The Art of Learning

behold

i have um the most powerful

intoxicant ever known to mankind

something that defined our evolution

our innovations and our imagination

something you know sometimes it reflects

out of our own bodies and sometimes

through various other mediums

through screens through stones

through paints and whatnot

yeah it embodies the duality

of grace and

silliness of symmetry

and asymmetry of

imperfection and perfection

not as something that are opposites but

is something

that are you know that’s like a

complimentary aspect

that aids the other yeah

so uh before i move on to introduce

myself and

talk about small small stories that i’ve

experienced

i want you all to do a small

small thing for me are you all okay

yes i want you all to stand up

yeah i’m going to make you do something

silly

if that’s okay with you yeah

thank you great so i want you all to

throw your hand

upwards or sidewards anyway

any which direction that you’re

comfortable where you have space

and move your wrists like whatever

exception of a belly dancer

does with their hand yeah

yeah beautiful okay now i want you to

write your names no say this stay there

it continues

now i want you to write your names okay

write your names with your hips

okay write your names with your hips

um one one more additional layer to add

to that

write your names with your hips in your

own uh mother tongue

not in english shall i start by writing

my name

so that you’re okay with it okay so i’m

going to write my name

in my own mother tongue

i’m sorry my coordination is a little

bad now

so my mother tongue is tamir and my name

is adit

yes now i know i want you all to try

this no

we are going to be sitting down for a

very long time there are going to be

speeches after speeches

so i want you all to just take a moment

out

from from whatever structures are and be

a little silly for a moment

yeah try try try try

beautiful i love it thank you so much

thank you so much you can all sit down

thank you thank you for being such great

sports

a little more than two years ago yeah

yeah a little more than two years ago i

moved to a place called majuli island

which is in assam to work for a school

there to teach

dance and theater at a school

for tribal children so um

i called my work why why did i even go

there

you know to put it in a very exotic way

i wanted to have

a holistic experience to enhance my art

and thus my life yeah so i called my

work

integration of arts into education

yes i had no idea what that meant i

promise i had no idea what that meant

until i started working on it just like

like how i had no idea what being a

performing artist meant

when i jumped into it several years ago

you know when i initially jumped into it

performing artists meant

oh it’s all about expression it’s about

eye candy it’s about attention

it’s all that stardom you know being on

stage the applause

and then my perception kept changing

layer by layer it kept changing it kept

changing every time i got off stage i’m

like

i could have done better huh this could

have been a little better

so there was so much more to learn

there was it was like an endless ocean

and being a performing artist meant

developing a certain kind of lifestyle

around it

a lifestyle that meant being mindful

mindful of my body mindful of my breath

mindful of my emotions mindful of my

surroundings my environment what is

happening around me

every single thing and making

connections out of it

yeah one of my mentors once

told me you know art evolves

out of your experiences

and how you connect each of these

experiences

yeah and he told me the more diverse

experiences that you have

the richer that your art becomes

so initially when i started my

exploration

into the field of education

i was like a sidekick he was like huh i

go into schools i go into colleges

i have like a session on dance sometimes

on theater sometimes on various other

skills

and it’s good fun it’s good fun singing

and dancing with the children

and sometimes even with the teachers i i

make them do all these sorts of nonsense

that i made you do right now

um so that’s how it started because

you you’re like a you’re like a sidekick

a recreation

because there were like bigger thugs in

the education system there was science

there was mathematics there was like

engineering

there was technology you can’t stand

next to these thugs they like

they hit you down right um so but i i

did i did enjoy my time

doing whatever i was doing so um

but the more i sat in all of these

classrooms

um i felt there was this need for

play for play in the curriculum and in

the classrooms

very often i would like walk into a

classroom just to interfere the teacher

and say oh let’s play a game

or let’s sing a song or let’s do a small

dance

yeah and every time i did this over and

over again and as i

went into more and more classes i could

like

observe that there is like there’s a

connection there’s a connection between

every subject

within themselves and within

like with the arts so uh i was like okay

i think i need to explore on this a

little bit

more yeah so um

i started working and

i initially wanted to work with the

teachers working with the teachers

is easier said than done

because uh the teachers have a lot of

work

they have a lot of work when when you

have like a student teacher ratio of 20

to one

then the teacher can do a lot of things

but in most

parts of our country the ratio is like

40s to one where the teacher is like

they have limited time and they’re

struggling to do

like whatever they have to finish within

the limited time that they have

so you go to the teachers and they’re

like sir we have work we don’t want to

work with you

so um my uh

my introduction my way into this

was i started working with the teachers

on a simple art called

storytelling i um

i helped i worked with the teachers

to add smaller stories as a part of

their

classroom as the part of their teaching

learning practices

