Welcome to the last newsletter of 2025! We’re running on fumes right now and really looking forward to the break—to catch our breath for a bit and come back stronger, fitter, and faster for the second half of our academic year.

2025 was quite the year for Comini. As we grow in numbers, we also have to grow in depth and expertise to make sure we’re doing right by all the kids we work with. We started Comini because we wanted a better education for our kids, and one thing we’ve realized is that for it to be truly better, we have to build everything afresh from scratch: curriculum, pedagogy, hiring, training, technology, meals. Even the way we celebrate each occasion, even if it happens every year. While it’s a lot, Sai and I are convinced this is truly the only way to get it right.

What this means is that we are juggling several pieces at once. That’s simply what it takes to build Comini the way we want to. This also means we don’t have established systems, approaches, or labels to fall back on. As painstaking as it sometimes gets, it is also fundamental to what we’re building, and a very conscious choice we are making. More than sympathy or concern, what we really need is literal and figurative support in making Comini a truly great school for our kids.

Intrinsically linked to this is parents’ understanding of what we’re building and why. We have been talking about how we believe that parents play an integral role in educating children. Fundamental to that is also understanding and believing in the Comini approach. We know we share a lot of reading material (and there’s more here!). We are actively working towards making it more playful, purposeful, and personalized, just like we do with learning with our kids. But it deserves to be said out loud that being a Comini parent is going to take a fair amount of learning and unlearning on your part.

If we are not aligned on at least the fundamentals, which are outlined in the Comini Playbook, it can become the basis for all sorts of friction we’d like to avoid. We constantly maintain that Comini is an alternative school in every sense of the word, and quite literally an alternative to the options for education available. That does not make it the best fit for every family, because hopes, aspirations, and value systems differ so wildly (as they should!). But clarity about those hopes, aspirations, and value systems really helps—for both families and the school.

The month that was

We are now generating activity observations along with overall monthly cohort summaries on the app. Please check them out.

The playschool explored the theme What we do with our bodies while the microschool explored Make it Move. You can find details of the theme and what we had planned for the month in our November Primers here

Navigating social dynamics

At both the playschool and microschool, the kids are getting older and expanding their sense of self, and of what they perceive of the world around them. This brings with it changes in social dynamics and we had some of it play quite intensely over the last couple of weeks at both the playschool and microschool. We put together a short guide for both parents and facilitators here which also includes a conversation guide for parents in case you realize your child is the one being unkind. In keeping with our goal of making these as accessible as possible, we are experimenting with visual (included here) and audio-visual versions (coming soon).
We must add this though. One of the joys of being a small school is that we’ve spent real time with every child. And we can say with confidence: this is a bright, kind group of kids. Bad days happen. Everyone needs guidance when things go awry. That’s true for all of us, kids included.

Playful practice

As part of working on the full stack of schooling (philosophy, pedagogy, process, practice), we also create games for playful practice. There's good and bad screen time, and we think constructive games can really aid learning and exploration. Here's one for foundational reading (Android and iOS) and one for foundational maths (Android only for now). Both are early versions, so please have your kids give them a spin and share feedback. There’s good and bad screen time, and we think that constructive games can really aid learning and exploration.

Lunch

The bane of our operational existence :) After much deliberation, we’ve decided to go back to daily lunches cooked out of our house (for now), with a dedicated Comini cook managing things end to end. A big thank-you to Roxane who has kindly helped organise the menu and coordination until it becomes self-sustaining. We would still like to explore some meals with Mem so we’re trying to figure out if we can do specific days (with his blessings) to include his fantastic menu into the mix

FleaPlay

We are working towards 17th January as the date we’ll organize FleaPlay but we don’t yet have confirmation from our preferred venue, DPRC. Hopefully something will turn up and we can proceed per plan

That is it for now folks. Thank you for all your support and love. We cannot be more grateful that we get to do what we do.

Priyanka and Sai

This was his first time on this pedaled bike, but he had been using a balance bike (a light pedal-less bike) for months. It didn’t strike me that pushing himself along on it, sometimes for a few feet at a time without his feet planted on the ground, would translate so easily to cycling. But it did, and in hindsight this makes so much sense that I find myself questioning how we do learning design in general.

Balance bikes were actually the first bicycles around. They were literal hobby-horses, also variously called running machines and dandy horses. These evolved into the pedaled bicycles we now know. Surprisingly, balance bikes did not become starter bikes for people learning to ride bicycles. Instead, training wheels, invented in the 1950s, became the most common learning scaffolds for bikes for the last six decades. Only in the last decade or so have we rediscovered balance bikes and how they are actually better in terms of helping us learn how to balance and countersteer. There’s research that shows us how training wheels actually hinder learning because they lop off our body’s feedback loop.

Here’s a beautiful video from Veritasium about how countersteering works and what would happen if we took away this ability (an ability we acquire unconsciously, because we and our bodies are so wonderful at learning from good feedback loops)

The multi-decade dominance of training wheels is a brilliant example of how the slow creep of complexity in technology and knowledge can often be accompanied by the wrong ways to teach this complexity.

In other words, things become more complex or sophisticated while becoming easy to use for experts or professionals, but not necessarily for beginners to learn them. And our efforts to teach them can actually hurt.

Maths is another great example of this. Here’s my favorite go-to example: How long did it take us to learn that 9 + 5 = 14?

40,000 years. That is how long it took all of humanity to go from tally marks to an efficient notation that can use just 10 squiggles to go from the smallest number to the largest. This is an incredibly sophisticated and efficient notation. But that does not mean it is easy to understand. Our conventional attempts to teach this involve breezily introducing notation and having kids practice carry-over without any understanding of why we use these particular symbols, or what the act of carrying over accomplishes. We lose sight of the greater problem, the problem of quantifying things without dealing with a new problem of creating a very large number of tools (numbers are tools). And that this problem is actually a fascinating journey through time and cultures. We instead focus on the immediate problem of understanding and use. In focusing too much on the how, we lose sight of the why, which could give us meaning, and allow us to design better ways to bridge the gap.

You can see this in that other great tragedy of learning as well. Learning to read. Each year there are articles bemoaning a literacy crisis and declines in reading scores. Consider this NYT article, for instance:

“Their 6-year-old son could not read. He could not remember the alphabet. But he was still being passed through grades.”

How are we still facing these challenges in 2025? With something as fundamental as reading? It’s because of the same systemic pressures and mindset that got us training wheels. English is a highly phonemically irregular language that’s been sculpted by historical evolution and geographical expansion to include all sorts of illogical spelling. There is little logic, only patterns.

Ought (/awt/) we to plough (/plow/) through the tough (/tuff/) terrain of English spelling with patience, kneading the written word like dough (/doh/)?

In trying to make this complexity easy to learn, we end up using the wrong scaffolding. The equivalent of training wheels here is an inordinate and early focus on phonics, on the mechanics, that sacrifices the joy of reading, which really is the joy of imagining and entering whole new worlds. Yes, phonics helps with particular decoding skills, but this cannot come first, before the appreciation of reading and storytelling. (The whole-word approach, on the other hand, is like learning to pedal and balance all at once.)

Balance bikes can teach us a few things about how to arrive at a better solution. First, understand the skills involved. With cycling, it is balance first, and then pedaling. We got this reversed for decades! Second, understand the science of how our brains acquire these skills.

We learn to balance by, well, balancing. It is through the repeated exercising of our motor feedback loops that our muscles and neurons in the cerebellum get trained. There is no book or lecture or video that can replace the act of doing. Training wheels actively hinder this process. With reading, it is from experience, not error, that we learn and discover patterns and perspectives.

We learn because we derive joy from it. Balance bikes still allow for exploration. They do not take away the meaning and joy of the overall activity. They make it possible while stripping away as many things as possible. It’s almost a Zen-like statement: you scaffold by stripping away the excess. Add to learning by taking away the complexity.

This is an important lesson. David Perkins discusses the perils of elementitis, where we encounter complexity and decide to simplify its teaching by focusing on the skills that it is made up of, while losing sight of the overall picture. Kind of like reducing a game of cricket or baseball to a series of monotonous drills. Phonics (alone) or procedural math are pretty much that. Do not sacrifice the joy of exploring, wondering and wandering.

We try to do this, but there’s nothing like a timely and vivid reminder to let us know that it’s easy to lose track while we are focused on the particulars.

Alternative schooling has existed for over a hundred years with this core idea at its center: change learning design for the better. Make it more human and child-centered. We do have Montessori and Waldorf and Sudbury schools, but far too few. This is because it is not enough for a school to change its approach. Entire systems have to be built from the ground up that design for the child first and not the curriculum.

This is what we are trying to do with our work on, as we call it, the full-stack of education: from philosophy and pedagogy to process and practice.

Here are a few examples:

Philosophy & Pedagogy: https://playbook.comini.in/

Process: https://comini-competencies.web.app/

Practice: https://comini-primers.web.app/

In effect, we are diving deep into what balance and equilibrium can look like, while also designing and creating balance bikes for playful minds.

If this is something you are interested in for your children, please sign up here.

Update (13th November, 2025): Bicycles can teach us a whole lot about mechanics and more.

Bartosz Ciechanowski makes absolutely gorgeous interactive illustrations explaining how things work. They are a joy to experience, and a wonderful example of learning design. How to use visuals to break down complexity and also allow one to interact with it and experience it. Here’s another.

Hello hello

A newsletter that is on time! I’m really trying hard this year :) Also because I have so much to write home about - and so much I need your inputs on - I’m putting this newsletter to good use.

We are THREE!!

Just like our bigger Bombils at Comini, we’re growing more confident, getting better at communicating (sure, we might whine from time to time), and having an absolute blast discovering the wonders of the world. For us, that means witnessing unbridled play as the foundation of a joyful, meaningful education. It can be relentless—did you know we’ve never repeated a facilitated session (lesson) in the last three years! But when we see a bunch of happy, healthy, and curious kids walk through our doors every day, we know it’s all worth it.

We’re just as motivated, excited, and eager to learn as we were three years ago. And we’ll say it again—it takes the holy trinity of engaged parents who are collaborators rather than customers, facilitators who genuinely care and want to make a difference, and the incredible kids who make it all worthwhile. We’ve seen some of these kids (and you!) grow over three years, and it amazes us every day.

The month that was: Markets, Bazaars & FleaPlay!

January turned out to be a whirlwind of a month. We had initially planned for lots of field trips to different markets in Bombay, exploring how markets function and how some have evolved into e-commerce platforms. What we ended up doing was a deep dive into supply chains—and not much else!

