{"id":195,"date":"2014-09-11T13:49:20","date_gmt":"2014-09-11T13:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.headstart.edu.in\/?p=195"},"modified":"2024-06-28T15:42:21","modified_gmt":"2024-06-28T10:12:21","slug":"what-is-a-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/headstart.edu.in\/koramangala\/2014\/09\/11\/what-is-a-school\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a School"},"content":{"rendered":"

Samina Mahmood 2014\/Sept\/11<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The origin of words is quite fascinating. When parents choose a name for their child a great deal of thought obviously goes into the process. What does it mean? What does it signify? It is usually chosen with love. Questions that surface are \u2018what will my child become?\u2019 This is an open ended question, because who really knows; the astronomers and predictors of the future \u2013 do they know? No one knows; it is an open page, an open path which leads to each ones destiny. The next question that arises is where do I send my child to school?<\/p>\n

It is interesting that the name or word \u2018school\u2019 suggests something so different to what is normally assumed or applied. The Dictionary is an amazing book and of all the various meanings that it gives for the word school the one that struck me the most was the word \u2018leisure\u2019. I thought I would ponder over this point, or word.<\/p>\n

The old English scol from the Latin schola is interpreted as \u201cintermission of work, leisure for learning, spare time, leisure, rest, ease; that in which leisure is employed\u201d among other interpretations. The original notion of leisure evolved to mean \u2018otiose discussion\u2019 in ancient Athens and Rome and to spare anyone from having to look up a dictionary, otiose actually means \u2018serving no practical purpose\u2019. This would sound alarming to most parents! However, \u2018leisure for learning\u2019 is something we don\u2019t pay importance to and is probably one of the most important elements in a school. Leisure brings in the aspect of enjoyment and indeed, learning should be joyful. Whatever learning was joyful remains deeply embedded in my understanding. What was not was either pushed aside or forgotten. This brings to mind images of excellent educators who made the learning environment come alive. Shakespeare\u2019s Hamlet was not a heavy textual interpretation. It came alive with a revered teacher, Mother Joseph Antonio, who enacted entire scenes with such passion and fervour, that we forgot she was wearing a nun\u2019s habit. It didn\u2019t matter what she wore. \u2018To be or not to be\u2019 put us in turmoil but made us wrack our brains to find answers to the perplexities of life. Montessori\u2019s suggestion that each one of us is born in a moment of history is so beautiful! It takes us out of the pages of a history book and connects us to all time, past, present and future \u2013 ah! I too am a part of history, and however small, play a role in the larger perspective of life and its meaning.<\/p>\n

Can we give our children such understanding; such wisdom, to connect with themselves and the cosmic world around, or do we just want to see marks and grades which ultimately become a statistic? I am a number, a mark, a grade, a percentage.<\/p>\n

A school should provide leisure for learning; the opportunity to discover, probe, think and reflect without the pressure of a timetable and an outcome. Do we have the courage to break free and let our children be themselves? If we do, we will definitely help build amazing and unique children who evolve into wonderful, amazing adults!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Samina Mahmood 2014\/Sept\/11 The origin of words is quite fascinating. When parents choose a name for their child a great deal of thought obviously goes into the process. What does it mean? What does it signify? It is usually chosen with love. Questions that surface are \u2018what will my child become?\u2019 This is an open […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-learning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/headstart.edu.in\/koramangala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/headstart.edu.in\/koramangala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/headstart.edu.in\/koramangala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/headstart.edu.in\/koramangala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/headstart.edu.in\/koramangala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/headstart.edu.in\/koramangala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6904,"href":"https:\/\/headstart.edu.in\/koramangala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195\/revisions\/6904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/headstart.edu.in\/koramangala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/headstart.edu.in\/koramangala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/headstart.edu.in\/koramangala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}