Category: Blogs

Aarohiis an alternate open learning school. Its an organic learning center where the child drives whole of his or her learning – they decide what they want to learn, how they want to learn, when, with whom, how much and do self assessment of their learning. Aarohi is setting up a Open campus in a…

When I talk about open self learning that Aarohi provides an environment for, I often get this comment – “So this is an experiment”. Some go on to ask “Has this been a success, is there proof”? Let me make few points here: Most of what we learn – during non school/college years – that…

Twochildrenworking on making candles. As they started their journey, they started give us videos, I saw Yashas boiling candle etc. the question that what if you were inaworldthat you had to make this candle- what name would you give, how would you have made, what all process you would have used. Would you havemade the…

Two children aged 5.5 and 6 years talking about getting married to each other. They are planning to settle in USA. They are Ok if their parents are not there.I found this cute. Thinking how I would react/respond if these children were 12 years and above.Would I have just listened to them. Would I have…

Every Wednesday brings a new perspective in safety and security at the campus. We meet, we research, we discuss, we do role plays, and we discover self. This wednesday we talked about snakes at the campus. We explored what is fear and what is alertness. We talked about not only fire at campus but in…

Neem is the latest at campus.Yesterday we burnt neem leaves and kids saw a considerable differennce in mosquitoes. Kids super liked the idea. Since evening they were behind me…………..did you put NEEM ???? And all this led to Neem oil, Neem soap, Neem bandana, Neem bath…………………..we are neemed.

One child – I have to do this, this,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,and I have to be careful. Response – yes. Now let us look at it differently Saying YES, confirming that someone else (faculty, adult, other person) has confirmed and i am safe. So, how about saying “so, you want to be careful?” Where is the YES coming…

Today Dhrupad had planned to cut b’day cake at I-campus. He ordered and I had to pick at 11.I forgot………….went for a workshop, while coming back I remembered.When I reached , he was jumping with his tablet. I asked sorry and he said just give me a kiss. I was sitting with him, after some…

On Thursday we reached till the roof level, the bamboo order placed after lot of search and negotiations………….and about to start roof work from Monday. On Saturday morning we saw, three walls collapsed, the entire structure was down. My first reaction “what can I learn from it?”One of the child who is working on the…

Rain started cutting our roads. First time when it happened, I called JCB and levelled the road. It was cut again, I took the help of labours and filled up the gaps, third time I used stones and patted with stone to make it solid…………….with every rain, road continued to cut and I continued to…

At the campus, the mosquitoes starts coming in by 5 pm and we start shouting from 5 to 9 pm – keep the door close, please keep the door close, heyyyyyyyy keeeeeeeeeeeeep the door closssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssed. I was somehow was not happy with this people reminding each other after every 5 minutes – “keep the door…

Paramesh joined Aarohi last month. We used to talk ?” trying to learn English. He is also trying to learn English……………all speak to him in English, He is also working on learning English. Soon we started thinking what next? How do we work ahead in “learning English” And then we began questioning self. What is…

Snakes at the campus have become another learning opportunity. I grew up and lived with fear for snakes. I am not now with the snakes at the campus, I have learnt that They cannot gulp me, no matter what is my size 🙂 They are not waiting for and bite me They may take shelter…

Recently we read about body language of kittens and puppies. Soon kids started guessing…….now the tail is up and down and the puppuy is happy and sad………….The first thoughts – let us make, draw, print the charts and display and this will be good reference material. I was also doing the same. I paused……….and asked…

Consider this scene inside a restaurant: 20 children really hungry for breakfast. Two of them are to take everybody’s orders, collate and give it to the restaurant manager, and distribute the food when the order arrives. What will you do? The adult in me was itching to help, interfere, take over. I knew how to…

Consider this scene inside a restaurant: 20 children really hungry for breakfast. Two of them are to take everybody’s orders, collate and give it to the restaurant manager, and distribute the food when the order arrives. What will you do? The adult in me was itching to help, interfere, take over. I knew how to…

Good news, we left our Bangalore house!!! We have been celebrating all my son’s b’day parties at home – thought behind it “we have space, then why do we need to go out”. This year we are at campus – a community space. My son worked on his needs “celebrate b’day parties using various spaces”.…

During the open house session we explored what is “government”. We began with sharing what we know about government – rule, take decisions, team of people working, take care of city, do repairs……………..,Then we pondered what government we have at Aarohi – kids shared It is our govt by us. We can choose what we…

During Diwali we had 10 days break. Just before this break we had puppies at the campus and it required some amount of commitments. Kids committed to work on medical, training and understanding hygiene of pets – they promised to work from home. Commitments are part of learning process at Aarohi. Failing to do the…

My son was screaming from the room inside – help me help me. I replied “I love you”. He screamed with double volume “instead of telling I love you can you help me”. I expressed “I thought you need emotional help, so I said I love you”. He finally said “okkkkkkkkkkkkkk can you help in…

During KAA-Belur, Two kids decided to order same food for all and after interaction we understood that they they were working with few assumptions If we allow all kids to order as per their wants, then they will not take care and waste lot of food (assuming we will do it right and others will…

During the open house session we explored what is “government”. We began with sharing what we know about government – rule, take decisions, team of people working, take care of city, do repairs……………..,Then we pondered what government we have at Aarohi – kids shared It is our govt by us. We can choose what we…

Last week in open house the case continued on faculty. The case was to “force to take decision”. 10 kids put the case Before the first hearing 6 took the case back. After first hearing, the case was on “the process of voting to take decision”. Last week the case took u turn. The case…

All kids were working in their teams. Some were arranging for food, water, some were making schedule, some were making arrangements for stationery etc etc……………. I was consciously not doing, I was following what I was asked to do by the teams. After discussion with the respective teams, I was relaxing. One child came to…

Two kids took the responsibility of managing food at the restaurants – they analyzed the needs of all, decided the order and re-order, minimum food was wasted – they managed with very tight look at the quantity of the food ordered. Last KAA, one child took all the responsibility and managed with everyone’s need. In…

Two kids informed me “We are taking bath together”. I asked, how are you going to take care of your private body parts? He thought for some time and told me “he will look somewhere else and I will look away”. I was expecting that he will say “I will wear underwear and take bath”.…

The trip to Belur started with loooooong breakfast. At the temple different children were busy in exploring different things – some were looking at the shape while some wanted to climb the pillars, some were exploring the soap stone, some were looking at design while some were tracing the designs. One child began with “what…

As a faculty it was my first experience facilitating for Kaa preparation. I shared the same with kids. Children began their work. Few shared with me what all they did. Few did what they were supposed to do. Few moved ahead in their journey. Nowhere did they think it was their agenda to teach me…

Kaa preparation opened up a Pandora box of understanding expiry dates of medicine. It started with sorting out the names and the usage based on creams and syrups. They then moved to read the names- the names I was aware it moved to one side, the names which were new did not find a place-justification…

During openhouse, One of the child shared “Aarohi government is a place where everyday teaches everybody something new everyday, lot of people are there and some of the people want to teach and some want to teach and practice”.