One child was brooming the courtyard and the broom broke. The child said “tell me how much it costs, I will pay for it?” I asked “how about repairing it? He tried, he tried many ways with many mediums. Finally he gave up and came back saying, “I cannot repair it, I will pay for it”
I took few minutes to respond, I was thinking, is it about money or it is about learning?
Well, I asked “Aarohi is all about learning and learn how to learn, If you think paying money is learning for you go ahead and do that, If reflecting about the use of the tools, material, and your actions makes you learn, then do that”.
The broom broke when the child was stamping it on a stone. He came back with “I will take care while I am brooming, and will not throw on stone”. He shared in the evening reflecting “I did not know that I can learn by breaking broom”.
When it broke and child asked “how much to pay?” I was thinking – Is it about MRP?, What about the cost of efforts to buy?, The cost of earth resources?, And many other cost which one cannot repay. I am still thinking about “I will pay”.
He also explained to me “most of the schools this is done, so I asked for paying”. I was pondering “the purpose of education”? How will “paying the fine” will develop sensitivity for – The material?, For self action?, For others and efforts?, for the resources used to make a broom?
Can education allow to make mistakes? Can education shift focus from “teach a lesson to lean a lesson?” Making mistakes makes me sensitive.
Mistakes makes me sensitive to accept mistakes, learn from mistakes, allows me to come out of rigid boundaries of success, it allows me to fail and accept failure. Let us celebrate mistakes. Broom is broken, the broom cannot be repaired. Breaking became a resource to learn at Aarohi 🙂