Community Service

What does it mean to incorporate aspects of serving one’s community in the curriculum? Community cannot be an after - thought. To imbibe this thought in the children and to ensure that they meet the world from spaces outside their comfort zone, the children of grades 6 and 7, spent a little over a week this term engaged in community service. 

The children of grade 6 began their week by cleaning a local park. Crackers, glass, overgrown weeds – to the children, it became certain that if no-one took responsibility for the park, no amount of cleaning would help restore it. Their class teachers, Paridhi and Jeevitha, suggested they write a letter to the local governing body and this idea captivated the children – that we can in fact, reach out to our leaders and say what we want to say. 

The children spent the rest of their community service week at an old age home, engaging with the elderly there. Each child was mapped to a resident of the home and the children spent time chatting and planning activities for them. Some of them read to the residents, some of them taught them to write, some took games like snakes and ladders and connect four. On day two, the children began referring to the grandmothers they had been mapped to as their own – my paati. 

This is the power of engaging children in work like this – the boundaries of the classroom, the self, melt and they step into the world with care and curiosity for beings that lie outside the purview of their everyday experience.