The Retreat was a treat!

Over three days of The Learning Forward Retreat, I had the opportunity to spend time with teachers and educators from different schools from different backgrounds and experiences, we were brought together by three simple ideas 3Rs

Reading, Reflection, and Relationships

Our journey began with reading the book, Is Your Child Ready to Face the World? during the YES Workshop, we explored chapters on humility, honesty, goals and other values. Every teacher had a different story to tell and reflected on their years of teaching and listening to these experiences made me realise that a book is never read in the same way by two people as they had their teaching reflections, and i had reflections from my student life, The discussions encouraged me to pause and ask questions like, do my actions match my values?

Coming to the second day, it was dedicated to reflection where we all worked together to create flip charts based on our learning from the book and being together, it may sound like a simple activity, but what stood out to me was seeing teachers become students again. We spent time deciding how to present our ideas, discussing colours, drawings, words, and layouts.

I had fun watching experienced educators carefully sketching, colouring, and debating which illustration would best match a sentence. It reminded me that creativity doesn't belong only to children, sometimes adults just need the opportunity to use it again. We listened to one another, and built on each other's ideas. We didn’t do reflection alone but together.

The final day was about relationships, we visited Aasraa Trust, a shelter home for underprivileged children. It was a chance to connect with people whose lives are very different from ours. Spending time with the children reminded me that everyone carries struggles we cannot immediately see yet despite those challenges, they welcomed us with warmth, curiosity and joy.

The retreat also helped me build relationships with the educators around me. Whether it was chatting over lunch, exchanging ideas after a session, and thats how every conversation added a new perspective and every person had something valuable to teach.

As I look back on these three days, I realise that the three Rs are deeply connected. Reading opened my mind,  reflection helped me understand what I had learned, and relationships gave those lessons a human meaning.

- Sneha, The English Book Depot