Vineeta Sood: “Human relationships intrigue me a lot. In my experience, how we relate to others and to life primarily depend on how we relate to ourselves.
I started my explorations by challenging prevalent parenting and educational practices, some thirty years ago. In any culture, parent–child and teacher-student relationships play a major role in the growth and development of the child. Through these experiences, the child develops a sense of self which in turn ascertains how the child is going to engage with the world and what meaning and learning the child is going to draw out of his/her experiences. Further, as teachers and parents, how we relate to the child and the child’s changing needs at different developmental stages depends on our awareness about our relationship with ourselves. Our relationship with ourselves is determined by the experiences that we have gathered while growing up. And thus the cycle goes on.
Nature and nurture are the instruments that determine the uniqueness of the personal experiences that we create and hold on to. As the child grows in the culture of a family and society in accordance with his/her own nature, he/she can grow up into an empowered human being through the processes of nurture provided by parenting and education.
In today’s fast paced life, when technology is replacing our social fabric, human relationships are taking a backseat. We are replacing the warmth and compassion of human relationships with a fast-paced and mechanical life characterized by an over-dependence on technology, in a commercial and capitalist society. This is often leaving today’s generation rudderless and anchor-less. As a collective, this reflects in the kind of world we create around ourselves.
In my work with children, adolescents, young adults, parents and teachers, I focus on creating processes that serve to raise self-awareness of the participants and have the potential to enable them to work towards finding fulfilling and empowered relationships with self, others and Life itself.”
About Work:
Vineeta Sood works with the premise that every human being has the potential and inner wisdom to live a meaningful and harmonious life. She builds on this premise at different levels. In her work with parents, teachers, and young adults, she explores the meaning they make out of and the stories they create around their own experiences. The self-awareness thus gained about their own inner landscape enables parents and teachers to create a space for their children to explore, learn and grow into attentive, wholehearted human beings. This enables them to engage with the world and with life, creatively, courageously and compassionately. For children in the age group from 3 years to 18 years, She designs empathetic, enabling learning environments and experiences that have the potential to enable them to embark on a journey of self knowledge and self-directed life-long learning. Her main concern in the field of education and parenting is human aspect of these relationships.
She has extensively explored non-formal and informal forms of education for close to three decades now. Having unschooled/homeschooled her own children, she designs learning spaces for children of various age groups, young adults, parents and educators in alternative schools and other non formal and informal avenues. she supports homeschooling/unschooling families in India and abroad.
Present Commitments:
Founder Director, ‘Anubhav : Co-creating Learning for Change’
Associate Director, ‘Thinking Teacher’.
Visiting and long-distance Mentor for young adults at Swaraj University, Udaipur
Visiting Resource Person for University School of Education, Rayat-Bahra University, Mohali, Punjab.
Past Engagements:
Unschooled/Homeschooled her two sons for the major part of their schooling
Curriculum co-ordinator and Teacher educator at Shikshantar School, Gurgaon, Haryana in 2003-04.
Co-founded “Bhavya, Learning co-operative”, an alternative school in the year 2005 and developed it till 2010, for the first five years of its existence.
Worked as a Teacher for two years with “Shibumi” an alternative school in Bengaluru, ,.
Expertise:
She provides guidance and support to homeschoolers across the country.
She designs and develops alternative learning spaces that facilitate natural growth and development, and lend themselves for self-directed exploratory learning across age groups.
She facilitates Teacher Development through workshops and long term engagement, in mainstream and alternative schools, with an aim to enable teachers to ‘Connect to the Educator Within’.
Through the programs that she conducts for parents, she facilitates explorations that have the potential to enable them to examine their own frames of reference, so as to connect with their child’s frame of reference.
In her work with young adults,, she creates processes for them to explore and connect to their own drive and create a self-designed program in the field of their choice.
She provides coaching and mentoring on a one-on-one basis for teachers, parents, adolescents and young adults.
Publications:
TEACHING TALES, LEARNIKNG TRAILS: Co-authored by Neeraja Rahgavan, Vineeta Sood and Kamala Anilkumar. The Notion Press, (2018).
‘THE REFLECTIVE TEACHER: Case studies of action research’ authored by Neeraja Raghavan, Contributing Editor: Vineeta Sood. Orient Blackswan, (2015).
Sood, Vineeta. (2013). The Human Aspect in Education. Rayat and Bahra Journal of Education, Vol 1, No 1.
WEAPONS OF MASS INSTRUCTION: John Taylor Gatto. Foreword for Indian Edition by Vineeta Sood. Banyan Tree, (2012).
Sood, Vineeta. (2003) McEducation vs Humanization. McEducation for all: Opening a dialogue around UNESCO’s vision of commoditizing Learning. http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/mceducationforall.htm#vineeta
Sood, Vineeta. (2002) Schooling the thought process. http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/walkouts_vineeta.htm