If I have to finish this blog in few lines. I would write.
‘Let your child decide what he/she wants to learn. Then let your child decide what your role is in his/her learning. E.g You be his ATM, security guard, resource provider (e.g internet, material etc), driver, coach (only if he wants it) etc. And last but not least let your child measure progress on his own goal.
Here is something I learnt from my own daughter.
Noise coming from the swimming pool was that of only splish, splash and some chitter chatter this week. Unlike the crying and howling that I used to hear from the last batch of learners. Current batch seemed to be a batch of students who have set their goal as swimming themselves.
One of them is my own daughter. She is interested in making her current swimming skills finer and practice more through the class. I am writing down my observations about her journey and how she learned swimming on her own.
i. Initially she played in the baby pool. Some days with and some days without her floaters. For few days she did just that.
ii. Then she decided to remove her floaters and try swimming in the small pool.
iii. Soon she got bored of being in the small pool and decided to shift to the big pool.
iv. She observed others in the swimming pool and heard about making bubbles and coming up for breathing.
v. One fine day she declared that she is going down and do swimming in the big pool without any help. I informed I will be around.
vi. She practiced there for small distance for some days. Slowly her hunger increased and she did more than that. She figured out her own mistakes, and when she did those she herself went back and started again from the beginning.
vii. Every day she would set a goal for herself and work on it. E.g I will go lengthwise today, I will learn back floating, I will go to the deeper side etc.
and today here she is, to learn more from the coach and learn with others. In her journey these are the roles I played.
1. Safety guard.
2. Resource manager.
3. Photographer
4. Blogger
5. ATM
My daughter Anagha is part of Aarohi, she started at the age of 2. Aarohi is a option for parents if you looking for meaningful education for your child. It is like a kitchen: Raw material and tools (resources) of all kinds are available. Children are challenged to cook for themselves, to create own learning, to explore, experiment for own reasons, to satisfy own hunger.
Above example is just one out of many I experience through her.
