Educational rope trick

ADITI DE

"Let's close our eyes for a moment," suggests Paati (Tamil for grandmother), who runs the Playhouse Early Learning Centre in Bangalore.

A few moments later Paati says, "Now, open your eyes. What did you see when you closed your eyes?"

"I saw a fighter plane," said Rohit, bouncing up from his bobbin.

"I saw an ordinary plane," says mischievous Dylan, next to him.

"Nothing," says little Rishab, looking intently at his sneakers.

"A beautiful butterfly," smiles Anandi, happy to share her secret world with others.

These children aged between two and five attend an unusual school. A school that recognises that each child is an individual and that pre-school learning needs to be child-centric. That play is the most natural way for a child to learn. That living experience, not textbooks, is the doorway to learning. And that learning tools do not need to be expensive or imported because everday objects, teamed with a lively imagination, can allow fledgling minds to soar.

The Playhouse Centre is only one of the unusual concepts pioneered by Paati, who is recognised by another name in the educational world: Indira Swaminathan.

As one of India's best-known educational consultants, Swaminathan has travelled widely, presenting papers at forums as disparate as the International Society for the Study of Behaviour Development (ISSBD) at Beijing in 1995 and the Jean Piaget Centenary Conference in Geneva in 1996.

Her research-oriented "Cognitively Oriented Programme for Pre- school Children" (COPCC) evolved from the first Playhouse school she founded at her mother's sprawling residence in Malleswaram, in 1966.

Today, she still delights in the company of young minds at the Playhouse behind her residence near C. V. Raman Nagar, founded five years ago.

What makes Swaminathan special? "I have always loved doing what others didn't do," she says.

Swaminathan has a host of diverse achievements to be proud of. As the project director in charge of developing an alternate pre- school model in Integrated Child Development Services in India, she held workshops all over the country. Using a low-cost kit, these workshops trained as many as 60,000 anganwadi and balwadi workers and reached over 100,000 pre-school children.

The kit includes one of Swaminathan's favourite devices - the rope. Tied into a circle by a reef knot, this rope allows children to sing and play as they adapt it to different actions like pretending to be inside a bus, looking out of its windows or buying tickets. Or even "becoming" a creature crawling around on either side of the rope. No wonder, her innovation was dubbed soon after she introduced it as "Indira's rope trick" among her friends.

Swaminathan's creative play materials have made inroads into Bangalore slums, rural India, vocational courses for tribal girls in Raigad in Madhya Pradesh and among adolescent girls in the Nilgiris. She has also trained Muslim girls in Hyderabad to make puzzles from pictures of the Charminar or domino games from recognisable images like the degchis and ladles.

Inventive. Feisty. Dynamic. Low-profile. These words sum up Swaminathan. She lived her life by the creed she believes in. She sometimes has special children, perhaps with Down's Syndrome, in her Playhouse and both groups benefit from the exchange. She conjures up puppets and doctor kits, science toys and spiral beads from "low-cost, no-cost" basics - ideas which she presented at the World Didacta in West Germany in 1997 and the International Play Association (IPA) conferences in Sweden and Japan a decade ago.

As a pedagogue, her commitments are unwavering - to parent participation in schooling and even to integrated education, stemming from her experiences with autistic and mentally challenged children. In keeping with our web-wise times, Swaminathan occasionally also introduces toddlers who are ready for the mouse to the computer. "It shows them cause and effect with every button they press," she points out. "The mouse is a good device for hand-eye coordination. and it can involve the ear when the sound is turned on," she says, adding, "Even our youngest child, who is 16 months old, points to the computer when something moves. That's finger coordination."

Sensitive to every nuance of a child, Swaminathan finds herself stimulated to think laterally by her daily interaction with children at the Playhouse. "In some ways, I feel I am reliving my childhood," she reveals with a smile, while she gestures towards an outdoor "animal hospital," where broken clay birds and papier- mache beings find shelter in little niches. "When a clay animal dissolved in the recent rains, a child declared that it had gone to God," she says.

At this point, her granddaughter Rukmini nuzzles up to her Paati, a plateful of chips in one hand.

"You are my best friend," says Rukmini.

Rukmini's words would find an echo in the hundreds of children who have encountered Indira Paati. Could there be a more fitting tribute to a lifelong quest for a more child-centric world?

(Indira Swaminathan can be contacted at indswa@mantraonline.com)

Women's Feature Service

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