Avani, 6yrs old, blessed with imagination and drawing skills. She can sketch whatever she observes keenly and she observes keenly whatever interests her. She likes when she learns anything new. Currently exploring cursive writing as one of the exploration. Also exploring painting,sand play, science experiments, drawing, cooking, music, songs, dance, rock climbing, gymnastics and jumping. Her interests keep growingin numbers as she gets different exposures in the environment. She amazes with her expressions and explanationabout what and why she does any task.
Philosophy of Life and Education by Kowshik (Father of Avani)
Life is something that is throbbing inside me. I can feel my heart beating and I believe it is my life. It beats in a rhythm. It beats for about 50 to 55 timesin one minute. Therefore, there is a connection between my life and time. I gradually start to see that my life is simply nothing but the time I spend between my birth and my death. I think I started reading time from the clock when I was 8 or 9 years old. However, the life was moving with time irrespective of me knowing that my life is ticking away.
While spending time in my life, I came to see that there is a world around me. This world existed before I was born, it is existing while I am living and will exist after my death as well. This is the world outside of me. I began to learn the way the world around me exists- the way it appears, the way it feels, the way different things taste, the different smells and the sounds I hear. These are important for me to survive and live; to keep my life throbbing inside me. Some of them I didn’t know and learnt it as a part of my education in school and outside school. Inside school, I studied the world around me through a specific curriculum. Outside the school included observing, talking to people, reading and sometimes watching it on the television.
Further, there is another world that exists only while I am living. This world took birth with me, exists while I am living and will cease to exist when I die. This world comprises of my body sensations, emotions, my thoughts and my moods & feelings. Only I have the access to this world. I did not know for a large part of my life, let alone my childhood, that this world existed. I had taken it for granted that I feel a certain way, I think in a certain way and my mood swings; and these drive my decisions of my everyday life, moment-by-moment. I believe I started to consciously notice this very late in my life, that there existed a world inside me.
Education for me is about learning about these two worlds- the world outside and inside me. Education is learning how these worlds operate, how I should operate to live with these two worlds, how are these two worlds connected and what is the role of my life in these two worlds. This education started when I was born and will end when I die.