The Learning Community (TLC)

The Learning Community (TLC) is small informal school based on the understanding that life and learning are essentially an adventure, and the community at large is a school. TLC acknowledges that Auroville has already acquired a wealth of communicable skills in many fields, and anyone who has skills or enthusiasm to share, is invited to participate in the evolving project. Avoiding the concept of ‘classes’, TLC involves the children into the local environment, while the emphasis on outdoors and physical activities quite literally puts intelligence into the children’s hands. Children in TLC have informal ‘campuses’ spread out over several of Auroville’s communities.

History

TLC began in 2009.

Approach, Methods and Curricula

The aim of TLC is to create a space where children and adults by living and working together can grow more conscious of their inmost being and learn to know, to perfect and transform their instrument (body, life and mind) into the light of the spirit. To move from this half-conscious life to the level of integral living through a growing understanding of what is Integral Education is central to our beliefs.

We would like to establish a methodology whereby the community of Auroville becomes a real world environment to awaken a desire for life-long learning.

We would like to take the personality integrally into the working field.

We would like to address the aim of life not as a formal subject but as a latent question inspiring every experience. This is especially important in a time of drastic changes where it is the learners who inherit the future, while the learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.

We would like to create a space where the child especially can keep the sacred, magical feelings and perceptions he or she has naturally; and invite him or her to express and explore this sense of connectedness and feeling everything alive.

We would like to follow the individual needs of the child as they emerge out of their experiences, next to the collective experiences. We don’t want to create a brilliant student but a living soul. In Mother’s words the purpose of education is to foster the children’s bright spontaneity that makes learning a joyous discovery.

Today we are forced to ask how our educational systems can be transformed into one that is truly appropriate for our time. Since lifelong learning is now essential to survival, how can people of all ages learn how to learn, unlearn, and relearn? How can they develop skills to deal with complexity and challenges that have never before existed? How can schools that were created for another time meet the needs of an increasingly diverse population of students? Can schools alone meet these needs? In considering these questions, let us look at new possibilities for individuals, learning communities, and an emerging learning society. It is important to see that our differences connect.

Viewed from a different perspective, individual and national differences may be seen as complementary strengths. In The Unschooled Mind, Howard Gardner notes that “we are as much creatures of our culture as we are creatures of our brain.” Cultures where most people are actively involved in the arts, cultures where academic achievement is most highly valued, and cultures where survival skills are essential to life produce populations with different skills and abilities that have been learned in different ways. Of course, such diversity exists within cultures as well.

When these differences are understood and valued they can bring people together in ways that may form the basis of learning communities. The ancient Greeks had a word for such organizations. In their “Paedeia” everyone was a learner and everyone was a teacher, and the whole community was responsible for the learning of its people. The formation of such models is essential today as we see increasing needs for greater interpersonal and international understanding. Few would question that individuals, communities, and countries must find better ways to collaborate on learning about and helping to solve critical ecological, environmental, economic, educational, technological, and health challenges. Learning of a whole community is a vision for our future.

Students

In 2013-2014 TLC had 23 students.

Articles

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Contact

• Phone: 0413-2622-574 (TLC Base camp)
• Email: tlc@auroville.org.in