Adhya is 9 years and Anju is 5 years old.
Adhya has attended playschool for 1.5 years. And then she decided not to go to school.
Anju never wished to attend school.
Most who knows this say that myself and Savitri are not sending them to school.
It is not true. The children have decided not to go to school. And if you look around, no child wants to attend a school.
Fine, the children have decided not to attend a school and you agreed with it. But, how will they learn? They ask.
Simple. They are learning like all the creatures on the planet, including man, have been learning from millions of years. Naturally. Learning is not something to be learnt. Learning is a natural instinct. Learning happens all the time. Everyone is continuously learning. Children learn much faster than adults. School is not the only place where learning happens.
Fine, the children are not going to school, and are learning naturally. So far so good. You must be teaching them at home then. They say.
No. None of the natural learning happens through a teacher. Natural learning is self-directed by the learner. The child learns from it's surroundings. Children absorb and become whatever is in its atmosphere. Just like we all learn the language spoken at our home without any teacher. Similarly, we also learn all the customs, mannerisms, memes, skills, behaviours from our home and neighborhoods we grow in.
Let's consider some more examples.
Suppose one has decided to learn to ride a bicycle. If this person reads books, watches videos and listens to lots of lectures on riding bicycle, attends seminar/courses/workshops/webinars, it does not really help him in learning actual riding. Instead, if he just takes the bicycle and moves it around, fiddle around, he will learn within hours or days. This is how I have learnt everything I value in my life. Languages, writing, research, statistics, driving car/bike, cooking, etc. Everything was learnt through doing. Doing is the only way to learn. We can clearly see that the object/subject itself is the teacher. Bicycle teaches cycling.
That makes sense, but what about all the syllabus that is taught at schools. Will not your children miss that?
Yes, they will miss it. But, we have observed that all that we learnt in schools and college is hardly useful for living. Personally, except literacy, nothing else learnt at schools has any essential utility in our life. Instead of spending decades in learning facts that don't translate into to utility, children will utilise this time to learn whatever they like to. Literacy/language can be learnt by a few months training.
It typically goes like this. Our children play all day almost everyday. Most days, they also get hold of books and see the encyclopedias. They see the pictures, do maths, create crafts, ask us to read the texts aloud for them, explain it and so on. This happens randomly as and when situation arises. Just like this, Adhya has learnt to read and write a bit and do basic math. She remembers many words too. This goes on happening. The children just participates in almost everything that happens around them, and absorb it.
Hmm, if they are learning from their surroundings, who will provide these surroundings for them?
Great question. Here we come to the main point. This is where the focus shifts from children to parents. This is what we realised few years ago and understood our responsibility as a parent. We realised that it is our responsibility to create and sustain an atmosphere where human values are fostered. We found that materialism, consumerism, over-earning, over-working and so on are all single-minded ways to live our life. Instead, we need to focus on all the aspects of living that are needed for a human life. Hence, we as a parent, simplified our life by eliminating things and activities that do not contribute to our life. We also found that everything we need to do has been distorted. We have been eating wrong, living in unnatural places, living wrong, earning too much, have been addicted to various things, wasting life and so on. Hence, we started working on the entire way of life. This lead us to farm life (not farming), home business, healthy eating, natural clothing and so on.
Adhya and Anju learnt to speak fluent Lambani/Gormati language from village children within 2-3 months of shifting to farm. We see that learning from surroundings and nature is very rapid and accurate. On the contrary, I find it difficult to use English language sometimes, even after so many years of learning.
Sounds good. What will they become in future?
They become whatever they wish to and focus on. It is none of our business. We are here to just support them. We believe that the sooner they become independent, the better we have done as a parent.
Let's say they want to start a business. How will they learn about it?
Simple. By starting the business. They will start from zero, and as they learn more, it will grow. We would like to instill ethics, morality and integrity in their efforts (in fact a naturally grown child has these already).
What if they wish to become an Engineer or a Doctor?
That is also possible and easy. After 14 years of age, Indian nationals can appear for 10th examination. This is a human rights provision as per our constitution. Many children we know of, who have never attended schooling, have taken this route and completed professional college courses. In 2020, Maharashtra government started a Homeschooling board to support children who wants to learn without attending school. Hence, other states are expected to follow this route.
Well, all this looks so good to be true. But we cannot do it as we are blah, blah, blah...
That is your fate.
Is not having children at home all the time, painful, irritating and so on?
It get's to our head sometimes. The energy of children creates mess all the time. But, it is extremely lively too. It is life. Life is a mess. They are exploring every time they create a mess. We all learn through it and grow.
On the contrary, we feel safe about having our children around. Expenses are less. There are no obligations that comes with schooling, like waking up early, tuitions, home-work, classes, travel and so on.
Infact, this journey gave us an opportunity to become a better human being. We are now much relaxed, easy going and living with the flow. As we see now, children's education is complete when the child learns to live by following human values. Education is not just the certificates (I have plenty), ability to make money, designations or affiliations. Education is about learning to live a human life.
Thousands of families in India have adopted natural method of learning for their children. This is not some isolated experiment.
Thanks for reading & Take Care
Madhukar & Savitri