When, for the first time, I heard of unschooling, I was just a college student, uncertainly lingering between idealism and cynicism! I had zero experience taking care of small humans or even a remote thought of having my own child someday. But the faith that a human being would want to learn for nothing except an innate desire to learn?! These people must be beyond my imagination of crazy! How can a “student” learn if nobody teaches them or gives them homework? Is that not impossible? Or ok, maybe not impossible, but at least mortifying… scary?!
It was a fortunate accident that in every step of my way, I -very clumsily – stumbled across many people who were self-taught masters of their crafts. Watching their graceful, happy, and grounded lives made me look at my stressed, anxiety ridden, and highly self-doubting academic experience with a fresh, critical perspective. I had to honestly look at what I really learned and retained… what turned out to be useful…and what all I must learn on my own anyway, because the academics didn’t cover so many life skills essential for living an adult life.
Although I may not have known it, I was “deschooling” myself gradually.
Looking back, I can see the steps I took to shake off the superficial conformity and slowly build self-discipline from within… slowly found my own structure and ethics of life and work, however flawed and ever evolving.
Slowly, the anger towards the system that until then seemed to hold me back, faded away…( well, mostly!)because I grew my own tools to learn… I can smell freedom here!
There is still so much fire in me, and, believe me, it burns! But motherhood gave me a new reason to learn and grow deeper. It feeds the fire even more…
And then, as I watch this miraculously ordinary (!) child “show me”, how a raw mind is hungry to learn, it all makes sense! Her idea of studying is very, very different from what most of us grew up with…
She has the patience and focus to sit and do her own “work” for a long time.
She has a good grip and wrist control because of the many unstructured home, kitchen, and garden activities that she herself comes up with. She gets plenty of sensory play with water, mud, and any inexpensive, safe stuff at hand…
Nobody expects her to draw, doodle, or write… but she doodles for her own needs. Most importantly, nobody “teaches” her….
She probably sits and studies simply because Aai, Achcha, and other people of Maateemol team look very happy to study and work!
She is my living proof that a child studies because they want to.. and definitely not because someone is teaching them.
And no, she is not “ahead” or “behind” her peers! There is no race… no competition in her world. The only aim is to learn by experience… which, in a child’s mind, is “play.”
I remember, at one point, being worried about accidentally “teaching” her! And a very kind, experienced unschooler told me to just relax… and observe!
Yes, that was the advice!
“Just observe her… let her take the lead… you follow it. Trust her because she knows her path. Your job as a parent is to facilitate her journey, not to drag her along the others. Just watch her, and she will tell you what she needs from you.”
And how true those words are! Because she does ask very clearly what she needs. She has no shame or pride about being herself… no concept of comparing herself with the others… competing with or racing against them!
If the grown-ups do not introduce it, she may not find winning by beating others of any interest…. simply because it is not natural.
I had to deschool myself, and I have to keep doing it, to shake off the unnecessary layers of superficiality we keep acquiring for no apparent reason… but my daughter?! She is born free… and I must guard her freedom to learn and live above everything else…
We, as grown-ups, like to compartmentalize our lives. Does it feel sorted? Easy to handle in parts?! OR does it feel fragmented somewhere deep down?
And is life really happening in fragments? Not really. Everything is interconnected… Everything is a part of the whole.
We segregate work and personal life for convenience. Although there remains a subtle correlation between them, we can see it, if we pay close attention to our emotional environment. This is entirely an adult concept that we acquire as we grow up.
Children have no such separation. They live in the moment. Their life is about learning. And their work is to learn. There are no partitions!
When we send them to school, we teach them that studying is different and life is different. You study when you study and have a life outside of the classroom, outside of the books. “Do not chitchat in the classroom”
At some point, I deliberately started smearing out the boundaries in my work and life. And I was able to see that my energy flows between the two aspects of my life seamlessly. It makes my work more personal… more human… more honest and creative. It holds me accountable for the ethics of my work in my personal life as well. It makes my “practice ” a bit harder, but far more powerful than just a business. The only benefit of uncompartmentalization is integrity…and maybe, more humanness! It looks less of a benefit, more of a liability?! It is a liability to be vulnerable…and human… sensitive and responsive, cooperative, symbiotic living beings! It is a liability that is a great strength!
I can see now that this wholesome quality of life is what my daughter is born with. I can choose to celebrate it, by letting her have a life of learning. Or I can squeeze it out of her by making her fit into a box of a classroom.
Learning when viewed as an integral part of life, an easy, flowing thing, is not such a stress and burden as writing something ten times or finishing an assignment with a deadline.
