Cognitive justice -Who commits injustice to whom?

An exploration to understand conditions that support the biological, natural cognitive unfolding and the
conditions that stifle the natural process.
ABSTRACT - Denial of natural learning ecology- why, what, where and how to learn- is the biggest injustice being committed
against humanity. Human beings are being transformed into human knowings!
Children are denied their right to create knowledge of the real world by putting them into environment of toys, books,
computers and teachers where what takes place is a mere transfer of secondhand information. Children absorb the nature and
structure of this cognitive source which is linear, fragmented, authoritarian and mechanical. This is the natural outcome of
'teaching' paradigm in which knowledge is both fixed and de-contextualized. This rewires the cognitive process by making text
the cognitive source and reasoning the cognitive tool. Knowledge precedes the process of knowing! Dealing with certainty also
kills ability to be ambiguous and open, thus killing creativity.
Only in the realm of unknown, awakening of creativity happens.
Natural cognitive process gets awakened while experiencing the world as it is. The senses give real time & real space input to
the brain which process this cognitive input. The cognitive source for children should be the real world of process, natural
phenomenon and life sustaining environment of family and society where child learns about being mother, father, society,
about love and care by directly experiencing it . In biologically bound 'learning' paradigm why, how and what children learn are
determined by existential laws of life itself as it happens in all living beings.
We are formed by the overall cognitive conditions.
Modern educational process produces cognitive labor by engineering the human being by instilling knowledge as belief and
develops various types of reasoning ability to process the information. Education for employment needs to be sensitively
explored so that we awaken and retain the inherent positive qualities of being human such as love, freedom, self respect, self
initiative, self responsibility, humility, creativity, contentment and spontaneity.
KEY WORDS/ PHRASES: Cognitive damages, Biology of cognition, irrational reason, scientific superstition, cognitive dissonance,
cognitive paradigms, intangible, natural, spontaneous, creativity
Introduction
The senses speak to the understanding: Poor understanding, from us you took the pieces of evidence and with them you want
to throw us down? This down throwing will be your fall. ( Democritus)
When someone doesn't get education or is not enabled to become literate it seems that justice is being
denied. This is felt by people who consider themselves 'educated'. This is caused by several myths,
misconceptions and misunderstandings we hold about various aspects of education, development and
even evolution. This includes what we consider as knowledge worth learning, how knowledge is
acquired and how this is used. The politics of development and evolution will not be explored in this
paper but it follows similar and parallel logic. The latest researches in various fields of cognitive
neurosciences are breaking almost all the notions held by the present educational paradigm and
educationists-especially the biological roots of cognition, mirror neurons, self organizing capacity etc.
The studies on anthropology of learning and childhood, psychology of play etc are also worth looking at
to re-examine what we are doing with our children. The present paper will not use these discoveries and
text as crutches to prove any point but would at the end, place them for further exploration for the
reader. The attempt would be call up on the use of commonsense of the reader to re- examine the basic
myths on which modern education is built and to explore how learning actually happens in the real
world of processes and experience.
The author of this paper has spent several years working with non literate artisans in various parts of
this country studying the cognitive process, creativity, value system and culture. This is being mentioned
