What are some of the insights that you got about ‘working together’ in these four days of the week? What were some notions which you had (of collaboration and cooperation) and got shifted through the week. What do you see as the role of relationship in working together?

The value of cooperation is something of a no-brainer when thinking about school–any aspect of it–especially in the KFI context. And yet, or maybe precisely for that very reason, I have not found it easy to respond to the above questions posed by our facilitator any time during the past week in our module on the topic . And to add still another yet, I also find myself unable to go on and write (or even think) about our very engaging next module (questions and questioning) although it is underway.

Perhaps I should begin by reflecting on what for me was the biggest eye-opener last week, the notion–introduced in one of Krishnamurti’s writings–that cooperation works only when we cooperate with the whole world or universe, and not just other human beings. In his chapter on cooperation and honesty in The Whole Movement of Life is Learning, he wrote:

It is becoming more and more important if we are to survive, that there be a spirit of cooperation with the universe, with all the things of the sea and earth.

It’s one of those statements that seemed blindingly obvious once I read it, and yet I had never articulated it in those terms. It encompasses an idea for which I have deep sympathy (and I think I may have gotten it out of something that J. R. R. Tolkein’s elves or someone similar said) that we as living creatures in the here and now are merely custodians of the lands and waters–earth as a whole–in this time and place. As citizens and custodians, it seems natural that we should act responsibly towards all of earth’s denizens, that we not waste its resources and that we make sure that come time to pass on that custodianship to future generations, there is something to pass. In other words we cooperate with each other, and with the earth.

This insight was certainly one that felt most profound, but it is an awakening that came late in the week. Earlier discussions and activities I think lead up to this one in different ways. Our group activities, whether it was attempting to discuss the meaning of life (whether or not we wanted to as individuals) or came up with a scheme to dissuade the rats (mice?) from setting up nests in 5-Stones were both instructive and productive. It was also very illuminating to watch the film Twelve Angry Men in the context of the theme, and Gautama’s approach to stop the film at different junctures to have a discussion was very effective.

It was also very meaningful to join forces and collaborate with my colleague Richa on the end-of-the week presentations on the lessons learned from the module. She brought up the need to consider the parental dimension in thinking about various collaborative relationships that need to work when one thinks about running a school and teaching in one. I know that in discussions about liberal arts education we often talked about the need to educate the parents as much (or perhaps even more than) their parents, but now that I think about it, that attitude is almost patronizing. Certainly too, the resistance to treating school like a business the parents as customers is damaging to any notion of collaboration. So I owe my colleague a big thanks for highlighting this issue, and to all the rest of our cohort who rose wonderfully to the occasion in the different collaboration scenarios that we set them.

I’ll end this reflection with a bit of an sudden shift to the last of Gautama’s questions that I listed at the outset, on the role of relationship in working together. Indeed, the role of relationship different aspects of education is something that I have been greatly sensitized to since beginning this programme. It is still another theme that I think I have taken somewhat for granted before, but I hope and trust never again. I have noticed it time and again in each class or student-teacher interaction that I have been particularly impressed by, besides cherishing every relationship that I myself have formed with my colleagues and various children.  And in this week’s module, its importance was reiterated manifold.