Deadline?! Really? We don’t really die if we miss the submission date! But we want to pretend that deadlines exist… and they are as serious as death.
There is no deadline on learning. There is a deadline on life for sure. So as long as we are alive, we must learn without a deadline, as toddlers already are doing!
So then how not to kill that instinct of curiocity and passion for learning that we are born with? By letting children practice it autonomously. We can protect this desire to learn, by not forcing little people to learn.
Do you know that forcing children to eat actually leads to aversion to food and malnutrition? Forcing a child to learn invariably leads to aversion to learning.
so then what now?! you want to deprive the child of schooling?! Yes. I want to encourage learning. And learning is democratic by nature. As long as schools refuse to put students in the most powerful position in the decision of how, when where and how much to learn, schooling is not democratic and not conducive to learning. Whatever students do learn through the rut of 12 plus three or five years is the credit that goes to a handful, passionate teachers, who, in the current schooling system are merely the secondary victims. Primary victims being the students of course!
Ok, however broken, is not some system better than no system? I cautiously think…. No. It is not better anymore. This system of schooling is failing. it is failing miserably. The violence in schools is increasing. The lack of emotional welbeing is going unnoticed in the race of winning. Suicides because of exam results have not come down but only increased with time. The competiotion to get into certain courses is so steep that students barely give a thought to whether they can cope with the course itself if they get through. And if they do graduate, there is endless competion to get a job, keep it, get promoted and get appraisals and whatnots.
The survival is made to look so hard that the joy of learning and joy of living seem like some feeble catch phrases! This system, treats people, living organisms, as human resource. You and I are just a resource to them?! To be trained, compared against on e another, exploited and spat out. And schools are the places where it all starts.
So let us stop this chain reaction of exploitation, right at the source.
In contrast with the exploitation based system, how does democratic learning look? And why is it significant?
The reality that we cannot imagine democratic learning, is exactly why it is significant. If we raise children in an exploitative system, they cannot become citizens of a democratic nation, or the world. People raised in tyranny always need a tyrant to rule them. A teacher, a boss, a politician, a leader….a dictator… Feels familiar?! People raised in democracy, do not give up their freedom easily. People raised in democracy are powerful, strong, kind and…. human, not a resource.
Democratic learning puts the learner above all. It lets the learner lead the learning and not the system. Democratic learning, because it is child led, is deeply rooted in a life of a kind, empathetic, cooperative yet one of its kind living being. Democratic learning is like breathing or laughing or running!
The moment a child is in charge of its learning, she wants to learn… she is hungry to learn. And a hungry child learns fast and digests it well! The reason most of us can not imagine students hungry to learn is because the hunger for learning has been crushed out of all the students before they get past the primary school. Hunger for learning is replaced by fear of exams irriversibly. So, if you can imagine a child, undamaged by all that, will instinctively have a hunger to learn. This child will want to learn everything!
My daughter is about to turn three and she potty trained herself, by choice, suddenly, out of nowhere. We did not train her, coerce her or force her to start using the toilet. she chose to try it a few times and then gave up for a long time. We just kept changing her diapers. And then she started telling me to help her undress and sit on the toilet seat…. And one day, we were diaper free.
No fuss! No stress! I would be lying if I said we did not worry. We worried about her potty training for some time and we honestly could not handle the stress and the pressure of training her as parents. Our expectations from ourselves and from her were too high and impatience was getting better of me. So I decided to let go. Have patience and follow her lead.
Just like baby led weaning and baby led walking, toddler led potty training worked. At three years of age, she is diaper free, which is neither too early, nor too late. It is just the right age for her.
That does not make me a bad parent. It might make me a lazy parent, but that is ok! It gives me confidence to follow her lead. It helps me trust her with her own unique learning curve…
Next she is learning to undress and get dressed by herself. It is a big milestone that she has autonomously chosen to cross. She can put on most of her cloths and take them off with little to no help from us. If I wait patiently for her to figure out a particularly difficult sleeve, she asks for help and takes it gracefully. If I try to butt in and try to do things for her, she corrects me!
I know if I criticise her if she is wrong, or override her effort and put her in her cloths disregarding her resistance, it would be much faster and she would give in. It will be very very easy to kill her autonomy….
One time. One time I pulled her socks the right way up and scooped her up to leave in a rush to get someplace on time, when we were already late. And next time she came to me with her socks, with a sad face, requesting me to put them on, because she does not know how to…. because she is small…
It is that easy to kill a child’s autonomy, and in that moment, I decided to rather be late than kill her autonomy…
So we may be late, but we will learn… we will respect our autonomy, our freedom of choice… we will live like humans… we will make time to love to learn and learn to love!
