SAIIER 2021:Deepanam School

Auroville, Our Home		The Learning Community (TLC)
Entity::Deepanam School by all class teachers (Falguni, Deepa, Anu, Shaalini, Priti, Mahavir)

Inspired by the Integral education of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, Deepanam School aims to offer the children an atmosphere of freedom and creativity which supports the natural development of children and imparts the joy of learning with independence and responsibility. Our ultimate objective is to help identify in each child their full potential and bring out their best. Each child is given a chance to develop at his/her own pace and children are divided into mixed age groups.

Deepanam is one of the 3 primary/middle schools of Auroville. As a small community school it aims to provide a balanced program of academic study, arts, play and exploration to children aged from 7 to 14 years. The subjects taught include English, Maths, Science, History, Awareness Through the Body (ATB), Craft, Painting and Clay. The students work on different projects during the year allowing them to explore various areas and go on field trips within Auroville and beyond. Additionally, this year, the school aimed to include longer Math and Language sessions (1.5 hours) for the older group and to build in some free hours to aid the creative process.

Activities of the year:

We had a total of 54 students this year, in 4 groups: Light (7 & 8 year olds), Peace (9 & 10 year olds), Grace (11 & 12 year olds) and Faith (13 & 14 year olds). A teaching team of approximately 14 full time and 5 part time paid staff worked in Deepanam this year. A further handful of adults from across the community come to offer certain activities with the children. Specifically, according to the four class groups, the highlights of the year were as follows:

Light group (7 & 8 year olds):

This year, we had a group of 13 kids coming from different nationalities and all were first graders in the mixed age group classroom. Due to the Covid situation, we scheduled outdoor classes for small groups of kids to come only on specific days of the week. The facilitators offered experiential learning in the gardens by using pebbles and dry leaves to count and create beauty with mandalas.

We did a project on the Sun and the Moon to connect to our class name – ‘Light’ group. As part of the project, the children were introduced to Indian classical music and learnt a song about the Sun in Sanskrit. Since they were spending more time at home, we requested the parents to also chip in and help gather some interesting facts about the Sun and the Moon to share with the class. The topic was also explored with hands as the children created clay models of the Sun and the Moon.

In Craft, the children created a mobile out of recycled materials and coconut shells and a table mat. While doing this meticulous work, they developed concentration and fine motor skills.

For Painting, we chose poster color on wet paper as the medium and the children enjoyed the freedom of mixing various colors on paper. Gradually we introduced leaf printing with different color combinations.

For Clay, the students were given an introduction to a few basic techniques of working with clay such as pinch pots and coiling. For many of the students this was their first time working with clay. The classes were a balance between building their motor skills over the year and giving them the space to explore the material on their own intuitively. We also worked on specific themes such as recognising shapes (circle, square triangle, rectangle) and creating animals from simple forms.

Peace group (9 & 10 year olds):

This year presented a unique situation and we could not meet for long hours due to the pandemic. However, we managed to have some outdoor classes as and when the situation was safe enough for the children of the community to meet and learn together. At the end of the school year, the children were asked to reflect on what they missed out on and what they gained due to this special circumstance. Here is what they had to say...

What they missed due to the Covid situation:

Eating lunch together, staying for longer hours in school, the whole-school assembly and concentration on Friday mornings that brought about calmness, swimming in La Piscine on Fridays, birthday cakes baked end of each month in school, Secret Santa and Cultural programs, Open House and sleep overs in school, field trips and travelling by the school bus.

New skills and hobbies they picked up in their free time:

Playing instruments like piano and violin, cooking and baking, surfing, sewing, healing animals, building with Lego, learning new indoor games, cycling, reading, badminton, table tennis and basketball.

We managed to do less than what we usually do in a regular school year due to the shorter hours of interaction. When we could meet it was important for us to support Social/Emotional Learning and allowed time and space for the children to share their feelings, engage in art, clay and painting that support self expression. The parents played an important role in supporting the learning process as the children spent more time at home.

We did a project on the History of Tamil Nadu. After exploring the history of Auroville last year, we continued exploring the history of Tamil Nadu and learnt about the culture, symbols, local flora and fauna. The children created a booklet and were introduced to the basics of geography through coloring of the state map and marking the location of districts in and around Auroville.

