SAIIER 2020:Transition School - Auroville, Our Home

SAIIER 2019-20

“Auroville, Our Home”
a project of Entity::Transition School

Auroville is an international, intentionally planned city based on certain principles.

“Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realize human unity.” – The Mother

This year we have been continuing the work of developing a project-based program of study based on the theme “Auroville, Our Home”. This program should meet the learning needs of the children from grades 1-8. Learning about Auroville is important for the children because it helps them to become aware of the principles, goals and values of Auroville. It will help them to become more active and involved members of the Auroville community, and to start learning about what makes Auroville a ‘special’ place, different from other places. It is also important for children everywhere to understand their hometown — know about where they live.

The aim of this project was to help the children learn about Auroville — what is Auroville? Why does Auroville exist? What makes Auroville different from other home towns? We agreed that this would be an active process, learning from our surroundings and the Aurovilians themselves. Some of the areas we explored with the children were: Vision, History, People, Organization, Work and Activities.

Description of project:

We continued to work towards a project-based program in which the students and the teachers are able to add onto what we know through active inquiry and research. Some guiding points were:

The curriculum needs to meet the educational needs of the children. They should be able to understand what they are learning.
The curriculum should not only answer the questions of the children, but help them develop their understanding further.
Skills can be introduced and need to be defined: interviewing, research, critical thinking as well as other literacy skills.
Assessment through Portfolio or other methods is important.
We need to endeavor to build on and develop the curriculum through the years at Transition School.

We established that we would develop an approach to this exploration based on the children’s questions and interests, as this would make it more meaningful for the children. Early in the year the group teachers guided their students in a discussion to see what they would like to learn about; what questions they had; where they would like to go; who they would like to meet either at school or at their place of work. As the age range of the children is 6-15, the approach for the different classes varied according to the maturity, skill development and the needs of the children.

“Auroville, Our Home” with the younger children:

In classes the teachers and children spoke about Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s Dream of Auroville. In order to help these young children understand this vision, they started this project by speaking about Mother and Sri Aurobindo and a little about their lives. Then they by read the book “Tell me, my friend, What is this Auroville?” This is a book written for children by an Aurovilian. This led to a discussion based on the Auroville Charter. The children were asked to reflect and think about what Auroville meant for them and they wrote beautiful texts, which they illustrated with colorful drawings and put up in our classroom. We also looked at some of the 12 qualities, by reading different stories together and having many interesting discussions.

One of the class teachers describes:

We read the book: “Tell me my friend, what is this Auroville?” We read this book together, spoke about it – why are we in Auroville and why was it created, and what it meant. The children understood the creation of Auroville. The book used the metaphor of an ‘inner diamond’. We spoke about the ‘inner diamond’ and what it meant.
Continuing this lesson another day, we started with a 5-minute meditation (with music) finding their inner diamond. After the meditation they had to answer 3 questions in cursive on the backside of a diamond-shaped paper, answering the following questions: how does my diamond look? where can I find my inner diamond? and how does my inner diamond feel? They also had to colour or paint their diamond-shaped paper.
What children wrote about their inner diamond:

“My diamond looks like the night sky, full of beautiful stars like flowers on a tree, blooming. I can put my hand through it as if it was a fire. It’s warm in a cosy way. Giving heat to all my body. I can find the diamond any where and everywhere in myself, but I must find it subconsciously. If I look hard, I will not find it. But if I’m in need of it and am not looking for it, it comes to me.”

“My diamond looks beautiful; it has a golden seed in the very middle of it and on the outside it has all the colours you can think of. It sprays light into my body. My diamond feels warm, soft, peaceful and big. I can find my diamond in the very centre of my heart.”

“My diamond was bloody red (my favourite colour) and around it were swirling white clouds encasing it in a see-through white cocoon. Outside the cocoon made me feel cold and windy. But the clouds let me inside and suddenly I felt love and courage, it was so strong! I found my diamond behind my heart just next to the centre of my spine.”

“My diamond looks like a normal pebble on the outside. But on the inside, it is a beautiful forest. In this forest I always feel safe, happy and loved. I find my diamond under my heart and on top of my belly.”

“My diamond looks precious. I felt calm in that place. I find my inner diamond in my mind. It is nice to stay there. I felt I was somewhere else, I was strong!”

Through this project the children were offered many opportunities to visit places and the Aurovilians that take care of them. They were welcomed warmly wherever they went.