FleaPlay also took up a fair share of our time, with the Big Kids enthusiastically setting up mini businesses and passion projects. They did learn a thing or two about concepts ranging from understanding supply demand, costing, inventory management, branding and marketing, and more. What started as a simple showcase of life at Comini turned into something much bigger!

A huge thank you to Aben and Ashwin for helping us put it all together, and to the entire Comini music collective—you guys totally rocked! Our facilitators did a fantastic job facilitating a great time as is second nature to them. And not to mention all the kids and their parents who worked really hard at their stalls. Special mention of the great job the kids did of their “presentations” after the event where they took stock of how much money they made, what their costs were and their experience and learning at FleaPlay.

What Went Well:

• Free play flourished: January’s beautiful weather meant the kids spent hours soaking in the sun on the terrace. Their elaborate role-play setups were so immersive that we even canceled a few guided activities to let them continue!

• Kids being their awesome, curious selves.

• Paired and gamified activities worked really well.

• Movement elements: energizers before class and movement breaks helped improve focus.

• FleaPlay was a fantastic real-life learning experience.

• Learner’s Collective essay competition: some of the BigKids participated voluntarily, and though it was challenging, it was a great learning opportunity.

• Cohort socio-emotional challenges: kids are learning to resolve conflicts more independently.

• Role-playing supply chains gave kids an in-depth understanding of market functions.

• FarmSchool continues to be rewarding.

• Former Bimblis are loving their Hindi writing classes.

• Democratic school meetings restarted! The kids are older now, and we’re working towards making these meetings the foundation for decision-making at Comini. They were especially excited to learn that some schools even decide teacher-hiring and pay in these meetings!

What Didn’t Go So Well:

• Kids breaking meeting agreements—but they’re figuring out how to sort it out as a group.

• Theme exploration wasn’t as deep as planned—we’ll revert to letting kids fully. decide themes via voting in meetings. FYI their current interests for future themes: Cooking, Art, Bodies, and Fact vs. Fiction.

• Socio-emotional challenges, particularly feeling left out—we discussed this with Jane (D’Silva, a seasoned elementary school teacher at the American School of Bombay) - turns out it’s not just a Comini problem :)

• Pickup transitions—a reminder for parents to be on time for evening pickups! We’re also working with kids to ensure they’re ready to leave by 4:30 PM.

The month ahead : Cooking up a storm!

The kids voted, and “Cooking” won as February’s theme! We explored “Kitchen Science” last year, so we’re excited to see how this time differs.

We’ll start by linking our Market theme to cooking, discussing ingredients and how they transform into food with different textures, tastes, and smells. We’ll also dive into the science—heat transfer, fermentation (Gaytri is sharing some scoby for our ‘kombucha scoby hotel’!), pickling, and more. Our FarmSchool connections will come in handy since they produce jams, pickles, and dried fruit.

Practical action is also on the agenda—learning to prep ingredients, basic cooking skills, and kitchen hygiene. We’ll discuss how diets and local ingredients shape our food choices, and hopefully, sneak in a lesson on healthy eating (though credit where it’s due—Comini kids are pretty balanced eaters!).

Special Highlight: Levain Baking with Mem

Lulu’s dad, Mem, has generously offered to host a “levain baking” course. His introductory note for the lesson planning document was too wonderful not to share:

“The thing I find most interesting about cooking is the alchemy of turning one thing into a different thing—sloppy dough into firm, crusty bread; fresh cucumbers into ancient pickles; butter and flour into filmy laminated pastry. That’s a magic kids can easily appreciate, best communicated by doing.”

He plans to cover:

• The rhythm of a sourdough starter (levain)

• Baking various breads: focaccia, pizza, rolls, fougasse, English muffins, cinnamon rolls

• Using levain “waste” for crumpets, pancakes, waffles

• Experimenting with pastries like meringue, choux, puff pastry, and shortcrust

So excited about this!

Facilitator’s Corner: Kshama on Art @ Comini

I’m no expert in Art. But I’m fascinated by it. To me, it’s more than an activity—it’s a way to connect with the kids. Their interests become my topics; their individual styles become my lesson plan.

Traditional education often sidelines art as a “free-time” activity, but I’ve realized the opposite is true. Art helps children make sense of the world, and as a facilitator, my job is to honor that. My approach always starts with a few questions:

• Is it open-ended enough?

• Is it tangible and adaptable to each child’s style?

• Is it coming from me, or from them?

There’s structure, but there’s also space—to take a different approach, to get lost in the process, and to feel content with the outcome. I don’t do this alone; the entire Comini team contributes ideas, making every activity something we co-create.

And when I leave out a bottle of paint, a few Legos, cotton balls, and toothpicks, I see:

• A floating cloud garden

• A football court capturing the impact of a kick

• A girl who didn’t want night to come

• A black sheet with green blotches matching the hands of its artist

Ask the kids about their work, let them unravel its meaning, and your mind will be blown.

Other Notes:

Comini PlayDates

We are attempting to put together Comini Playdates (working title) for our mini summer break in May (19th - 30th). Comini Playdates hopes to be a spin off of FleaPlay where we’re able to showcase what we do at Comini, or things we don’t have time or resources to do during our regular days. Will share details when we have them.

We’ve also been very interested in setting up Parent Playdates - scheduling workshops (think Mem’s Levain baking or a fabric block printing class) or just sports, puzzle evenings etc where grownups can also play. Putting it out there so we are compelled to make it happen.

Extra activities (sports)

We had a couple of sports coaches reach out to us wanting to do specialized sports training for the kids and offered trials this month. The first was the skateboarding session at the Carter road skatepark and the second was the Track and field trial at Joggers park this week. The kids seemed to have enjoyed both and both have very different flavours to it (skateboarding is specialized, more balance and control related, Track and field geared towards more generalized fitness and athleticism). We’d love to do both, or either, but frankly do not have the school budgets to take this on. And we don’t want to saddle parents with costs that they might be pressurized to absorb either. Have told the kids that we have to think of ways to collectively raise money for the school to be able to do classes like this. But anything (yardsales, bake sales etc) all require time and effort and people to run, and we’d need to set up a parent+facilitator committee to run these. Leaving it here to discuss at our next parent chat

Miscellaneous

Two things

1. Recently revisited the amazing Free to Learn by Peter Gray. We’re thinking of putting together a compilation of books and resources to become mandatory reading for Comini parents and this one is definitely making it to the list. The audiobook is available free in the Audible trial!

2. We are not a school. While we expand and grow the microschool, wanted to take a moment to clarify that we are not a school by any legal or statutory definition. We’ve included a clarification on our website. Please do read this carefully.

That’s it for now : )

Priyanka and Sai

This memory surfaced recently as I explored Khanmigo, the AI-powered tutor from Khan Academy that promises (yet again) to revolutionize education. Running a microschool ourselves, we're constantly exploring how technology and AI can support real learning – the kind that sticks and transforms. I was naturally curious about Khanmigo's approach. Khan Academy is well-intentioned, and I love what they’ve built and offered over the last decade. But the problem that'll make Khanmigo fail isn't flawed execution – it's something far more fundamental.

The promise is seductive. Imagine a tutor with infinite patience, available 24/7, capable of adjusting to each student's pace and learning style. No more feeling lost in a classroom of forty students. No more shame in asking the same question multiple times. No more racing to keep up or waiting for others to catch up. It sounds perfect. That is, if the core problem was about information transfer or its delivery mechanism.

But here's the thing: it's not.

The Meaning Crisis

The surprising truth about education research is that it sits on top of a complete lack of understanding of why we learn and how we learn. We've poured billions into crafting curricula by committee, hoping to offer kids a well-rounded education so they can find their way to exceptional outcomes. Let's sand off all the edges to make something that can stand out! It's astonishing how one can go from well-meaning intentions to absolutely meaningless outcomes because of the many layers of abstractions in the middle.

Consider Khanmigo's sample question: "Ava had 6 shirts. Tate gave her 4 more. How many shirts does Ava have now?" The chatbot can patiently walk a student through the solution, breaking it down into smaller steps, offering encouragement along the way. But it can't answer the question that matters most: Why should anyone care?

The False Promise of Technology

For decades, we've thrown well-intentioned billions at making classroom learning more effective. We've reduced class sizes, introduced smart boards, and created adaptive learning software. Yet the fundamental challenges remain unchanged. Khan Academy, as well put together as it is, and others like it have essentially had zero impact on outcomes. Now we're placing our hopes on AI tutors, believing that personalized, infinitely patient communication will succeed where human teachers with classes of 40 have failed.

This optimism springs from a profound misunderstanding of learning. Learning isn't just about acquiring information – it's about developing the attitudes and skills needed to navigate one's world. We learn through error and experience, but crucially, we only learn from errors and experiences that feel meaningful to us. Our minds are designed to actively reject and ignore information that doesn't connect to our lived reality.

The Narrowing World

Consider what we've done to children's natural learning process. We first confined them to classrooms, separating them from the rich, meaningful contexts where learning naturally occurs. Then we narrowed their world to Chromebooks. Now we're narrowing their world further by channeling their learning through chatbot windows. This absurdity flies in the face of how humans are biologically designed to learn – through exploration, through play, through modeling the behavior of others in their community.

Take Khanmigo's approach to a curriculum-style question: "Ava sews one button onto her shirt on the first day, two buttons on the second day, four on the third day, and so on. Given that Ava is six years old and assuming a reasonable shirt size for her age, how many days will it take her to fill up the shirt with buttons?"

Khanmigo immediately reduces this to a geometric progression problem. It distills this open-ended narrative down to a sequence: what comes after 1, 2, 4? It must be 8, right? (Nope)

Because geometric progression is part of the concepts it's been designed to explore. This narrowing forecloses real open-ended exploration: What does it mean to have a reasonably sized shirt? What if she sewed the buttons on top of each other? True exploration – the kind that kids naturally love – gets lost in the rush to arrive at the "correct" answer.

A Different Path Forward

But this isn't an argument against technology in education, and I don't want to end 2024 on a curmudgeonly note. AI can be transformative if we acknowledge and address the fundamental problem: How do we make learning meaningful? How do we allow learners to see how concepts are useful in the real world? How do we demonstrate this instead of just talking about it?

The answer lies in using technology and AI to create exploration-friendly worlds where there are multiple ways to arrive at answers, and not all have to be aligned with a curriculum. We can learn from board games and card games that do a lot with little. Being able to see how kids learn and explore – and not losing sight of this – is profoundly important.

The path forward isn't about more sophisticated delivery mechanisms for the same old curriculum. It's about creating worlds where learning can happen naturally, meaningfully, and joyfully. Where technology enhances rather than constrains exploration. Where we focus less on efficient information transfer and more on making learning matter.

