Learning in context ……


It was late evening when I walked down the hills from Kempty town, near Mussoorie , Uttaranchal. I stopped intermittently to watch a movement in the bushes ( a bird or a butter fly) and also to take in as much of the quietness around me! The terraced hill side was being prepared for the next growing season. I watched as women and men carried gobar to each level of the land and poured them down to form cone shaped heaps almost at equidistance.
The path was rugged , narrow and I had to watch each step of mine. The bell toll from the distant temple and the caressing breeze gelled coherently with the serene ambience.
I heard foot steps behind me. I turned around to see a kid with a bucket in his hand. He held the bucket high lest it touched the ground! He walked past me to stop at a point where I saw water trickling down from a broken pipe on to a cemented surface and running off it.



I stopped to watch the kid .He put the bucket down and seriously got to work. He picked up a couple of fallen leaves and started positioning them to give the water an extra jet. Not happy with his job he changed the direction of the flow, secured the leaves in position till he got the


right jet of water flow. He allowed the muddy water to drop down and placed the bucket under the jet making sure that clean water collected in it. All this took a cool 10-15 minutes. The kid all along was totally engrossed in his task and was never bothered by my presence. Now all the kid had to do was to wait patiently until the bucket filled! What would he do?? Jump here and there …. start playing with stones.. or would he saunter back home to come later? I thought. But no, what he did was totally different.




He now started splashing water from a tank close by and started scrubbing the platform in his tiny hands. Every time he splashed the water, it reached farther from before and he seemd to enjoy it all. All the time he was careful to see that he put his foot carefully on the edge of the tank , he should slip into it!! At this time I had started recording his actions which he was again unmindful!!.There was a purpose in his act which was fun .I moved slowly away from the scene leaving the child still engrossed in his cleaning (act) play! ( What made the child clean the place he was never expected of ??)

This episode may look all very trivial for a casual reader. But look at this way

A kid of less than five year old was asked by his mother to fetch water.

This may make any child activist raise a hue .. OH ! MY ! Child Labour!!

“How insensitive parents could be” .. would lament a child lover ??


But here, I was, a person trying to fathom the meaning of how and why of learning since two decades.

Here was a child in action which exhibited his intelligences in logic, aesthetics and spatial and intrapersonal areas. All his learning was contextual and meaningful. I am yet to see a learning session in our class rooms that would match this kind of experiential learning. The day learning ( as in schooling ) was separated from real life, spontaneous and meaningful learning has taken a back seat!

Another episode (which I witnessed a couple of days later ) that follows may make the reader clarify what I am trying to say.

This was in a Third AC compartment of the Dehradun- Delhi train. My accompanying passengers were all girls form classes IX – XII, from an elite school in Delhi ,who were returning after their 4 day trip to Mussoorie ( Including Kempty of my first narration)
The journey was of five hours. What they did all these hours is any body’s guess. But what shocked me most was the condition in which they left the compartment!
Swanky boxes of their break fast, packets of confectioneries they ate , mineral water bottles, bits and pieces of fruits , lay strewn all around the compartment. My rather humble reminder to them of who is going to clean up the place received glares and the very thought that they should tidy the place they so far occupied was disgusting to them!! The teachers who accompanied them were totally oblivious of the scene.

Was there any learning here for me…..
Quite a lot……What about you??