her sharp-sightedness. Chellu would often ask for the binoculars. She would point to various trees, the shapes they made and would even detect alphabets in the shapes of the foliage. The sisters wondered if Mowgli lived in the forest and whether Sher Khan would show up? They did express some sadness over not sighting a tiger but since that was never the expectation that we had built around this trip, I guess they were happy with what they saw and experienced.
Once thing I always love about Chellu is her enthusiasm to jump in any new environment and soak it up completely. A part of it also comes from her absolute lack of fear. When Kunju kept asking if the tiger will show up and eat her, Chellu would often console her saying that animals will not hurt unless hurt. “They will not do anything to us Kunju!!” she would reassure. Chellu will never think twice before stepping in a river or about hiking in wilderness. Her curiosity is worth-learning from.. She will get so engrossed in her surroundings that time kinda comes to a standstill for her. That’s why she loves to hike in wilderness. There is so much to see, to inspect, to collect. In this trip, since the kosi river was quite dry we had to climb down and up the very rocky bank. Chellu refused to take any help and enjoyed the climbing.



Chellu's thought process and reflections took on a new tinge. Once while Shankar and I were racing with each other while swimming she suggested that we try holding hands together and swim. We tried it and couldn’t manage to swim but then realized that the back stroke is very much possible while holding hands! We have been swimming together for so many years but have never thought about swimming while holding hands! Chellu commented that this way I can learn to swim as fast as Shankar…:) We had a lot of fun around the pool. Shankar and I would swim while the kids would run from one end to the other. We had many such races. The girls also enjoyed playing throw ball with us in the pool and them outside.
As of Kunju while she soaked up herself completely in certain experiences she resisted a few and tried a few others. While she is not the types to jump into a river at the first sight, she did end up sitting on a boulder and enjoying the river . She did not enjoy the hike but loved running about in the resort grounds. Being the younger child she always lets her sister first jump into anything new and then slowly but steadily launches herself. Even in the pool she first soaked her legs and then after a long time started to play in the water after seeing other kids enjoying the water.
Initially Shankar & I found it difficult to accept her non-risk taking personality. Especially since we love adventure and our first child is very much like us. But this is the lesson to be learned. That our children might be very different from each other and from us. The important thing is to see the gem that lies within each child and tap their personality likewise. Even as HSing parents we do sometimes commit the costly mistake of comparing the siblings. “ Look at your sister..look how she jumped into the pool..!!” This trip kinda made me realize that my daughters are very different and I err big time by expecting my younger one to be like the rest of us. As Hsers we should be wary of creating competition or complexes amongst our own children. For us Hsing is about respecting each child as divine that has been born to realize its individual greatness. Fitting in is simply not expected. But having grown in the system comparing and expecting becomes our nature. This trip did help me see the vast differences between my children ( atleast as of now, it might change over the years) and gently reminded me to be appreciative of it.

The sisters also made new friends in the resort. This was the first time that Chellu has spent a sizeable amount of time playing with her friends alone in the park in the resort.The jhoola hannging from the mango tree was their favorite. But the best part was Kunju making her own friends! She found two other girls exactly her size and height. The three would run holding hands in the cafetaria making thier own games. It was such a joy for me to see Kunju with her own gang since Kunju is always surrounded by much elder children. And she isn't the types to make friends very easily.

This trip has been very relaxing in the truest sense. We had lots of time to do things together, come up with new ideas and experience nature in a slow mode instead of the usual hurrying from one thing to the next. And this slowing down did wonders on the children. They were at their best behavior and very cheerful. I guess they were reflecting our own selves as children often do. This is infact the beauty of nature. It calms you down so beautifully , a trait that we and our children have often lost in our urban lives. This trip kinda rekindled in me our desire as a family to live with nature at some point of our lives. There is no sense in just experiencing something temporarily and coming back especially when you love it. Someday we would love to break away from this mad urban mode and live amongst nature. I know that my children will love it. And a part of me wants to do it desperately for their sake before they grow up and become all serious about life.