Because in the end, it's not about how well we can explain something. It's about whether anyone cares to learn it at all.

“Maybe she’s doing more exercise?”

“She wanted her mother to think she actually did exercise.”

“Well, not to trick her mother but to show her.”

These are some of the reasons the kids came up with in response to the puzzle. These lines don't capture the richness of how the kids explore the problem—how their minds and bodies (yes, bodies) are at work. How there is some form of learning happening at all times. Here’s an unfiltered glimpse.

What they are doing is thinking through this puzzle in Math Lab (what we call math class at Comini, so we can remind ourselves that exploration and experimentation are at the heart of it).

I often struggle to explain what we do with math at Comini. It quickly becomes an impassioned recital of what we don't do (rote memorization, jargon without reason, etc.) and broad terms for what we do and why. And that is playful exploration. because learning is trekking through a rich landscape of possibilities. That’s a vivid and enormously useful metaphor we derive a lot from (link to a much longer article on learning as exploration). But what does that exploration mean in the context of something like math? 

This is what it looks like.

It is exploring possibilities, flopping around while thinking, running off to play the guitar, wandering from the problem at hand to the possibilities of the day and back.

I give them a hint. "Focus on the first line." I read it with emphasis. They all focus on the word "shy" with renewed excitement.

"Ah, she didn't want to meet someone on the 8th floor!"

"She wanted to avoid meeting someone in the lift."

Not bad, but this is a puzzle and that isn't the answer. I ask them to read the first line again.

We do everything possible to take the mystery out of math. It's often all drills and monotonous manipulation without meaning and magic.

Math is the language of precision, patterns, and possibilities. We use math to go from "kind of this big" to "exactly this much," from "once in a blue moon" to "every 12 years." Yes, there is poetry, but it's the immense practicality—which is all around us in the modern world—that makes it so powerful.

But, for some bizarre reason, math is also the only language where we attempt to teach its script before learning to speak it! 1, 2, 3, and 0 are not math. They are symbols we use as shorthand for mathematical concepts.

Unlike any other language, which can be picked up by simply being immersed in it, math requires us to pay attention to things, even defocus from what we normally see and "look" at what is hidden. That isn't just a bunch of tomatoes—it is also, if you look closely, three distinct things. And there is something profound and universal about that three-ness. We can see it, imagine it, associate it with any object in the universe and create an utterly different picture of three things, which is nothing like our bunch of tomatoes, but still has that three-ness.

That makes it a tricky language to learn by mere immersion. It helps to have a guide directing our attention to certain aspects, making us look again when we think we've seen and recognized it all. As Piaget told us, and neuroscience repeatedly reminds us, children normally go from exploring and internalizing the concrete to imagining the abstract. They must learn to navigate their world in the present before exploring the realm of possibilities.

Our math guidance should keep that in mind. Here are our guidelines for how to do it, with a natural order to follow. What should we do initially, and how do we expand on it? We know we have a great math activity when it meets all these criteria.

Feel It First

It makes sense when we can connect it to our world. At an early age, that quite literally means holding things, feeling them, allowing our minds and bodies to internalize their forms—while also grasping the concept of discreteness and counting, without necessarily knowing those words. Montessori schools emphasize number rods, but nearly anything in our modern world of abundance will do. We use pebbles to get kids started with the idea of counting and numbers. Feeling it also means grounding it in their world. Eva's world is one they can imagine and almost feel their way through. They can picture her running down to Joggers' Park and taking the metallic mirrored elevator back. It isn't some dry word problem asking them to count petals on a worksheet flower.

Make It Matter

Our conventional math curriculum almost looks like its only use is in creating artificial problems for meaningless exams to get into college. Math is profoundly useful and exists everywhere in our lives and in our kids' lives. Let them see it, realize it, and understand how it helps. In this case, numbers aren't used directly, but sizes and dimensions are (puzzle hint!).

Play With Ideas 

The answer isn't the important thing here. It's how kids explore the conceptual space. What are the logical clues here? Is it Eva's attempt to convey something beyond the literal, or is it something in her character that narrows the space of possibilities? In exploring these, kids unpack mathematical reasoning. They learn to distill the rich picture of life into essential ideas and move them around to arrive at something new.

Literal play helps here as well. We love using board games and making board games that allow us to do this. Classics like Catan help drive home how being able to quantify and track resources can help, and to gradually build up ideas about optimizing their judicious use to achieve outcomes. Math becomes the indirect means to having fun.

Ask Why Before How 

In a typical classroom setting we are asked to dive into mathematical manipulations without asking why. "Because it is part of the curriculum" is the implicit answer that is universally rejected by young minds. The why should matter, and connect to their world. Why should I care about adding numbers? Or multiplying them? Why does Eva stop at floor 7, and not floor 6 or 8? Why does that number matter?

Stay With It

The usual focus on efficiency is counterproductive. Your wrist-watch is now capable of faster calculations than you will ever be. It is 2024 and we don't need to be computers or calculators. What matters is how we translate the problem at hand into a mathematical perspective. This often takes time and exploration. And that can be fun! Allow them to wallow and wander for the wonder to emerge. Why did Eva choose that floor? What other reasons might she have had? How many possibilities can we discover? What patterns emerge?

See It Everywhere

Every aspect of our modern world can be heard in the language of math. We can count seasons, stars, time, calories, social media clicks, and quantum bits. It is in the tiniest things and the most unimaginably vast things. By limiting math to dry problems in textbooks we are limiting imagination. Assigning mathematical ideas to the real world helps us in many ways. Why do we number floors and count minutes? We should be able to ask why and try to find our own answers before being given them.

The Map Is Not the World 

To facilitate math in this playful exploratory way doesn't mean we can't have a plan. The mathematical landscape has been charted out and we have maps we can use. And we do, in fact, use such personalized maps to understand where exactly each child is on this landscape.

But, as educators everywhere realize, maps can make us focus too narrowly and lose sight of the bigger picture. This is exactly what happens in conventional classrooms across the world when the commonly used map—the curriculum—becomes the sole focus. It becomes so because we evaluate children based on their ability to remember the map. We set out with the noble goal of creating explorers, but end up with map memorizers because we teach to the test.

We use maps as a handy reference while firmly believing there's no such thing as needing to know something by a certain age (an unfortunate belief that leads to math phobia for so many).

The numbers in the puzzle don't merely serve the needs of a narrow curriculum but reference the richness of the world they inhabit. Floor numbers in the elevator do not just map to the specific floor, but also have a spatial relationship that is maintained in how they are laid out. (Another puzzle hint!)

Alternative approaches to learning math aren't new. We are rediscovering what many others across the world have explored over the last few decades. Just to name one example, here is a brilliant book by a Russian mathematician recounting his explorations of math with a group of preschoolers in the 1980s. Why hasn't this playful approach become more widespread? Before the internet, one needed specialized resources to look up interesting approaches to specific concepts, to understand how to answer the many whys kids could ask. YouTube has made that exploration trivially easy. Now it requires only a willingness to learn anew, to explore with fresh eyes, and to ask the right questions. Asking the right questions remains challenging for many adults—we were never encouraged to ask why, only to master the how. Adults could use a helping hand to learn how to ask and learn, so they can pass insights along early. We believe this and the coming generation of AI tools are going to make this possible. We use AI to facilitate many aspects of learning and are building copilots to help adults (parents and educators) become more effective facilitators.

I ask them to read out the first line again. Nico eventually gets it! Their faces light up. What a delightful moment that is, when the pieces click together in place and the resonant picture emerges.

(You can listen to this article in a podcast format. Pretty decent rendition by NotebookLLM)

It’s one of those buzzy phrases in education—“personalized learning”. In an era where everything from your apron to your apartment is bespoke, it is no surprise we want a perfectly tailored education that fits our unique needs. For decades, alternative educators have argued that standardized, one-size-fits-all education actually fits no one. Neuroscientists have joined that chorus now. The opening anecdote is from The End of Average, a wonderful book that discusses how averages just don’t make sense when dealing with complex systems. And education and learning—and your child—are as complex as systems can be. (Fun fact: Ogi Ogas, my co-author on Journey of Mind, is also the co-author of The End of Average and worked on it during a stint at the Harvard School of Education with Todd Rose.)

So how do we go about drawing curtains on the average, and designing for the person? How do we personalize learning?

This Jordan Peterson meme, funny as it is when taken out of context, makes perfect sense here. We find ourselves revisiting each word to understand its many layers and flavors. What does it mean to personalize? What is learning?  

How should I teach geometry to a ten-year-old who struggles with it and is far more interested in graphic novels?

This is the kind of question that typically comes to mind when thinking about personalization. We find that this is too narrow a framing. It assumes a child of a certain age must know a certain set of things. That the struggle is a problem, and a problem with the child, not the curriculum. That their interests come in the way of useful learning. These are all untrue. And to understand why, we find ourselves drilling to the bedrock. Wait, what is learning?

What we find incredibly useful instead is using a vivid and well-fitting metaphor that immediately conveys what we are talking about, because it taps into what we already know. And the metaphor we keep coming back to is of learning as exploration. Learning is as rich and varied as life itself. It is the journey through the landscape of life and its many possibilities where we gain knowledge, know-how and wisdom. With this as our guiding metaphor, here are our commandments for personalizing learning that also allow us to see what meaningful learning is, and isn’t.

Get out of the way

We are saddled with this wrong notion that kids need a lot of handholding to get through their early years. With each passing year those early years stretch from infancy to graduate school. The end result is we take away their ability to be independent. Instead, we must trust their ability to do things on their own.

We must get out of the way because children have what it takes to learn on their own. They are relentlessly curious. They are soaking it all in, all the time. When we come up with meticulously detailed plans to teach them the perfect way and to leave no one behind, we are very much getting in the way with our plans and intentions.

Those are our plans, not theirs. Human minds, even newly minted ones, have a way of knowing when the plans aren’t their own and switch off. For learning to stick, whether personal or impersonal, it must be self-directed. And it’s self-directed when we get out of the way and let them explore and walk down the paths they are interested in.

Guide gently from the side

But getting out of the way does not mean you cannot help. You can point them in the right direction. You can reassure them when frustrated. We adults have more yards and years of experience on us. We can use that well, but while remembering that simply taking them down the path makes it easy to forget just as fast. They must make the trek on their own. Offer a different perspective. Help don’t hover.

Focus on attitude, not altitude 

Grades were supposed to be the means but became the ends. It was never supposed to be about grades. It was always supposed to be about the learning, which could be measured with grades. But grades took on a life of their own and everyone ended up “teaching to test”. Grades are bad in other ways too. They put labels on kids that become so sticky they become part of their identity. I am just bad at Science. I suck at Math. Not true. Kids are magical creatures in their ability to grow and change every single day. What they find insurmountably hard today, becomes a hop, skip, and a jump weeks, months, or years from now. Realizing and internalizing that they can get it eventually is far more important than getting it right now.