to say that most studies to repair the schooling system are based within the boundary of schools in
which case the basic premises - need for school, readymade knowledge, teachers and act of teaching-
seldom gets questioned.
The learning process in non-literate communities, present a total contrast to the practices in the literate
modernity. Children are left free to make sense of the world by providing a safe and trustworthy
environment. Starting from language to complicated skills of cooking, weaving, braiding, pottery,
farming etc are never taught but children learn with ease all these skills. The logic of learning and
growth within the womb is allowed to function outside too.
The paper will explore three aspects not in separate sections but somewhat intertwined. One is on the
biological roots of learning and cognition. Cognition is used as making sense of the world as used when
one talks about culture and cognition. Second aspect is on the cognitive damages of modern schooling in
particular and modernity in general and the third section is on re imagining conditions that actually
awaken the learner in line with existential needs and the inherent biological propensities.
Biological roots of human being. A recollection of sorts
The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see.
- Ayn Rand
All living beings learn. Learning is the natural mechanism to sustain life.
All living beings give birth, live and die. They are internally designed by nature to learn in order to live.
They have tools with differing capacities to support learning. All living beings also use intelligence in
varying degrees. Sheer need to be alive makes one to use this. It seems that even a new born bird would
know from where they have migrated from as they lead the birds back to their original place of stay. The
tortoise after almost 50 years would come back to its place of birth in order to hatch and give birth.
Even plants respond with intelligence.
Before we go further into exploring the 'human' learning ecology it is important to remind ourselves of
our biological nature and that all biological beings learn in accordance with the internal laws of each
species and their given contexts. Even though modern man wants to assert his difference and boast his
greatness from the rest of life, it is important to remember that we have minor similarities with all life
forms and also some abilities that other living beings have. Let us keep this in mind as we explore the
learning process of human beings.
Cognitive conditions
Cognitive conditions dictate not only what and how we learn but also what we are. In this sense culture
is the cognitive conditions. We are formed by culture as much as we are forming the culture. I would like
to draw attention to the primacy of cognitive condition/space in the act of knowing/being. Through the
following four situations the above point will be easier to understand.
First situation
Children in Bangalore slums can speak about 4 to 5 languages by time they are 5 years old.
Look at this situation carefully.
There is no one teaching consciously , no one is learning consciously, no memorizing, no syllabus, no
order of learning, no test etc. etc. etc . Knowing is happening all the time whether we want it or not.
None of the methods we use in our schooling system is used here. In most parts of India people who
study up to MA cannot speak in English unless they have folks speaking English at home. These children
also pick many skills in the environment- electric repair, auto repair etc in similar fashion. Women learn
cooking in similar fashion. It is not learned in order. Whatever is seen, experienced is absorbed without
choice and the mind re order whatever has gone in. Self organizing system is the word invented to
explain this in cognitive science.
Two most important lessons are 1. conscious memory is not needed and 2. reasoning is integrated with
non- reasoning. or we could call this spontaneous reasoning. And the way they remember without
conscious memorizing could be called 'organic memory'.
These are our biological capacities.

