Change, according to experiential educator Shalini Menon, must be in the greater interest of people and communities. It must empower and build people. While a single leader can trigger and initiate this process, she says it cannot happen if people don’t come and walk together. This ‘change’ is what she tries to bring about with her initiative, Educators Collective.
The organisation’s focus is rather simple: to build a community of people in experiential education, which, she explains, is a very deep area of work that shifts the focus from teaching to facilitating learning experiences for people. The organisation, thus, was built on a simple belief that educators need to constantly engage, up their skills and unlearn in order to create meaningful experiences for those they work with.
Experiential education programmes have an important role to play for social change. It can empower and engage adults, youth and children in many ways. Hence through their activities, they hope to catalyse a social change in that, create work for low and middle income groups. “This work is typically evident in urban and high income groups — through corporate training, international schools and big institutions. Low and middle income groups, do not have the resources and financial means to adopt such programmes. We design and deliver our work keeping it affordable and accessible to students, teachers and staff of organisations.” They achieve experiential education by way of interactive class sessions and projects that brings the students to brainstorm.
When she quit her career in Public Relations in 2008, being a trekking enthusiast she ended up at a campsite filled with children after a course from the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. But in hindsight, it was not mere camping. She affirms, “What I thought was just camping turned out to be a big area of work called outdoor education.” With time, she came face to face with many a national and global organisation like Play for Peach and Partners in Youth Empowerment and read widely works of many thinkers in experiential education such as John Dewey and Kurt Hahn. “I learnt that experiential education is not just limited to recreation but can have educational and development aspects to it. I built my work by using arts, inclusive gaming, prop-based team challenges and theatre as mediums and tools to address areas like leadership, life skills development, intercultural learning, social change, climate leadership and enterprise led development.”
Drawing from the many insights from those years working with different NGOs, she founded Educators Collective two years ago. “Educators Collective was born from a social experiment called FUN(N) Saturdays, a gathering for experiential educators in Bangalore. It is run and managed by educators, for educators, once a month. Step one is always ‘transformation of self’. Then a lead facilitator shares his/her skills through a 180-minute session. This can include photography, theatre, arts and crafts, outdoors, inclusive gaming, puppetry, storytelling and more. Participants get to add a new skill to their basket, network, unlearn and have fun.”
Now rechristened as ‘Avsar,’ from just 12 people, it now has brought together 251 people who range from experiential and wilderness educators, corporate trainers, classroom teachers, artists, sports and music educators, NGO staff, fellows from Teach for India and Azim Premji Foundation.
Shalini was invited to speak at the Google for Educators and INK Talks Salon. They also received a fellowship from Stanford Ignite programme. More importantly, she gained a family that is supportive of her decision to start her own venture.
Educators Collective will continue to stay focused on low and middle income groups, spreading their work to smaller towns and cities. She says, “While experiential education continues to be the buzzword, very little focus and opportunity is extended towards people in experiential education. The whole community is scattered, remaining voiceless and faceless. Companies profit, scale and replicate. Experiential educators in India do not benefit much from this ‘growth’ — financially or through skill building. What is required is to mobilise enthusiasts and practitioners of EE.”
— svetlana@newindianexpress.com