Week 1. We live. And we learn.

For those of you who are wondering why I have not updated any news about Kymaia post-day-3, there are two reasons:

1. There was nothing to update since most teachers and subjects were introduced in the first three days; and

2. ‘No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.’ ~ Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, Prussian Field Marshal, or, to more aptly describe what happened to us, in the immortal words of Iron Mike Tyson, Professional Boxer, 50-6, ‘Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.’

While the education of Kymaia started on a high, the end of the first week has brought some sobering realities with it.

Let me begin with what we got right:

1. Our decision: We are happy with the decision to remove her from the current standard education system and putting her on a schedule that is built around her rather than moulding her around a schedule made for someone else’s convenience.

2. Our timing: Coming in the middle of the pandemic and the uncertainties of lockdowns and unavailability (as of today) of a vaccine for children, both Tashuji and I think that there could not have been a better time to take a year off, and if it works, carry on. Because the downside was almost nothing, while the upside was tremendous.

3. Our location: Pune is the capital of Indian homeschoolers, with many support groups and fora, and though we aren’t part of them yet, we are aware of them. More importantly, we have a strong family base here, with my mother, uncles, aunts, cousins, and literally 80% of my extended family resident here. In addition, Tashuji’s sister (Kym’s Masi) has shifted so near us that we are practically neighbours. This makes Kym’s education easier to handle even while pursuing our own careers and businesses.

Now, to what we got wrong:

1. We overestimated our ability to control the proceedings: On one single day, one tutor fell ill, another had a family emergency, and another forgot that she had a class. On another day, one tutor backed out and said she cannot keep up (she never logged in on time in the entire first week, and we had to constantly either remind her or reschedule), we had to ask (with the heaviest of hearts) another tutor to go because Kymaia refused to sit for their class (because she was unable to understand what was being taught owing to pronunciation issues, and was thereby growing underconfident and irritable), and another tutor fell so ill that their availability for the immediate future was in grave doubt.

2. We underestimated the amount of chaperoning Kymaia would need: While Kym is an early riser and sleeper, works out diligently, and gamely plods through all the classes, even some that do not interest her, we realised that she needs someone for not just tech support, which we had catered for, but also for emotional support once in a while. Since she cannot really socialise due to the pandemic, it is only her family (mainly us, but also her Masi and Nanaji, who stay nearby, and her Aji, who keeps visiting) that she sees regularly, and none of us are of her age. We need to find more time for her. (As an aside: Even if she was in her previous school, she’d have this problem; so, let us not make too much of this. This is a pandemic-specific problem, and not an educational-approach-specific one, at least for now and for the immediate future).

So, on Friday, the morning classes were cancelled and the Bear family went to our favourite place to have Nutella-Banana Pancakes, The Yogi Tree, a small eggitarian cafe tucked inside Koregaon Park, and frequented by the sanyasis at the Osho ashram, who, while searching for inner peace, need to quench their inner hunger and thirst too. Here, apart from the poori-bhaaji and the pancakes so loved by all of us, we had a heart-to-heart about the situation, and concluded that while it is great to wake up, run, eat, shower, attend classes, practice, eat, brush, sleep, and there are no complaints in that regard, can Mamma and Baba leave their electronic devices and play when we are on our free time? After much deliberation (and negotiations), it was decided that there would be specific times when we can be together as a family without any external distractions, and we will play whatever game the little one wants. Also, Baba bear had to promise to come downstairs every morning and run with the Baby bear every day and not just stand in the balcony shouting instructions every alternate day. Maybe this will be good for my health too, what say?

3. We underestimated the importance of a syllabus: We did not set a structure for her education on a subject-wise basis, assuming that the teachers would do so. They didn’t. We soon realised that most of her classes were nothing more than playtime and chats with her teachers. We had to ask the teachers to establish class control and set a weekly target for learning, which we could then test on the weekend to see how much she had grasped. This was not part of the utopian plan we had of zero exams and syllabus-free learning. That said, the new rules of weekly lesson plans followed by a short self-administered are not really going back to the school framework as much as simply creating a streamlined structure for the new approach.