The second situation.

People in indigenous non literate communities do not have the concept of waste nor do they have a
word meaning 'waste'.
They do not WASTE and they use whatever comes in their way. So the children living in this cognitive
space do not learn about waste. An attitude is built due to this.

But in urban situation we have in our living space itself a basket named waste paper basket and this
situation teaches the child about wasting. That there is something called waste and they can waste etc.
Third situation.
Once a friend of mine was in a village market. There he came across a 12 year old girl making and selling
beautiful bamboo baskets. He enquired whether she could teach him to make such beautiful things. She
replied she doesnt know how to teach. Then he requested whether she could teach him how she
learned.
She was puzzled by this question, thought for a while and answered that she did not learn!!!
The terms like 'teaching', 'learning' etc are seldom used among non literate communities.
Fourth situation.
A ten year old child who exhibited or behaved like an autistic person was brought to an orphanage. By
mingling with other children who did not have autism he became completely normal. On enquiring it
was found that his parents were both autistic. The child imbibed or imitated their behavior. This was
found also with a child who learned to limp from his father who actually had one leg short.
Isn't it important to study the cognitive conditions that enabled this learning? Imbibing, imitating,
absorbing and learning happened naturally from what children experienced.
All the four situations point to learning that happens naturally and as per the logic of biological and
physiological processes at work. So when we 'TEACH' what children learn is 'TO TEACH'. In fact as we
grow older we acquire the 'teacher mind set' due to internalization of 'teaching' experience. This is the
way our biology functions.
Learning as a firsthand act
Learning like walking is a firsthand act. Children must have opportunity to walk in order to start walking.
It will take around one and a half years from the time of birth and it has to go through several stages to
become expert in walking. In this process the tools or the organs also gets developed. Child uses the
knees to crawl, then attempt to stand, to balance , to use right force etc and all this takes its own time.
Also in this process the child muscles grow, bones will gets strengthened and several other physical
changes takes place. There is no short cut. Any attempt in speeding up this process would weaken the
children's ability some way or the other. And also if the child does not see anyone walking or walking on
all fours, would learn to walk exactly in the manner the child sees.
This natural growth/ awakening is what happens in the embryo which follows an internal logic and this is
what happens outside ,also, in nature and among the nature centric non literate communities where
there are no institutionalized way of teaching. These points brings out the fact that the actual context is
the teacher (in this case the society ) as well as the fact that the child has to walk in order to start
walking. The process is embedded in the experience.
Another point is that learning to walk is not a choice that one has. The child learns to walk as everyone
around them are walking unless the child has some physical deformities. In that sense it is not the
purpose of walking that makes the child want to walk but it exists as givens.
Learning to learn is no different from learning to walk.
One learns to learn in a context where learning is happening. Learning is not a choice. Purpose of
learning is already embedded in the structure of the living being. In order to learn one's tools or organs
and qualities for learning has to be awakened. Children learn to talk by being in the context where
talking is happening. The child must have the ability to feel, sense, hear, see the act of talking, the
movement of the lips and the quality of attention etc gets developed in the process. The silence in
between, the tonal difference, the ability to differentiate language, gestures, the loving touch and
other nuances are part and parcel of learning to talk or learning to communicate.
But did the so called learner consciously learn or did learning just happen? did one learn to live or one
just lived and did one learn to walk or talk or just walked or talked? This becomes clear once we listen to
the conversations in other languages. For instance in Hindi one would ask 'chalne laga?' and not 'chalna
seekha?'. This is true of all other languages situated in oral cultures. It is a recent phenomenon that we
have turned everything in to an act of learning especially among the so called educated.
Naturally learning is now covered with dust and mental constructs. So it will be worth its while to revisit
some fundamental acts of the human being like walking, talking, cooking etc
The mind operates very naturally in children and non literates which is to say that mind is in sink with
the biological/physiological aspects of senses. So the eyes are involved in seeing and not thinking.
Similarly with other senses. What schooling does is to deny this aspect of senses- the eye and ear
particularly and turn them in to mental activities. So what you hear makes you think instead of listening
to the sound.
We who have been schooled usually find it difficult to use the actual cognitive ability of seeing without
thinking because for us thinking is the capacity that is connected with knowledge and mind has been so
trained to 'learn' without sense inputs.
Sense cognites and text cognites
The real world demands our total being to be present when engaging/ experiencing. The process is the
event/phenomenon - observation/ experience - absorbing or imbibing what is happening- self organizing
by the being understanding communication. There is neither conscious reasoning nor memorizing.
Deeper understanding happens by deeper involvement, attention, awareness and what calls for is clarity
in seeing/ sensing/ feeling.
The intangible, the unconscious and the spontaneous is at work all the time.
Modernity rewires our cognitive tools and places reasoning and memory at the center - one for
accessing and other for storing knowledge. This happens so because we have been made to deal with
well organized knowledge either from text/ experts or now the digital means.
This is how we rewire the mind with reading.
As we read we agree or disagree with the writer (we call this critical thinking) and what we agree ends
up as our knowledge. Reading and reasoning becomes modern mans cognitive tool /process. His role
then becomes that of verifying what he has read and is never in discovery mode unless some shock
happens that throws him out of his 'knowledge'.
The so called illiterates have a different process. Their body/ senses engage with what is around and
observe the natural phenomenon which are based on universal laws and participate in it. knowledge is
awakened from inside. The structure and nature of the real world awakens the same in us. After all
aren't we the world itself?
My proposal is to rename literates as text cognites and illiterates as sense cognites indicating how
one connects/ relates to the world or cognizes. This might help the literates to see the difference
better.
Child Learns the world

What the child learns, left to itself is the way the world is. The world awakens the child to the workings
of the world in the child. Each species does this by engaging with the world autonomously.
The process of being in the world is already in the new born in general terms and the particular space
awakens the particular qualities, quite like the way child learns particular language. We are born with
knowledge of life as well as knowledge of the species. The context awakens the particular qualities to
root ourselves in that space.

