I spent 13 years in School. These included countless hours inside
the classroom learning physics, chemistry, history and mathematics. I loved
most of the subjects.
I memorized dates
in History but was fascinated by stories of warriors and kings when they came
alive.
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar was easy to remember from the comic
book than the text book as I saw the illustrations and imagined a world from a
bygone era.
I practiced algorithms and theorems and a few odd compounds in
Chemistry but loved most when we mixed compounds in the lab and watched magic happen.
I spent days pouring over geography trying to understand the formation
of clouds and volcanoes. I dreamt of being David Livingstone and discovering a
new world on Earth like he discovered the Congo basin.
I loved Computers primarily because I had a huge crush on my
teacher and I so wanted to impress her.
I loved Algebra because I was challenged by a girl and it was good
fun to sometimes beat her. Though, I have never understood why we learnt
Algebra.
I hated Physics primarily because the teacher could not care to
explain.
I didn't much care for Hindi because the teacher spent most the class session
telling us stories from his life rather than teaching. So
on and so forth.
Yet, all I was expected to do was memorize and regurgitate it back
during examinations. The hundreds of hours inside the classroom didn't
give me a single life lesson that is worth remembering. My biggest life lesson
came during our lunch break at School in my 6th grade.
Every lunch
break, after gobbling up our lunch, we used to form two teams and race around
our colonial styled school building in a relay format. 5-6 people in a team
exchanging batons after completing a full school circle. Darting between scores of
students, who were playing, running, jumping around, it was our own little Olympics.
This particular year, our team was in shambles. We were consistently losing
every single day of the school year and our hopes were grim. We tried
making team changes but nothing seemed to click. One fine afternoon, we
finished lunch and gathered around for a daily race. Something was different
that day. I felt a sense of calm and in a moment of consciousness, I said to
myself, “we will win today!”
The race began and with each exchange of baton the other team was expanding
their lead. The fastest runners from each team were reserved for the last. The
last person in my friend’s team got the baton and he raced away feeling
confident of winning yet another race. I received the baton just as my opponent
was making his first turn. I closed my eyes for a split second and repeated, “We
will win today!”
When I opened my eyes, everyone around me turned into a blur – children
jumping around, playing, walking – everyone just disappeared. I saw only my
opponent as he was making the turn. I ran. I ran with a sense of calm
confidence. I felt my feet flying just inches above the ground. At the third
turn, I overtook my opponent. I saw from the corner my eye; he had frozen in
his tracks. I knew we had won not just the race but every race thereafter. We
won and I knew it.
Whenever I think back at my school days, this memory is the most
vivid. For years, I didn’t understand why I remembered this incident so
vividly. It always comes alive like it happened yesterday. Now, I know. My
body, my mind and my soul remembers this incident because it is my biggest life
lesson.
It gave me my self-belief. The belief that I can make Impossible
POSSIBLE!
Every time I am down in the dumps, pushed to a corner, when things
seem impossible, this single experience gives me the strength and resilience to
fight back, to pull myself up, to rise above and to come alive again. An experience from an inane activity that happened during lunch break at school.
I believe we all have these moments from our childhood. If we look around, our children’s
lives are rich with powerful learning moments that fundamentally shape them,
transform them, and give them a sense of their identity. Our children are curious and hungry to learn, discover, make sense of this world. The constant questions, the insatiable hunger to know, the Whys - these are all indicators of life's longing for itself.
It's time schools are transformed to be nurturing environments for such powerful moments not just at lunch break but also within the
classroom.
It's time we recognize that children are dropping out of the school
system because they are not feeling engaged, challenged and inspired. They are
not getting their powerful learning moments that will nurture them and help
them discover who they are.
It's time we accept that if we want to save this planet, we need to
invest in creating experiences of empathy, love, caring and self-belief in our
children.
If we can't change then maybe we just need to have longer lunch breaks so the
universe can nurture its children, inspite of us. Just like Kahlil Gibran’s memorable words…
“Your children are not
your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they
belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they
have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For
their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in
your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like
you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.”