4. We overestimated our ability to get her room ready for her new classes: The entire last week, she has been attending some classes from her Masi’s place (some in her study, some in her living room, and some in her bedroom) and some from the living room in ours. This atmosphere is not conducive to learning, and was not part of the plan. The spare room we had in our home was to be converted to her room (though it says, ‘KYM & CO’ on the door, it was being used as a common room for everyone to work, to dump junk, and to go make phone calls that needed privacy) and was to be ready by the 28th June. That did not happen. Far from it. It took another full week before we could have it about 90% operational, with some stuff (a lock on her wardrobe, the shifting of the wardrobe, some electrical switches, a table lamp, and other small fittings) still remaining unfinished.

To give credit where it is due, Kymaia was exceedingly adjusting and understanding while the room was coming up as a surprise (and she was not allowed near it) and if you know 6-year-olds, the last thing they can do easily is to stay away from a thing they have been asked to stay away from!

Of course, her mum (Tashuji) worked hard to manage this despite the tough work schedule and the steep personal challenges (which I shall come to anon) she had to face. If ever an account is drawn up of the work, sacrifice, and sheer tenacity that has led to whatever the Gadgil household has achieved in the past 2 generations, maybe even 3, the contributions of the Gadgil women have far exceeded anything the men even began to start to think of doing, leave alone actually did. My grandmother, my mother, and my wife are as close to as solely responsible for the general happiness and joy this family has, as is a combination of Rajesh Khanna, RD Burman, and Kishore Kumar was to a superhit album.

Finally, we had the room ready on the night of Sunday, 4th of July, and it was celebrated by an impromptu recital from the little one that included such gems as: ‘If you don’t have family and friends, who will you tell all your secrets to? Who will wake you up in the morning? Who will you share the rainbow with? Who will pick you up when you faaaaaaaall?’ (Are we raising the next Taylor Swift? or Katy Perry? or Billie Elish?).

5. We severely underestimated life: As usual, life never bowls a straight one when you really need it. One after the other, we had personal crises (the domestic employees quitting to go back to their native place, the all-day nurse for the senior citizen going AWOL and not taking our calls, the said senior’s health suddenly deteriorating, the dog having a bad tummy, you get the idea) and professional ones (the stock of packing material and labels running out, one of the vendor’s wife suddenly deciding to elope, leaving the hapless bugger in a pool of tears, unfinished work at the warehouse, and so on). That meant that we had to turn our precious and rare resources like time, energy, and money towards fighting those fires, leaving Kymaia’s education without the focus we had envisaged for it. As a compensation perhaps, we also had a new contract signed up which while taking up more of my professional time, will further expand my professional horizons and add to the family kitty. But that only means we need even more discipline and structure, and not less of it as was hoped for with this method of learning.

All-in-all, a right royal mess it all was. But a mess we could sweep up, put together, and start again. Which we did.

We are now in the market for new tutors (and we have resigned to the fact that we may need to go through quite a few before we arrive at those that work for Kym and for whom Kym works), we have assigned Kym her room and she has, extremely maturely, taken to keeping it tidy and clean with a great amount of pride (she has always been told that each one must make their own beds the first thing in the morning, and now she can actually put it into practice, which she does with great gusto), we have streamlined her schedule with even more free time, and we spend a lot more time with her, doing revision and homework, but mainly just as a family. We have always involved her in discussions of business and personal matters, but now we spend more time playing games and ‘planning surprises’ (which seems to be the new thing for her).

Is that the end of our learning? Are we set now? Surely not. One of the major lessons we have taken away from this almost-fiasco is that the learning never stops, and tweaking never stops, the monitoring and adjusting never stops. We should neither get carried away in fleeting successes nor momentary failures.

I have always wanted to introduce Kymaia to this brilliant gem of a poem by Rudyard Kipling, but now is as good a time as any, given the lessons we have learnt in the recent past.

The only problem is, of course, that Kipling ends it with ‘Yours is the Earth and everything in it; And what’s more, you’ll be a man, my son,’ which kind of rankles that my daughter might feel alienated with the end, which is at once so powerful and sublime. So, I searched high and low for an adaptation for girls, and while I did not find an exact one, I did find an article on Alice in Wonderland, a book I have been planning to introduce my daughter to, which takes Kipling’s ‘If’ and interprets the movie as an ‘If For Girls.’

I also found Deanna Rodger’s 2019 adaptation which, while not really touching the same heights as the original, does a fine job of it:

#LearningWithKymaia