Various members of the Forest Way community participated in different forums in the past few months, connecting us and our work, to others and their work, sharing experiences, relating, strengthening, learning.
Poorninma, Arun and Harish organised a get together of like minded schools from around Tamil Nadu to discuss the various challenges and scenarios in the current educational set-up. The meet was held in the beautiful campus of Sholai School, and was facilitated by Ramdass Anna.
Paripoornam attended a meeting cum training session on child safety, facilitated by the TULIR trust and led by Lois Engelbrecht. Lois is a leading expert on child safety who has worked tirelessly for the cause for three decades. She is a friend of the school and has been an inspiration in guiding our approach to child safety, as well as taking the issue to the wider educational world in Thirvannamalai.
Harish, Arun and Maya attended the annual teachers conference of the Krishnamurthi Foundation in Rishi Valley. This was a great opportunity to spend time in the amazing Rishi Valley campus during the rains, and to meet and share with so many other passionate and dedicated educators. Arun also gave a well received talk on our approach at Marudam.
Govinda and Leela attended the annual retreat of the Conservation Education network, this year held at the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary in Kerala. Beyond meeting comrades
of the path in the magical gardens of GBS, the meeting allowed for a deep and honest look at what it means to educate and do conservation work in the world’s state of rapid collapse.
In the coming weekend, Harish and Poornima will attend a conference which will explore the subject of fear at CFL.
A month back, the whole school have gathered to watch a Hip hop dance performance, choreographed and performed by seven of our students.
built in GPS and Google earth map inside him! He actually has a name for every rock on the hill.
first time to children of all ages. There was a sense of togetherness in learning and doing, and somewhere in the midst, gentle instruction was embedded. The rhythm of the day was another striking element where structure and non-structure found a lovely balance. Children wove in and out of rooms where crafts were being done, but also took breaks to play barefoot football on the field, twist on the monkey bars or swings, or just sit around and talk. Something would pull them back into the rooms, a motivation to complete a task, an urge to master a skill, something…While there was spirit of freedom to dabble in particular crafts and move from space to space within a day, there was rigour in each little learning space, to complete the task with energy and care. Through the week, conversations evolved between children and adults from different backgrounds, and we began to get a sense of the school and its activities, for example, the walks, swims and hikes up Mount Arunachala (which we got to do on the last day with older students of Marudam school). It was a rich experience overall, for the children and us, and we definitely want to visit again!
ll the crafts make use of natural materials, be they palm fronds, banana fibre, wood, stone, natural dyes, coconut shells and string. It’s amazing how many different things can be made from these materials, and how many different expressions can come out of any one medium.
g things. I also loved the spirit of co-operation and teaching each other which is perfectly natural amongst them. Other arts taught were music and drumming, traditional dances, an illustrated story, a large porcupine sculpture made of wooden slats and silambam classes – oh and the new cow-shed was given a keet roof made by the children. All this in one week – the sharing of produce had to be selective of a few examples from each child for each craft – otherwise we might still be sitting there, such was the volume of work produced. I thank all the staff and children of Marudam for letting me be a part of this joyful, loving and highly creative week.
The Forest Way 