Today at Aarohi Campus, a 9 year old girl who was sitting outside our kitchen wall, asked me for water.
I promptly told her that if she wants water she can walk east and she will soon reach Bay of Bengal and get lots of free water.
She looked at the direction (east) where my finger was pointing, stared at the wall behind her in that direction for few seconds and remarked,
“But I can’t walk through the wall”
I replied, “Oh! you can’t. I can”
And I simply took few steps aside and walked through the wall, using the door!
The point is simple – we see constraints and we think they are impermeable.
When all we need to do is find doors!
At Aarohi we do not want to gift any limiting notions, ideas, beliefs, curriculums, about the world to children.
Rather we want them to understand that finding doors is possible when we are not daunted or limited by the walls.
That finding doors is easy provided we are willing to look for them. That finding doors is what is learning.
We (adults around them) keep telling them do not become like us – explore yourself. Open your own doors, find our own insights, build your own wisdom.
We tell them open learning is not about learning (that will happen however), but about being open.
Open to walking through doors.