So children are studying the way the world looks, the quality or the property of its materiality and the
functions, processes and the various phenomenon that happens around them. This is the most scientific
way of understanding the world around as well as sharpening the tools to understand the world and
developing the qualities to be in the world. The integrity of the world is retained by this integral way of
relating to the world. The wholistic nature of the world awakens the wholistic nature in the child.

My proposal is to try to explore what can be called the cognitive system just like digestive system,
nervous system, muscular system etc as a function of the living being. We need not wait for the expert
to tell us but using our own uncommon common sense we can explore.

Cognitive damages of schooling
We never see anything completely. We never see a tree, we see the tree through the image that we have of it, the
concept of that tree; but the concept, the knowledge, the experience, is entirely different from the actual tree.
- Jiddu Krishnamurti
Natural learning is like breathing or digestion. Inherent, intangible, integrated. It is so integral to ones
being that even the very term learning is seldom used among the non literate communities. The biggest
damage the schooling process does is to make learning in to a fragmented, conscious and measurable
activity. To deny this natural process, distrust the intangible insights and believe in the external,
authoritarian 'knowledge'.
Schooling rewires the natural cognitive process completely and instills habits that are contrary to this
natural learning . Schooling produces human beings that can only process secondhand information thus
making him a mere walking computer.
Modern schooling and the world view thus produced is based on one fundamental flaw which is the act
of transferring de contextualized, pre determined, compartmentalized and static knowledge to children.
This act makes language the cognitive source, fragments the integral, holistic nature of life and dealing
with static knowledge makes reasoning the cognitive tool. Both reasoning and language are
communication tools. As reasoning can only be applied in the realm of what is known it cannot be used
to deal with unknown and the reasoning habit thus formed also kills our creative instinct.

