Questions and Answers

Here are few question which were asked during the presentation - we have complied them for reference. You can ask more questions click here.

When do they give 10th - can they give when they want.

A golden question - we salute who asked this question :). Yes after 14yrs of age whenever the child is ready can give board exams. The exams will be driven by the child not by the adult. Every child is ready mentally to give board exam at different times - so there is no rule that ALL the kids should appear for board exams just because they are 14 years old. We give time to prepare, we work with the child and every child will ready as per her comfort.

What project you are doing - can be done at home apart from SCHOOL - so the child can get the balance of regular School and extr

Aarohi is for the parents who are looking for "different goal" from education. For us Education is something which would help children grow naturally into empowered beings who can think, lead and enjoy their own life. Hence, the life school is not all about some "project based learning or Module design" or about any other method. It is "child based learning". The projects and module will be two of the tools - which will make learning meaningful to the child, to make it come from the child, not a means to make the child into learn what we want him to learn or to turn the child into somebody successful by what is perceived by the current system or to make the child join a particular college or profession.
We are not here to compare other systems - You choose Aarohi not for the projects and in depth learning but to make a meaningful learning for the life time. Aarohi is about " way of learning for life  ". Or rather Aarohi is also about a way of life.

When you work in group - the child can learn "wrong things" also with each other. My child copy wrong things from others without

We empower the child to THINK so choosing what to learn is left to the child - what looks wrong to us may not look wrong to child. We make child THINK is that what child wants? How will that help you? Anything anyone does which is disturbing others or harming - we ask group to decide how they would like to take care of each other. Read our discipline http://geniekids.com/content/discipline

Will you work on child's weakness like child not interested in writing or child just copying others without thinking?

Lack of interest is not the measure of child's weakness - it is the weakness of system which is failing to make child interested in writing - so we work on us (process) not on the child. We make writing interesting for the child not work hard to make child interested in writing. Once the experience of writing is interesting for the child - the child will work on himself :). We work on life skills like decisions, responsibility, perseverance  - read more http://geniekids.com/ss
ALso read about Interest at - http://geniekids.com/content/6-interest
 

Size of group / size

For us each group will normally around 12 children extandable to max 15. One project  facilitator will be with one such group. This has been our ratio in all other programs. And this give us space to work with each child and  understand each child's needs. This does not include other module facilitator or support expert faculty.
 

Who are your facilitators?

Geniekids is not one or two people - but the group pf people. People who go through training (http://geniekids.com/ttt) are part of us. After the training we all go through vigorous experience of working with children in our various programs. Nobody is an employee of Geniekids but take up the assignments as per our interest and time. Once any one of us takes any assignment - we're completely into it - we all form Geniekids together. We care from different background - software to pharmacy to commerce - read more about some of us http://geniekids.com/aboutus
 

You need to learn to negotiate and adjust in corporate world (real life)

Yes it is very important to work in a team and adjust with others. At Aarohi you are ACCEPTING everybody, you are being accepted - so you learn to work with other not by adjusting but by "Accepting".

• Adjustment brings a lot of unrest in you, you feel either this is fair or unfair - or it takes you through stress that WHY do you have to adjust with others need?
• While ACCEPTANCE has no strings attached - "I work - you work - we work" we all are different and we all accept each other - I am at peace.

Since life is competitive, how will Aarohi ensure children develop skills to be competitive?

First if you think the world is competitive - then the world is competitive.
If you think world is NOT competitive - is rather cooperative and symbiotic - then world is beautiful.
At Arohi we do not go by what the world is, rather we choose how we want to live in this world - reiterating - Aarohi is a way of life.
Secondly: We beleive, competition with MYSELF is more important for my growth - not sure about the competition with others. Competition with others tells me HOW much I am better than other (or worse i am) - so I need others to compare :(. However, if I am competing with myself,  I am constantly progressing - this competition is endless.
If I win a quiz because others did not know - How does this help me in my learning ?
If I win everyday with myself because I set harder target for me from my yesterday's level - I become lifelong learner.
I am not worried how much others know or do not know - I am learning ALWAYS. In the process I make others also learn. I share my learning, my resources - because i have no scare of failure. I help others also to learn because I am not jealous of others. Learn to work with others is one of the purpose of education at Aarohi.
If I win first in drawing competition because others decided  (judge) - How about me judging myself - Do I all my life to be depended on others to tell me how good or bad I am compared to others?