In Science, this school year we studied the kingdom of plants. We looked into what is common in all of them and what they need to be alive. We studied in detail the different parts of the plants and the processes that take place in each of them: seeds (germination), fruit (seeds containers and seed dispersal), flowers (reproduction), leaves (photosynthesis), stem (transport system). We also looked at the whole life cycle of the angiosperms, the importance and interconnectedness of plants with the rest of the biosphere and their uniqueness and diversity. Finally, we studied plant and animal cells and made personalized models using different materials.

Clay classes with Peace group students this year were focused on teaching them new techniques in addition to what they had learnt in previous years. This included slab work, a study of textures and surface, and building in clay on a larger scale. We also worked on improving their skills in clay attachments, avoiding cracks and finishing a piece with finesse. The classes alternated between giving them a topic or demonstrating a technique to work on and classes where they were given the freedom to create and express intuitively their own ideas.

In Craft this year, the children worked with looms and mastered their weaving skills. They created pouches and bags. Weaving helped them build more concentration and patience. Using recycled materials, coconut shells and feathers, the children made a model of a bird. In addition, using pressed natural flowers, they made beautiful table mats for their home.

For Painting, we chose poster colors on wet paper. Children enjoyed their hand movements while mixing colors on paper and we gradually introduced themes like rain, forest, sea, sunset etc. They were fully concentrated while painting and they also enjoyed leaf printing, pattern/form drawing and splashing colors.

Dakshayani, a Savi volunteer conducted weekly music lessons during the last term of the year. The joy of learning a classical art-form from a passionate teacher and singing together as a group is an experience that the children will cherish for a long time. They were led effortlessly into the theory and practice of listening to the rhythm and beats and then the lyrics. The children also learnt to play the Tanpura, to listen and tune into the pitch and also explored how the harmonium works with the help of a professional. The curiosity and enthusiasm of the children to explore the musical instruments was heartening and motivating for the adults holding space.

We were able to continue with our normal field trips to the Matrimandir on Tuesdays, and visited the Botanical Gardens.

Grace group (11 & 12 year olds):

The school year started with an unclear situation about what to do as a school. When we started the school in July 2020,we were not meeting the students in person due to the pandemic, we used Google Classroom for subjects like English, Math, Science, History and Geography. But it was challenging to do online classes and include languages like French and Tamil. Google Classroom was the main platform for giving them assignments, announcements, sharing of online educational videos and materials as well as interactive notebooks. We used Flipgrid for sharing videos made by the students.

It was difficult to connect with kids through online classrooms. After a few weeks, we started meeting kids in small groups in an open space.

For English we mainly focused on grammar, comprehension and creative writing, with essays on different subjects, poems and word games which developed their vocabulary. To conclude all their creative writing, we created individual poem books for each kid for this year. The children were amazed to see their poems and most wrote in their reflection sheet that they improved a lot in writing.

For History and Geography we used online platforms as well as weekly pick-up of class materials (handouts, worksheets and items for projects). They had a weekly one hour Zoom class with a mixture of lecture material, discussion and experiments (for example making a compass). We started the year with a class theme of Oceans. As part of this, we covered a review of world geography looking at maps and then looked at the history of ocean exploration from the early Polynesians to the European age of explorations.

We then moved on to study Ancient Greece. Whilst also learning about the Ancient Greek civilisation and their accomplishments and way of life, we studied The Odyssey by Homer. Each week, the reading of a chapter of The Odyssey was recorded by the teacher and she uploaded the pictures from the chapter as well so that each student could listen in their own time, make a summary of the chapter and then participate in the discussion in Zoom class. The culmination of our study of The Odyssey was a play on Zoom, “The Cyclops in the Cave”. This project was not without its challenges: unreliable internet, timing of lines, costumes and props all had to be coordinated online. After much hard work by the children, we produced a recording of a 13 minute online play that they could be proud of and share with their friends and families.

For Science, at the beginning we used Google Classroom, and through different educational videos and assignments, looked into the Scientific Method and the scientific way of thinking. But the teacher never felt very connected to the kids in that way. We all felt better after meeting in person outdoors where we could experiment and think together. We started to do experiments with eggs, so we could explore science through a very familiar object. We experimented with density, pressure, acid and base, osmosis and diffusion. We studied the parts of an egg and its composition and that brought us to study the proteins and amino acids.

After, we continued with other biomolecules; carbohydrates, lipids and nucleic acids, and that made us ready to start talking about LIFE, what is it, the conditions on Earth for it and how scientists think life started in the early Earth. We studied the first forms of life and how life was interacting and changing the environment.