This act damages the human being in several ways. The fragmentation, alienation, homogenization,
authoritarianism, hypocrisy etc can be traced to this shift. By removing the real world of processes,
uncertainty, dynamism the very being-ness of human being is changed. From openness, awe,
exploration, tentativeness, humility etc one becomes certain, arrogant, over confident, verbose.
Naturally this produces un creative and closed minds. The values that are natural to human being get
changed and the need for value education thus becomes necessary. The total cognitive paradigm is
completely changed. The cognitive source, cognitive tools, processes and structures are totally altered
causing cognitive damage.
cognitive damage
Prolonged conflict of mind and body creates cognitive rewiring or cognitive damage. Using mind and
reason for cognition completely rewires and fragments the natural cognitive process. Among literate
cultures the written text or the spoken language with textual characteristics is the primary source of
cognition. This is now being replaced with digital source. The tangible and physical characteristics of the
cognitive source impress upon the learner. The written text is linear, sequential, static, uniform in size
and color, emotionless, hierarchical. It is representational, fake, imagined, fragmented,
compartmentalized.
Reading places us into a structure of knowing which is fundamentally mental and non- experiential. This
act re entrenches the reader into a mental, 'rational' being. The object of knowledge and the process of
engagement alter the knower. The invisible nature and characteristic of the written word calls forth
from its user processes that are not the same when we are engaging with the real. We have to make up
images that are often images of images from previous reading experience- as one text reminds us of
another text ,reason constantly working in the background to conclude.
Understanding takes place in the realm in which cognition has taken place. Linguistic inputs are
understood at the realm of language. Experiential inputs are understood at the realm of experience
and the processes are very different from other paradigms.
cognitive dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is the result of fragmentation of mind and body cognizing at two levels. The
biological aspect of cognition happens in the physical world where the body and senses experiences the
real world where as the schooled / conditioned cognition takes place in the realm of language and
mind.
Natural tools of cognition are for engaging with the real world. Naturally the physicality of the world is
what gets priority. The use of language as cognitive source makes the mind to process the input directly.
Cognitive dissonance is due to distortion in cognition causing body and mind to cognize separately. The
fragmented mind learns what is being taught in the class room where as the body imbibes, absorbs the
total experience which includes the teacher and learns the teacher. Mind is involved in psychological
conditioning where as body functions as per the biological propensity. This has a huge consequence on
the human being. The domination of the rational left brain and the neglect of intuitive right brain, dys
functional or distorted use of senses, fragmentation of male female principle from the holistic 'ardha
nareeswara' principle etc has totally damaged the human being.
Cognitive crisis
Cognitive damage naturally causes the cognitive crisis. This causes alienation, fragmentation and
mechanization of human beings. Fragmentation happens at all levels in the wholistic, integrated human
being.
Individual and the collective within us gets fragmented. The collective is not outside of us but another
inherent quality of the being. Another is the human being (particular) and human species (general). It is
quite natural that the needs of the individuated human beings and that of the wholistic human beings
are in conflict. The individual will think of himself, think of the immediate, the short term, the tangible.
The environmental and ecological crisis is the outcome of this crisis. What we are seeing outside is the
reflection of what is happening within us- fragmentation, alienation etc. The shift of human beings to
human knowings! The incessant need to plan, control, engineer is the result of not being at home and
the fear of the unknown, the uncertain and the unpredictable- the separation of the being and the
knowing.
Cognitive labor
Cognitive damage naturally produces alienated and mechanical people meant to do mechanical and
often de-humanizing work. Now with the advent of digital technologies cognitive labor is preferred to
physical labour.
Cognitive right
Cognitive right is the right to be natural, to use the natural, biological process to cognize the real world
directly. The way the so called educated has made the non literates feel totally ignorant and undignified
is the case in point. Modern colonization process totally denies this cognitive right and in a most
paradoxical manner the colonized help in further colonization.
paradigms of cognition
Paradigms of knowing or paradigms of cognition are to be understood based on four factors. What is the
source of knowledge? What is the tool used for knowing , what is the process of knowing and what is
the purpose of knowing. Or on how knowledge is accessed/ created, codified, stored, re accessed and
transmitted/ shared/ communicated.
Illiterate, literate and digital are the three paradigms which have distinct source, tools, process and
purpose. Unlike the distinctions like western knowledge and non- western knowledge or indigenous
knowledge the paradigms being explored here have no clear cut division. So the people who belong to
the literate and digital paradigm will exhibit qualities of illiterates also. More over children invariably are
born in the illiterate paradigm.
In a very simple manner it can be said that when tools of cognition become the source of cognition
rewiring/ re organizing begins to happen at all levels.
Cognitive source
The real world/ the context with which one connects directly is the primary source of cognition. Our pre
occupation with literacy shifts the source from real world and gradually the written text becomes the
cognitive source for literate people and now the digital/ virtual environment is also becoming the
cognitive source for younger generation in cities. All our 'knowledge' comes from secondary and
codified sources.
cognitive space/ conditions
The cognitive space/ condition is the over all context that forms us. In fact we imbibe what ever is
happening around us - the intangible and the invisible aspects and the overall worldview. This is also
choice-less. The physical space, language- both its presence and absence, Psychological aspects, cultural
aspects etc form the totality that forms us and informs us. An example is - There is no word for waste in
indigenous communities. (This may be due to the fact that there is no waste in nature). So the concept
of waste is absent. Naturally they dont waste. An attitude of non wasting is inbuilt into their
consciousness. Just the fact that we keep 'waste paper' basket in our living space teaches our children
to waste.
cognitive tools
The tools that connect us to the cognitive source. Senses incase of illiterates and mind incase of
literates/ educated.
Cognitive process
The process is the way cognitive tools get used for cognition. Among the literates reasoning is the
process for comprehension where as among illiterates experiencing is the process of cognition and
comprehension happens by self organization.
cognitive structure
Repeated use of process forms a kind of habit in cognizing and cognitive structure thus gets created. Like
any habit this is difficult to break.
Cognition in natural settings