These are my children’s days of careless wanderings through the wild, of stopping and smelling a flower, of patiently watching a lady-bug makes its way through the grass, of endless collection of stones, of splashing in the river water for ever , of marveling at a leaf’s shape or just simply running around like crazy on the cool green grass. I want these experiences to become a part of their everyday lives and not something that happens only in a vacation. This trip has certainly touched all of us deep down and reminded us of the divinity & importance of nature. I find it very irritating when people nod their heads sadly on knowing that we didn’t sight a tiger in JCNP. “ Arrey yaar udhar tiger dekhne ke liye tho jhaathen hain naa?” many exclaim! Seriously why are people so dumb? I really feel sorry for these people. They have lost how to be appreciative of nature and how to enjoy it truly. They race their children from one safari to the other , from one sight-seeing spot to the other, do the “Check-list” and come back, jubilant if they spotted the tiger and disgusted if not. It’s like all their money got wasted if they didn’t see the elusive tiger. I seriously pity such an attitude .

This pull towards nature does define our HSing character. In fact that is one of the big reasons to not send our children to school. We don’t see the value in urban, western , bread-oriented education. We want our children to get in touch with nature in a very deep level and choose a profession and life that co-exists with nature. It’s not enough that they just see tigers but think and do something about its survival. It’ s not enough to just splash around in the kosi but wonder about how to save our rivers. There is so much to do in this sense. I never worry about my children not becoming doctors or engineers but worry whether they and their future generations will have enough to eat, whether they will have forests to roam in and whether they will ever step into pristine rivers. It is important for us to provide them with the environment that leads to such questions. Cause what the future really needs is for us to preserve, protect and prosper nature. The JCNP trip made us aware of so many difficulties that the nation faces when it comes to protecting forests and wildlife. The tigers are on peril, the forest is being reduced by increasing habitation, the villagers are at risk from wildlife etc etc..It irritates me greatly that we as urban dwellers conveniently ignore these issues and come back to living on the tip of the melting iceberg like nothing ever changed . And we want our children to continue living on this tip…
“ So did we spot a tiger?” Like I care a BLOODY HOOT!

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Diya painting- 24/03/2011

Last night before sleeping Chellu asked for diya painting which I obviously didn't agree to. So the first thing in the morning today ( 24/03/11) that she wanted to do was diya painting! Once kids have their interest fixed on something they are keen on doing it ASAP. Waiting is too hard for them! So after her milk she sat down to do it. Kunju joined her with painting on paper. She claimed to have drawn a "road". The girls were engrossed peacefully in the activity for a long time while I got the morning chores done.
I like the way Chellu uses different colors for different parts of the diya. Color is used symmetrically or otherwise. Like in the first diya she chose to paint one edge with red and left the other edge plain. But in the 2nd one she chose green in the middle of the edge and blue for either sides.

The first time she was introduced to Diya paiting was during last Diwali . I had hosted a " Diwali celebration" day at my home for the Hsing group here. Chellu loved the diya painting part. She sat down with the other moms and kids and got compltely engrossed with it. I actually didn't get the chance to do it myself or to sit with her but she did an amazing job of it. She must have observed others painting and would have got an idea.

I generally never supervise or interfere with her art activities. I like to leave her alone and am always impressed with what her original thought process produces. I believe strongly that this is how art should be . The artist should be left alone to be engaged with his/her art..thats when true art happens!

Her attention to detail and her focus when it comes to such artistic pursuits is impressive. I've noticed this in other events too like in the IVC ( Indus Valley Civilization) co-op class for HSers at Idania's. During one class we were painting the ceramic articrafts that we had made and she sat through it for a straight 2 hours! She didn't get up once..I was done with it and ready to move on but not her. This is the case with Chellu when it comes to anything artistic, especially color related stuff like painting, rangoli, drawing and coloring.
I am hoping that as she grows I can provide her with all the stimulating environment for the artist in her to flourish!

