Here is a recent incident. A
couple of months back when virtual classes began, my older daughter was having
difficulty in managing her online classes and her ‘me’ time. So, we decided to
sit together and work out a routine that would help her manage her day well
without compromising her other interests. As we were busy in our conversation
my younger daughter was silently playing with her toys in the same room. A
couple of days later she came up to me and asked me to help create a routine
for her as well. As I sat with her, to my amazement, I found that she already
had a fair idea of how to plan her activities through the day! I realised that
all that time when we were sitting with her sister, she had been silently
assimilating all that we were saying. And by the time she came to me for help
she had already worked out her plans for the day.
Another such instance is when I would
often find her sitting quietly and colouring in the same room where her sister
and grandma were having a playful look at the globe. And then one day I find
her looking very intently at the globe. On asking her what was she looking at,
she started pointing out all the continents and countries to me. When I asked
her how she came to know them she told me she had watched and observed her grandma
and sister with the globe and she picked it up from there.
What is education or learning
about? To me it is about assimilating information to be used when required. And
the process of assimilation may not always be visible and it may not involve a
direct verbal communication either, but only silent presence. Take for example
in the natural world- animal cubs watch their parents hunt and gather food,
storing all that they see and use it when they are old enough and on their own.
In the olden days of Guru-Shishya tradition a lot of learning was through
silent observation alone. Many
home-schoolers have gatherings where children are silent observers to the
sessions. They are learning and assimilating knowledge in a manner which is
unlike routine classroom teaching. Children in their everyday life are silently
learning from their parents by observing how they communicate and behave with
others. Nothing is new about silent learning but we always prefer verbal
dialogue or one to one interaction when it comes to education.
I use this method a lot at home,
especially with my younger daughter. She is a silent observant of a lot of
conversations between me and my 10-year-old daughter. I let her be present in
the room playing, colouring or just pretending to do these! She is silently
listening to our conversations on topics such as menstruation, media insensitivity,
issues related to body shaming, absurdity of cosmetic and fairness cream ads,
cyber-crime and internet safety, safety in public spaces. Though she might not
have been directly exposed to these issues yet, they are getting stored in her
memory bank, to be thrown up as and when she does come across them soon in the
future. It is there in her memory and she will be able to recognize these
issues and not be taken by surprise. It is a great way to initiate her into
thinking and behaving otherwise from an early age.
Schools too can initiate silent
learning. Some progressive schools are doing this. Aurinko Academy in
Bangalore, for instance, has a system they call the “Hidden Curriculum”. Younger kids sit silently and observe classroom
activities of older kids. Knowledge assimilation is happening but invisible to
our eyes. Recently my daughter shared with me that when her teacher, in her new
school, introduced the topic of friction she instantly recollected having heard
about friction in one of the hidden curriculum classes she had attended in a
lower grade when she was in Aurinko. She was able to understand all about
friction partly as a memory already stored in her and partly from what she was
learning now. It made her learning process easier.
Another interesting way in which
silent learning can happen in schools is having open classrooms. Younger
children benefit from this type of learning spaces because they are able to
recollect and use the information later on. In Aurinko Academy, for instance,
classrooms do not have walls. Children sit with their teachers in groups and
learn with their own peers as well as have the opportunity to observe other
peer groups.
Some progressive learning schools
have a system where children of mixed age groups sit together. Children get to
observe and hear more diverse conversations, more diverse views. All this fuels
their natural curiosity.
Education and learning to me is
all about assimilating knowledge, storing the information like a data bank in
our memory and then using it when it is most needed. This assimilation can
happen silently and need not always require verbal dialogue. Our higher
intelligence knows when and what to use from the vast information that is being
assimilated by us. So, let’s give our natural curiosity and our higher
intelligence the space to evolve and take us to our highest potential.