Dr Rita Chatterjee, Director Principal, The DN Wisdom Tree Global School
Debates on bags and backpacks are as old as learning. The jhola that the early kids of Gurukuls must have carried were equally in question. Where is the knowledge contained, in bags and jholas, or minds? Well, a lighter body can fly to greater heights. Knowledge is what we absorb from everything we encounter, our senses are the gateways to wisdom. So, we plan such days when they only carry themselves to school – with wide-open eyes, navigable minds, warm hearts and unabating zeal.
NEP has proposed. We have adopted. But, why we do this is a million-dollar question – for parents, teachers and students alike. Bagless days are carefully scheduled, well-planned, meticulously organised days of open learning. Through these days we let them explore learning in a more sensorial way, creating a positive environment of immersive experiences – of the sciences and the arts that they study in their regular, everyday classrooms. The lessons planned for bagless days are designed to integrate multiple disciplines in a way that helps children understand the holistic nature of education. Education is not merely having expertise in a particular subject, it is the understanding of life and the world through that lens of the subject. The subject is just a provocation, rest is the totality of the experience. Bagless days provide such opportunities for our young learners to get the flavour of true learning, pragmatic, experiential education.
A child will know science not by browsing pages alone but by experiencing the same while swimming in the pool. He or she will experience the buoyant force that will be calculated later in his or her exercise book, he or she will get the feel of fluidity which will no longer remain a mere word. When he or she is riding a horse, he or she will get the true knowledge of speed and acceleration and also touch the skin of the horse he or she must have read or seen as pictures in books.
So a bagless day is a mindful day for our children. My heart runs for such days to celebrate education in its truest form.
Also read: DN Wisdom Tree Global School: Nurturing sustainable development goals through holistic education