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Divine Impressions, A slithering snake and A dog-eating horse- 23/03/2011

After all the rest I had yesterday I felt refreshed and very energetic today. The first thing on my mind was to sit for morning prathna. That was really my only " to-do" w.r.t HSing for today. We have been missing out on prath-prathna a lot in the recent past. Before the vacation the three of us had a bout of sickness and prathna obviously was the first thing to get stopped. So I was really looking forward to it today.

The sisters jumped in immediately. The pre-prathna rituals are their responsibilty.They will replace the wick, pour oil in the lamp, wash the silverware, dust off any remains of the previous days' agarbatti, pull out fresh agarbatti sticks and clean the mandir. We then proceeded to chant the prath-prathna and they did so beautifully. Followed by Sarawati Vandana and a few other shloks on Ganpati, Aditya and the Deep. I try to introduce a new shlok every now and then and generally they learn it easily. Proficiency in Sanskrit is a very high priority for us and shloks keep the girls in touch with the language. I want my girls to know Sanskrit so well that they can read the Gita like reading a story book. Thats how easy it should be for them. It is extremely sad that Indian education looks upon Sanskrit as a dead language and stresses no importance on it. How will our children unlock the treasures of the wonderful Vedic world if they don't know Sanskrit? How will they tap the gem that Gita is if they have to always resort to some twisted English translation? How will they know their roots and thus their ownselves if they can't understand the langauage that their ansectors spoke?
Anywayz...after the shloks we did our auto-suggestion followed by some fun slogans we have created ourselves. The auto-suggestion is an interesting idea I picked up from a Nashik school run by our very own Swadhyay bhais. We try doing the entire thing before starting HSing but sometimes if they have lost interest by now I let it go. But in today's case they showed so much enthu in every single thing. Maybe because its been a real while since we have done this or because they are re-energized from the trip.

As soon as we finished the prathna, Chellu picked a chalk and started drawing on the black board. Kunju followed her and soon they were busying drawing . Chellu drew a man and a lotus and said that the man was Dadaji! :)) Kunju drew a stone, a chappati and a “ monkey” ! Chellu then said she wanted to draw Goddess Saraswati and asked me if she could copy the picture of the Goddess from the photo in the mandir. I agreed to it and then with great attention to detail she spent a good 30 mins to copy the picture! Meanwhile kunju said she wanted to draw Ram bagvaan and proceeded to do so. But soon lost interest and asked me to draw with her. On her requests we drew Foo, an apple and also wrote “apple”.
While drawing Chellu kept asking me several Qs on the picture- what is the veena, what is the Goddess holding in her hands etc…She drew each and every object with great detail..the sari, the crown, the lotus, the mala , the bindi etc…The result was simply too good!!! At the end she chose to write down “SARASWATI” and “ DADA” with some help from me. Next she photographed the pictures in the mandir and other random stuff in the kitchen and the dinning room.

It is such sponteinity that I love about HSing.Something must have clicked in Chellu's brain while doing the prathna and she immediately wanted to sketch the Goddess and Dadaji. A rigid curriculum or schedule would ruin such a burst of creativity. When the child leads the way in learning she is constantly connecting the experiences, constantly experimenting, constantly creating. Everything is but a flow.....

After the serious drawing the girls were now ready to move on. We then followed with a game from “ Helping Children Learn ( HCL)” a really neat, simple book on activities for preschoolers that I picked up from an exhibition for Balwadi & Anganwadi teachers. Before doing any activity I generally ask her if she wants to..The answer could depend on her interest. On most days she will compile but many a days she will request for something else. This time around she promptly said a yes for this one. That was indeed rare since Chellu has always resisted HCL..I think it is the simple, non-appealing form of the book . Or probably that she finds many of the games very easy or boring. Sometimes it has also happened that some of the games I chose turned out to be too hard for her!

