Homeschooling

Homeschooling is getting to be a trending word.

There is one issue though.

A home can't school. Only a community can. Schooling in values, in perspective, in discipline, in culture, in attitudes.

Parenting is about working out such a community. In synchrony with the values, the learnings the parents seek. For the child.

Our daughter did her 10th and 12th thro NIOS privately. It worked well... It allowed for a lot of village time, and her other Sanskrit learnings.

But her real education in the best and widest sense of the term happened because of the village. PaalaGuttaPalle Dalitwada.

If she was up late to sweep the yard and put the muggu (kolam/Rangoli) someone down the street would call out to her, asking if this time was valid. This was when she was five. That habit of rising early and sweeping is a habit for life for her.

So also lighting the lamp before the gods every evening. So also the Friday prayers.

A poorest community, giving unthinkingly to each stranger in need at the door, and forgetting the giving the moment it is given, has given her a bar for life.

Each if the community being her Akka, Anna, Avva (grandmother), Pedamma (elder mother), Thatha (grandfather). Herself being Akka, Pinni to many children. Is what made the slender bonds unbreakable.

... It takes a village to bring up a child ...

The village we seek for our child, is what we need to work on. It could be in a remote district or in a city or on Mars. The child is shaped by this village.

Home is far vaster than the home one is born in ... and schooling happens in this vaster space.