Allow for wandering and wondering 

Grades and exams train us for efficiency. How quickly can we get through something? Get to the goal fast. But learning is not just about knowing a single path. It is about forming a model, a worldview, in our heads of the overall landscape. Being able to ask—and then answer for ourselves—"What if?" "Why not this?" "How about this?" is what allows us to build this model. You learn more about the roses when we stop to smell them instead of just cataloging them with selfies. The best way to do this in classroom-like settings is to pick problems that allow for multiple answers and paths.

It’s the journey, not the map 

The curriculum is the one-size-fits-all well meaning map that fits no students. We are all competent adults despite the curriculum, not because of it. It speaks to our incredible abilities as lifelong learners that we function as contributing members of society doing difficult things that were never taught in school! You know that’s true for you and pretty much everyone else you know. That map was supposed to help us when we got lost, not block our view entirely and prevent us from seeing the world. Learning is meaningful when it is connected to our world and what we see as valuable in it. Experiences that bring in the real world make learning far more sticky and memorable. If your worksheet is too narrowly focused on, say the grammar of multi-clause conditional sentences, like this one, the map is blocking out the world. Instead, let them discover them in books or games of their choice. Have them pay attention to them when making up stories or rules for pretend-games with their friends. 

Group expeditions & solitary hikes

For too often we think of learning as a solitary journey where we must individually acquire information. We sit together in class, but we are not supposed to talk to each other. What a shame! It curtails the most profound learning mode kids have–the ability to imitate and absorb everything from their playmates. Spend any time with kids and you’ll see that the ones they are most eager, even desperate, to learn from are the cool older kids and cousins. We should enable that with play and group activities. But that can be balanced with me-time where they are allowed to shut out the world and do their thing. If a collaborative science project involving changing colors of flowers leads your child to dive deep into the capillary action of different items in the house, applaud them. 

Pack light, but pack smart 

Backpacks are getting heavier by the year. There’s a well-meaning effort to cram ever more, to get kids ready for life and work. We need to be smarter. We live in a world of abundance where there is a wealth of resources to learn from. What we need is to understand and nourish what deeper invisible skills are. Whether it is chemistry, geography, economics, or history, we are tapping into the same foundational skills of critical thinking, data analysis, reading comprehension, and storytelling. New subjects and topics will come and go as the world changes, but those skills remain the same.

Expect bad weather

There’s no bad weather, only bad clothing. This is a common saying in Finnish schools. This is a great metaphor for life too. Standardized tests suggest life’s problems come neatly identified and labeled and you can swim through life by learning how to tick the right boxes. Ah but life like weather is a turbulent system with no certainties. The only thing that is certain is uncertainty and learning how to work with ambiguity and incomplete information is important. 

Many paths to the summit  

We would not be discussing personalized learning in a pre-industrial age where opportunities were largely predestined and we did what our parents and great-grandparents did. We are incredibly privileged to live in bountiful times where there are jobs and careers that allow us to tap into a very varied set of skills. Success and happiness come in many flavors and are found on many paths.

And finally, the most important one of all, which really is the foundation on which the rest of the commandments can stand.

Be the basecamp

Learning mirrors our philosophy for life. Life isn't about the accumulation of things, whether it is intangibles like knowledge or the more material things we can now buy with a finger tap. It is about building a web of relations that connects us with family, friends, and community. The glue for this is love. Learning is not just cognitive. All learning is deeply emotional. We learn because we care. And we can learn widely and deeply when we know we are cared for and loved. We can push forward because someone has our back. We can pedal confidently when we know there’s someone there to catch our stumbles, and to cheer when we get it right.

The most important thing we can do is to love and listen.

PS: You can listen to this article in a podcast format. Pretty decent rendition by NotebookLLM)

That momentous first day that we enter kindergarten is the gateway to an endless cycle of assessment that will track us deep into adulthood. And all that assessment has a purpose—to measure our progress towards specific objectives set for us by society or by ourselves, such as mastering a subject and obtaining a job.

This quote is not from a book about education or schooling, but one about Artificial Intelligence. It’s fascinating that as we develop sophisticated AI tools, we are discovering unexpected parallels with education. We face the same challenges with artificial minds as we do with biological ones— particularly children.

One foundational challenge in education is the assessment of learning. 

What did we learn? 

How well did we learn? 

It seems obvious that we should know the answers to these questions. Is it?

To answer these questions, and to answer them objectively, at scale, we introduced standardized marking and grades. Someone gets a B in math or a 75 in Hindi. What’s the problem with that? Everything, it turns out.  

— Goodhart’s Law

We set out to measure how we are doing, and where we are going. Somewhere along the way, inevitably, we lose sight of the goal and focus on the measure. It seems perverse, but history tells us it happens every single time! In the case of education, this is “teaching to the test.” 

We set out to educate children, and we end up teaching them to pass exams. And the sad thing is this isn’t even a new revelation. Alfie Kohn called this this out in his book twenty-five years ago. Anya Kamenetz reiterated this under a decade ago in her book. And here’s Ted Dintersmith making a very compelling case for this a few years ago.

We do want to know what we are learning and how we are learning, but clearly grades are not the answer. What is then?

Here’s a preview of how we are doing assessments at Comini. Instead of reductive grades, we do narrative observations. To understand why these make a lot more sense, it’s worth unpacking the metaphors that are implicit in learning and education. In conventional education, you are a box on a treadmill that’s to be graded and packaged and shipped to adulthood. That made some perverse sense in an industrial age, but is woefully outdated now. 

Another way to look at learning is through the lens of exploration. We are all explorers in this journey of life and learning. Through this discursive exploration, we learn about the world and our unfolding self. And there’s no goal because these landscapes are infinite. We love this metaphor. We love that we can be guides on this journey. Guides who are there to help when needed, but mainly get out of the way and let curiosity and passion and playfulness take the lead. 

But as guides we can still be well informed. We can use maps to help navigate this journey. We use what we call a curriculum landscape to help our facilitators understand the lay of the land. 

We use competency maps to understand what to expect or observe at different ages. We do this with the full understanding that these are broad averages and everyone’s journey unfolds in its own unique way and pace.

So, we have a landscape we want to explore, and maps to help guide us in this exploration. How do we know how these journeys are unfolding? To extend the metaphor, we use “field notes.” These are the narrative observations that tell us everything of note about learning and life along the way. 

It isn’t easy for facilitators to create these. To make rich and nuanced observations, one must both see and unsee, and care enough to do those well and repeatedly.  That’s another reason standardized grading is so hard to unseat. It is just easier to grade and bin. But these daily and weekly observations are essential and help us all understand and appreciate how learning is multifaceted.

This is actually worth looking at closely. Note how the observation is not about math alone, but the social interactions and dynamics too. And this is hugely important. 

Because all learning is cognitive and emotional! We learn because we care for something. Reductive assessments make sure we erase this.

These daily and weekly observations, about individual children and group activities, add up to a pile rather quickly. We use AI to synthesize copious observations made for each child over days and weeks. We built a pipeline to refine and iterate and make these reports a reflection of reality and a truly “intelligent” summary.

AI is quickly making its way into education. There’s breathless hype about AI chatbots, and many parents are understandably worried about handing their wards over to robot teachers. Teachers who drone away in class is one thing, but literal drones? Yeesh. 

Here’s where we can again turn to our guiding metaphors to understand how AI fits in. We see AI as a GPS for learning. Maps help us figure out the lay of the land, but maps or atlases can be a literal handful. The older ones among us might remember what it meant to travel to unknown places with a bunch of atlases, poring over pages to find the right one. GPS systems made it easy to figure out how to quickly get to the right map, and to the right level of detail. AI allows us to do the same.

Just as important as what it does is what it does not do. A GPS system does not tell you where to go. Along with maps, they can be used to figure out potentially interesting landmarks and destinations, but the decision is ours. Similarly, we see AI as helping us in many different ways, including synthesizing narratives, suggesting potential areas for improvement, even crafting activity ideas. But where we go next depends on the explorer and the guides. The humans in the loop—the child, the facilitators, and parents—are collaboratively in charge. And when we are collectively on this journey, we bring along the maps, we pay attention to these observations, but we listen to our heart too. 

Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned, the book we quoted at the start, ends on this note.

We wholeheartedly agree.

There are two modes to learning. We are quite familiar with the first. I've not seen the second discussed anywhere. Well, we do cover it in Journey of the Mind, but not in these terms.

They are 1) learning from error and 2) learning from experience. There are profound differences between the two. Another way to think of these: purposeful learning & playful learning.

Learning from error: Our bodies use this all the time. This is how we learn to walk, learn to talk, play tennis or the tabla. We babble, we flail. We make mistakes. We learn from them. We use the difference between where we are and where we want to be to get better. Almost all of the learning methods we are taught in life, even the kind of learning that is used to teach AI models, use this approach.

In the case of schooling, someone comes up with goals and learning is driven by trying to reduce the distance between what we know/can do and what the goals suggest they should. This approach assumes a purpose that is well defined. This almost always results in undue emphasis on process and technique. Phonics, multiplication, differentiation, sheet music, free throw techniques.. Why? Because if you know your goal, and everyone's keenly measuring how well you can achieve this goal, then why not spend the time trying to get there efficiently.

But what if you don't know what the goal is? This exclusive focus on goals and purposeful, error-driven learning leaves the other approach untapped. But this other way of learning is what gives us humans our astonishing world-transforming super powers! This is learning from experience.

In learning from experience, you do not have a goal. You simply connect what you are experiencing with what you already know, to create new experiences. And here's something mind-blowing. The process by which this is possible is what we recognize as consciousness. The core learning loop, where the sensory data that is flooding into us is matched with prior experiences, is what Grossberg & Carpenter termed adaptive resonance – matching of top-down expectations with bottom-up reality. This results in all our conscious experiences.

Children are naturally wired to learn this way. We call it PLAY. They explore the world, and their own selves, without a goal. As they do, they connect new experiences with old ones and create a progressively richer model of the world. Schooling is now taking it away because of the excessive focus on someone else's purpose. As adults we give in to the pressures of a purpose, either our own or someone else's, and shed this ability to learn from playful experience. What a tragedy!

Funny that we are now doing to AI models what we did to children. We are limiting exploration and play and training them with a narrow purpose: minimize errors on datasets. Grossberg's work could be tremendously useful in getting out of this rut, but that's another story.