Initially when we started with this book I used to get so irritated with her lack of interest in playing the games.. We have had many frustrating moments !! I felt the exercises or games were so simple and nice and she felt so bored with them! Of course over time I have come to accept with peace that my opinions about any learning material dosen’t matter at all. This is a well accepted thing in the HSing circuit that no matter how “ famous” any learning material might be it holds only so much value as the child is ready to give it!! I also owe a lot to my unschooling friends like Hema who have gently reminded me to keep the child’s interest as the top priority. This is the hardest lesson to be learned …It requires us to numb our ego of "I am the parent and I know the best" and to slowly keep reminding ourselves that the child will learn what he /she seeks at that point in time. Many a times I have also felt that if Chellu has had a bad experience with something she will remember that and hold it for the future too..Maybe HCL reminds her of the frustrating moments she has had with me & thus always resists it…So at one point of time when it got really clear that she is not showing any interest in this book I completely dropped it! This is another accepted faith amongst HSers.. “Drop it if it gets frustrating and pick it up again after a few months. If the child is ready then she will respond or let you know otherwise!” I can attest to this from my own experience. Things I have tried and given up will be shown great interest a few months later….
The human intelligence has to be trusted to do its own job. During moments of frustration Shankar always reminds me of the divinity of the child..Just like we trusted that our child will walk, talk, eat, poo , pee, sleep etc..without having to be taught , their intelligence will also grow at its own pace.

So after having picked the HCL we proceeded to play a Language Card game that Chellu chose. It has 36 pictures which need to be first made into cards. On most days we play with the paper form itself. But today the girls showed interest in making the pictures cards . So with the utmost co-operation , that I have never seen before , they pasted the pictures on a cardboard and helped each other with cutting it. Kunju holding the cardboard and Chellu cutting it.



When the cards were ready we played the game and the girls enjoyed it very much. Kunju participated too very well. I guess she is starting to get interested in these kind of things…Previously she would happily do the hopping, running, singing etc..but now I can see her show interest in verbal , thinking games too.. After the first round I asked the girls to be the parent & Q me. Chellu attempted in English and I could sense a great improvement . Her Qs were worded very well ..there were only grammatical mistakes. Her vocabulary has indeed improved immensely.
The third part of the game requires that the child pick any 3 cards and make a story out of it. When one of the cards she got was a snake she said” The snake slithered” as part of the story!! Wow, I was really taken back! Where did “ slithered” come from?? This is where language learning from books comes in. I’ve had so many people tell me that my child will not learn languages until she attends school. I think that’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard! Here was my child using a complex word in a language she rarely gets to speak. Today I could really sens her growing fluency..the stories as well as the delivery was very interesting ! For a dog, horse and a bird card she said “ A dog came in the house, the bird on the tree got scared and the horse came and ate the dog!!” if she were in school the teacher would have corrected her but I can’t really care whether a horse eats a dog or not. She had to tell a story and in her story the horse does eat the dog! I love hearing such stuff! ;)))

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Two records broken! : 22/03/2010

We have been trying to ease into the HSing routine since yesterday ( 22/03/2010). After taking a long vacation I'm always wary of jumping into routine HSing right away. A part of ourselves always lingers on in the vacation and I'm sure this is true of children too. It is very hard to shift gears immediately. And it shouldn't be so. When I was a child I used to shudder going back to school the very next day after having arrived from a vacation in Madras at my grandparents' place. I loved my mother's parents dearly and always used to be the one crying out aloud when leaving them to go back home. It was doubly hard for me to shut out all the lovely memories of my grandparents' and immediately jump into being a student with all the attention required. Being a dreamer essentially I remember just staring at the teacher and thinking of my grandparents', their house and the masti I had with my cousins..Now that I am a mother I put in a buffer of a week after a vacation to let the children ease back into home and routine and all the mundane things again....

