12 Aug 2022

Dear Parents,

Happy Independence Day! We bear the fruits of all those unsung heroes and millions who laid down their lives for our country. I do not intend to invoke any feeling of national pride in you. I am sure you are as Indian as I am and have the same feelings today. Having said that, I feel rather compelled to express what supremely amazes me is how diverse we are. In all aspects. Yet we haven’t collapsed and imploded. Soon going to be the largest populous country in the world, thriving under democracy. We did have setbacks and failures, but we have survived. And there’s miles to go before we sleep.

Few highlights of this week…

Judiciary

Few kids have decided to pool in money and buy a digital monopoly device to play at LC. Conditions and rules were decided prior to its usage here. In any kind of event where the device needs to be repaired, the expenses will be borne by the people who bought it. Everyone will take due care of the device but the primary responsibility lies in the hands of the owners. Others in LC who want to play with it will need to get consent from the owners.

Circle Time

There was a bullying incident this week. The victim in this case was not a LC child but a small 5 yr old boy who came as a guest. He is known to all of us but under the pretext of breaking ice or coaxing him to play, name calling began. There were a few kids who were clearly in opposition. The guilty ones admitted to the offence too. Proper consequences for this will be decided in the next judiciary.

Sessions

We did one of the popular science experiments on Youtube, with milk, food colour and dish soap. The milk swirled on the plate and the kids yelled wow! We understood how soap and fat interacted with each other.

We understood taxes and insurance during the business/entrepreneurship session. No one except one child did the homework given last week of understanding the expenses of one’s household.

We did average and prime numbers during problem solving session for adolescents and made 3D shapes with 7+ yr olds.

We discussed with kids what independence day means to them and what it means for us as a nation. They all have to write, “What can I do for my country?” as a creative writing exercise. We did poetries around the same theme, “आओ बच्चों तुम्हें दिखाये झाँकी हिंदुस्तान की”. We studied the maps of SouthEast Asia and figured how much of the continent was under colonial rule. We checked out the maps of pre independence. When did Srilanka, Burma get independence? When does Pakistan celebrate its independence? We also read the speeches of Jawaharlal Nehru in 1929 at Lahore, demanding “Purna Swaraj” and “Freedom is my birthright” by Bal Gangadhar Tilak.

The United Nation observes 9 of August as International day of Indigenous People. So we sensitised kids about how marginalised they would be feeling if their spaces are encroached and their livelihoods are taken away in the name of modernisation.

Friday food

There was no Friday food as there were very few people in LC and one of the food manager was not available. So their turn has been postponed to next friday.

Movie Club

What better movie to watch than Gandhi by Richard Attenborough. It highlights key events of our freedom struggle. It’s India’s decades of freedom struggle squeezed in a 3 hr movie.

Reminder for coming week

On Friday, gymnastics is going to begin at 08:30 am.

Project Day is on 24th August.

That's all for this week, until next time..