Children need to establish concrete relation with the real world before they are introduced symbolic
knowledge so that children naturally connect the real and the image. Cognition can take place only in
real world and in real time and senses are the tools that connect us to the reality. In the real world we
are sandwiched between the known and the unknown. Unknown being a constant element in the act of
cognition reason cannot play any major role. Because reason can only deal with what is known!
Reasoning is a make believe tool. Once you acquire it, it becomes a habit. This very tool prevents
creativity. Often reasoning is used to reason away, to conclude, and to keep the static nature of mind
intact. Reason is useful for comparison, induction, deduction etc etc but all this can happen only with
what is known.

Irrational reasoning!

Repeated use of reasoning to comprehend makes knowledge in to a mental activity with no authentic
role for experience and senses. Throughout our education we have never once seen nor experienced
'knowledge' that we have supposed to have learned being created. We 'believed' in the knowledge.
What is superstition then? If we mug up the terminologies which are called as science do we become
scientists? Even with the help of reason, aren't we only believing in readymade knowledge?
In fact conscious reasoning short circuits comprehension. Comprehension like digestion is involuntary
act of the human being and like the digestion comprehension happens. And like the way digested food
gets integrated and transforms the person comprehend knowledge also gets integrated and transforms
the person. What has been comprehended due to self-organization has semblance of order and this
order is misunderstood as if this has been achieved through reasoning. Talk about creativity is pointless
as the creator has been removed from the cognitive act. But mental tricks- divergent thinking, lateral
thinking and all that stuff- are misunderstood as creativity.

Engineering the mind
Another fundamental shift that schools/ text/ expert/ authority make is learning from to learning
about. And a total dependence on external sources for knowledge is thus created. 'Learning from'
demands the learner to be present where as 'learning about' distances the learner from the knowledge
creation. 'Learning from' demands the working of the senses and 'learning about' demands the mind to
operate. This is how 'why' becomes important in present schooling than 'what'. In real life one hardly
comes across any one asking why. Of course, science teachers in the class room always talk about the
need to ask 'why'. Again asking 'what' demands the use of senses, to be present to the context but with
'why' you can do anywhere.
Another way the body has been removed from the act of learning is by the term objectivity which is in
fact subjectivity of the mind. True objectivity could probably be achieved only by removing the personal/
selfish aspect from enquiry.
Yet another trap phrase is 're inventing the wheel'. At biological level each generation has to reinvent
the wheel. The cognitive process has to be relived. Instead through schooling, by means of language we
are bypassing the bodily functions in cognition. The inherent ability of the body, senses, attention and
awareness, inherent sense of logic and reason, intuitive faculty etc are all discarded and conscious
memorization and reasoning become the tools of operation.

