Singing our own song!

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One child asked me, “how is my painting?”

I replied, “you know how it is?”

He asked, ” why did you say that?”

I replied, ” you know that also”.

He asked another child, ” why did she say that?”

Another child replied “she knows that she liked. But do you know how does your painting looks like?

Next day again “did you like my painting today?”

I asked, “what in your painting you liked today?”

He said, “I liked color composition”.

Somewhere we have trained our children to use us as PLAYBACK singers. We fill up their thoughts.How about getting children to sing their own songs, sing their own praise, sing their own criticism and sing their own life.

At Aarohi the “desire” to do something start the journey singing their own songs and each one sing in their own way.

He began with a desire to make “solar fountain”. The journey started with “what is fountain”? He got an idea from water flowing out on all sides. A small paint box triggered an idea of water flowing out with small holes and a pipe sucking water with air formed a fountain. He attached it to fish pond and fishes coming out attracted to water drips of the fountain. We together pondered how do we to make water flow from up to down and down to up, how can we make it automatic instead of filling manually is pondered and the journey continues…..

“I want to stitch”, but found it difficult to use the scissor. She invented a cutter made out of of ice-cream sticks and a blade.

“I want to stitch” was the first statement by another child. Rest was mesmerizing. He did not know how and where the needle and thread go together, where to and why to tie a knot…he remembered his grandmother doing it. He created his own style, stitching and was invisible for almost three hours.

Setting up snacks is most wanted activity among Kitchen team. Some of the enthusiastic number counters want to count the number of biscuits required for one person and then multiplying for 26-29 people. They will count each biscuit, divide equally, make piles, sometimes decorate and then distribute !

What goes in our food? What is the role of carbohydrates or proteins? The journey at Aarohi begins with knowing what I am eating? Is rice carbohydrate or protein? The kitchen team adds value by labeling the food. The advantage to kitchen team – we also develop the vocabulary and also know what is in our food today!

She wanted to make chocolate. It was not as easy as ‘just decide and make’. The first task was to find the recipe book of chocolate from the library. She went through few books, found other recipe books. One book with lots of text and no picture was announced ‘dictionary of the food’, while the other book with juice picture was identified as ‘juice recipe’ book. She did not find the book in the first attempt but found many other books.

Making Kathi roll for 30 people is not an easy job, but not impossible to do! Will people like it? Will it be enough? Will I be able to make? ..anxiety, doubts, doing, trying and making was all part of the process. Imagine Aarohi, a life education, where learning happens because children want to learn from their life – for their life.

The desires of “I want to make Lemon juice for all”, I want to make all by myself”, “I also want to make, can I join” led to treat of lemon juice for all. Kids who made the lemon juice had their own journey – first, they made one glass of juice to identify ‘how much sugar, lemon juice and water for one glass?”. Now the same was multiplied for 30 people. 90 spoons of sugar were further converted in a unit of the bowl – One bowl had 13 spoons of sugar. Now the task was to calculate how many bowls will have 90 spoons of sugar? There was no restriction to not use any tool. First, they used a calculator and came with 2,500 bowls! Well, it did not make any logical sense for them to have more number of bowls than the spoons (small). They ran around, jumped up and down, debated and finally calculated “7” bowls of sugar. All was set, all they needed to do was to squeeze thirty hard lemons to get that perfect taste for their lemon juice. The clock was nearing to 1 pm (lunch time), the speed was doubled and all was ready in time. They felt the taste was just like lemon juice! Imagine Aarohi which does not make the learning easy. Children like it challenging.

“I want to paint” was the desire. She was advised to just START and rest will follow. No guidance, no art lessons…she just started.

Imagine Aarohi where there is no teaching – because we believe that children can decide how they want to learn – on their own, with each other and from various resources, etc. We are there to guide them, where they need us.


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