• As I grow I compete with my colleagues - salary, my achievement (My collage mates are earning more or less than me)
• As I grow more - I compare my wealth, comfort with others ( How many cars or luxury I have - If I have more than you I am Happy - If I have less I want more)
• As I grow more - I compare my kids with others - (how good or bad my child is? What all he know MORE or LESS than others)
• As i grow more - I compare my success with other ( I am at this level compare to my colleague in my office)
• As I grow more - I compare my while life with others
• And As I grow more.the cycle continues. (How did well or bad I did in my life compared to others)

At Aarohi we strive on competing with myself only  - I set my goal for me and when I achieve that I celebrate - when i do not achieve I reflect and set another target for myself.
http://geniekids.com/content/2-progress

Will the child who in Arohi is "learning naturally" be at par with others (regular education system) - similarly will he or she

First, the regular system itself has not guaranteed neither learning nor success.
Second, there is no need to compare - or any comparison is not fair to either systems - because the goal of both systems are DIFFERENT.
Third, We do not want children who are at par with anything (benchmarks) or anybody. We want children who are constantly learning, growing and evolving - the way they want to - it is determined by each child uniquely - rather then a formula or a standard that fits all.

If i want to change city - Bangalore?

Almost all the big cities have alternate schools - so you can approach that. We will work together. You can home school the child with the help of manual developed by us in next two years.
Few schools
http://geniekids.com/professionals/alternative-schools

Will the kids be allowed to do whatever they want to do?

At geniekids the FREEDOM comes with responsibility. You are free to choose but what you choose you are responsible for that.  We have experinecd that when we do not push them to learn they push themselves to learn. We belive that they wants to learn and they are natural learners. In our experience kids live upto exptectaions - if you expect they will fail they will. If you expect they will Take thier resposnibilt - they will.

How will the child adjust in the real world - outside Aarohi ?

How the child is going to face the outside world after  9th. 10 th is a board year and other kids in other usual school would come with marks oriented approach toward the exam.? Getting marks will be equally important at this stage for a child coming from a life school background ?

Aarohi presents them the real world - so there is no question of adjustment. The kids at Aarohi will look at life without FEAR or FORCE. They will be thinkers and empowered to take decisions. We are not against marks - if they need to get high marks to move ahead  in their professional life - we will train them. But the training will be THEM (child) driven and the willingness will come from them.

How will the kids of Aarohi face the examination? At Aarohi they will get used to freedom - while in the 10th they have to give

The format of most competitive exams (IIT-JEE for example) is different from the board exams in school - and for these the kids in regular school still need to prepare. Similarly the kids at Aarohi will be prepare for any exams they have to appear any time in their life.
Children do not need to be pushed into a system - rather they can be empowered and trained to flourish and win over a system requirement (for example board exams).

How much commitment Parents have to make in the school ?

Well here is an opportunity for you to be completely part of the process of your child's learning - so make maximum out of it. We want you be active in the process so you understand the process and more important understand your child. The story of "animal school" is best example that without knowing our kids we are just pushing them into EVERYTHING.

• You can take up one or many modules to teach at the school - the module can run from 3 days to 10 days
• You can be a hunter for resource people
• You can take kids for field visits
• You can be part of research, documentation.
• You can just come and do project with kids
• You attend training sessions which empower you to BREAK your beliefs and helps in understanding the child
• You do not have YOU driven acceptance from the child as well as from the school
• You understand how your child is learning
• You do not compare your child, school, parents

Have you done any survey of "success" of kids passing from alternate education ?

We are not selling a "product" to you so we convince you that this approach will bring this kind of results - we are presenting you Alternate ways of education which is CHILD centric and holistic. We are training kids for LIFE not for passing exams. The basis of approach are thinkers like Gandhi, John holt, J Krishnamurthi, Vivennanad and so on.
Also realise that the way success is defined - no education system has been able to guarantee that - so the LIFE school is not a particular kind of success as the out put - in fact it is not about the success, but about a process.
We have listen to people who are believer of Alternate education - you too can have a look at http://www.alternativeeducationindia.net/ or http://geniekids.com/category/orgcategory/alternate-education
You can also pick a book from Sutradhar - Alternative Schooling in India - Sage Publictaion
For your reference a copy of the book is available in GK library also.

Project based learning will take a long time - will you be able to cover the curriculum?

Kids at Aarohi are learning always. For example kids in KHOJ do not restrict their learning to A for Apple or D for Dog - they experience the letters everywhere. an auto looks like a letter D to a child whose name start with D. The colour red is not only "red apple" but ALL the red things around the child. The point is that the kids are learning all the time when they are experiencing - at home, during holidays - every time. In the "Water"  project asawri dedied to use the holiday of 26th jan to visit Ranganatittu to see water birds - we learn even whne we are holidying  - like a child who is learning to crawl does not stop till he learns to cralw and lok forwrad to walk and ......the lerning is endless. Kids at Arohi will experience learning as a part of them. They will learn ALWAYS.