Yesterday was one such day. I was extremely tired having unpacked and cleaned the whole previous day in addition to caring for Kunju the entire night who got stuck with a bout of vomitting . I think it was something she picked at the Delhi airport while waiting for the return flight. By 11.00am I was ready to doze off and Chellu was in the mood for HSing. I was aghast at the very thought of it. I requested her to let me & kunju rest for sometime and do some quite activity by the bedside to which she agreed. This is very rare, in fact I think the first time! Chellu being a very kinesthetic child will never agree to sit quietly anywhere!! Anywayz too tired to process anything I dozed off and woke up an 1 &1/2 later to realize that Chellu was completely absorbed in coloring the sketch book that she had received during the flight! I was very suprised. Her work was the best I have sense in terms of coloring within lines ( though I never insist on it) and the use of colors !! She had done a lovely job & more importantly without making the slightest noise. I think this is such a feat of my dear daughter that I have to record this.
Ever since Chellu has been a toddler I have always got very frustrated over her non-cooperation during nap times especially when she isn't in the mood to do so. All my friends' kids used to be "silent players" next to their resting moms but that was never the case with Chellu. She used to hop around like a monkey never being able to sit in a place for more than 5 seconds !!! I even have a photo clicked by Shankar where she is doing masti on top of me dozing off..So yesterday's incident is a milestone in itself...Maybe she has grown up or maybe the vacation has calmed her..I don't know!

After waking up the three of us sat with the " Magic Pot". Its a lovely magazine for
pre-schoolers that I get as complimentary with my subscription to TenderLeaves. The bi-monthly magazine is full of interesting stories and tons of puzzles, coloring activities, and others related to beginning readers and beginning math. Its got mazes to figure out, matching exercises and what not. Basically a very interesting and colorful preschool workbook of sorts, infact much more than that! Its been a hit with the girls and Chellu has refined a lot of spelling , tracing & counting skills with this magazine. Since she loves to do stuff with her hands she enjoys the MagicPot very very much.On days like yesterday where Im too tired to do a full-blown HSing routine with all the physical activities I sit down quietly with Chellu and do an entire magazine or how much ever her interest will allow for. Last month when I was down with back to back viral and gastro that kept me sick for a prolonged period of time in the absence of Shankar, it was the MagicPot and another regular preschool workbook that came to the rescue. It let Chellu and me spend quality time with each other while learning at the same time.

Even Kunju did something yesterday that I have never seen before. Though she has always sat with us during MagicPot sessions its always very short and usually some random scribbling. She would quickly move on to something else like cutting or playing or just lying down on me and watching her sister or many a times dozing off. She isn't the drawing/coloring/painting types at all like her sister. Kunju would rather dissolve all the paint in water and then pour the resulting liquid over herself than actually paint. She is very interested in finger and body painting though!! ;)) But yesterday was like wonder of wonders. She explicitly requested for a MagicPot and asked me to give her a page to do. I asked her to color the buttons of an elephant which she proceeded to do beautifully. Since she never likes to be supervised (NEVER) I didn't bother to check with what she was upto. After a few minutes she gently tapped me on my knee and showed her work. I was very suprised.She had neatly colored the buttons and her face was beaming!! And wonder of wonders she asked for more!!!
Any other day Kunju would have randomly scribbled or would have refused to do that particular page. Instead she would instruct and force me to do the particular task. We always joke in our family that she will become a teacher!!!You see Kunju is a very very strong-headed girl ( gone after her father I think!!! ;))) She decides and she does it and if she dosen't want to, no one in the world can make her to. She isn't too keen on instructions unlike her sister. My bhabhi always questions me as to how Im going to HS Kunju who can't take instructions very well..On the other hand I think such a strong-headed person should never go to school and be made to follow the herd. Their leadership skills will completely be watered down and they will never do well at school. Shankar is a classic example. He hates following the system and rules and listening to someone for the heck of it or for that matter doing something just because the rest of the world does. He has to be intellectually convinced. He was a very very average student at school since he would never write his answers or do his projects the way he was asked to. He was the "questioning types" much to the irritation of his teachers! His younger daughter is his replica.

Yesterday was a bumper of sorts for me. I love such days when the children suprise me with something when I least expect it. Maybe what they exhibited yesterday will continue to be a trend or maybe it was just a one day thing but that isn't the issue at all. Yesterday's behavior was so unique that it will be etched in my memory for years to come. It was truly an achievement of sorts for my girls!