Once an educator, always an …a learner!

Ankita Rajasekharan

I was once asked what my earliest memory of ‘intentional learning’ was. Surely, from the second we are born, our bodies and minds are adapting, remembering and learning the ways of the world and its people. But this was about intentional/conscious learning. On pondering a little while, the earliest memory that came to mind was of a summer’s afternoon in my aunt’s kitchen. It was the day I learnt a certain technique of mixing cake batter. I recall vividly standing at the black-stone kitchen-counter, several inches shorter than my aunt, leaning over the bowl of cake-mix with a wooden ladle much too big for my hands. She showed me how to fold in the batter in a circular motion clockwise and then to cut through the centre, top to bottom. Repeat many times over, she said. This, she explained, removes air pockets from the batter and makes it fluffy.

At a sub-conscious level, I think these have been some of the key elements that have defined learning and educating for me – being shown something, being allowed to experiment with what has been shown, being provided an explanation/a reasoning and most importantly, being trusted with that little piece of learning, to explore further, to try and even fail at it. Thinking now of my earliest memory of ‘intentional teaching’, I began to think of what would qualify as teaching or educating. Intuitively, I hold that educating is simply a moment of exchange between two or more individuals of any knowledge or skill, within any context not limited to a school space alone. Does teaching a friend the rules of say, hide-n-seek qualify then? More conventionally though, I recall attempting to teach the alphabet to a child much younger than myself as a 10 year-old. There was a chalk, board, notebooks and pencils involved, there was even homework and testing in fact! And yet, I am uncomfortable equating that moment to my being an educator. Was there learning? Yes. Was there teaching? Yes. Was I then an educator? No, I don’t think so.

Over the years of working with children in different capacities – volunteering in college to help less-privileged children with their school work, working as a language and arts facilitator in schools, designing learning engagements for children outside of school spaces, enabling nature-based inquiries with small groups of children – I have come to have a slightly more intentional description of an educator and in what capacity I feel comfortable owning the title of being an educator. I believe it takes more than holding knowledge/skill oneself and enabling that learning to be an educator. I really believe that an educator is one, who in addition to enabling learning, also has an intentional practice of critical thinking, empathy and compassion.

And in all likelihood, compassion and empathy come first, then comes recognition of an opportunity to enable learning, followed by critical thought on how best to facilitate that learning and then finally the exchange of wisdom, knowledge and skill making for an experience in learning that both the learner and educator may recall when asked ‘when was the last time you experienced learning?’.

I recall a language class with a mixed group of 10-12 year olds and we read the book Kali & the Rat Snake written by Zai Whitaker and illustrated by Srividya Natarajan. The intention was simply to read the story together and explore what discussions came of it. The story was of a young boy from the Irula tribe and his experience of going to a school, feeling different from the rest and his journey of owning his identity, making friends and having a pleasant social-experience of schooling thereafter. What came of this book however for us, was so much more than simply a reading exercise! From this reading came conversations of identity, friendship, indigenous knowledge systems, environmental sensitivity, origins of schooling systems, food-cultures and of course, snakes! This then went on to become a detailed research on the Irula tribe and a digging into their way of life beyond what the story offered and exploring the questions of urban life-systems, indigenous wisdom, discrimination of communities and nature-connection among a few. And further, this story couldn’t be contained within this small group of children, they wanted it to be heard by more. And so began the process of brainstorming how best to tell this story to more, and theatre came to be the chosen medium. This then led to creating posters calling for auditions, brainstorming and creating an unbiased system to run these auditions, taking up roles of actors, directors and costume designers, writing a script, practicing the skit and eventually, performing it! And through this process of converting story to skit came moments of annoyance with one another, feelings of being left out, a truck-load of laughter and of navigating the journey from believing the actors are the highlight of a skit to discovering the many other roles that make for a successful skit and embracing being off the limelight without feeling less-worthy.

I was utterly blown away at what a short-story reading set in motion and what it then demanded of me as an educator to keep-up with it, encourage it, keep it intentional and meaningful, make it joyful for the children and me and most importantly, to ride the wave as it rose and fell instead of attempting to control it. This was a moment of immense learning for me as an educator for it required of me to go beyond my plan, to do a lot more research than I had initially intended, to make for a learning experience that remained purposeful and joyful.

There are several such moments that come by in our journeys as educators where the weight of the title feels lighter to bear simply by virtue of that experience also becoming one of immense learning for oneself as an educator! It is the only way really to be an educator – one needs to be on the continued path of learning, sitting with questions and keeping the mind alive with inquiries into whatever awakens the mad-scientist in us. And so it is that once an educator, one is always a learner!

The author is a nature and art enthusiast. She enjoys spending time in the natural environment, observing and documenting small happenings in nature. She has been working as an educator for over six years now and is currently working with Worldview Education. She can be reached at 27.ankita@gmail.com.