It appears from the description of Project based learning that a huge amount of advance Planning would need to be done. How will

Yes it looks overwhelming task for the person who is introduced to this way of working with Projects for the first time. Once you get used to - it looks easy and interesting. In my example of Asawri's story I told you that past 15days I did not do anything with her - and she herself came up with the planning of WATER project. That is the beauty of KIDS centric education - we empower them to be their own in charge of learning - not adult dependent learning.
In our experience this approach is completely driven by kids and Faculty role is there as a guide not as a teacher. Yes we need to design Modules in advance, find resource people and so on - we are working on this. have a look at the work done in past few months  - http://geniekids.com/asa/

Going by Multiple Intelligence approach that is followed in khoj. Will there be environment in this school to develop and master

Yes as we said on our "COACHING LESS sports " - we suggest weekends to explore any hobby - driven by the child. Or initially let the chidle explore many hobbies and finally pursue one or two of her interest. We all will work together to find meaningful avenues for the child to develop her hobbies.
 At Aarohi they will explore all the skills -and finally at home they pursue one or two which they get interested.

Some topics in some subjects could be difficult to do through projects e.g mathematics. I have come across number of such mathem

We will see as we go along

Which curriculum you will follow - (CBSE or ICSE)?

We follow NCERT curriculum frame work - have  a look - http://geniekids.com/professionals/ncert-curriculam-guidelines

Why coaching less sports? *

• Coacihng is coach driven - free play is ME driven
• Coacihng restrict the EXPLORATION (the child begin the sport with set of instructions) - free play allows you to be YOU
• Coaching is result oriented (did the child learn swimming or not) - free play is endless ( I may not learn swimming but I will be friendly with water and explore water with ease)

Later stage when a child has experimented with sports through free play - look for coaching if require. Look for coaching when the the child wants to learn from the coach not when you want child to LEARN a game.
And this true for all the hobbies - do not put child TOO soon in their life in any structured coaching/ classes.

In this system you have one project facilitator and many people coming and going to teach modules - how will the kids adjust to

Well this itsef is a learning - how to accept different kind of people. at least in this systems kids can express what do they think about different adults - they can give us feedback and we value their feedback - we improve ourselves, our faculty, resource team and parents.

How will you sort out the differences of parents - this school is parents school and it is important that we have like minded pa

The parents will know each other - we will understand each other after initial hiccups. And we will learn along with kids how to ACCEPT the differences - the vital training we missed in our growing up years.

Will you operate form this place?

Yes initially form the same place and as we grow we look for another place - ALL together. anyway at Aarohi the amount of place is not imp - what is happenin inside the place is more important.

<p>Wouldnt he miss out on the skill of making relationships? of choosing form a vaast number of 30 or 40? wouldnt he miss out on the independence day assembly, on the ample opportunities the school easily provides to socialise, to go on stage in fornt of 400 students, to run races, to fall and get helped by peers, to be bulklied and then to learn to handle the bullies, to learn to defend abuse, to learn to defend friends? i elieve in your philosophy that school kills creativity.......completely believe in so..........my only concern is the social skill development......can we work out and associate ourselves to larger sub groups to give that feeling of belongingness that a school does????</p>

About Social Development
At Aarohi
The child will learn to make relationship with parents, adults and children of various ages not only his age. The child will also make relationship with the society directly - with the people by working with them, other children from various background and skills by understanding their life, And The child will learn HOW to ACCEPT people around him who different in skills, social background, nature and thoughts.
At Aarohi - the child will go to assembly (yoga, and morning routine) to enjoy, to be heard, to express. In the assembly the child will understand the meaning of "independence" by experiencing. The child will not go to independence assembly to stand for few hours, wait for it to get over and come back blank.
At Aarhoi
The child will choose his opportunity to socialize and go on stage which will be set up by him - He will design his own dance, drama, show, costume, marketing, light and music. Read how Asawari took part in A social programme where she worked with underprivileged children to celebrate Christmas. No santa came to our home school and distributed cookies - but she became and Santa celebrated Christmas. http://geniekids.com/asa/content/chrysallis-cause-party-08
At Aarohi
If the child get bullied he will empowered to SPEAK and FIND SOLUTION for his problems. Aarohi is child centric not child pampered.
At Aarohi
The child will run for his progress not necessarily to win from others but to win everyday from himself. The child will not run in front of the public but run privately to reach bigger goals.
If that is your concept of social development - join hands.
We cannot convince anyone but to present an alternate way of socializing. Aarohi will start small - but there are no hands so small that they cannot make  difference in the world.