yet again ... getting lost ... then enjoying self-discovery ...

Walking Education Campuses Nimesh Ved and Sanjay Dwivedi Published at The Hindu Education Plus . We thank the team there.  We also thank Pawandeep Kaur for the image.    Learning during the schooling years warrants moving beyond the conventional classroom set-up as well. This is all the more crucial in a society like ours that seldom invest time and thought towards expanding the child’s horizons. Exposure visits can help meet this need. They enable learning in a non-formal and fun-filled environment. Multi-day trips to mountainous and forested landscapes are, of course, a wonderful option. Financial and logistical challenges however ensure that these trips are out of bounds for majority of our schools. Many schools are then left with the option of going out, with children, for some hours in and around their towns and cities. Some schools visit spaces like museums and events like book-fairs . A few also venture to the banks and factories. One option we have e...

Life Beyond Barriers ~ Published ( with minor edits ) at The Hindu here  ~ ~ Thanks are due to the team there ~ If there is one subject or activity or theme that we could pursue at school what do you suggest it be?   This is a question I have faced couple of times, or more, during recent years. And, one that that on each occasions has got me to think on each occasion. Answers to some questions change as we travel on the road to life, read evolve. This is one such question. Today my vote would go to exposure.   What is this exposure? How will it pan out?  The students can walk the villages, towns and cities located in different parts of our country. Visit homes at these places and interact with more and more people. People who live lives different from those of the students. People who wear clothes of colours and shapes different from what the students are familiar with. People who show their love and affection in a different manner....

Train of Thought This article was published in The EDGE (The Hindu) on 14 th October, 2019. Thanks are due to the team at THE EDGE. We stood, all excited, in front of the school gate. We were to depart for the annual trek with class IX students. Plan was to take a train from Varanasi to Dehradun and then travel by road till the base-camp. Our feet would take us further - up and down the Himalayan paths. One of the parents who had come to see his son off suddenly asked, “ Why are you all travelling by rail? Why does the school not arrange for air travel?” Surprised, and not keen to argue moments before we left for an event many of us had long since awaited, I smiled and responded meekly. The questions, however, kept visiting and re-visiting me once the train began to move and students were enjoying at their assigned berths. Learning opportunities Train travel holds the potential to educate us, about our country, in a manner that few other avenues ca...

Bring your own tiffin box Thanks are due to the team at The Hindu EDGE . Of course none of this would have been possible without the younger ones, colleagues and our trip-partner. “All of us will take 2 empty bottles and 2 empty tiffin boxes during the trip ”, - we shared along with details concerning warm clothes, footwear and so on. Bottles for water were fine but tiffin boxes for food! “ What is the need? ” said the looks on half of the younger faces! Leisurely walk  We were planning the annual trip for one of our classes at school – this time a trek in the Garhwal Himalayas – and were keen to do better than what we had ended up doing during the previous year , especially on the sustainability front. One sore sight had been disposal of packing material for food – this included paper, plastic and aluminium foil. A group of 40 during a 16 hour rail journey itself has the potential to generate a substantial load of trash . For this trip, we used our tiffin boxe...

Lessons in the outdoor This piece finds space in The Hindu – EDGE here . Acknowledgement are due to Santharam and Prashant for sharing their vast experiences, THE HINDU and Shalini for publishing and Satya for the enabling the trip and being there. Why are school trips undervalued when it comes to their potential for learning The week-long trip with class VIII students, a couple of months earlier, was a lot of fun - from being together in the rail coach to sharing tents, from running up and down the hills to swimming in stunning lakes, from visiting a butterfly museum to early morning bird walks and more. The immense potential these trips harbour as learning spaces was underscored - learning from new environments, fresh experiences, and away from the ‘regular’ schedule. Why this learning is treated secondary to class-room teaching continues to remain a mystery! Amidst the excitement, however, some elements stuck out and raised questions. On the one hand...