Apart from a video call 2-3 times a week, little Nutan does not have any engagement with an electronic screen of any kind. We do not have a TV connection. There are no tablets or other kinds of electronic devices except two smartphones that Vincent and I use.
Children with no screentime eat their meals actually looking at what they are eating! Some research says that at a young age, it is more important to build a healthy relationship with food than to get stuffed. Distractions in the form of screens, songs, stories, and so on are actually a barrier between the child and their food. So we are ok if the child eats only a little because she is well aware of her hunger cues than children her age who are distracted.
Children with no screentime engage with the family members. That implies that the family members must put away their electronic devices and respond!
Children with no screentime have to create their own entertainment! And they are very creative every day! It implies that the grown-ups must be there to help and clean up!
Children with no screentime want to participate in the grown-up life every minute of the day! They do what they see, and they must do it right now! It implies that the grown-ups must learn to be OK with chores being done slowly and with possibilities of spills and clean ups.
Children with no screentime climb and jump and fall and cry and then try the jump again. More they use their bodies, better and faster their reflexes develop!
Children with no screentime feel all of their emotions fully, intensely…. their happiness is pure, and so is their pain, anger, and fear. It implies that an adult must give them the time and support to feel the emotions and co-regulate. Emotions often make grown-ups uncomfortable… it is easy to distract the child and get on with life…. and raise another adult who will be uncomfortable with emotions.
So, however uncomfortable and emotionally exhausting it may be, we as adults have to make it a priority to be present with her small world of emotions… be her safe space so she can feel hurt, angry, sad, and yet not dismissed.
Screen entertainment, however age appropriate it maybe, gives choreographed ideas about the grown-up world. It provides a visual before a child’s mind can create its own. It gives answers to the questions that the child hasn’t even asked yet!
This is dangerous.
It is too much information. Any information thrown at us without being asked for is dangerous. We, modern humans, seem to have become desensitized to this onslaught of information that is taking more and more space in our minds and is actually useless.
This garbage filled in our brains actually makes us much less creative, much less efficient in using our minds and bodies to the best of their capacities.
It controls the way we think… and we do not know it. It makes us lazy and distracted, and we do not know it…
We live in a world where machines are producing everything that human labor can not catch up with. Now, we are entering the times when AI is producing everything that the human brain may not catch up with.
When we use technology to babysit our children, the children absorb a garbage of information. They may sound very smart, but so do Siri and Alexa.
In the world that these children will grow up into,what makes them relevant and not replaceable by the AI?
I think it is their humanness…. that is what keeps them relevant. Just the fact that they are not developed or produced but ‘raised’.
Zero screentime makes children more dexterous, more aware of their minds and bodies…. it makes them aware of their emotions and skilled enough to work with them.
Zero screentime definitely makes them radically creative. Why?! Because children get bored without an external, inexhaustible source of entertainment! Boredom is very, very crucial for brain development!
There is plenty of research that unanimously says that exposure to electronic devices in the formative years of a child’s development is extremely counterintuitive and often irreversible in the effects it causes.
This is, of course, keeping the radiation exposure, stress on the eyes, as well as young, fragile, growing bones of fingers, wrists, shoulders, and the spine. Wow!
So then what?! Should we grow our children to be cavemen?! Not really. There is data available for what is the safe limit, and we much reapect it.
Children up to the age of 2 years should have zero screentime. It is not negotiable, really.
Toddlers should have a maximum of one hour a day with supervised screentime.
Above 5 years of age, the regulation needs to be more on the content viewed. We must also focus more on encouraging electronic literacy.
Any electronic media exposure less than this is actually good. Children will pick up the skills of using technology swiftly when they do start using phones, tablets, and other devices. But they will learn discretion and self-regulation very slowly.
Will Nutan forever be “deprived ” of the magical world of screen entertainment?! I really doubt that. Some day, the screens will enter her world and capture her attention. I am going to push that day as much in the future as possible. After that day, I am going to control her screen entertainment exposure until I know she can control it herself.
I am going to make sure that she first has enough exposure to the outside world before she gets introduced to the virtual world.
And then some day I am going to let go…. knowing that I have done enough… trusting my daughter’s instinct and deep sense of responsibility.
Building with natural materials and living in natural buildings, require a shift in lifestyle… Which means a greater shift in our mindsets. A natural building is that living being, that will nudge you towards a paradigm shift. So unless you are truly headed that way, it is bound to cause a lot of chaos and friction.
Door the the woods in the backyard… Rajapur, Maharashtra, India.
We have been fortunate to have built for some deeply compassionate, gentle people who have already been living a life in harmony with nature… For them, a natural home is merely an outward projection of their inner calm….
