Journey of Self Discovery

Watch this   My house is in a residential area. Many children came to the Discover Me Dussehra camp. I was basking in joy of doing a learning mela. It was an amazing experience for all the parents and children. When I was sitting and reflecting on the day... My phone rang. It was the house owner. He said he got coupon of calls from neighbours complaining that we are making a lot of noise. I was disturbed. I had just started my center. I sat with a heavy heart. To clear myself and shift my energy I called my friend and ranted and ranted and ranted. After 20 mins of complaining I realised why am I trying to solve this alone. How can I involve children in this problem solving.  On Monday we all sat down and made a list of things we can do to solve this. Some suggested we can make posters to control noise, some said we will not scream,jump or run. Some said we can talk to neighbours. We made our plans. We discussed what can we talk to neighbours, what information do we need ...

Teen cafe  A space for Teens created by Teens. A space for Teens to share thier thoughts and understanding. A space for Teens ti explore different questions and topics of life. Watch this :

Click here to watch the video She came saying "I want to conduct a session because I want to be the boss. I want everyone to listen to me." We discussed what session, what would be the topic, how long will be the session, what preparation is required, what will the the flow of the session and much more..  She did not know what to prepare. She can asking me"Pineapple I don't know what to do". I told her to make 15 questions about dance and set the timer for 10 mins ... we decided that next 10 mins she will only think about dance and wait for the brain to giver her ideas. After 10 mins ⏳ she was still making questions. Happily she said "I like when I get ideas". She researched for the questions. She waited patiently for her time. She convinced and invited everyone to attend her session. She conducted what she had prepared. As a facilitator and an observer it was a joy to see this complete process.  #unschooling #selfdirectededucation #selfdirectedlearn...

Click here to watch the video The day starts with planning. As Aaron was new to discover me, he got support to plan, but he was not sure. He said "I don't know what to do". After some questioning and provoking by peers he said " ok I will make a race track." Few minutes into it, then he did not want to do it. He declared " I don't want to do anything". We were ok with it. He was sitting for sometime. Few moments later he said " I am getting bored, I want to go home". I said "sure you can go home whenever you want".  He was observing others doing different things and doing what they planned. After getting some uninterrupted time. He said "I want to read a story to everyone". We said OK. When he finished reading his story, everyone asked "what time is the game? Is the race track ready?" He immediately answered " The game is at 12.30. I will make it ready by then." He drew the race track. He added brid...

Blog by Smriti,10yrs click here to check the video So we started by talking about designs all around us . Then we started talking about all types of designer people. There are different type of designer people like fashion designers, fabric designers, house designers, graphic designer, jewelry designers, tile designers and a lot of designer. We decided to go to the park and note down few ideas and make a design. When we went to the park we looked around and we were thinking what all designs can we do what of the things we observe. So then we started drawing the designs and we had to come up with 27 designs. After that we have to choose designs from the 26 designs and then we had to draw out and show the sample of our pineapple. She was the customer, for whom we were designing. After we looked around we were like out of all of the designs with flowers,leafs, trees etc we decided to design some jewelries. I made a ring. After the ring drawing, I felt like I can achieve something more th...

How do you assess your child in homeschooling? How does the child know if we don't tell them? Aren't exams necessary to motivate them? Can you assess my child and give me his/her report card?  There are so many questions about assessment. We believe that we have to test memory, knowledge and understanding through exams and results....only then can the child learns and grow. How about we allow the child to do self assessment? When the assesment is done by child himself..... Then he gets better understanding of self, behaviour and his actions. Having the understanding motivates him to take required actions. He puts the effort to change, grow and learn not because of any fear or authority... Because he wants to. Today in Discover Me we did Self Assessment by listing few parameters. I found this interesting list in Pinterest. Every sentence triggered reflective thoughts which gave them a lot of insights about themselves. They said "It was so much fun, we understand ourselves m...

Treasure hunt We divided the group into two. They created Treasure Hunt challenge for each other. As a team the plant the clues, placed them in a way that they can guide the other team to the Treasure. Treasure that if found was shared with both the groups. Creating and solving the clues as a team was quite challenging. When one of the team member was not well, she was included by giving her to read the clues, that way she could still be part of the game. After playing for 2 hrs they said "I was focused", I could think quickly", "I learnt to help my friends", "| realised that I can be quite and still be part of the group", "This was the first time I played with this big group"," there is so much to learn". As a facilitator it was quite fulfilling to see immense learning in just 2hrs.

Everyday starts with meditation time in Discover Me. Having the constraint of doing meditation everyday,pushes us to think of different ways to meditate. We take turns to get meditation to the session. We have explored meditation with water, with music, with movements, with silence, with nature and this time it was with fire. This meditation also gave us a chance to talk about the 5 elements of our body. We explored how the human body, just like the entire universe, is made up of the five elements earth, water, fire, air and space.

I have been in this journey of unschooling/open learning for past 8 yrs. I am asked many questions about education, exams , life, learning and career. One of the concerns I have heard is that there is too much freedom, they will not be able to write or face exams. Skanda is 16yrs, ideally he should be writing his 10th exams this year. We as a family have decided that he will not do his tenth. He can rather spend his time on his passion i.e. music. Since a year he has cultivated huge interest in fitness. He wanted to go to gym. I had my concerns. He did his research and answered all my questions. He also promised he will keep my concerns in his mind. Now he wants to be a fitness trainer. He has joined a course where there are 40 participants and he will have tests and exams to write. He has not attempted any exams in last 8 yrs. As it is his choice to do this course, there are no reminders or pressure required for studying or preparing for his course. You can see in the video his way of...