Hunar Ghar rouhly translates to ‘Skills Home’, and on the bike home this afternoon I got to thinking just what skill means to me. Here’s what I came up with:

Skill The natural expression of a complementation of imagination, initiative and physical or mental dexterity.

I use natural as in something that comes easily, whether that be inherited or practiced to the point that it is second-nature. I think if any one of those things are lacking you can be good at something but not necessarily skillful and adding anything wouldn’t make one more skillful.

The point I was really thinking about though is that it doesn’t mean some kind of expertise in one particular art. True skill lies not in a specific medium or expression, such as being able to carve beautiful sculptures or write touching poems, but the ability to apply the principles of one type to another. If take from that perspective, it allows for a far more hollistic view of learning where everything is seen to enhance everything else. If the learning guides, or teachers, can take this as a core path to base learning around, it can make for a far more fulfilling and dynamic experience both for the teachers and the learners. They get to do what they want and so take extra initiative and enjoyment, but find that things all link back into one another and even seemingly mundane things that become exciting, such as maths moving from meaningless marks on a chalkboard to calculating how many sweets they can make with Rs 100 worth of ingredients and what kind of profit they can make when selling them at certain prices at the fair in the neighbouring village next month.

One of the things that I find so exciting about Hunar Ghar is how we are completely redefining the education from learning information to developing inquisitive, intuitive and versatile minds. It is that kind of mind that is going to be able to lead a full, fulfilling life, exlore a diersity of different interests, apply itself to different fields and know how to adapt itself to new situations, new jobs and generally act in an organic flexible way that propogates its own growth rather than be dogmatised into certain ways of thinking and always dependent on a teacher or leader to tell it what to do and when to do it.