In 2017, Adhya, my elder daughter, was 4. I dropped & picked her from UKG classes. By the end of UKG schooling, Adhya started questioning whether she has to go to school every day. All these months she was feeling that schooling is temporary!
We (I and Savithri) asked her if she is comfortable with schooling. She said “No”. She said that, everyday, one or other child was punished at the school. And she could not bear it. We were under the impression that there is no punishment in the best schools. We asked her what she wanted to do. She said “I don’t want to go to school”. We said, “fine”. And her schooling was stopped. She is now 11. She has never been interested in schooling.
If not schooling, what about learning?
I started researching and found that there are various alternative ways of learning like homeschooling, unschooling, worldschooling, natural learning, self-directed learning, experiential learning and so on. We visited many families where children are learning without schooling. And found that schooling is not really everything. It is in fact quite easy to learn without schooling.
When someone wants to learn, that’s when learning happens. The learner creates their own teacher. Schooling is just one method of learning.
We have just allowed Adhya to be herself all these years. To satisfy formalities, she has been enrolled in NIOS. She has learnt writing and Reading English, basic mathematics, cooking, washing dishes, making her bed, laundry, shopping, growing vegetables, skating & cycling, hundreds of crafts, earthworks, stitching and embroidery and so on. She is quite independent now.
She killed a snake yesterday without any fear, and informed me later!
And above all, she knows a lot about many incurable diseases and their reversal without medicines. She sits beside me when I see a patient. She prepares Sanjeevini.
What about certificates, you may ask.
Certificates are supposed to be proof of skills. She is directly developing skills. And money is made through skills. That will happen in due course too. What is the need of certificates for a skilled Adhya?
Schooling is supposed to teach how to take care of oneself, stay healthy, work for money, manage money, read & write, know a bit of everything, become a responsible family member & citizen, and so on. Unfortunately, schooling has failed in inculcating most of these, except teaching facts. Facts that are of no value for life.
Adhya’s learning is much more holistic and complete.
One has to learn to live outside the schools. School is not the world. Even after schooling and college is completed, one has to understand living in this world. This understanding happens through experience. There is no other way. And Adhya embraced experiential learning.
Our younger daughter Anju, who was born 4 years after Adhya, just follows elder sister.
We never tried to teach. What will I teach except some useless facts?
Every child is programmed to absorb whatever is happening in its surroundings. A child learns language (mother tongue) without any effort. Nobody teaches it. Similarly, a child is absorbing everything that’s going on. Instead of forcing my children to learn, we focused on learning ways to live better. Our daughters followed!
I am not at all against schooling. But, schooling is imperfect. And schooling is optional.
Why not learn from the world as well, where we must survive?