Experiences keep us Real!!!

As an educator who has spent a large part of her life in the classrooms where tomorrow exists, this is something which cannot hold truer. An old Chinese proverb oft quoted in educational events the world over: (originally a Chinese Proverb, but Confucius said,) “I hear I forget; I see I remember, I do I understand.” Benjamin Franklin attributed it as “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” – is what it all is about.

Giving experiences to a child in the classrooms which ends up making his/her learning real, is what the role of an authentic teacher is all about.  Science exhibitions done with models which parents make from home as against doing simple experiments with their friends and their teachers in school using nothing expensive and everything from their mom’s kitchen has always ended up making children learn more about simple science concepts than any textbook or class lecture ever will. Showing pictures of how a seed germinates to planting a seed in a cup and placing it next to the window of a kindergarten classroom and asking students to water it and see its progress each day is something which shall then take no explanation from the teacher at all.

And such experiences apart from being real are also authentic in igniting the inquisitiveness and sense of enquiry.

I had always read and seen pictures of a ride in a hot air balloon. But when I experienced it for the first time in Christchurch, New Zealand the experience was surreal and brought in another perspective about what our world around us is like.

When one reads about something, it feels good. But then its just that. Something one has read or heard. It is only when one experiences something – the good or the bad or the ugly – does one become real: empathic and conscious of self and others around them.

After almost four decades in the field of education in my country, there isn’t anything which scares me, or I do not know about. This comes to the fore in my workshops for and with teachers wherein I can explain and bring out the challenges and the ease which any situation/judgement/lesson/parent relation or student and classroom management that they can possibly face. Those experiences and that wisdom has come from my being part of those problems, incidents, happenings and occurrences. That understanding and familiarity with situations helps me come out as someone ‘real’ for the audience I address.

That is also how I connect with someone or something I love and like. Their experiences make them real and relatable to me.

Experiences do not just make us real, they make us alive!

This post is a part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2023

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