Our bet is we can achieve transformative learning when we are able to balance purpose and play, technique and exploration, error and experience, and procedural and conceptual. There must be a balance, a virtuous feedback loop. Wait, that sounds familiar. A resonance! I'll call it resonant playful learning. (We create learning experiences guided by this principle.)

So with the right balance, we can through play achieve purpose, and over time this helps us cultivate a perspective. We are a constellation of experiences transforming ambiguous, chaotic data into our next experience. We are unique in this universe because of our particular constellation of experiences, which gives us a truly unique purpose. This is a perspective even the best AI models cannot hope to have, because they simply don't have your unique bundle of experiences.

This also means that both the career of the future and the purpose of education going ahead are perspective engineering. The building up of meaningful experiences that make us human. So let us play, let us encourage playful exploration and learning, because it is the path to discovering purpose and building a perspective and creating a self.

(This was originally posted as a Twitter thread on the International Day of Play)

So, there you have it. Schools suck. The schooling system sucks. But what do we replace it with? That's the problem that we find ourselves solving. At the heart of the change we seek to bring is the philosophy and approach to learning itself. We cannot merely shout out playful learning and snap our fingers to make it happen. While kids, with their immense capacity to soak in anything anywhere, do make it easy, we still need to translate this philosophy into practice.

Here are a few things we try to live by, and why. We are including a few links to books we love, in case you are interested in exploring more.

Playful learning means that we allow for kids' bodies and minds to wander, get distracted, ask questions if seemingly irrelevant, explore why this way, and why not that way.

We understand that learning is not just cognitive, but it is always emotional and often social. To learn something, we must find value in it. We do not focus only on intellectual content. We also prioritize creating positive emotional experiences and fostering social connections in learning. And emotion is not just the overt kind, but also the long-term feelings and attitudes one develops for any pursuit.

They fail because they are afraid, bored, and confused. They are afraid, above all else, of failing, of disappointing or displeasing the many anxious adults around them, whose limitless hopes and expectations for them hang over their heads like a cloud.

— How Children Fail by John Holt

We pick themes and tie activities to these themes because they allow the kids to see how things they are learning are meaningfully connected. We do not teach subjects in isolation without connecting them to a larger context or theme.

We also try not to introduce labels or terms or jargon first. We instead give them examples they understand, and then allow them to learn the labels later, connecting them to what they now know.

A certain amount of learning about, just like a certain amount of elements first, is fine. The problem is overdoing it. The problem is endless learning about something without ever getting better at doing it. So, to parallel elementitis, I like to call endless learning about aboutitis. Yes, it lets learners acquire some information about the French Revolution and the American Revolution, mitosis and meiosis, the positions of the planets, continental drift, and the tensions of race and status in Othello. But this only provides a kind of informational backdrop rather than an empowering and enlightening body of understanding.

I thought over my undergraduate and graduate experience at MIT and realized something that surprised me at the time and has stayed with me ever since: In my technical courses, I had rarely done anything but solve problems. I almost always succeeded, but the problems came from the text or the instructors. I had never undertaken anything like a project or an open-ended investigation. The consequence was inevitable: I had a fierce battery of problem-solving skills and hardly any problem-finding skills.

— Making Learning Whole by David Perkins

We tie the learning to their (our) world. This again means showing examples. We constantly remind ourselves that there is a big difference between showing examples (doing or demonstrating) and giving examples (explaining or discussing).

We understand that it is entirely okay if they don't get it now. There is plenty of time. Learning is nonlinear. What seems hard now can become easy 6 months or 1 year later because their brains and brain regions are growing - at their own unique pace.

So our job as parents is not to make a particular kind of child. Instead, our job is to provide a protected space of love, safety, and stability in which children of many unpredictable kinds can flourish. Our job is not to shape our children's minds; it's to let those minds explore all the possibilities that the world allows. Our job is not to tell children how to play; it's to give them the toys and pick the toys up again after the kids are done. We can't make children learn, but we can let them learn.

— The Gardener and the Carpenter by Alison Gopnik

We always try to do and demonstrate, not talk and teach. When doing activities, we try to remember we often don't need to talk or explain it first. We do it as we are setting up and doing. Doing is far more engaging for children than listening to us talk.

Most schools in most countries place a higher priority on teaching students to follow instructions and rules (becoming A students) than on helping students develop their own ideas, goals, and strategies

— Lifelong Kindergarten by Mitchell Resnick

We remind ourselves that real understanding takes two things: conceptual insight and procedural fluency. Both are important. But we should not teach them procedures alone. We cannot say things like "Because this is important later in life". It's on us to show how it is important, and useful, and fun.

Procedural fluency can only happen with practice. But we cannot force practice. Instead, we offer opportunities. Forcing it is counterproductive, as it can result in negative long-term attitudes like aversion and dislike (like the most common one, which you've probably witnessed, an intense dislike for maths).

We have forgotten that children are designed by nature to learn through self-directed play and exploration, and so, more and more, we deprive them of freedom to learn, subjecting them instead to the tedious and painfully slow learning methods devised by those who run the schools.

Free To Learn by Peter Gray

These are are some of the principles we try to live by. Here are a few books that have helped us understand why these principles matter and how we might translate them into effective practice.

Creative Schools by Ken Robinson

Free at Last: The Sudbury Valley School by Daniel Greenberg (Many parents worry about what kids might learn or not learn if left to their own devices. If you do, please read this one.)

Grit by Angela Duckworth

Home Learning Year by Year by Rebecca Rupp

Mindset by Carol Dweck

The School of Life by Alain de Botton

The Unschooling Unmanual (This is a short collection of essays. The best one, which we recommend very highly, is Schooling: The Hidden Agenda. It is the transcript of a talk given by the writer Daniel Quinn and is available online.)

What books would you recommend? Please tell us in the comments!

Many alternative schools have similar origin stories, of parents rediscovering the flaws of our schooling system. Precious few, however, are able to scale because applying these principles is hard. Where we think we are different is we believe the right use of technology can help make this learning possible while empowering all the humans in the loop.

Jane is an American whose childhood was spent across many African countries, with parents who were committed to spreading education to empower people and solve problems.  Her range of school experiences (and their quality) and seeing how right learning had the  power to transform a person's future made education somewhat of an automatic career choice. Jane has taught 3rd and 5th grades in the PYP system for the past 20 years. She’s had stints as a learning needs specialist up through high school, an educator at a private school in Belgium, and a teacher in a rural public school in a farming community in the US. She has now been in Mumbai for 15 years teaching, raising her family, and volunteering “here and there as seems possible and meaningful” as she puts it..

One way to see it is Jane’s a messenger from a system of standardized schooling we reject. That would be a rather reductive perspective 🙂. As we see and learn over and over at Comini, it really comes down to the daily lived experience and love for children. And Jane has both in spades! 

Jane is a friend of Comini and has been incredibly generous with her time. She conducted a session with our facilitators to go over the ideas of scaffolding and social emotional learning.

As fans of Jerome Bruner’s work, we are already looking at ways to scaffold–offer gentle support till it’s needed– and spiral learning. The most important thing neuroscience has to teach us is that we become fluent, more ready for complex ideas when we have understood something from multiple perspectives. Each visit to a topic, an idea, or an activity can shed new insights. There’s literally an infinitude of learning possibilities in the most mundane thing you can pick (paper clips, potatoes, potted plants, pepper shakers). 

As for SEL, as many enlightened educators have discovered over the years, and neurocience tells us, you cannot have any learning without the right attitudes and emotions. And again, learning for us is about life itself and not limited to some narrow cognitive domain.

Here’s Jane in her own voice:

And here’s a text recap of our Q & A with Jane:

Q: Can you share your thoughts on the significance of scaffolding in teaching?

One of the biggest ideas I was hoping to get across is that scaffolding is already happening, and if you're aware that these tools are scaffolds, looking for that sweet spot where kids could do a bit more with just a little bit of support can significantly increase the individualization and effective support. Kids will grow and learn on their own without us, so the power of teachers is to be in the right place, looking for spots where they could do just a little bit more with just the right support.

Q: How do you relate your teaching approach to improvisation in theater?

I compare it to a theater person, an improv presenter, having a scarf but knowing through many ways they can use that scarf. It helps them in the moment when they need to adapt to a new scenario. Similarly, being aware of how you can use educational tools allows for more effective and impressive teaching.

Q: How do you approach SEL in your classroom?

In my classroom, SEL is intertwined with everything we do. We start the year focusing on routines, rhythms, and expectations, recognizing that kids need to practice these with their bodies and not just understand them intellectually. For example, moving from one place to another, listening to each other, and understanding appropriate behaviors in different situations are skills we revisit often. Our morning meetings are crucial, not officially labeled as SEL, but they're about connecting as a group, acknowledging each person, and setting the stage for activities that often include SEL themes like growth mindset.

Q: Can you share an example of how you integrate SEL with everyday learning?

This week, we focused on growth mindset through a series of videos and reflections. We discussed how reacting to mistakes is a learning opportunity, emphasizing that mistakes are nothing to feel bad about. It was fascinating to see that the students who usually avoid talking about their reactions to mistakes are often the ones who avoid making them the most. I've even designated parts of the day where we don't use erasers to encourage focusing on improvement rather than perfection.

Q: What strategies do you use to promote a positive classroom environment?

Before assemblies, we review expectations with a slide that remains the same but is crucial due to its infrequency. We also maintain a schedule that, while subject to change, helps frame the day for students. Additionally, we spend a significant amount of time teaching and practicing breathing techniques, and have set up a 'peace place' for students to calm down, reflecting our commitment to teaching self-regulation and emotional awareness.

Q: How do you address social challenges among students?

Recently, to tackle a 'mean kid' situation, we explored using picture books to prompt discussions on kindness and inclusion. We also plan read-aloud sessions on Friday afternoons, sometimes focusing on social-emotional themes, to foster a sense of community and understanding among the students.

Q: How do you incorporate SEL into your curriculum?

SEL is integrated into our curriculum through morning meetings, specific activities focusing on themes like growth mindset, and collaboration with our counselor who provides guidance lessons on feelings and sensations. We revisit strategies for recognizing and managing emotions, teaching simple yet effective methods like mindful sipping of water or identifying different colors in the room, to build a foundation of self-awareness and emotional intelligence.

Q: Can you describe a specific SEL activity that was particularly impactful?

One activity that stood out involved sharing personal experiences with making mistakes and discussing our reactions. It opened up a conversation about growth mindset and the value of mistakes in the learning process. This activity was not only a chance for reflection but also an opportunity to normalize the experience of struggling and learning from it. The participation of students who usually avoid discussing mistakes highlighted the activity's impact, demonstrating the importance of creating a safe space for these conversations.

