The first term of this academic year was eventful and significant for our school in many respects.  It was more trouble-free than all the earlier terms and there was no hiccup of a major nature.  The organisational culture and content has improved palpably and noticeably.

It was with a sense of satisfaction, and in a reverie, that I was approaching the school office just as some of the Class 6 boys climbed down from our school bus, which was unusually parked in front the administration building. They ran towards me, towards the portico of the office!  They said that their half-yearly examination concluded yesterday. They were clearly in a euphoric mood.  They said that they requested the day scholars’ bus driver to drive them from the dining hall gate to the administration building for a joy ride, covering a distance of 100m!  Perhaps knowing that it was the first day of their holidays the driver obliged them by doing this.  The children were so happy to have travelled the little distance by bus!  Many of them hail from families that have cars. On seeing the children run like this, one wondered if our school has been able to bring back some of the pristine qualities of life in children by carefully creating a natural and simple ambience for them.

To some educators, like me, education simplifies our lives so that we can discover or sense wonder in the little things of life. What should be the ambience of a school and what should be the intent of educators to bring about this quality in children? Why do we lose the naturalness or simplicity as we grew up?  What is simplicity?  If simplicity is natural, when, how and why did we lose it?  Can the process of education bring back the qualities of naturalness and simplicity to our lives?

In the pre-technology days, we explored the natural capacities, intrinsic in us, inevitably.  We learnt about ourselves in the process of growing up from infancy to adulthood.  We learnt more about ourselves than about data and information around. Thereby, we experienced and realized our physical and sensory processes and remained in touch with the external world through the lively sensory mechanisms.  We had to keep our senses alive and accurate to be secure and happy.  We seem to be alive, whether we are aware of the sensation or not, to the extent that our sensory mechanisms are active and alert. 

When we are hungry, we seek food and feel satisfied when we get it.  The natural needs of our being are experienced are satisfied.  In this natural state of existence, our senses are alive and active.  Our bodily processes are exactly of a nature today as they were in the earliest days of our existence. However, over a period, we are becoming less aware of the bodily sensations and we have to rediscover the same.

With technological progress, we are physically more secure. We can live more comfortably in many respects.  Science and technological appliances changed the face of the earth. As science and technology began to play a larger role in the society, the need for us to use our senses reduced.  Our responses are slower and less acute. For example, a secure shelter reduced the need for vigilance using all the senses leading to under-utilisation of our senses.  Faster modes of transport reduced our abilities of natural locomotion.

The processes of thinking created a large mental space, which seems to have become larger than the physical world alienating us further from the realistic world, which is physical and existent.  Our mental world appears real to each one of us.  However, how objectively real is any mental world and what is it doing to the human being?  We may not be able to understand the process on a time scale that we have experienced until the present.  The faculty of thinking and formation of the mental world may lead to effects, which we do not understand.

Recalling our above trend, can we, the educators, make our students experience the basic processes to the maximum and revive the capacity to be happy and joyful with little experiences by providing only that in childhood? Is it possible to design schools and societies to revive the ability to be satisfied and joyful with a little of the little things of life?