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4
The Equipped Adult
text:
Amruta
Patil
According to Shaji, “Experiential learning
places an enormous responsibility on the adult who is
facilitating it. We see because we are taught how to
see. Unstructured experience cannot teach us
everything.”
Which means that serendipity is great, but questions
posed by children need very canny steering from the
teacher/coach.
No matter how hands-on and experiential an activity may
be; there isn’t anything in the world that can make an
interested adult dispensible. And this holds true at
home as much as it does in school.
Story telling, too, has a significant role in
adult-child interactions. Shaji likens education,
especially at primary level, with theatre. “A good
teacher does more than just create lesson plans - her
classroom session are almost like a script’, explains
he. You have the people, you have the props, you have
the plot - now what makes the play come alive is the
liveliness of treatment. ‘All junior school teachers
ought to have at least basic exposure to theatre and
storytelling.”
In keeping with this ideology, Usha Menon (the
mastermind behind the design of Jodo Gyan material)
ensures that there is written literature to go with all
kits - suggestions of how stories may be woven into the
experience.
So you aren’t a natural born raconteur? Doesn’t
matter. “Math’, sums up Shaji, ‘has its origins in
human problems. You don’t need to look far beyond your
own experiences to make things interesting.” n
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