Q: How do you involve the broader school community in SEL?

Our approach to SEL extends beyond the classroom. For example, we're exploring picture book read-alouds to address social dynamics like exclusion and empathy. This involves the whole grade and even other staff members, showing that SEL is a shared responsibility. Additionally, our assemblies often incorporate elements of SEL, from setting collective expectations to practicing mindfulness together. These moments reinforce the idea that SEL is integral to our community's fabric, not just an individual classroom concern.

Q: How do you adapt SEL practices to individual and group needs?

By recognizing that some students may need more explicit instruction or opportunities to practice certain social-emotional skills, like how to respond to mistakes or manage emotions. We use morning meetings and specific activities, like sharing personal challenges and strategies for overcoming them, to cater to these varying needs.

Q: Can you give examples of how you've used creative methods to teach SEL?

A creative method we've employed involves using literature and storytelling. For instance, in addressing social challenges like exclusion, we've considered using picture books that illustrate these issues in relatable ways. This strategy, including the idea of rotating small groups through different book readings, leverages storytelling to foster empathy and understanding among students. The introduction of a 'peace place' in our classroom was a new initiative aimed at providing a designated space for students to calm down and self-regulate.

Q: In what ways do you foresee the future development of SEL in your practice?

Looking ahead, I see the future development of SEL in my practice involving deeper integration with academic learning and broader community involvement. This could mean more collaborative projects that combine SEL with other subject areas, increasing family and community engagement in SEL activities, and exploring new technologies or methods for enhancing SEL instruction. Continuously reflecting on and adapting our practices will be key to meeting the evolving needs of our students.

Thank you, Jane! Here’s to more such educators sharing their love and insights with us all.

We are doing an orientation to Comini (our microschool) on April 26th, Friday 4:30 - 6 PM

We'll talk about microschooling and our specific version of it.

Here's more about our approach to learning  and how we make it possible with technology

Here's what our days are like https://www.instagram.com/cominilearning/

If interested, please fill the form here.

This is a slice of life from Comini, our microschool. What does it look like, practically, when we talk about bringing AI into the classroom alongside teachers? Well, for one thing, the AI is invisible. No dystopian humanoid robots share desks with children, and the space isn't fitted out with the latest technology and gadgets. There are also no sensors, hidden microphones, and cameras lurking in corners, watching every move.

The common techno-utopian fantasy these days is to have AI chatbots aid or even replace teachers. Not here.

In our setting, teachers are celebrated, and they are there to do what they do best. Only, they are assisted in such a way that they can do what they do far better than they ever could before. We have written about how AI can help great teachers scale. This is how it works in practice.

AI makes them superhuman.

A reading activity is in full swing, and all the other kids are heroically stumbling their way through letters and syllables while the teacher makes her way from one child to another. Meera looks down at the jumble of squiggles in her book and sighs. She stares out the window. Down below in the street, she watches a stray dog sniffing around. She wishes she could bathe him, feed him, give him a name, and love him. Her facilitator comes around and gently redirects her to the book. Meera doesn’t want to read. What’s the point anyway—when she could be out there?

If we’re going to have any sort of meaningful discussion about the role of AI in the classroom, we have to step back and examine the role of a teacher in depth. What does a really great teacher do? 

Our traditional idea of what makes a great teacher is all about knowledge transfer. A good teacher takes knowledge and makes their pupils absorb and understand it, right? Well, yes… this is true, but saying this is a teacher’s job, is as limiting as saying your house’s job is to give you a place to put your clothes. If transferring and explaining knowledge was all they did, why haven’t we gotten rid of teachers long ago and replaced them with textbooks and prerecorded video lessons? (I guess some are trying to do just that!)

A great teacher’s job is complex and intensely human. They connect with children. They connect with parents. They flex and plan along the curriculum and adapt, and during lessons, they pause and emphasize and empathize.

And, there is something more, something unspoken, that a great teacher transfers to their students, and you would have sensed this when you were at school. A great teacher, the best kind of teacher, transfers more than knowledge. They transfer passion, interest, excitement, and curiosity. They care. And all of these are critical ingredients to learning. When these intangible qualities are missing, you can get the kindling and the firewood ready, but the fire of learning will not burn. The teacher is the one who provides the spark. 

You see, culture chews up curriculum before breakfast. You could teach a child what you want them to learn from dawn till dusk, but if they do not see this as a valuable topic or subject and they are not motivated by the people and culture around them to explore this, you’re wasting your breath. As humans, we are fundamentally wired to seek out each other, talk to each other, learn from each other. A child won’t appreciate the beauty in 19th-century impressionism because a chatbot or retrofitted Roomba can rattle out 25 points about why the art is lovely. They learn to appreciate it because someone they love, cares, admires it, and talks passionately about it. 

It’s easy to see how a teacher facilitates a large part of this learning culture. They model the world and help children navigate different learning paths. And they help children to ask and understand why that path. 

A teacher has their hands full with connecting with children - observing them, leading them, facilitating experiences that they can explore and where they can grow. And they need to observe and personalize the learning journeys of multliple children - so a lot of what they do happens after and before they actually teach. This is no easy feat, and so even the world’s greatest teachers could use a little help.

Meera’s facilitator at the microschool picks up on the fact that she’s not engaged in learning to read like her peers. It’s a puzzling situation, because Meera is excelling in general and participates eagerly during most activities. Her teacher calls in the parents, and they are more than a little concerned and anxious. Meera is falling behind, with children younger than her reading fluently already. They don’t believe in rushing the process, but it’s natural to start getting worried. The teacher says that her gut is telling her that Meera is not motivated to read. They try figuring out what it would look like to motivate Meera, but they’re coming up blank - it’s not like they haven’t tried this before. 

The teacher turns to Zippie, her AI assistant. She’s been feeding it with data and observations for her individual students for the past month and she hopes that maybe it would pick up a trend in Meera’s interests that she might be missing and give them an age-appropriate list of reading recommendations. 

Zippie has an answer ready. It mentions that Meera loves animals, and that she has a strong sense of justice and likes fixing problems when interacting with her peers. She also loves whimsy. And, she loves the show Mira, Royal Detective. Zippie suggests the series “Dog Man” by Dav Pilkey. Her parents are not surprised by Meera’s interests and Zippie’s observations about their daughter. They know her very well, after all. But the Dog Man books would have never occurred to them as a choice of reading material for Meera.

Would it work? It was worth a shot.

And that is how AI helps teachers. It plays to its strengths: it observes, remembers observations, analyzes, and recommends plans. 

AI can:

• Write summarized, narrative observations of each child based on the teacher’s observations

• Give the teacher a GPS for the learning landscape of each child

• Craft exploration guides (work) at the right level

• Create planning calendars, tailoring curriculum requirements to the children’s existing interests

• Come up with creative challenges at the right difficulty level for students so they can explore learning paths and build fluency. See one of our (fabulous) AI-assisted assignments.

• Train teachers in applied, hands-on ways that go beyond theoretical knowledge. For example, see this exercise to help teach teachers about scaffolding and help them anchor their learning in practical scenarios.

To teach effectively, teachers must know where each child is. This is virtually impossible, especially in the large classrooms of a traditional school. Even in a microschool, keeping track of where each child is, along with their ever-unfolding interests, and analyzing that into a cohesive whole, is a challenging (and time-consuming) task. 

When AI steps in, teachers can focus on observing children – on really observing them without any preconceived notions (and it can help with that too). These observations over time are analyzed and summarized and connected together in a way no human is able to, because these are the kinds of things that current AI excels at: summarizing, recasting into a different perspective, and creating something using a paint-by-numbers approach. 

Teachers can then use their human intuition and interpersonal skills to decide what to use (and what not to) and apply all of the information in a way that works for each child. 

The way we use AI at Comini, and the way we think is the right way forward, is not about turning teachers into chatbot handlers and replacing the most important parts of their job. It’s exactly the opposite. When used well, teachers can reduce the time they spend on many of the routine tasks they normally need to do, and they can focus on really teaching: caring, loving, promoting grit and resilience, and transferring passion, curiosity, and excitement, which are absorbed by the kids as the teacher lives this out.

Meera’s teacher could not believe her eyes. She’d dismissed her class after reading to go outside for some free play time… and here Meera was, curled up in the corner with Dog Man. It has only been a week now since they gave her the book, but Meera is suddenly reading. 

With a mere month’s worth of data captured, Meera’s teacher starts getting very excited indeed about the possibilites her new AI helper offers. What about Kabir, who was thriving at Math, until he got inexplicably stuck two weeks ago? Or maybe there would be some insights for little Ellie, who needs to find something she excels at to unlock her confidence. And… could it help her plan out curriculum tasks on the calendar? She hated doing that - was it smart enough for this?

The rate of AI adoption has been incredible in all spheres of life. And it won’t be any different for education. We are betting that ten years from now, talking about AI-powered schools will sound as silly as talking about electricity-powered schools. It is going to be ubiquitous, cheap, transformative, and universally taken for granted—like using a calculator. Or a GPS, which is probably a better metaphor for it.

Are you excited about this brave new world?

Fortunately, this isn’t some pie-in-the-sky article about theoretical things AI could do one day.

If you’re looking forward to the possibilities of what AI can do in the classroom, we’ve got programs, ideas, and tools in place. 

If you are curious to learn how you could start using AI in the classroom, or you want to learn more about how you can personalize learning at your microschool (or homeschool), please reach out to us.

We are also looking for more teachers to turn them into superheroes. If you are interested in teaching in a whole new way and making a difference while having fun with kids every single day, please reach out to us here!

Using AI well in learning requires us to understand learning well. Sai (our co-founder) has written a book about it. And it happened to be trending at #1 on Amazon (neuroscience) recently. Go get it!

1. The layout of a kitchen and the names and uses of all the utensils, equipment, and where to find them.

2. How to actually cook the meal by letting them see how you do it, and possibly even letting them help you.

We’re quite interested in what all of you have to say! Since we’ve never been in this situation, it would be a bit arrogant to say that we know the right answer, but we’d probably go with option 2. Teaching only about the kitchen and cooking utensils isn’t going to translate into a fully cooked meal. We’re not saying it’s useless for the aliens to know kitchen structure and where to find everything, but seeing the kitchen in use functionally is going to be much more useful if you would like them to actually cook a meal.

Okay, because none of us know an alien, let’s backtrack to humans and their brains—and the science of how they look, work, and learn.

