We believe that children are inherently curious. With the help of Unlearning Uncentered we are creating spaces to nurture curiosity and the many ways of learning through active engagement, conversations, and play. We are renegotiating the boundaries of knowledge and ways of learning for children. To start with, we decided to focus on three things:
Playing with children with the help of toys made from trash and some low cost material that work on basic scientific principals
A mobile library and read-alouds.
Human books in which volunteers pick an experience from their lives and for that moment, become that story. Possible readers listen to synopses and chose the human book to read. The only way they can read these books is by asking them questions. The best way for them to get to know these stories is to suspend their judgments, assumptions and being open to possibilities.
We have had one great experience at Nizamuddin Basti, where the community accepted this new co-learning space with ease. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3XA0-ViAdw. This has been followed by a few smaller events at Khirki Extension in collaboration with Khoj International Artists Association. We have made some good friends and it has lead to some valuable realizations about the children and ourselves:
“I went with no intention of teaching anything. The kids actually responded to this quite well. The three relatively older boys sitting with me were able to draw parallels with their lives and predict the story based on the images.”- Devika, Team member at Aagaaz
“I thought we’ll teach them (the children), but I learnt so many stories and so many new things. They made us so comfortable”- Nishtha, Volunteer at Unlearning Uncentered
We look forward to more unlearning in more spaces and would love to explore new ideas and possibilities that cultivate the inquisitive child in all of us. 🙂
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