While as of now, Sadhna Vidyasthali is just a beginning with no clear direction, pedagogy or direction , we do have some ideas that we feel more aligned to …

Early Childhood – good time to begin !

We understand that any alternative learning solution must offer a holistic solution. However holistic solution calls for a deeper system change and a huge collective effort. We’ve failed to get both. So, the question in front of us was – “Shall we not do anything at all till we really get enough people , resources and time ? ” or “Shall we just do what can , and try to do it well ? “ .

It’s now almost a scientific fact and a common man’s wisdom that early childhood (especially upto 10-12 years) has the most impact on our lives. Children who experience conducive early childhood grow up to a happy and healthy adults while children exposed to early childhood trauma struggle in many areas as adults. While one may debate, the sheer importance of impact of early childhood education cannot be undermined. Thus ,we decided to focus on this area and hope that we can provide a loving, conducive to growth learning environment to our children.

Approach Options:

Ofcourse, of a hundred possible ways to deal with Early child education , we get inspiration from thoughts of Osho, Montessori , Rudolf Steiner , Juddi Krishnamurti , John Holt, Gandhi and many more. Jinan KB , one of our mentor is also a deep inspiration who has been working with children and education for almsot three decades now under the umbrella of Existential Knowledge Foundation.

Current Working :

While we have been wanting to start a radical alternative school, an informal learning space or a path breaking new model of learning process for children, we haven’t gone far. First and foremost for doing this was to find some people with deep understanding and commitment, which is quite rare and we couldn’t form a team yet. Funds is often a challenge too, to hold the few promising volunteers we get.

Nevertheless, we’ve kept the initiative alive in some sense or the other for last 3 years now. Primarily, the space has become an open invitation to village children to come, play ,read, dance or just hang out for few hours in morning and evening or on school holidays. When children are present , one of us from the volunteer team just ensure basis respect and safety for the children. Rest is spontaneous.

Sometimes days are spent in cooking, some days we just play cricket, some days we dance, some days we read or study , some days we just roam around !

Often people come and ask , what have you achieved with this learning center ? Where are you headed ? Are you really helping these village children or rather further damaging them ?

Frankly, we have no answer. Just the smile on the face of these children, the sheer joy of being with them , the respectful loving relationship we hold with these children is all that keeps us going, even when we don’t know where are we headed.