Home-Schooling- a Conversation

Priya Desikan has been homeschooling her son Raghav for the last 7 plus years. We invited her to share her journey and her ideas on homeschooling.
We started the sharing by making the following Mandala, Priya asked each one, if they wanted, to pick up something from outside.

Priya then shared her story and kept us all thoroughly engaged.

Its best to get a whiff of this thought provoking session by viewing the following youtube video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksflCa1zxt0

Priya suggested we really listen to our own inner voices and also our child's voice. Trust in his choices and let him be free to make them. Believe that the child wants to learn and is always learning. She suggested that when things seem to go wrong, look at even that as a lesson. 

Though initially, being an educator for ten years herself, she had her own ideas of how to schedule his day, plan his learning. But when Raghav resisted such superimposition, she slowly found an alternate method of learning which was his own and self- driven. 

Raghav has a few friends, who love him and whom he loves and they meet every few months. He does not miss school and lives a wholesome, complete life amongst his family, his Ipad, animals and nature which he loves. When Priya started on this journey, she had to let Raghav free -play even whole months only with Lego, because that is what he wanted to do. Today at 11 years of age,  he has charted his own learning course, studying what his curiosity drives him to, discussing, at times his learnings,with his parents. This is an evolved method of self-culture, that too begun so early on in life. As a parent Priya must still suffer doubt pangs and worries, but as she says, when she sees how happy Raghav is, all her misgivings are erased.

Like all parents, she and her husband are there to support Raghav, in this unusual journey, which is a sort of strengthening the inner fiber of a person, rather than creating false buttresses to support a being. I don't believe Raghav or Priya are specially gifted to try such methods out. I think they are just ordinary people who deeply empathise WITH THEIR OWN SELVES and hence do not let anyone abuse them. Raghav fell out of the school system because he 'was miserable there' and 'people seemed always angry there'. He listened to his own discomfiture and Priya to his. Its this honesty and introspective living that makes them unique. Though this is given to all of us, very few of us, can be in this 'centered' self awareness for long. The more one thinks about this, the more one wants to unleash oneself from self-created to-be-done kind of goals. The new type of life is also goal driven,but the goals are derived from one's own inner needs and aspirations, untrammelled by society.

I think it was a wonderful session and we met a thoroughly evolved parent, whose love and empathy for her child had no bounds. 

Priya aslo shared a writing found in the following link on this subject:-

http://shinewithunschooling.com/i-am-what-i-am/

Col Baba form Action For Autism

Col. Baba and his 38 year old son with autism, Vivek graced mitr on 5th jan, begining our Gyaan Budhwaar sessions for 2017 with a bang. As they were introducing themselves and were chatting before the talk, a cat passed by and Vivek, who has a mortal fear of the feline species, gave out a painful cry. It was amazing to watch Mr Baba effortlessly calm Vivek down, gently and firmly with kind words. The close bond between Father and Son was visible throughout the morning, both having lost a wife and mother, 14 years ago, have held hands firmly clasped since.

Col Baba narrated his wife's struggles, the various "dhakkas' they got from all sources, and how Vivek made remarkable progress. After the loss of his wife to the dreaded ALS disease, Mr Baba began working in Action for Autism (AFA), 
http://www.autism-india.org/index.php
as an advisor and fund-raiser. He spoke of the various initiatives  by AFA starting with making Autism count as a disability in the National Trust Bill. This bill has been passed in 2016, and Autism Spectrum Disorder is now considered a disability too. Another initiative of AFA is the Assisted living center called Ananda, in which they are building accommodations and vocational training center for 100 autistic adults to live their later years.It is an ambitious project and construction is going on. 
He had brought along with him a dozen copies a publication made to celebrate 20 years of AFA witha useful collection of articles to help understand the puzzle that is autism.

In the second part of his talk he explained what the National trust was and how the only bill that was passed in the winter session of the parliament in 2016 was the Disability act, which now includes many benefits and concessions for example the use of the disability card for railway concessions. One participant also mentioned using the same for jumping queues in airports, at immigration and ticket counters. Tamil Nadu, Mr Baba said has the maximum benefits for Persons With Disabilities (PWD). participants mentioned being allotted Rs1500 per month, if the card and bank account are instituted for the PWD.

Mr Baba then went on to give information on Legal guardianship and Trust formation. He explained that after the age of 18, all PWD must have a legal guardian. This is not automatically the parent, and to make this document, one needs the Disability card, mentioned above. A legal guardian is a single person, unlike a Trust which can be a group of people or even an NGO. A legal guardian has complete authority over all movable and immovable properties of the PWD. He is under supervision by the govt authority, who may do regular checks on him. A trust, on the other hand works differently. Mr Baba mentioned an organisation called https://www.i-probono.com/ which helps in legal work for PWD.

We were blessed to have him with us.

New Year Eve Celebrations at Mitr

New Year Party @ Mitr Cafe

Another magical evening at Mitr Cafe - an inclusive New Year's Eve party in collaboration with Explore Differently.

Plenty of food, fun, music and dance. We had a number of live acts - thanks to all those who came forward spontaneously to sing and dance! A group from www.the6.in put together an invigorating performance that had many of us jiving along.

We also had some unexpected, appreciative and lively guests - I guess we could term them the Red Brigade... a group of pilgrims from Coimbatore area who were visiting a temple in the neighborhood and were attracted by the merry-making - and decided to join in! See the fun in the pics below!!

Thanks to everyone who participated and contributed to the collective merriment. Thanks to Shashank, Deepak Sharma, Shivani Sharma and Aditya Sharma of Explore Differently team for working so smoothly with us to make this happen. Many thanks to Sakthi and team from the6.in for volunteering to perform for us. And of course, none of this would have been possible without the efforts of our dedicated Mitr Cafe team - our evergreen Vimal Balachander, Gayatri Sridhar, Mini Hari, Latha Venkatesan, Jayanthi Anand, Vijaya Gomathi, Preetha, Sanjay Nahata and Navnita Nahata and so many others who have been passionately involved in this initiative. Special thanks to the youngsters who jump in to help at all times - Avanti Balachander, Sowjanya, Anirudh, Aman and Anush.

Pic credits: Aman, Anush, Shashank