A School of Life in the Mountains

At Jhamtse Gatsal, children revel in an education of the heart, mind and body

What would you do if you saw an army of ants making their way towards your house?

Perhaps you might be inclined to disturb the harmonious, painstaking, synchronous movements of the ants; even employ a bucket of water to wash them away. Or you might use an ant-repellant chalk and draw a nice, fine line on the ground, in the hope that these tiny-legged beings would perish and leave you in peace.

Meet Kirti*, with a radical approach to evoke the aforementioned ‘peace.’ Instead of seeing the ants as a disruption, Kirti brings a biscuit, crumbles it, and starts to feed them.

The world can learn a lot from Kirti. Rather than viewing nature as an impediment to development, she has learnt to live in harmony with it. She is one of the hundred students of life at Jhamtse Gatsal Children’s Community. She was disillusioned by the mainstream education system, so she helped start an organic farm at the Community.

Translated as ‘garden of love and compassion,’ Jhamtse Gatsal is situated at the tri-junction of India, Tibet and Bhutan. Jhamtse Gatsal is not just a home; it is a school and a lifelong learning center for abandoned, orphaned and underprivileged children, mostly from the nearby villages of Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang district.

Kirti’s story makes you wonder: What goes into giving kids the type of education which helps them bloom into loving, compassionate individuals who are capable of living in harmony with nature, with themselves and with the world?

Educating the Heart, Mind and Body

The Community takes a holistic approach to education-one that focuses on the heart, mind and body. One that inculcates in children empathy to connect and compassion to nurture; the wisdom to distinguish between choices and guide ourselves towards the right path; and cultivate a healthy and skilled body to serve. We believe that education should aim to nurture, guide and serve.

On the contrary, the aim of modern education is for children to gather as much knowledge and acquire as many skills as possible. Since the system centralizes on books and degrees rather than taking care of the mind, heart and body, the children who pass out of such an education system tend to be more intent on results, efficiency and short-term validation while the tenets of values, principles as well as mental and physical health are sidelined. Compassion is sacrificed in the pursuit of ‘excellence’ and ‘efficiency.’

This quote by His Holiness the Dalai Lama summarizes the plight of the modern world today—“People were created to be loved, and things were created in order to use them. The world is in chaos because everything is the opposite.” In accordance with His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s words in the above quote, the Community impresses upon the power of healing through love and compassion.

The children of Jhamtse Gatsal Children’s Community come from backgrounds of trauma, abuse and neglect, and often have difficulties with trust or asking for help. Their unresolved issues manifest in ways that can be misconstrued as ‘misbehaviours’ or ‘disciplinary issues.’

The adults of the Community, through love and compassion, help children regulate their emotions and empower them to realize their full potential. At Jhamtse Gatsal, children are taught to sit with themselves, their trauma, and reflect on their past, their actions and their thoughts. Meditation, prayer and mind training classes are some of the many practices which Jhamtse Gatsal incorporates in a child’s daily routine, to educate and nurture their heart, mind and body.

As Gen Lobsang Phuntsok la, the Founder of Jhamtse Gatsal, puts it, “if we can use our pain as a resource; then we can heal not just ourselves, but also others.”

Karmayaan and the Art of Reflective Learning

There are multiple avenues throughout the day where community members do this. Every morning, as a part of their daily routine, the children and their teachers practice a reflection technique called Karmayaan. This is a deliberative introspection and selfanalysis tool. Karma meaning ‘actions and behaviours,’ and Yaan meaning ‘vehicle.’ Karmayaan is an essential part of life at Jhamtse Gatsal. As a part of the Karmayaan practice, students along with their class teachers, spend some time reflecting on their behaviours, actions and consequences, and set their intention for the day. Different classes have different ways of implementing this. The fifth grade class teacher, for instance, uses a variety of resources, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s talks, to help children understand the global context of attributes often discussed in the Community—gratitude, kindness and generosity. These spaces are excellent for philosophical explorations and introspection.

