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