Author Archives: Kaleidoscope

What happened at the Puppetry workshop!

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The summer puppetry workshop is over. It was amazing to watch the youngsters not only make fairly complex puppets, but also manipulate them and tell stories with sound effects, music and near-professional comic timing!

Some pictures:

 

A note from Ratnamala Nori, the well-known puppet maker, artist and facilitator of this course:

” Puppet have been used from time immemorialas tools to educate, entertain and inform. They fascinate and involve children in a way that few other art forms can… A great deal can be accomplished through puppets. They lead to creative thinking and imagination. The main reason puppets work well with children is because they are so multi sensory. It doesnt matter if the child is very small or very tall, you can reach them with puppets!…”

Ratnamala Nori can be contacted to conduct performances or workshops. Email. Website.

The right word in the right place at the right time

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Well, what I mean is, like, you know, when the stuff comes out nice, everyone thinks it’s cool. 

However, when you don’t have the right word to express yourself, you’ve lost an opportunity to communicate, irrespective of whether everybody thought it cool, uncool or otherwise. 

Vocabulary helps you make a point crisply and accurately. It has been acknowledged as a desirable competency for a while – you’ll find all manner of competitive exams demanding to assess your vocabulary level, and many people memorizing endless word lists in an attempt to widen their vocabulary. 

Our observations on vocabulary building (seems to work for any language): 

  • Don’t see words in isolation. Understand how they are used and what roots they come from – helps establish patterns.
  • Keep it personal. Pick topics and words that make sense to your life and start from there.
  • Read. Read. Read. Anything will do – even film posters and leaflets.
  • Listen. Listen. Listen. The TV, other speakers, audio books, songs…
  • Make your own sentences. The old primary school exercise is perfect to get going with using words on your own.

If you’d like to read more:

*e x p a n d* Valedictory

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*e x p a n d* completed its first batch last week. (For those who came in late – *e x p a n d* is part of *EVOLVE*, Kaleidoscope’s growth program for youngsters. It aims to equip children with the concepts, skills and belief systems to deal with the world around them  – and which the education system does not provide! Read more>>)

On Sunday March 29, we had a valedictory session, where the participants, all aged between 10 and 14, presented their experiences of six months, with a whole lot of charts, slide decks, demos and very vocal, enthusiastic explanations.

Doting parents and other friends of Kaleidoscope came in expecting the usual open-house and were plesantly suprised at the enthusiastic lot and their articulate presentations on topics ranging from communication and balance to emotional literacy, career choices and visual language. Which, by the way, are all sessions that they had had in the *e x p a n d* classes. The range of topics and the confidence and clarity demonstrated by the presenters stood out in this event. 

The audience response ranged from “I never knew my kid knew all that” to “I’m overwhelmed” to “Wish I’d had a course like this when I was a kid”. In fact, most of the topics covered under the *EVOLVE* program are applicable at all stages of life in one form or other – which makes it relevant to participants and audience, irrespective of their age.

We are very happy and proud of our first  *e x p a n d* batch. We know they have learned a great deal. The process has been mind-blowingly enriching for us as well. And we know we are on the right track with this program.

Interknit

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Kaleidoscope offers Interknit, a new 3 week program for 10-15 year olds in association with the Education Times.  The aim of the program is to provide activity-based learning in several areas including communication, planning and organization, the art of skillful discussion, art for school work, voice and theatre exercises, writing exercises and the like.  

Interknit (meaning to knit together or unify) brings together different kinds of activity under one theme. Participants get a little bit of everything, and also a sound learning experience on the whole. The program is designed from Kaleidoscope’s master curriculum and employs a range of learning resources.

  • Course duration: 60 hours
  • April 13- May 1; Monday to Friday; 2 pm to 6 pm
  • Call us for more details

What’s your little drop of water?

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Little drops of water. Little grains of sand. Make the mighty ocean. And the beauteous land…

Can you

  • Turn off some lights and reduce global warming?
  • Use your tiny vote to make a difference to the election?
  • Find 10 minutes for yourself every day and feel any different?

Maybe you can. Maybe you can’t. You could only give it a shot.

If things change, you can’t ever ”prove” it was because of your actions. If things don’t change, you could always say “How could that little thing have made a difference any way?!”

Take your pick.

Sometimes, change comes with much drama and fanfare. More likely, we’ve observed, that it creeps up quietly at the tail end of a bunch of small, seemingly unconnected events and actions.

Many small actions work together to create large impacts. Especially when the actions are

  • Done consistently for a period of time
  • Applied in everyday tasks
  • Thought about often (But not judged and evaluated every minute)

This belief underlies pretty much all our programs. We’re convinced it works.

