Too much rain kills a sapling. Too much sun dries the soil.

It's almost a year since my last post here. To fill you in, my little masters have grown a year older and I am taking a break from teaching. In spite of the opportunity of the time gulf to do all the other things that I have been postponing, I find myself thinking, reading and learning more and more about teaching methods, possible applicable teaching techniques and methodologies.

The primary motive behind this addiction to teaching can be traced back to my personal history of learning. As far back as I can remember, knowledge had been the 'wonderland'. I studied everything - from the art of writing alphabets to the art of studying geometry - with a passion. I desired passion in everything, in everyone. Teachers who mirrored my passion egged me on to delve deeper into the subjects they taught. These passionate teachers seeded, nurtured and blossomed the love of learning in me.

The initiation of passion in school gained steady support from all the books that I found myself surrounded with at home. I was blessed to have a conducive surrounding to grow my ideas. Even ideas that kind of questioned the legitimacy of beliefs in the household were not really suppressed. I remember asking the logic behind the notion of এঁটো (pronounced enTo, meaning primarily 'that which has come in contact with cooked food' 1 ) which wasn't really answered but neither was I squashed for asking that question. To my thinking self, how can you limit that which is এঁটো from that which isn't. If I accepted the ruling of the table on which the cooked food is kept for a meal to be এঁটো, then, the question arises, how is my body not এঁটো since the cooked food is in my digestive system till it is processed by the chemical elements? As a I child, I thought the lack of an answer as a dismissal. Now, I feel, it was an event of knowing, unknowing and not-knowing. It was an instance of learning. A learning, possibly, for both me and the person who faced this question. A learning that all questions will/can/may not answered in words, that individuals have only a select number of questions answered to themselves.

I remember another incident. I was in my tenth standard and needed to learn the definitions of different scientific terminology. My teacher failed to convince me about the need to memorise and write the exact definition given in the textbooks. I asked him, how does it matter, as long as the concept is effectively spoken of? His answer was one of authority. What is, is unquestionable. As a teenager, I felt angry. As an adult, I remember Mr. Gradgrind, the "man of fact" (Hard Times by Charles Dickens. Chapter 2) whenever I think of that teacher of mine. 2


The pedagogic learning continued in school, while the social and intellectual learning continued at home. That knowledge is an art of questioning, was learnt in the process.

I now know why I envisioned myself as a teacher since the fifth grade. It is not merely the joy of helping someone learn, it is the challenge of making someone question that which is not understood clearly. The urge not to dictate, but to nurture; not to teach, but to show the way to learning; not to create the habit of studying, but to help find the joy of learning - that is the ambition I nurture. The past two years with budding learners at The Little Garden has gifted me this revelation. Dear parents of these awesome new learners,

 May you not mistake the idea of success to be the beanstalk of life. The beanstalk of life, in reality, is the affirmation of the talents inherent in every child. Believe in your child, even when you don't quite understand what you are believing in. Nurture your child. He/she not only needs plenty of love, affection and sunlight. Your child needs pruning too. Prune with love and respect. Prune to love and to respect the light in the child.

Till we meet again, here's to learning:

Climb every mountain from the movie The Sound of Music.

Happy listening. Happy learning!

Pssst. It could be fun to watch the movies 3 Idiots and  Taare Zameen Par (Like Stars on Earth) too.

graduation

A job is something that needs to be done, disconnected from our being. Joy is the mirror opposite of it:  it is only in the being.

VTA, says, let them play. The controlling adult in me sometimes shudders at the thought. But the soul knows always that, it is the only way.

For a few classes, I tried administering classes with more discipline than usual.

I noticed that the energy in my kids was settling down, sedimenting almost into a quietude that frightened me. I realised that I was monitoring a discipline that was taking away the ability to be surprised. I was making a mistake, an error that I abhor in the contemporary mass education system.

"Surprise is the greatest gift that life can  grant us" observed Boris Pasternak. Innocence of the soul allows this miraculous gift to unravel. What ruins the innocence, in our layman's world, is, disciplining and fostering similarity, rather than enthusing difference. That is what teachers mostly do when they have a job to teach.