An added gift of schooling for us Indians has been to feel inferior to the west as all 'knowledge' come
from the west! Even art and culture! Of course we have found a way to manage this by calling that
knowledge universal and global!
Medium is the message; children learn to be teachers!
The Teaching teacher teaches the child to teach. They also teach authoritarianism, mindless obedience,
blind fear of power and authority etc.
Children imitate, absorb and internalize what they encounter and experience. They absorb the world as
it happens in front of the child. That is why children play 'teacher games' at home. Play is the manner in
which children internalize and concretize whatever they experience. This is what learning is in the real
world. So the linguistic information- knowledge as per the adult- is only a minor part of what children
learn especially in their formative years. What the children needs to see, to engage, to experience is a
leaner learning or knowledge being created in a natural and organic manner and not a teacher teaching.
A learner engaged in learning cannot be authoritarian. But the teacher has no choice. Just the fact that
they 'teach' makes them authority. And the child also learns that knowledge needs to be got from an
authority- teacher, text, and now the internet etc. Because the child never sees knowledge being
created as this can happen only in the real contexts.
'Teaching' teaches authoritarianism and 'learning' teaches 'democracy'. That is why we find amid
ourselves only the 'tribal' people practice true democracy. A tribal father hardly ever says no to a child
and hardly ever teaches.
there are no villains; only victims
The way we are being formed, engineered by the language paradigm prepare us to participate in this
colossal tragedy almost willingly. It looks like there are no villains in this except the very structure and
nature of 'modernity'. The cognitive conditions in which we live ensure this. At a fundamental level
human beings are totally helpless. Only by understanding this existential helplessness can he exist as a
natural being- happy, contented, at peace with himself and the world.
Control, planning, hierarchy, centralization, standardization, mechanization, homogenization,
fragmentation, compartmentalization, linearity, exclusion is inherent in the modern being-ness. All
modern institutions are made in this format starting from the family to all the way to government.
Is this structure the structure of language itself? Has the structure and nature of our cognitive source
become structure of our own being? Or is our nature to become what we learn from?

Re imagining learning

Children are living beings - more living than grown-up people who have built shells of habit around themselves. Therefore it is
absolutely necessary for their mental health and development that they should not have mere schools for their lessons, but a
world whose guiding spirit is personal love.

Rabindranath Tagore

The confusions and the damages caused thus calls for total re imagination as to how to regenerate
learning in communities. We have to keep in mind that what we are attempting is not at all easy as we
are trying to understand a paradigm to which we do not belong. But we hold power ! Our schooling has
totally fragmented us, misguided and confused us about how learning takes place, what is to be learned,
what is the nature of this content, etc.
This demands that we do a lot of soul search and start without any biases.
Catch 22
Children imbibe what they experience and unless done sensitively they also learn what we are trying to
do to make learning natural. Freedom, autonomy, self-initiation is the factor that enables learning.
How do we provide this in the school? The act of giving freedom already establishes the power relation.
All this must make us approach this with helplessness, humility, sensitivity and with a spirit of total
openness.

Awakening the inherent nature in the child to the existential laws of life

As a wholistic being, at the core we are universal and particular, nature centric and anthropocentric,
collective and individual, male and female, time bound and timeless and in natural conditions of
existential freedom this totality blossoms. All children are born with this potential. The only thing we
owe our children is to keep alive their authenticity and originality.
Existential content
Children imbibe choicelessly what they experience. The content of the learning is based on the way life
happens in nature. All living beings learn and to sustain life is the purpose of all learnings. The details
depend on the learner and the context in which the learner is located. The hen, dog and man would
learn different things from the same environment. All are equipped with the tools and skills get
developed or awakened as each one engages with the context. The dog's hearing and smell sense is far
superior to the mans because of biological necessity and may be, what the hen can see we may not see.
What matters is that we are equipped as per our species' requirements to live. This is awakened by the
external context and conditions.
Keeping in mind the biological roots of our being we can see the commonality of learning, not what we
learn but how we learn. We can understand this by looking at how we learn our mother tongue.
Thousands of languages are being learned, even now all over the world and the process and the
conditions are more or less the same.

