While freedom is dream, belief about freedom also brings anxiety for some who hear about Aarohi. As a open learning community or homeschooler / unschooler or alternate learning system we face this question.
Query – I like the aspect of freedom, child led, Open earning; I’d want to know more about the child’s transition from school to strict process-bound-colleges to real life jobs. e.g: How is a child going to transit from being free; without being told what to do to being ordered by a boss ? How is the child being prepared for dealing with real chaotic life(one that we lead) after coming out of utopia-like environment?
Our thoughts – First, we think freedom ismisunderstood. To us freedom does not mean that we do not stick to the process, or we do not follow instructions or we do not do things step by step or we do not care for the result. Also, importantly freedom brings – responsibility – and once you start taking responsibility of process, results, your actions, etc – it becomes automatically very rewarding.
We also think freedom is more challenging then just following somebody’s else’s plan / instructions / commands. Freedom means that you are the leader and you have lead yourself and you are responsible for yourself and all of this is challenging.
Aarohi is not a protected or artificial or utopia kind of environment. It actually very closely mimics how real life is – wherein we get up in the morning and have to take all your decisions, act on them and face the consequences of all your actions, etc. We live life here. Given above and our experience with children here – we think they are more than ready to take on the world as it comes – they actually live in the real world , they understand the world, they interact with the world profusely and they learn from the world.
We believe children in a ‘conventional school’ are in an artificial environment – where they are being constantly fed, administered and tested.
If however, the child (and parents) wants the child to life out of understanding self, others and world and work also in a an environment where individual, others and organisation needs are all equal and important then Aarohi as a democratic environment gives that experience deeply to the child.
Above are just our thoughts – Experience for yourself the chaotic, challenging, child-led environment that Aarohi is all about.