What & Where (Structure) vs How & Why (Function)

Like famous explorers from centuries ago, neuroscientists have been slogging away for decades, mapping, mapping… and… mapping the parts of the brain. They’ve noted which parts light up in different situations, and this has been enormously helpful. We now not only know about the hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal lobes, but we also know exactly what happens there. Okay, let’s be more honest—we think we have a pretty good idea.

The sticky matters come into play when we ask how we can apply this structural knowledge to practically helping people learn. This has been a notoriously thorny issue for neuroscience. 

Neuroscience is more than just brain structure, just like your kitchen is more than a location in your house with cooking utensils. It is an intricate tangle of brain structure and function. Knowing what happens where in terms of structure, isn’t useful without knowledge of how and why it happens. Function cannot exist without structure, and structure has no use without function. To go back to the kitchen example, meals can’t be cooked in a kitchen (function) without the physical kitchen and utensils and appliances. At the same time though, a fully-equipped kitchen is meaningless without it being used.

Let’s explore this with another metaphor. If you think of the human brain as a city, you could look at satellite pictures of a city and say: “Oh! This is amazing! Learning happens in schools and bedrooms. We should build more schools and bedrooms.” It’s easy to see that won’t necessarily increase learning. In the same way, knowing the location of certain brain processes has limited use for application to learning. What’s more important, is asking questions like: “How does thought happen?” or “How does memory formation happen and why is it important?” Most importantly, neuroscientists should be devoting time to asking: “How does understanding work?”

When Structural Emphasis Goes Wrong

We’re not saying that structure is useless. It’s useful for many things, but applying that knowledge to learning is not that easy. And when that knowledge gets applied incorrectly, things can go south really fast, like with the left-brain/right-brain dominance myth.

The lesson we learn from this is to make careful assumptions when applying knowledge about the brain’s structure to learning. We must take a step back from worrying about which different parts of the brain do what. Instead, let’s focus on what the brain does and how it works—functionally.

Knowing Labels

In the same way that decades of brain science have slapped a label on different parts of the brain and lulled us into thinking we really understand how those parts function, we tend to slap a label on knowledge and call it education. 

Let’s revisit our aliens-in-the-kitchen scenario, but this time, imagine, you’re part of a galactic exchange program. You’re now on a faraway alien planet, and you’re standing in front of an alien pantry. In it, are a bunch of ingredients that you are completely unfamiliar with.

The two aliens that you taught to fry paneer samosas earlier, are trying to teach you to cook in their kitchen. If they could help you to read, pronounce, and memorize the names of the alien ingredients, would that help you to cook?

No! Knowing the names might make you feel like you know something. And it could be very helpful eventually if you get hired as a chef in an alien restaurant. But to cook a decent meal, you need to know how the ingredients taste and to understand how the different flavor profiles and textures combine and work together. Rote memorization of ingredient labels isn’t going to get you very far. 

You see, we’ve come back to the same issue: structure and smacking labels on things, versus understanding function on a deeper level.

We introduce our children to alien pantries and expect them to cook by learning labels all the time. Study the table below to see how this looks in real life.

We could probably go on with examples all day long! 

The right hand column holds so many benefits. A child who learns math that way will understand division much more easily when they get there. The exploratory approach to reading (while still using phonics) will help them master sounds faster. And, they’ll understand that if a nation is put under severe climatic stresses in the 21st century, political will combined with innovative thinking could still solve big problems, just like it did for the Vijayanagara Empire. 

Deeper, true learning is about much more than just knowing labels. We’re not saying you should never learn the “labels!” But, you should never mistake a mere map for the actual, real-life place that the map is representing. Let your child explore the map’s actual terrain before they memorize the map and label it.

There’s an old wooden computer desk on our terrace at Comini. We had square holes cut out to put in two Ikea trays (I forget why). Those trays are no longer in, so what we have is a table with two large holes at the top and a small rectangular one at the back, the one used to pass wires through. And this is somehow the favorite setting and stage – in a place overflowing with playthings of every kind - for kids to transform with their imagination. The holes become windows and doors to a house where they become bickering brothers and sisters. They become TV characters literally inside a television set, enacting their latest mythological science-fiction absurdist fantasy to a rotating cast of audience members. The table has also been an ATM, a hotel, a salon and a restaurant. To many adults, this is kids just doing their thing. Play, we label it, and move on with our busy lives.

Every school and parent tries to set their children up for success. That includes the most conventional of schools as well. Implicit in that word “success” is a metaphor for a child and a model for the world. The child is a vessel that must be filled with knowledge and the world is a rat-race, says the traditional schooling system.

We started Comini because, like so many other parents, we did not buy into this worldview. We see the world as one full of abundance for all. We are privileged to live in a time and place where this is largely true. We see the child as an explorer, one who not only explores the world laid out in front of them but also actively engages with it, makes sense of it, and manufactures meaning from it.

When you look at school through this lens, it becomes easy to see why standardized teaching and testing make no sense. But what should replace it? How and what should we teach? 

Wait, should we even teach?

We are now two years into running Comini and we see on a daily basis how teaching, with all the historical baggage it lugs along, is the wrong approach and word.

We see daily how kids are just wired to explore and learn – through play. Neuroscience backs this up, and so do (we’d guess) your parental intuitions. Researchers have sliced and diced it into bins and given them names like messy play, risky play, role play, and of course pretend play - the kind our impractical table so ably supports. Play is whatever children are keen to do on their own. In doing this, children are making sense of the world and creating meaning.  What happens when I do this to that? What does this person do? How do they perform their roles and exercise their authority? How do they - in Liam Neeson’s paternal words  - use their very particular set of skills? 

Our most important role then is to step back and let this exploration and discovery unfold. Psychologists draw a distinction between discovery learning and mastery learning. Neuroscience tells us it’s a dance between the two. So we become gentle choreographers.

We hear the anxious chirps of parents. But how are they going to learn all the important stuff like math and reading, and biology and chemistry? Don’t we have to sit them down at some point and drill it into their initially unwilling minds?

Listen to this. What do you hear?

Did you realize that there are three words in there - scent, cent, and sent – that actually sound exactly the same? What class did you have to sit through to be able to listen to these arbitrary vibrations rippling out through your speaker and transform and parcel them into three different meanings? 

We give ourselves far too little credit! Our minds come equipped with amazing tools. They can perform all kinds of fantastical feats without having to be put through drills in classrooms. 

The working definition of learning within the narrow view of our traditional system—a definition we’ve come to unconsciously adopt—is  something that lets us know how to do something: know-how. We came to think of learning as something we can see and measure because well, do you know how to do it or not? We’ve institutionalized the drilling and measurement of these surface competences like multiplication tables, i-before-e-except-after-c, names of presidents, poets, and planets because we simply had no idea what was going on underneath.

We know more now. There’s a lot going on inside before know-how emerges on the surface. Visible competences emerge after deeper, invisible skills solidify. We cannot read until we have developed our phonological working memory. We cannot really grasp multiplication without a number sense in place. Play helps us model the world we live in while building these foundational skills. 

Play can also mean a playful exploration of even the most seemingly abstract topics. Consider how leached of joy our classroom encounters with chemical compounds, microbiology and photosynthesis were. All of these could be explored by quite literally playing with mud and planting in it, seeing seeds grow into ecosystems and allowing for a multitude of microorganisms to thrive. Starting there, in the mud, allows for meaning and motivation to flower.

Be a guide on the side, not a sage on the stage

So, what we do is guide, not teach. We do so keeping in mind that we are not experts. We merely have a few more yards and years of exploration on us. We both guide and learn along at the same time. To be an adult is to be a little more experienced in navigating the world. Experience that brings efficiency, but efficiency that comes at the cost of quick judgments, closing us off to learning. Children allow us to see, listen, feel anew again with our preconceptions toggled off. What a gift that is!

“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.” —Rachel Carson

So what is success for us then? Where must the exploration and discovery take us? The funny thing about exploration is that in making sense of the world, we are also constructing a self, an articulate identity. We have the gift of consciousness and self-awareness. We metabolize miracles daily from the light of our sun. 

We do not merely react to the world; we reshape it. We create. We imagine what can be instead of adapting to what is. We see possibilities when all there is, is a table with holes.

We are purposeful beings in a world of abundance. A world we created. What that purpose is, we must discover for ourselves. Success isn’t discovering it but the journey itself.  That is the message we try to live by and bring to life everyday. And that is what we ultimately strive for – to enable playful, purposeful living.

How then, did we get here - where math has been ripped from the living world and has become about dead and meaningless numbers on a flat page? Instead of a wondrous way to view the world around us, it’s become a problem that trips people up. And instead of seeing how it brings us solutions untold, for most people, it brings about crippling fear. 

We need to set things straight and give our kids the best chance at succeeding with math. Part of the answer lies in allowing children to playfully explore the rich heritage of math.

The Ancient Story of Math

Over the course of centuries, math has carved a trail through human civilization. It’s been there to solve riddles and puzzles, to help develop logic and philosophy, and always, it’s been intensely practical and has provided real-world solutions to real problems.

But what does it take to discover and develop the most simple mathematical concepts? Let’s take the numbers we use every day as part of our counting system. We can use 10 symbols to refer to everything from the teeniest thing in the universe to the largest. Incredible. But it took us thousands of years’ worth of tinkering to get there.

We now present this abstract concept to our toddlers and preschoolers and expect them to come onto the scene and simply understand it. Why not give them time to travel along those dusty pages of history so they can come to the same conclusions—without forcing the end of a long story on them? In this way, they can playfully rediscover numbers, without this being shoved into their heads through rote learning.

And this doesn’t only go for the basic digits! From basic geometry, to calculus and higher levels of math, it’s possible to trace back the steps of mathematicians through time.

Finding Math in History and the Real World

We’re all about playful exploration and learning things without making them abstract. One way is to simply explore. Some say that you should emphasize math just because it’s beautiful. And yes, it is. But beyond its beauty, it is intensely practical.

Explore the World of Math

Math Is a Language

Math is a language, a language of patterns. As it evolved and matured over millennia, mathematicians found ways to show what they were thinking with a series of symbols. These symbols were created to help them communicate clearly and simply. 

The simplest of these symbols is the basic ten digits: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. We don’t think of them as symbols because we are so used to what they represent. But think, for example, what the number 4 looks like to a young preschooler! It’s a meaningless scribble that they need to learn to connect with the concept of four.

And that’s only the start. Math consists of a massive set of symbols and words that are completely unintelligible if you can’t speak and read the language. This isn’t something that’s unique to math. In military communication, a command like, “Echo bravo, move to delta two,” would be as meaningless to you as an air traffic controller’s statement that says: “Cleared ILS runway 27R approach.” The difference is that in some fields, people are more aware that their lingo is strange, and instructors are careful to train and explain.