Later, we looked into the different kinds of cells and the cell evolution, we studied in more detail the Eukaryotic cells. Then, we were ready to understand what is a virus, its replication cycle and what are the immune systems and vaccines.

In Painting, we began with an exploration of different media and painting and drawing techniques. We gradually switched to the structure drawing method, which is ideal for observation drawing as well as imaginative drawing. All the exercises given aimed to improve understanding of the form and drawing skills and to develop students' painting and drawing skills. We tried a variety of approaches for drawing landscape, still nature and the human form in order to expand skills in observational and expression techniques, and understanding of pictorial compositions as a part of visual communication.

The children greatly enjoyed a creative way of using traditional tools and media to depict different subject matter and backgrounds. They were also challenged to design and execute a specific topic or area of content of their own choice.

In Clay this year, we focused on bringing forward a personal aesthetic and expression of the student. The students were encouraged to create works based on personal themes and ideas combining all the techniques they had learnt over the past two years such as pinching, coiling and slab work. The work made by the students included a wide range of functional work such as bowls, mugs, a phone music booster, as well as sculptural work of figure heads, houses, and abstract forms. Over the year the students faced challenges with bringing their concept into actual 3-d forms in clay, however with guidance from the teacher, they were able to find confidence in their skills and overcome their failures through persistence.

Craft was mainly focused on weaving bags, pouches and an Origami modular Sonobe unit that was displayed at PTDC. The children also created flowers like Lily, Tulip and Rose and had fun with Spinners too. After a few weeks, the children created another unit with Peace Cranes for display at PTDC. Generally there was a good atmosphere in the classroom of concentration, engagement, interest and collaboration.

At the end of the school year, we asked the students to reflect on how the year was and this is how they felt:

• We wish we had full day school like we used to have.
• I missed school, play time with my friends and lunch at school.
• This year I felt I didn’t learn much because of less time at school.
• We didn’t enjoy online classes at all. There was not much interaction like how we do in the classroom and not much connection felt with teachers and classmates.

Faith group (13 & 14 year olds):

The lockdown and the Pandemic crisis continued throughout the school year. The students initially struggled to adjust to online learning due to lack of devices and internet access. For online learning, however, Google Classroom proved to be a good tool. For connecting and learning together, we later also used mobile video recording and zoom meetings once a week.

Even in the face of the pandemic crisis, it was an opportunity for students to develop their own interests given that they had more time to themselves. This quote from Haruki Murakami describes the opportunity in crisis very well: “When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”

A highlight of the year was our “Kaleidoscope” magazine, the key project for the past two years for the Faith group students to express their creativity and hone their writing skills. Despite the lockdown, it was possible to publish the monthly magazine by working together online through collaboration on Google Slides. They learned to edit, work with deadlines, interview people in the Auroville community and work towards a common goal.

For Science, the students were given an assignment to do an experiment at home and record their explanation on a mobile device. They then uploaded it on flipgrid.com for all to view and learn.

Our experience with Math class was that due to lack of internet and devices, the students had difficulty joining Zoom sessions regularly. Hence, classes were held once a week and effort was made to make it fun and engaging. Using Google Jamboard to teach online was a good experience.

In English class, the children were given space to think, express, dream and debate, apart from learning language and literature. A lot of focus was on creative writing. The students participated in NaNoWriMo (“National Novel Writing Month”), where they wrote a novel online. They were familiarised with various forms of poetry and works of famous poets. At the end of the school year, the students recited the poems written by them one evening for a small group consisting of parents and teachers. This year, a lot of energy also went into the publishing of “Kaleidoscope” magazine as we struggled with a small number and lack of a good internet facility.

Students visited Newland forest and Raveena forest and did their research on flora and fauna of the space.

One of the students reflected about her time in Faith group:

“Being in Faith is way harder and challenging than it looks like. But it's fun at the same time. Faith group, to me, is being responsible for doing things I have never done before. The most challenging thing was the Kaleidoscope and NaNoWriMo novel. Kaleidoscope is hard to manage since we publish it every month and there are deadlines.”

Overall, it was a very difficult year for teachers as well as students due to the pandemic. Looking at it positively, the students made an effort to adapt to online learning and pursue other hobbies and learn on their own, like board games, cooking and gardening.