A favorite place for the children of all ages is the Matrimandir. On Tuesdays, the Matrimandir is open only for the school children. Before going to the Matrimandir, they watched a short film, which explained and documented its construction. We visited the Gardens, went into some of the petals, spent quiet time at the lotus pond and had a peaceful meditation in the chamber. The children love the Matrimandir; they love the chamber, the petals and the gardens and just being they learn a little about the meaning of all of Auroville. Dedicated Aurovilians meet the children and tell them about the Matrimandir and the gardens. They are welcome in the chamber and also get to visit the petals.

A class teacher:

“The children spent four hours in the Matrimandir. We learned about the gardens and we mediated in the Matrimandir for 15 minutes. After that the children were asked to write and draw on hexagon shaped papers what they felt in the Matrimandir. Later they glued the hexagon papers in the shape of the Matrimandir.
The second assignment was visiting the petals. We sat in one petal and after that the children had to paint on a heart shape. They could paint anything what they wanted but it had to be about the Matrimandir, what they have felt and seen.”

This year some of the children visited Town Hall where they were introduced to some of the Auroville working groups. The question was: How does Auroville work, what different services do we have, and what is the need and work of each service? They also attended a Town Hall presentation.

They enjoyed a wonderful cycle trip to Fertile to meet Johnny and got a tour and an explanation about the green belt.

After this they were given the time to express themselves through story writing, drawing impressions, and some made a model of the map of Auroville. Through this map they were encouraged to express the physical and also spiritual environment of Auroville.

After each trip or activity, we made a display. A big challenge was how to express explaining the very big idea of Auroville to these young children. The teachers focused on activities like drawing, coloring, writing simple paragraphs, writing poetry or sentences in their own words about what they had experienced.

Vision and History with middle schoolers:

The older children had a lot of questions and ideas. We found that they were very interested in learning about “How Auroville works”. For example they wanted to know about the Entry process, administration, structure of the Working Committee, the financial aspects of Auroville. After our first discussion, they realized that in order to understand why these organizations were as they were, they needed to understand better about the vision of Auroville – why does Auroville exist? This led us to more discussion about Mother and Sri Aurobindo, the Dream, the Charter.

We shared interesting thoughts with the children inspired by The Dream and the Auroville Charter. We talked about Auroville today and what we all needed to work on to are closer to our ideals. The children were amazed how the Mother's Dream had actually manifested and become a concrete reality – the Auroville Township – which was still here after more than 50 years. The students tried to paraphrase the Charter, to understand more deeply what it meant. They read biographies of Mother and Sri Aurobindo and realized that there were many things that they wanted to learn more about. The children were often seen doing research on the Auroville website during their free time.

Students of all ages were interested in meeting Aurovilians in their work place, or talking to them about their work or their lives in Auroville. An inspiring aspect of Auroville life is the sincerity and passion Aurovilians have for the Auroville project. They are generally happy to share their passion with the students of Auroville schools. This adds very enriching interactions to the program. As they talk about their work or their life the spirit of Auroville shines through. After each visit, the students came away inspired, and some of them thought they knew what they would do for Auroville in the future. We see that meeting people in their field of work shows the children a real picture of the diversity and dedication of Aurovilians. The adults were also very happy to meet the children.

Fortunately, this year there was an exhibition on the life of Sri Aurobindo in Auroville. Students went and were guided through the exhibition with questions to answer. They found Sri Aurobindo's life very interesting. They were impressed by how many languages he spoke and learned a little about what the Integral Yoga is.

Following the students’ interests, we investigated the organization of Auroville services. Students visited PTDC, where Isha gave a talk on all the different services that serve the Auroville community. The children learnt about many services they were not aware of, and that Auroville is special in that so many of our needs are met through these services. The grade 8 students were interested to find out about the Entry process and the Financial Service. We met people who explained how the services worked and answered their questions. Additionally, both 7 and 8 grade students wanted to talk to ‘Old timers’ both young and old. Among the inspiring people the grade 7 students met were Frederick, one of the pioneers of Auroville, who spoke about meeting the Mother, and his many years of involvement in Auroville life; and Aditi, a young Aurovilian who was a student at Transition School herself, and now works with the Auroville Water Group. Aditi gave a presentation on where the water comes from, the present water situation in Auroville, and future solutions for an integrated approach to water in Auroville.

Comments from students:

“The talk with Frederick completely blew my mind. I have never been more interested in someone’s life story in my whole life, and Frederick’s story is one everyone should hear. It amazes me how someone can be part of something so big and go through so much and live to tell the tale. I feel so proud to have met an 80-year-old man who left Germany after the Second World War to jump on a boat and sail to India to be part of the reason why a beautiful city is here.”