Sadhana school; an initiative to reimagining learning
There are children playing in the streets who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of
sensory perception that I lost long ago J. Robert Oppenheimer
Located in Kule, a village around 40 km from Pune is where we are attempting to explore this possibility
from 2009 June by re organizing the space and creating practices that enable learning and knowledge
creation. In the hierarchy of schools the most wretched are the teachers as they are asked to perform
something they cannot being the products of the same mind damaging system. So the first task was to
liberate the teachers from their own mediocrity and dead habits. The second victim of the system are
the parents who have perverted aspirations which are detrimental to their children. Parents need to
understand how they are coming in the way of childrens creativity and intelligence.
Children being totally alive and natural became our subjects of observation and learning. By creating a
condition for children to learn naturally we began to learn the natural learning process.
Following are the key changes we made in the school.
1. Children are respected for their natural intelligence and trusted that they are very capable of learning
provided we create conducive conditions. The condition we are creating is for the child to feel trusted
and respected by removing authority and fear and by providing sufficient freedom to explore the world
around autonomously and independently. So this is a truly child inspired and learning centric school.
2. Teachers are reoriented to be responsible learner researchers and collaborators with children and not
as distributors of secondhand knowledge. Teachers are encouraged to observe children closely and
minutely. Teachers are reminded to be worthy of children's imitation as children would naturally imbibe
the qualities of the adults around.
3. The content of the learning is the context of childrens life and hence we strive to include the cultural
and community wisdom knowledge to ensure they are rooted in their culture. In this connection people
of the community are also partners in this initiative.
4. Adults in the school are encouraged to take up work that interests them so that children are in a
'doing' environment. Farming, building various things, repair etc are all happening in front of children so
that if they feel like they can also participate.
5. Children play spontaneously using what ever they find in the school. No readymade toys are provided.
6. English language is treated as a tool and not as a culture.
7. Digital empowerment is considered as a prime need but will be explored as to how this can become a
tool for learning instead of the authority role it plays now.
8. As some parents cant afford healthy food we would like to provide nutritious food for all the
children.
9. As we would like collaboration of as many people as possible in this initiative we are having different
kinds of events like samvaads (Dialogue), exposure trips of teachers and brain storming sessions with
subject experts.
10. We are setting up conditions for people from outside to re examine the whole process of being with
children.
The initiative is not to create children who do not fit in the modern environment but to enable them to
be true professionals and to participate in the creation of a sustainable and a humane world.


The links to Sadhana Village School initiative
www.sadhanavillageschool.org www.reimaginingschools.wordpress.com, www.whychildrenplay.wordpress.com and
https://www.youtube.com/user/sadhanavillagepune
Link to authors work
www.re-cognition.org
For further study
Anthropology of childhood and learning
http://www.usu.edu/anthro/davidlancyspages/books.html
The Chore Curriculum (2012), "First You Must Master Pain": The Nature and Purpose of Apprenticeship (2012), Learning 'From
Nobody' (2010), Children's Learning in New Settings (2010), Mother Child Play (2007)
Psychology of play
Peter Gray
Research Professor, Department of Psychology, Boston College
www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn
book Free to Learn


From the cognitive sciences research

Everything the brain does, from the linking of neurons into networks, to the categorizing of perceptions, to the formation of
consciousness as a whole, it does on an entirely self-organizing basis, rather than a master program or control center telling it
what to do.
Gerald Edelman, Second Nature. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006, Pg. 27-33
The underlying neurological, physiological, and psychological activity that supports learning occurs on a self-organizing basis;
and likewise, that learnings behavioral componentsintention, interest, emotion, perception, categorization, generalization,
memory, and actionall self-organize too
Thelen and Smith, A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of Cognition and Action, pg. 327
Children, on their own, can discover both the skills to be learned and how to master them through experimentation - trial and
error problem solving. Children are capable of directing their own learning.
Linda Smith and Michael Gasser, 2005, The Development of Embodied Cognition: Six Lessons from Babies. Artificial Life, Vol.
11, pg. 13-30.
At the neurological level unstructured, rough and tumble play influences the production of special neurochemicals that are
essential to neural growth, especially in the cognitive areas of the brain that participate in learning.
Nakia Gordon et al, Socially-induced brain fertilization: play promotes brain derived neurotropic factor transcription in the
amygdala and dorsolateral frontal cortex in juvenile rats. Neuroscience Letters, 2003, volume 341, no. 1pg. 17-20.