and i i work with them on

being better storytellers in their

classroom so that

it works with the children every child

loves a story

you sit them down tell them a story they

are going to listen to you like

they know nothing else around them it

works with

every single kind of listener

or a student so it works with every

every kind of

student now this is where it started off

when it started off it was good fun yeah

and then i wanted to explore this more i

wanted to be in the shoes of a teacher

and so i took up a classroom and i said

uh let me take all subjects for this one

particular classroom

let me experience what it is

to be a teacher you can’t directly go

into a classroom and train a teacher

without knowing what it is to be a

teacher by yourself

so i wanted to work with a particular

classroom

and teaching them all subjects

it was a disaster so

uh no it was good fun i started off

my motive was not to you know

load information into their heads

uh my motive was to make small small

connections from their day-to-day life

the

day-to-day experiences that they have to

the content that

was in the curriculum just put those

small small tags on to it so that they

remember it better

i wanted to work with them on their

social emotional

aspects i wanted to work with them on

their time management

i wanted to work with them on several

other

skills i wanted to work

you know on a whole aspect i wanted to

work with the arts

to do all of this so

i started off we had

so this was we i started working with

the teachers and

teachers not just from one particular

school but from different schools from

different places

we worked on storytelling and how

storytelling could

have an effect especially for teachers

who have just like 30 minutes or 45

minutes in their classrooms how it works

for them

and these were some of the storytelling

sessions i go to different schools i

work i tell stories to children

not as subject or just just as a

recreation

just for them to have fun and yeah i go

to different places

i try telling stories to each one of

them

and then in school like as a part of my

classroom work

i started dancing with them teaching

them gender roles

teaching them about their bodies and we

sang

together we learnt language and we

cooked together

we learned about mathematics we baked

together

we learned about science we learned

about chemistry we learned about

proportions and and we were

we just like sometimes just cut up

things make new things

out of random they are cutting things

out of bamboo

they make newer things and it was good

fun trust me it was good fun

but um and we read stories together

sometimes

gathering our knowledge on different

things

we cut out papers try out different

things and this was

my perception of art and education more

or less

i am not an expert i’m still working on

it

and yeah we we did a lot of plays

the children came up they told stories

and they danced they sang and this was

their faces before their first ever

performance

at an auditorium they were just like i’m

brakes

and when you give them that voice

of expression you should see

it translates into such

such i don’t know it’s it’s a beautiful

beautiful thing like when they can just

come narrate an oral story in front of a

class a small child who can come in

front of a class and narrate what

they’re feeling

what is going through in their heads

what is happening in their families

and then this was like a small

lkg kid that came to me and gave me like

a small picture

this is you so i had long hair back then

so he put this and this is like the same

pant that i’m wearing i don’t know if

that’s even clear but

so this is like an lkg kit drawing out

so when you give them the power of

art it’s like it’s a beautiful thing

it’s

there’s this small story that a friend

shared with me

and this was in the south of india where

in one of the classes

in one of the kindergarten classes there

was a teacher who wanted the children

to draw something about on the topic of

their family

and all the children started drawing and

there was this little girl who folded

her paper into

like two and like drew on one side and

like on the other side

and when the teacher went and opened it

and saw there was

a lighter shade of a person and there

was

a darker shade of a person and the

teacher asked what does this mean

and the girl said this is me and this is

my brother

my brothers know more but i think he

always

you know he’s always with me through

everything that i go through and

you know this is precisely the power

that art

puts into education and i think art

should not be forced into

integration as well it should be enjoyed

as a recreation

and yeah it should be as

equal as a subject and enjoyed as a

recreation and just as

a mode of expression of letting out what

you’re going through in your heads

as something that kills your stress when

you’re in a very stressful environment

and i would like to wrap up this

entire thing with a small

note a small note on something that’s

your third e which is escalate

i could have just sat in chennai had a

very comfortable life working in the

city

but i wanted like i wanted a different

experience

i wanted to learn newer things it was

not just for me going and teaching in

that school what i learned from that

space is much more than what i gave

to that space and for everyone who’s

sitting here

uh it’s just a small thought that i want

to

put in your head go out explore more

in in whatever ways art was my way of

exploring it could be anything that you

are doing

explore and work with communities

build smaller communities and yeah

just make this world a better place

take it one step closer towards peace

and um before i conclude i would also

want to come back and finish the loop

with a small thing

a small poem by shel silverstein

which says do a loony goonie dance

across the kitchen floor

and put something in this world that

ain’t been there before

thank you thank you so much