Occasionally, at the Good Schools Alliance (GSA), we are reminded of the African proverb "It takes a village to raise a child." The saying sounds like a symphony but is difficult to implement at every step. We all try our bit during the week with our small but thoughtful sessions to establish a dialogue, raise questions and find answers from our collective that is growing each day. Two of the many sessions of GSA during the week are Brewing Knowledge Friday and Learning Forward Saturday.
Brewing Knowledge, as the name suggests, invites teachers and our readers to come together to read together and discuss some questions with each other and share openly about our views, and once a month, we invite authors of the books we have read. This week, we had Dr Anupam Sibbal; he reminded us of the tribe – parents, teachers and children working together. He is an author of Is Your Child Ready To Face The World? Our cohort of teachers has read the book in both Hindi and English. Teachers have done a series of reflective writing exercises based on his book. Yesterday, we all left the session with some more inspiration and motivation to keep doing our work at GSA and bring parents onboard.
Children are like buds, and they need thoughtful nurturing, pruning and play (not on the phone). The teacher and the parents have to be each other's allies to make the childhood more joyful. If parents and teachers could join the cohort together to read, ask questions and find answers in this space created by both, it would be both a doable and a practical way to move forward in learning together.
Learning Forward Saturday, on the other hand, is a group of teachers gathering to participate in practical learning sessions. We identify small things we want to transform in our classroom, make stories together that are age appropriate, contextualise the learning with the child's home environment and take a tiny moment in the week to reflect on our classroom practices.
The village in the proverb is everyone one of us for all the children around us; it takes practice to unlearn our old beliefs and question our conventional answers and thoughts, and it takes dialogue to win the trust of a child and not authority. Let's keep tuning into our essence – reading, reflection and relationship – to make this into a reality.
- Neelashi Mangal
Training and Development Lead
Learning Forward India Foundation