The two principal focus areas in a job in a school/college/university are:
1. finishing a curriculum within a stipulated time; and,
2. to have the kids pass the examinations. This is to successfully create a habit of memorising facts without application. Information is passed on and innovation is not expected.

The following video discusses the need to change the paradigms of education and captures what education means to me: " ... waking them up to what is inside of themselves" (at 6:32)

(video courtesy: YouTube.com)

I was giving into the 'system' since that is easier than having a class full of thinkers and active 4 year olds who can test anyone's sense of composure and discipline.

As I was losing the personalised connection with my kids, I realised this was starting to look like a job. And, believe me, 'a job' and I are not the best compatible units. As too much discipline and kids are not.

I had started kindergarten teaching because I needed to get out of my home, and this was the only employment I got. I continue to be in the kindergarten because it is my fountain of being forever surprised. Surprised at how the little ones grow up, how each day they laugh with even more vivacity than the day before, how they are eager to know, how they are perpetually happy.

They are happy when they play. And they are at play always - when they are eating and rubbing their tummies and saying, 'mmmmm I'm hungry'; when they are laying down the cots and puffing up their tiny muscles and saying, 'nnngggg I'm strong'; when they march up the stairs; when they rush around; when they put their little hands  in the mystery box. They are at play and they are learning much more than strict disciplining can teach.

As I sit here and miss my unreal world of joy at school, I am happy to announce that I have graduated. From holding a job to simply playing around.


(video courtesy : The Little Garden Kindergarten)

if you are in the mood for dancing

Video Courtesy: The Little Garden Kindergarten, Hanoi

morning Mondays

I have about 3 Mondays per week.

Eh?

Colloquially they are known as Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On these three days every week, I usually snooze the alarm for half an hour or out-snore it. No matter how well I plan, I am never able to decide on what to wear to school earlier than the morning of it. To get into the groove of the kinder chaos, I usually mail the to-be-printed documents before going to school. This rushing doesn't make much sense. Except that it is necessary.

Kids can and do switch from crying for their mothers to dancing to music in about 15 minutes time or less. Not me. If I am not AWAKE before the time I leave for school, I might as well be forgetting to take the worksheets or, deadlier, I might forget to take my pen-drive.

The pen-drive is my fuel. On all my Mondays, an enthused batch of kids dance and rock to, fall over each other at the end of, and, smile at the rhymes and songs this pen-drive holds. It is the magic wand that makes a wailing toddler stop crying. It is the mystery box that the kids wait for me to open.

I have very busy Monday mornings thrice a week, specially because it takes me a while to wake up. But, as my xe-om approaches my Little Garden, I am smiling ear to ear, much like a funny looking teddy bear. 

Photo courtesy: The Little Garden Kindergarten, Hanoi, Viet Nam.

Post Script: Did I mention, most Mondays I travel to school by xe-om?

firsts' forever

I entered my first kindergarten in my thirtieth year. When I was of the age to attend kindergartens, I refused to attend any.

My brother is about two years older than me. When I was of the age to attend pre-school, he was in his first grade. I vehemently opposed the humiliation of attending a school in the neighbourhood when my brother had the privilege of travelling to school by bus. Even before I knew my ABCs, I told my parents I want to go to a school that needs travelling by bus. So I did.

I still travel to school by bus. Only on Monday mornings do I take my express mode of transport - the Ha Noi xe-om (motorbike taxi).

To be precise, this is not a school. It is a kindergarten. It caters to Vietnamese kids and I am the English teacher to the toddly-wobbly curious batch of 2 to 5 year olds.

The batch is magnificent in more ways than one. The youngest ones can barely walk but will always charge forward for the high-fives at the end of the class. The elder kids are jealous when a younger kid manages to attend the entire English class while sitting on my lap. They discipline each other, fight with each other and the next thing you know - they are charging towards the teacher with the welcome pin-her-to-the-wall focus.

When I joined as a kindergarten English teacher, I didn't know what to expect from the job. The last thing was to expect finding the possible vocation of a lifetime. There are truly firsts' for everything. The joy of finding a job that makes you happy is possibly the rarest of its kind.