SAIIER 2013:The Learning Community
 Transition School |
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 Deepanam School |
| The Learning Community | ||
Entity::The Learning Community began its fourth year of operation, after saying goodbye to our first graduating group – 7 children who moved on to join Last School. This year we began with 13 children, and one additional child joined during the course of the year, making a total of 14. As in the previous year, the first week was spent in Fertile in ‘Tamil week‘. We saw from last year that this beginning to the year, gave time and space for the children to settle down in their new social structure, create a group dynamic, and get to know the space and feel at home in it.
Along with the base curriculum of English and Math, the older children participated in 2 main projects. The oldest group did a project with Johnny on the Kontiki, which included reading a book on the subject, documentation, model-boat building, and a trip to Kadapakkam where they attempted to construct their own ‘plastiki‘ – a real-size raft made of recycled plastic bottles.
Textiles project
The middle group participated in a project offered by Malvika on textiles/clothing. The aim of this project was to explore with the children how many aspects there are to such an ‘ordinary‘, every-day object as clothing. In order to grasp clothing in its various dimensions it was approached it in a multi-disciplinary way. The starting point was finding objects that we use every day. The children gained an insight in the social meanings of clothes, and the many reasons for wearing clothes. They experienced themselves how different clothes make them feel. The children started on creating individual collages on different aspects of clothing.
They then explored different types of materials, what they feel like, what their properties are and what they are made of. They looked further into different kinds of fabrics, natural and synthetic, and located their historical origins on a timeline. On it they also included other clothing related dates, such as manufacturing techniques (weaving, spinning…), and the occurrence of different items of clothing (jeans, sari, socks…). They continued their discussion of time, the need for and ways of measuring time, as well as understanding our own calendar. In the context of historical exploration they thought about where information about past events comes from, what is recorded and what is not, and realized that any view of history they have must always be partial. Equally, it was interesting for the children to make a timeline of their own lives, to see which events they included, and why. After the excursion into time, they returned to clothing. The children now looked at their own clothes, how many items they have, what they are, and what they are made of. Most of our clothing is made of cotton, so the focus of the remaining classes was on this material. They looked at pictures and quotations of Europeans who had come in contact with this remarkable fiber, and how they imagined it to grow. They explored the environmental footprint of the cotton t-shirt: the huge amounts of natural resources used, pollution produced, and compared organic and conventional production. The project continued on a field trip to the Madurai cotton growing and processing region, where the children saw different stages of the growth of cotton plants, the how the raw cotton is processed until we have cloth. Their understanding was greatly increased by experiencing these aspects with all their senses.
Back at home, remembering the cotton plants they had seen on the trip, they made a short excursion into botany and the parts of the cotton plant: flower, seed, root, leaves, and then planted cotton seeds themselves. The cotton exploration continued historically with an exploration into what the word for ‘cotton‘ is in different languages, that many European words are related to the Arabic al-qutn, and what the significance of the linguistic similarities is. This led to the movement of objects, and why people and things travel. The children learned about trade, and which essential foods we now take for granted (tomato, chili, coffee…) were limited to the places of their origin in the past.
The project continued with a view of the connectedness of things, and how cotton affected and was affected by events/things/people. This class touched on a variety of historical situations, related in different degrees to cotton: Spice Trade, East India Company, European involvement in the Americas, Slave Trade, the French in Pondicherry, the invention of the cotton gin, Gandhi‘s Swadeshi movement… Moving away from the intellectual, the project culminated with a drama workshop by Jesse which related to the first class of the term and what it means to wear clothes; the children designed and measured shirts for themselves, which were stitched by Nandini; and learned with Krishna the song ‘Pick a bale of cotton‘ which was sung by slaves in America.
The whole term we tried to grasp things in a variety of ways: artistic and creative in the making of collages, weaving, designing our own tops. In terms of numbers and math: dates on the timeline, amounts of resources needed in production of a t-shirt, measuring our own tops, creating a graph of the number of the children‘s clothes. Reading and writing skills were used: texts, dictation, gap-texts, and imaginative compositions about cotton plants. We used our hands to plant cotton, our voices to sing cotton songs, and our bodies to act out what it means to wear different clothes…
Baking English
The Baking English pilot programme, which began in the last academic year, uses baking as a medium for developing skills related to English language development. This year the project ran throughout the school year, and 8 of the older children participated in it. A new space for the classes was created in Evergreen community, which includes a wood-fire oven, which was built over two days by the parents, teachers and children of TLC, guided by Johnny‘s expertise.
