Aditi Mathur and Ratnesh Mathur
A school is a place
where everyone learns
the same thing
in the same way
from the same book
at the same time
from the same teacher
with the same classmates
all in the same dress.
Uniformity, you see is something the schooling system revels in, though it defies the very diversity that exists amongst all of us. We all have different styles, preferences, interests, strengths, abilities, skills, intelligences, careers, and so on.
From the house atop a hill
as I see outside
I see everything
cut to the same size
This mass production of well manicured gardens definitely has its reasons and merits, but I am a believer of anti-uniformity culture – a learning culture which respects each individual as different, which appreciates crisscrossing pathways and which accepts all sizes and shapes of outcomes. A system which defies systemization of both learning and the learners.
We are all same
Because we are different
We need no image
for we have million images
Gauri, a friend of ours, shares two experiences of two professionals who chose to step aside from the norm to make themselves and their work self-meaningful.
The authors are part of an alternate school near Bengaluru – Aarohi. Visit us at aarohilife.org or our campus to explore how children learn organically.