With math, though, we fail to remember that there is a language component to it and to teach it as such. We skip entire steps, assuming children understand what the symbols and terminology mean. This happens at every level - whether that’s us forgetting to explain and explore what the word “plus” means and that it’s associated with the “+” symbol, or whether it’s high-school math and we’re forgetting to allow time for a teenager to grasp the extremely advanced concept that f(x) essentially describes the value of y in a function. 

Mathematical jargon is too narrow, and in our textbooks, it is shorn of the rich context in which this language evolved. With any typical math lesson, we tend to arbitrarily drop kids somewhere that we consider as commonplace, and often they might have no idea what we’re saying or why this is even important to learn.

Practice Translating Math

Things get abstracted (stripped of concrete meaning and context) in Math all the time… and kids get lost in the thorny brambles of alien-like symbols. Here are some examples. 

Here’s some food for thought. It can be really hard to explain a concept without using more “mathematese.” We can think we’re explaining something, while we’re actually using more of the foreign language to explain. It’s like if you’re just learning to speak Spanish, and your Spanish teacher explains a word you’re stuck on to you… in Spanish. That’s decidedly unhelpful! The same often happens in math. If you tell your toddler that an area of 81 square feet is a square of 9 by 9 feet, that gets them nowhere!

What Does Playful Math Look Like Practically?

You might have an app or two that gamifies math, but don’t lean too heavily on this. Many of these apps use shallow gimmicks to make rote learning fun, but that doesn’t address the fundamental language aspect of math. Your child may be playing a game to practice addition, or their times tables. But do they understand plus? Do they understand times? Do they understand the symbols?

The real fun lies in discovering what made meaning in the first place. This could be about the history of that math concept, but not always. Sometimes, you just need to bring context back by seeing where you can find that math in the real world and how it’s used. 

For example:

• Your lesson shouldn’t only be about the shape of a rectangular prism. It can be about boxes (rectangular prisms) which are used, practically, to package things. Go to your pantry and look at all the things that come in boxes. Or go on a treasure hunt in your house for rectangular prisms. Then discuss and explore at an age-appropriate level—you might talk about measurement and volume, about how the boxes are transported, and why the surface is flat and not round. Let the conversation and your child lead you and see how much math you can weave in.

• What about addition and subtraction? Well, where can your child use this in their world? Can they count out items into the shopping cart when you’re getting groceries? Could you ask them to count how many clean pairs of socks they have and how many dirty pairs, and let them work out how many there are in total? While you’re at it, could you use those same socks to start teaching the two times table without them even realizing?

We’re not saying that games are wrong. They’re awesome! But keep exploring ways to find math in everyday life, instead of unnaturally keeping it separate from the real world. Your child will thank you later, as they can become fluent in this strange but wonderful language.

PS: The answer is 11 and it involves ternary math. That’s what the hint says (in Thai numerals.)

The other day, we noticed an impressive volume at the top of the learning-to-read category on the Amazon (USA) store. This book is a whopping 40 years old, and a look at the reviews will have your mouse hovering over the Buy Now button. Relieved parents have left five-star reviews, testifying to how effective the book is. They admit that the 100 abstract exercises were boring, repetitive, and took forever, but no matter—at the end of this arduous journey, their child can now read. 

That’s how it’s supposed to be, right? Children wrestle to learn to read, and it’s all part of the rite of passage called education. And, the sooner they get used to the tedium and struggle and unreasonably difficult hard work, the better. 

We disagree.

There must be a better way, especially in the year 2024. We have miraculous inventions like eerily intelligent AI and transformational apps like Khan Academy and Duolingo. We even have sliced bread. Surely there must be a better way to teach reading? 

And there is. It’s called play.

The Cracks in the Current System

The most common (correct) way to teach reading consists of direct instruction with phonics. It gets many things right, for which we applaud it. 

But it misses a beat on several aspects that could make it truly phenomenal:

• Autonomy—the freedom to decide how to do something.

• Meaning—the real-world context that makes things less abstract and more concrete.

• Joy—something that is vastly undervalued in traditional education.

And the latest neuroscience tells us these play a crucual role in learning! Sai discusses this in his book Journey of the Mind.

How does an experience look when it’s stripped of these three qualities?

Imagine you’re climbing a mountain with a guide. He’s ahead of you and helps you to know where to go, as he should, right? But this guide is really weird. You stop for a moment to admire a flower; he tells you to move it. You turn around for a moment to gaze at a breathtaking view, and he tells you that’s not what you’re here for. He even corrects your posture and way of walking! In the process, he takes away your right to make decisions—your autonomy and freedom. His rushed perfectionism and focus on achieving the perfect climb rob you of the beauty and enjoyment of the journey. To him, the journey is about the pace and efficiency of the climb. To you, it was supposed to be about the love of adventure, exploration, and beauty. 

Learning to read is your child’s first educational mountain, and it won’t be their last. Life is nothing if not an exhilarating mountain range that beckons us. And that leaves us asking: what kind of guide do we want to be on our children’s first-ever climb?

Mechanics vs Meaning

Direct instruction methods strip meaning away from language to the point that it’s all about rules. Say you’re trying to teach the “a” sound. You may give your child a list of words, such as flag, man, and dragon. But stripped of context, these words become dry and abstract. Your child’s mountain starts looking like the image below, where the challenge they must conquer is a list of letters, sounds, and rules. When the process of learning to read is focused on phonics only, learning to read becomes a chore.

What if we can turn it into a playful process? What if we could keep the underlying mechanics but overlay them with autonomy, meaning, and joy? What if we could make a child’s mountain, instead, look like this?

While you are still acting as the guide, you can allow reading to remain enjoyable and leave them free to explore. Can they still learn the “a” sound from above by using a setting with richer meaning? Yes! If you flip the switch of your imagination, it’s plain to see that the boy must get to the flag at the top of the mountain to save the princess. In all likelihood, he’s meeting an odd little man on the way, who tells him how to fight the dragon. 

A playful approach refuses to strip learning to read of its natural beauty and enjoyment, and here, mechanics don’t drown out the journey. Children are wired to learn through play. It makes no sense to go against the grain. Keeping things playful builds strong foundations and keeps them motivated to carry on.

…But Play for Reading? HOW?

Learning to read is so abstract and full of rules! So how do you go about doing it playfully? Here are our best tips.

1. Let your child pick a book every day and read with them. Allow words to have meaning—to conjure up delightful worlds. You can guide them as you read, showing them how the building blocks of the words are glued together. 

2. Remember what kind of guide you want to be. A fixation on phonics, rules, and pace of learning will make the process unpleasant for both of you. Give them back their autonomy. Let them lead and linger on the things that catch their interest. If your lesson is about “a” and they get distracted by the “b” and “t” sounds in the word “bat”... that’s okay. Your child is learning other sounds on their own, and you should be happy about that! 

3. Trust your child and trust natural learning processes. As adults, we tend to want to structure and control, measure and assess everything. So what do you do if you’ve decided on a playdough activity for shaping the letter b, and your child is making boats and bananas with the playdough? Just let them be! Yes, you need to guide them, but meander around the learning curve, and don’t be so focused on what you think you must be doing.

4. Foundations are important; take your time. Don’t focus on speed. Often, it looks like nothing is happening, but there’s a whole lot of invisible development under the surface. Remove the pressure to hit certain milestones at a certain pace. Rushing them may make things feel faster in the short run, but you’ll be building a shaky foundation for the future. 

When you can marry the excellence of phonics and existing tools with a rich and powerful connection to the real world—and give your children the freedom to explore that, reading comes alive. And that’s a mountain worth climbing.

PS: If you are looking for more details on how to help with the phonics and decoding when reading along, we have put together a high-level reading primer and a more practical how-to guide.

You might want to explore Giffie, an app we built to enable a playful approach to learning to read. It is available on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.

Well, this is a perfect opportunity for the likes of ChatGPT to flex their summarizing skills - the kind we think could have a transformative role in learning. Here is a lightly edited 500 word AI-generated summary of the transcript. Good job, GPT4!

Podcast Episode Summary

In a recent episode of The Bloon Toys Podcast, Isha, founder of Bloon Toys, hosted a conversation with Priyanka Rai and Sai Gaddam, founders of Comini Learning, a micro-school in Mumbai that adopts a Finnish education style. Their discussion sheds light on an approach to education that prioritizes child-led, mixed-age play and playful learning.

Priyanka Rai explained the genesis of Comini, emphasizing the influence of their daughter Meera's education on their philosophy. "It all started only when we had our daughter Meera," she said, revealing a personal journey into education driven by parental concern and discovery.

Sai Gaddam, a computational neuroscientist, connected his professional interests with education, saying, "I've always had a theoretical interest in learning and the mind." This melding of theory and practice forms the core of Comini's approach.

The conversation then shifted to the choice of the Finnish education model. Gaddam noted, "Finnish pedagogy is really just sensible and scientific," highlighting the system's child-centeredness and emphasis on play as crucial learning components. This point underscores the school's philosophy of nurturing holistic development through playful experiences.

The founders further detailed the daily operations at Comini. Priyanka described it as "a lot of chaos," with a significant portion of time dedicated to free play and organic learning. This insight provides a practical look into the school's functioning, where conventional classroom structures give way to more dynamic and fluid learning environments.

On the topic of Comini's size and approach, Sai added, "We are a microschool and that our goal is to be micro." This emphasis on small scale ensures personalization and close attention to each child's needs, a fundamental aspect of their educational philosophy.

The conversation delved deeper into the neuroscience of play. Sai explained, "Play is really how we are learning about the world," emphasizing the role of imaginative and imitative learning in child development. This perspective is integral to understanding Comini's methodology, where play isn't just recreation but a vital educational tool.

Reflecting on community involvement, Priyanka shared, "We do actually rely on our community," showcasing the school's unique model where parents and local experts contribute to the learning process. This approach broadens the educational experience beyond the confines of the school, integrating real-world interactions and diverse perspectives.

In discussing the future, Sai touched on the potential of AI in education. "I'm amazed by what's possible now," he said, foreseeing AI as a tool to enhance personalized learning and democratize education.

Finally, Priyanka concluded with a nod to the collaborative spirit between Bloon Toys and Comini Learning, "It's great...to be able to share what we are doing." This statement reflects the shared vision and mutual respect between the two ventures, both committed to redefining educational experiences.

In essence, the discussion on The Bloon Toys Podcast with Priyanka Rai and Sai Gaddam offered insights into the philosophy, practical workings, and future vision of Comini Learning, painting a picture of an educational approach deeply rooted in child-centric, playful learning, community involvement, and innovative uses of technology.

Link to full transcript here.

Thank you!