Towards the end of the school year, the Baking English class joined up with Sowmya‘s Math class and the kids went out on a shopping trip to buy ingredients, came back and followed recipes, and were then instructed in the technique of making Origami boxes with handmade papers, in which they packed the cakes and took them home to share with their parents and siblings.
In the following math class, the children calculated the cumulative cost price of the ingredients used per cake, and derived the selling price, keeping possible profit margins in mind.
Towards the end of the year, the children worked on a baking English recipe book, where they learned computer skills through typing and formatting the recipe pages and searching for pertinent pictures on the Internet. They also researched into various aspects of the recipes (like Veganism, or the history of the different cakes). The recipe book also included their chosen pieces of creative writing that they had produced during the year. In the final class, the children made up their own recipes, and the results were shared with guests at the TLC open house.
Stop motion workshop
Many of the children participated in a Stop Motion animation workshop and produced two short movies during the year.
The stop-motion animation workshops were an attempt to get the children to understand how story structure works - beginning, middle and end. In so doing, the students were shown how stories are told, the significance of images and framing to advance the narrative and how our emotions can be manipulated by using tools like sound and editing.
The children began by brainstorming various ideas and possibilities, trying to settle on a theme, e.g. pirates, alien invasion, cowboys and Indians.
They then figured out the sequence of events and drew a storyboard. Props were acquired, sets built, costumes organized and shooting schedule planned.
The time-consuming and tedious aspect of stop-motion animation is an excellent way to encourage the students to concentrate on the task at hand and see it through from beginning to end. Good teamwork definitely helps the process move much faster and gives the children a sense of a true group effort; sweat, (blood) and tears combined :-) .
Field trips
Field trips and wilderness experiences play an important part of TLC's educational framework. We believe that wilderness experiences embody the values of tenacity, responsibility, judgement, self-discipline, and compassion. These experiences strengthen self-confidence, improve relationships and encourage good judgement, thus building maturity and character.
The ability to work as part of a team, to take orders and respond accordingly and to eventually to lead others, requires among other attributes: good communication and listening skills, effective interpersonal skills, to overcome challenges, and to utilise initiative, drive and motivation not only in themselves but in others. Wilderness experiences can be an effective way of developing these qualities within individuals.
These excursions are an opportunity for self-learning, introducing children to a place where external distractions such as noise, pollution, peer pressure, family conflict, inter-personal relationship issues etc. seem to pale into insignificance when confronted with the wonders of tranquillity, raw and uncontaminated nature along with an opportunity to experience internal and external ‘space‘ within which to make a connection to their inner self.
Within such environments, individuals can learn to appreciate nature and its resources, understand the importance of conservation and sustainability, and to be aware of the finely balanced relationship between humanity and the sensitive eco-system that exists on our planet. Wilderness environments allow young people unique opportunities to operate, test out, discover and take on board elements that they feel they need in order to view themselves as a unique human being who whilst may be a small cog in a large wheel, they are nonetheless essential and an important component part if that wheel is to continue to rotate.
- This last year we spent 10 days in Panchgani (Maharastra), where the children and a small group of adults spent time on a small family-run farm. Other than being involved in the tasks on the farm, such as cooking, fixing the roof, grazing the cows, etc, the group also spent a few nights out of the farm, camping in nature.
- We went to Devanandapettai for a night out, camping in the mountains. We got only midway to our destination, and experienced quite an odyssey, getting soaking wet under the August rain, but the experience was very enriching for all, and the group managed to continue functioning in perfect harmony, despite the physical discomforts! Possibly a true rite of passage for some!
- (A rite of passage can be a experience in which an human faces hostile or adverse situation that would make her personality change, after getting fully consciousness of herself, the external reality or find a mission in life, and her spirit, character or experience gets modify to improve herself, after enduring a series of difficulties.)
- We spent 2 nights camping in Kadapakkam, sleeping on the beach and cooking on a campfire and also had one-day outings such as Annapurna, Cuddalore and Sri Ma Beach.
Our spaces and the group
This year we have been based mainly in Evergreen and Fertile. In addition, the children have continued to move about in the larger community and benefit from the input of many facilitators offering them guidance in a diverse range of subjects, such as carpentry, biology, arts and crafts, Awareness Through the Body, pottery, horse care and riding, capoeira, circus, dance, music… to name but a few.
For the coming school year we will be making use as the old pre-crèche site as a ‘base-camp‘ and will be joining the communities of Fertile, Solitude and Pitchandikulam for a large part of the week. We will be increasing our student body to approximately 23 children, and will be welcoming the input of the new parents involved.