“His meeting with the Mother was pretty mind-blowing as he had a plan not to bow down and then he just did, and Mother showed him so many things that he was hiding or felt ashamed of.”

“Aditi’s presentation explained that the water in Auroville comes from the ground, and this water is not like a lake, but it is between rocks. I learnt that the water level is decreasing due to overuse, and some communities that are closer to the coast have sea water intrusion. Auroville needs an integrated approach to water management which will use many different methods, rather than just one. I enjoyed Aditi’s visit and it got me thinking about what I could do and what I am already doing at my house, and I want to improve that.”

A few of the people that the grade 8 students met included the grandfather of one of our students, who came to Auroville “by accident – and stayed”. It was an informal and interesting discussion. It was interesting for them to learn about the idea of coming to Auroville by accident! They also met Tency and Lucas who spoke to them about their work and field of expertise. Through them they learned not only about Auroville, but also about the importance of the science classes that they had been attending. The students were inspired. They also met Ishita. Ishita was a young girl when she came to Auroville and now she is active in the Entry process. They had many questions for her.

As a follow-up after meeting people, the students filled out an entry slip for their Portfolios; one of the questions was “do you have unanswered questions?” – but they were happy with what they learned and felt listened to. They were so inspired by meeting the people that we decided that the students would interview some Aurovilians. We developed 2 sets of interview questions and after setting some guidelines, the students chose 5 people to interview. As a final assignment, working in groups they tried to analyze the responses and see if they could identify certain similarities and differences in responses. This was a very interesting exercise.

Analysis of interviews – Group 1:

“Something everyone we interviewed had in common was that they all wanted to live in a place of the future, unity, and freedom (and, of course, a place with majestic, and evergreen nature). We found that in our interviews the main differences were between the different generations of people that came here. The thing most Aurovilians that came here as adults have in common is that most of them (if not all) found out about Auroville by reading books by the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. Most of them were accompanied by another person when they came here, and they all wanted to be a part of a place of the future, spirituality, and a place where everyone is in continuous evolution, always growing and learning more. Nearly all of the adults that came to Auroville in their 20-30’s found it quite freeing to leave their country, and didn’t find it difficult to leave. Most of the children that came, went to school in Auroville, and came to AV with at an age of around 2-3. Their most special memories of their childhood are swimming in dams and water bodies, and also climbing trees. The adults’ impressions of Auroville are mainly based on how plain it was when they first came here and the immediate feeling of home when they arrived. Something that all Aurovilians that came here in the beginning have in common is that they all did jobs that had to be done, for example helping build the Matrimandir, or help growing trees, etc... By now most of them have changed their jobs. All of them agree on the same things about the changes they see in Auroville throughout the years, such as the increase in population, the wrong people coming here, and too many rules being set. And they also all gave the same answer for what they appreciate about living Auroville, such as the unity, the freedom you are given, and the nature.”

Analysis of interviews – Group 2:

“From these interviews, you can see the differences and similarities of thoughts between Aurovilians. The biggest difference between older and younger people is the time they came to Auroville. The older Aurovilians came to Auroville when it was still in its early stages but the younger Aurovilians came to or were born in Auroville when it was quite developed. The older generation came to know about Auroville through reading about Sri Aurobindo or The Mother. Meanwhile, the younger generation was born here or came here at a very young age with their parents. When asked about the memories of early Auroville the older generation talked about the development and early times of Auroville but on the other hand the younger generation talked about their schools and playing around. When asked about Auroville’s problems the younger generation mentioned that there are too many rules and regulations and people are trying too hard to protect Auroville’s idea. Meanwhile, the older Aurovilians talked about how we must focus on Auroville’s main idea and protect it. However, they both agree that there are too many bikes, cars and tourists. In conclusion, this was a great project and talking with and getting to know other Aurovilians was really nice and interesting.”

Outcomes:

The above are just some examples of the topics and activities used to help the children understand more about Auroville, Our Home. We will continue this general work of collecting ideas during the next school year and we are developing some templates so that we can make a record of the various activities, outings and ideas.

Reflections and Conclusion:

This was a very rewarding project for all: the teachers, the students and the Aurovilians we all interacted with. The Mother, Sri Aurobindo and Auroville’s aspiration for Human Unity became much more tangible for the children of all ages. Here we have outlined just some of the activities and projects that happened this year. We now plan to make program in which Auroville, Our Home, is an underlying theme in a field of study for the children of Transition School.