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From the diary of a facilitator Child – I have never drawn, Me – It’s okay you can try now, just draw Child – I do-not draw good, Me – You do not have to draw good or bad, just draw Child – I will not do it. Child – I can’t dance, I do…

Imagine Aarohi – a community of open learning. In the community, not only our kids glow, but the families also grow together. They joined Aarohi to give meaningful education to their daughter, 5yrs old. As they grew in Aarohi along with the child, the support of grandparents grew with the child’s growth. Here is what…

Imagine Aarohi – a community of open learning. Not a school or an organization, but a community to create space for open learning with co-creation, co-learning, and co-existence as key parameters. They joined the community when Prashanth and Nandini were looking for an alternative school for Advay, 5yrs old. In the last two years, they…

I grew up with a feeling of “my family” is the most important thing for me. After I got married “my family” changed and THIS family became the most important thing for me. In the journey I found may people, but they did not become the most important thing for me. Why? I ask myself.…

It was Early 2017 that we were asking our son about his hobbies. Our 2nd child used to do multiple craft works like Origami. We were curious to know what He wanted to do as part of his hobby time. He never replied after several inquiries but one evening he mentioned that “cooking” is his…

Habits of mind or just habits? How do we understand our habits and our mind? We began by asking “what are our habits?” Dust and wear the shoe or wear first right and then left? Wash hands before a meal or sleep with a pillow? Eat fruit after a meal or put a bookmark in…

THE STORY OF KAA at AAROHI Travelling is an amazing education. Traveling together is even better. That is what are KAA trips – travel, see, meet, eat and learn. We go for roughly 3 to 4 KAA trips in a year. These trips can be anything from 2 to a week-long duration. we all choose…

Like any other learning opportunity at Aarohi, KAA trips are not only limited to its contents – the overall travel and being in the place brings a lot of different kinds of learning opportunities and every child grasp the opportunity in different forms. The average age of children traveling for these trips is 5 to…

We often ask questions to others as well as a lot of questions to ourselves. How about asking “what if, How else, How about, What else and Did you mean? Just a consciously asking these questions pushed some of us to think differently. No curriculum, allows us to have unlimited curriculum! Each week we play…

Visiting our Railway station while the train is entering the station gave us a very different perspective of understanding about how many people are working behind us to keep our train travel safe. Signal Systems, Maintenance of tracks, maintenance of batteries, greasing the joints, Team of people tracking the train at different stations. For us,…

We all went to farm with a purpose to experience harvesting tomatoes, to our Milk Anna’s farm. On the way to the farm we explored Plucking tamarind from the tree, One farmer was cutting Coconuts from the tree. We were curious to see how they climbed the tree and cut coconuts from the tree. We…

He is passionate about insects and Reptiles, traveling all around the world to see specific species of snakes and reptiles. He shared his passion with us at the campus. Whenever he comes to the camps, he brings excitement to the campus We went around in search of insects Below the rocks Under the bushes on…

PROJECT MOVIE MAKING One group made movie The making of the movie was not the curriculum (or the agenda for facilitator) Self-discovery was It did not matter who was good or bad (strengths or weakness) What mattered was what all the different possibilities for one to choose GROUP REFLECTION done by them – they shared…

Living as community demand each individual to throw out of their comfort zone – as we experience living together as a community, we feel the need of acceptance of each other as individual which helps us live, grow and glow. Different culture Different ages Different interests Different needs Different temperament Different styles We call it…

What are you doing? Exploring Strengths! Life is not just about skills, but super important are how we use our strengths. But what is so special about strengths?Skills without strengths is like a pot without water. It will not quench our thirst. One extremely angry – “do-not talk to me I am frustrated, I will…

We played with science Levers are all around us in scissors and nail cutter They are all simple machines Machines are not always complicated Is lock a mechanism? They work with force and friction Have you ever lifted with pulley The quiz to know different layers of the atmosphere It did matter who went to…

When Howard Gardner put forward his Theory of Multiple Intelligences (in 1983), he was only acknowledging something we have all intuitively known – the existence of different abilities (intelligences) inside each one of us. What is “child’s play” or fun for one could be scary or boring for another. This diversity arises from each child…

Imagine Open Learning, where there are no tests and exams – because we believe that each individual can assess themselves, can reflect on this work on an ongoing basis. Also because one does not need to learn for some external objective (marks) but for own love for learning. My journey of drumming –As a group…

Wake up at 5am Why shoes? Small water bottle is enough? I have never trekkedI have done many How long is it? How far is this? So high? So far? I donot know why this experience! It was cloudy day Ah! Its so nice Ah! I can run Oh! Rocks and stones and thorns –…

The world is our curriculum. But what is the curriculum? Is it defined by me or the learner or none or both? Life is part of the curriculum Living is curriculum Learning is part of the curriculum When all this merges, it just becomes an experience. We asked shared one difficult thing from the day…

Herramientas, our tool room was busy designing a Bamboo chair, making joints which will last longer, making wooden dice to just play and experience carpentry, make dumbbells for fitness Ambrosia, our kitchen was busy cooking variety of meals to cater to different tastes, special food for b’day celebration, pickle, salads, kheer and cake are just…

Trek to Himalayas with family and family friends was one of the agenda this May. There is something in mountains, I carry back deep in my heart. The ascend, the descend … all were incidental, what made the difference was meeting life in just one trek! But there was something different between life and trekking.Life…

“I am Able – TRY, FRY, CRY and FLY! The journey often starts with TRYING, then action (FRY), And sometimes the challenges makes you CRY (sweating, pushing, failing, persisting), and once you cross that you FLY!FLYING this week with TRYING at AarohiWhat better way to spend holidays – Do what I want – I decide…

And with this open structure – how does one “learn” anything? One also wonders how can one move ahead when one does not have a specific interest or one has very specific interest, one is confused, also what if one needs a guide and so on – each child is different. SOME of the OPTIONS…

A dream wallet……. The session was focused on the process of designing a ideal wallet but the twist was that we were not designing for our self rather we were designing an ideal wallet for our partner. Step one is to empathize with the partner and understand their requirement of a wallet. What all do…

The project “Team build” was born with the need of another residential building at Aarohi. Just one announcement Few interested Few thinking Few indifferent Some joined Some stayed Some left Some hanged around First, what all are the options? Dreaming, Researching, Imagining, Ideating Then, Meeting Samyukta and Stanzin from Earth Build to give muddy shape…

Each day is a gift full of possibilities, let’s live it! We took an object and used it in different ways than the usual usage and explored possibilities. We could come with many many ideas of using that object in different ways. And that’s where we began our journey of “possibilities” this week. Many possibilities…

We all have dreams, – Dream for self, like I want to be successful, want to be an artist, to look smarter, etc. We dream for family, like all in my family to be happy. Dream for country like gender equality, no poverty, more money, my country to be like Singapore. Dream for the world,…

Well, he is 8yrs old young electrician of Aarohi. He says “I love electrical work”, He likes to fix switches, He likes to connect bulbs, He is enthusiastic to put casing and capping, At this stage, he does not want to read about current, volts or any other things related to electricity, But to do,…