Pick a small action. Apply it for 8 weeks everyday. Enjoy your discoveries. Share them with us.

Provoked to be creative!

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When you hear the word creative, what picture comes to your mind? An artistic type – someone who draws, paints and dabbles in art? Or the eccentric type – someone who’s brilliant, slightly disheveled, unpredictable, and wild-eyed? Or is it something else? 

Creativity deserves a broader definition. Firstly, creativity is about new ideas or the use of older ideas in newer ways. Second, it’s an important part of everyday life, whether you are solving a problem at work, cooking a meal, fixing a broken shoe, or creating 5 extra minutes in your hectic morning schedule. The wiki article lays out the scope quite well

People per se can’t be labeled “creative” or otherwise. Being Creative is a, well, state of being! Some people are in that state more often than others, and almost all of us are creative at least once a year! Also see these nice mind maps outlining what blocks creativity and what supports creativity.

We’re often asked if creativity can be learned, and the answer seems to be yes. True, it’s not something you can pick up by reading a book or listening to someone explaining how it works. However, one’s capability to remain creative can be enhanced by doing some kinds of exercises and practising some kinds of thinking / being. Brainstorming is a popular method. “Provocation” is another. When we use it with children we’ve seen some really great responses, some really interesting ideas and a great deal of learning happening.

How to practice Provocation:

Begin by making a deliberately shocking statement (Provocations), where ideas that are normally taken for granted have been discarded.  For example, we could say ‘Children should not have an education’. On the face of it, it’s not a good idea. It may even be difficult to contemplate. However it might lead us to think about what we mean by education, and what its alternatives might be.

Once you have a provocative statement, suspend judgment and generate ideas. Provocations usually give good starting points for creative thinking. You could think in terms of:

 

  • What could be the consequences of the statement?
  • What could be the benefits?
  • Are there any circumstances under which it might be a sensible solution?
  • If this had to work, what underlying priniciples are required? 
  • How it would work moment-to-moment?
  • What would happen if a sequence of events was changed?
  • Etc.

 

You can use this list as a check list. The ideas generated may not always be relevant, but it often open up new ways of thinking, which in turn leads to new solutions. Read more about provocation.

Brainstorming “Balance”

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The last session of BUGS turned out to be thinly attended (thanks in large measure to Sonia Gandhi and her travels across town!) but very interesting (thanks in large measure to enthusiastic sharing and discussion on the topic of Balance).

Some of the thoughts that surfaced: Balance is about

  • Creating a congruent self (in other words, saying what I mean and meaning what I say + acting in line with what I say and mean)
  • Learning when to say yes and when to say no (and by extension, learning when to work, when to rest, when to stretch and when to be go with the current rhythm…)
  • Recognizing that we have choices. When we do, there are fewer “automatic decisions” that lead to imbalance
  • Being aware. It’s probably the single largest step to being in balance. (The single largest step to any sort of growth, really)
  • Generating a “creative tension” between what we are and what we desire to be
And since all the participants happend to be parents, we agreed that parenthood offers all the opportunities we’ll ever need to practice all these nice thoughts on Being in Balance.

Conversations: The art of listening, sharing and learning

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Conversation works best when everyone is participating, listening, talking, having disagreements, asking questions, making discoveries, cutting jokes… And being silent when appropriate. This combination of things makes conversations the great learning tool they are. 

It would seem that conversations would come naturally to social creatures such as ourselves. But apparently not. Many conversations are one sided monologues. Many more degenerate into observations about the weather or traffic and never take off from there. Or they are long silences with all the people having frantic internal conversations inside their heads, but not saying anything aloud to each other!

People agonize about not being “good at conversations”. They look for solutions in speaking skills courses, vocabulary building exercises, learning body language cues, or even mugging up starter lines and jokes. All of them good ideas … but only when you have some other basics in place:

  • Listen
  • Ask questions
  • Clarify what you heard or understood
  • Think what might interest the other person
  • Disagree if you must… 
We found a really well-written piece on the art of conversations. (Complete with one minute video full of conversation tips, dos and don’ts). What we liked best about this piece was that it focuses on the basics – the real basics – of a good conversation.

 

BUGS Brainstorm: The Balancing Act

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This session of BUGS is a brainstorm on the topic of Balance.

  • What does Balance mean? 
  • Is Balance an important goal to pursue? Why?
  • How much balance does one need in one’s life? Is Work-Life balance all there is to it? Does it include something more?
  • How does one achieve balance?

BUGS is an open group for discussion and learning related to one’s growth. The quality of the session is determined by the quality of participation you bring to it.

Come along. Bring a friend.

Saturday Feb 28, 3 pm -5 pm