Can children take responsibility?

Often, we underestimate child’s capabilities and end up taking the responsibility for them. Have we ever wondered, what would happen if we got out of their way and let children shoulder responsibility. Needless to say, we ought to keep our expectations aside and let the child blossom out of her abilities. Still not convinced, experiment for some days and see what it does to you. Of course, you need not keep any expectation on yourself to be perfect either. Then the magic can emerge out of a beautiful partnership between you and the child.

We saw children leading with full responsibility this week when we had to host a team of 30 guests at campus for a day.

Yesterday a group of parents, children and educators visited aarohi to know more about child based education. The entire event was co created with learners what do we want out of this guest visit. We collected different responses on –

• Know about them
• Do with them
• Share with them

The core response came as ‘Interests’. We want to connect with them on our interests, get feedback, ideas and network. We also wanted to know their interests. Team Advika and Mythili got together to gather all ideas and put together a schedule for the day. The idea was to do an ‘Interest Mela’. Each learner puts up a stall of their interests and inviting guests to any of the below options –

• Get ideas, feedback, suggestions
• Teach skills I know
• Learn skills I don’t know
• Do something together

Next thought was what do we differently in campus tour since this group had a specific need to understand the learning processes in aarohi. We thought can we do a tour with the key thought ‘how can a campus teach?’ We divided ourselves in pairs and each pair had to share about 1 space in campus using these prompts –

• What possibilities can emerge out of this space?
• What responsibilities are needed when I am in this space
• What are the constraints campus puts on me and how it shapes me as a learner?
• How was this space created? what are the stories?

Through this exercise, each of us understood campus spaces better. We got to know that each structure at campus is created using a different construction method and material. We learnt why the name was given to that space.

Next came the aspect of hosting and conducting sessions for guests. Mythili and Neil got together to create energisers for morning circle and bye bye circle Rohit and Vyom decided to do a jaatre for guests on ‘engines’

While the guests came to know about us, learners @atCampus ended up knowing more about themselves, guests and also the campus. An absolute win-win.

Can a campus teach?