So before we venture into the design discussion, we ask you…. Where are you headed?! Because, if you wish to come home….we know that a natural building can truly bring you home….
Building with mud is taking a stand… Against the tides of growth that are mindless and unsustainable… Against the development of a few handful privileged… Against injustice and unfair opportunities…
Building with mud is taking a stand… For the freedom of choice… For the respectful inclusion of indigenous cultures and skills… For a sustainable, inclusive and mindful development… For a true Gram swaraj that Gandhiji dreamt of…
If building with mud is anything less than all this, then it is just another material… just another technology.
So we must ask ourselves, when we build with mud, what is my political stand…. When I buy things… what is the political stand I am taking?
Or even when I eat….?
Because remaining apolitical is the greatest privilege of all!
Home, that will be our safe, warm and happy place… It will draw us closer, to seek refuge in there….
No matter what wars we may fight and storms we stand firm against, there should be that one place to come home to, at the end of the day…
A place that will accept and embrace us, not mock or dwarf us…. A place that says, “You are it. You are enough…” and give us the opportunity to refill our empty cups! So the next morning we can spill more life and love to the world out there…
So the next morning, we can go to another war… and brace another storm…
Because, we rise from this very same mud… we are creatures of that same warm, pure light…
Courtyard houses are timeless…. Walking into one, in my mind, I can see the diffused daylight landing swiftly and scattering around the house, like liquid gold… Open kitchen and work space sit across the gold filled courtyard for food and conversations to pass in-between….
I see life choices that people make… their past and futures in a harmonious flow through that golden light…
It is through the lines on the paper that I am saying, “I respect your choices… I can imagine the courage it took to make those choices…. I see your dream… and it is absolutely worth fighting for!”
Disproportionately big living rooms with Disproportionately big TV screens as their central feature are the norm of the modern home interior design.
Bigger the living room (and hence the TV), higher the luxury quotient of a house?!
Even if that means that we lose the relevance of the human proportions… Or forget that the “living” part of a living room is not equivalent to the activity of TV watching!
We all have been in these living rooms as hosts or guests, feeling diminished by the sheer volume of space… Bad acoustics of it, carrying electronic sound of a fancy TV, too loud and piercing…
Because one person out of a bunch of people sitting in this living room wants to watch the news or a game…
While the others try to talk to each other in voices louder than the TV…
Acknowledging and fulfilling the human need for connection ought to be the core of what we call a living room…
We must ask ourselves what does “living” imply to us, before we set out to fill our homes with gadgets and couches….
The TV room in this urban mud house is just off the main living area… Good acoustics of mud and wooden surfaces dampen sound, keeping it audible within the TV watching area…
But otherwise it becomes seamlessly part of the main living area, with no actual physical separation between them…
True measure of luxury is the freedom to set the norms differently…to be able to make a design statement.
Myth: mud walls are dull and make the space look dark.
Truth: A bright, nearly blinding, sharp, artificial light is what most urbanites spend their lives in. Work spaces with air conditioning and electrical lighting irrespective of day or night outside, is an accepted norm. And it has led to people to forget that natural light is not icy cold white. It is warm yellow, diffused and very very soft on our eyes…. Warm and textured mud walls work well with warm, natural light. They reflect and diffuse the light just enough, without blinding us. Similarly at night time, super white light fittings make mud walls look gray and dull. Light fittings labeled as warm white, mimick the day light best. These fittings enhance the quality of ambient light in an earthen building.
For a person used to white light, it might take a little time to adjust to the different quality of light in an earthen space… But soon we realize that warm light is very kind to our eyes… it has a calming effect on our minds because it resembles twilight….
Picture: winter light coming in through a skylight, revealing the shape and texture of the mud walls…
Window frames and panels, sanded smooth, have soaked up their share of oil. With glass panes fixed in, they are ready to become the eyes and nose of a living building….
Timber windows, sturdy and carefully proportioned… can withstand extreme weather and continue to look timeless…
Fine joined polygonal stone masonry upto the window sill…Adobe with smooth earthen plaster, on the sides and topped with a lintel band finished in beautifully textured lime plaster….
These windows are encased in all the materials and methods that make sense together.Even a single material or finish replaced, their delicate balance of strength, beauty and economy will collapse.
In the times when urban construction is moving towards putting elements from various brochures together with multiple choices for materials and finishes, this building, coming together as a hand crafted, wholesome, living and strong willed organism seems irrelevant, does it not?!
For some of us…. These buildings are living beings… standing for what they are made of, opinionated and unpretentious!
Anujna Writes 