Sixteen years back, in 1999, we pitched our tent called Geniekids in Bangalore to explore children and learning. Well, sigh! we have packed up our Bangalore center this march-end, to embrace our new off-the-earth base camp – called O (open) Campus (60km from Bangalore). So here we are, with some musings, which we picked up on the way:
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As i grow older, I seem to thank more people. The list of whom I am in-gratitude seems to increase every year. But think of it, when I came into this world – as a baby – I was totally dependent. But I had no need to say thank you to anybody because I was considered a gift. The gratitude was mutual. It would not be preposterous to say that the parent-child or teacher-learner relationship is one of gratitude.
And Love thrives in an environment soaked in gratitude.
And learning grows in a soil enriched with gratitude.
And life becomes carefree with an attitude of gratitude.
My daughter wanted to have an Apple pie and we landed up in a bakery. In the showcase we saw two apple-pies left – one conspicuously bigger than than the other.When the shopkeeper started to give her the bigger one, she interrupted, “Gimme the smaller one, let the next customer have the bigger one”
So there is gratitude that I feel when I get something.
But there is a much deeper kind of gratitude that I feel when I give something.
A parent I was talking to exclaimed, “You do not teach maths!” I shook my head and replied, “Neither we teach music. But every child sings, though not necessarily perfectly. And when we need perfection, we listen to the CD. Its the same with maths – we all calculate, though not necessarily perfectly. And when we need perfection, we prefer to use the calculator.
My beliefs have drawn a circle around me.
Now I simply live outside the circle.
At O campus we have two dogs and many cats and hundreds of birds and and maybe millions of small ants. I am not counting everything else you can find in a five acre rural campus, in a co-existing and co-creating community.We also find google here. When people ask me how many facilitators we have, I say it will take me a lifetime to introduce.
I do not have dreams. I am too busy living my life.
A life of gratitude, of giving, of getting, of openness, of learning, of joy.
People often ask us, why is all your stuff not copy-right – but right-to-copy? Earlier when I was into photography – I used to diligently put the text “copyright
The proverbial pot of gold does not lie at the end of the rainbow.
It is when we open our pot of gold, that rainbows start shining out.
So, we’ve been working with children, parents and teachers for past 16 years. And we have created a whole lot of content – designs of programs, curriculum for preschool, loads of articles, presentations and training content. With gratitude to all the people, children, books, websites, etc who made this open-source for us – we offer it to anyone in this world who may open-use it.
When we receive a gift, we are blessed
When we pass the gift, we shine like moonlight in darkness
If we look into ourselves – we are not we. We are actually sum total of all the children we learned with, all the facilitators we worked with and all the parents and other adults whom we interacted with. There is a little bit of each one of you in us. In that sense we can never say bye to any of you. We (soaked completely in gratitude ) just take you all with us, as we formally bid goodbye to Indiranagar and Bangalore. Fifteen years… sigh! … we are blessed … thank you all. See you at O (open) campus
Aditi & Ratnesh
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