These practices help build empathy and compassion in children for all beings. One of the fifth graders writes in his reflection, “I saved a bug today because I could feel the bug’s pain. I feel all bugs are as important as people.”

Reflections and value-based learning are also incorporated in academics in the way that classes are structured and questions are asked. Especially in English classes, strategies like Text-to-Self and Text-to-World connections help the teacher understand the students’ thought patterns and navigate difficult issues. Stories are a great way to discuss deeper topics. For instance, when eighth graders were discussing a story on Climbing Everest, they reflected on how the story is also about ‘climbing the mountain of our minds’ and scaling the inner summit.

Learn-Reflect-Engage

Jhamtse Gatsal ensures holistic learning through the process of Learn-Reflect-Engage. A culture of learning or receiving information through a wide spectrum of sources, reflecting on that information to make it ‘one’s own learning,’ and then re-engaging with the world from this internalized knowledge shifts a child’s mindset from being a ‘consumer’ to becoming a ‘creator.’

In order to encourage a ‘creator’ mindset, Jhamtse Gatsal emphasizes on cooperative learning in the form of group projects, presentations, student-led discussions and debates, as well as collaborative games.

The unique geography, and a wide variety of responsibilities within the Community, provide ample learning opportunities outside the classroom. From walking to the nearest village to measure speed to discovering the different types of vegetation, root and leaf structures in the adjoining jungle, science classes have never been more fun!

Furthermore, community engagement activities—such as helping with construction, natural cob house building, or working on the organic farms—become avenues to bring alive the knowledge acquired within the classrooms, from concepts of perimeter and area to the nuances of effective communication skills. Such a learning process helps children become creators and not just consumers of information.

Real education requires full presence; it requires active participation of the heart, mind and body, not just passive listening.

Here’s an example from the Community that kindles the ‘creator’ mindset in the children. The Monpa tribe, to which the children belong, practices ‘Lakpar,’ roughly translated as ‘bringing hands together.’ In the villages, when a family needs a new house, the entire village comes together to help them build it. Inspired by this tribal practice of the Monpa people, the Community worked together to construct one of the principal buildings on campus.

This process of working together helped forge stronger relationships in the Community, encouraged team building and fostered creativity in children. Even today, when someone visits the Community, the children point at the building with pride and eagerly talk about how they helped build it. This practice instills a sense of ownership and belonging in the children— two aspects that are fast disappearing in our faster-paced world.

Engaging with Nature to Reengage with the Self

By actively engaging in the learning process rather than just absorbing it in a classroom setting, children gain personal insights and embody the learning in their own lives. Ecological learning forms a part of engaged pedagogic practices in the Community. Here by learning from nature, children like Kirti are encouraged to empathize with ants, and the school’s kindergarteners to instinctively pick up earthworms and put them in the forest to save them from being trampled upon as they wriggled out of the soil one rainy day.

Taking part in physical activity, participating in sports and games, eating healthy and being engaged in household chores further ensure that the children are hale, hearty, and healthy.

Inclusive education cannot simply mean being inclusive of children with diverse learning styles. It must be inclusive of several aspects within oneself— the heart, the mind and the body.

Ken Robinson, a well-known educationist, succinctly puts it this way. “As I see it, the aims of education are to enable students to understand the world around them and the talents within them so that they can become fulfilled individuals and active, compassionate citizens.”

Real education requires full presence; it requires active participation of heart, mind and body, not just passive listening. Jhamtse Gatsal strives to give children a safe and stimulating environment to experiment with real learning.

Such an environment often yields remarkable results; say, when a child decides to feed ants rather than kill them, or when an older child reads bedtime stories to a younger child and tucks them into bed, or even when children snuggle puppies inside their jackets into the classrooms to keep them warm.

Their gentle ways of showing compassion may be small, but perhaps, like Mahatma Gandhi said in this famous quote, “In a gentle way, you can shake the world.”

Note: * Name has been changed to protect the child’s privacy.