Post the Kho Kho game we all sat down to discuss how to go about the center for the next academic year. These discussions are always a struggle since many of the children are not able to participate. They often feel that they have nothing to share and many are afraid to share in a larger group. Since they aren’t really able to participate very often they get bored and can be a distraction. We tried our best to make the discussion a back and forth and very dialogic but we did end up suggesting most of the ideas and the children merely picked whether they wanted to do something or not. Nonetheless we had quite a nice discussion today with the children and quite a lot of the older children did participate and had things to say.  We started off thinking if we should revisit the rules that we had set in place the previous year. The learners pretty much felt that what we had was more than sufficient. As we were discussing this couple of the learners had wandered off outside the center and nobody knew where they went. When they came back we all decided that it would be good if the learners informed someone before stepping out so that in case their parents came by looking for them we would have an idea where they were.  As we were talking about the rules, the children wanted to talk about what we could do if learners did not follow the rules. I was really happy that one of the children suggested a form of punishment that he thought would work. He said that he would like the learners to stand on one leg, bend down and be like a chicken or do squats if they broke the rules. At the same time, I offered an alternative plan. I said that we would give each child three warnings for the day. The first time would just be a warning, the second time they would have to go to a room/corner and reflect on what they had done for a few minutes and the third time they would be sent home for the day. The learners seemed to be uncomfortable with painful punishments and agreed with what I had suggested. I feel that it is not only important to create a just system but it is also important that we should be fair while enforcing the system.  After the rules, we talked to the children about what are some of the things they would like to learn. The children talked about a lot of the subjects in school, along with arts and crafts. Some mentioned reading and stories, and others mentioned singing and dancing. With this introduction in place, we talked to the learners about how we could go about organising the space better and I suggested that perhaps we can have designated areas for these activities. The learners agreed on the need for organised spaces and they mentioned that the center becomes too chaotic if we don’t have some level of organisation. The learners weren’t really able to envision the space, but once we suggested what we had in mind the children seemed to buy into the idea. Venkatesh also brought up whether the children would like a time table style set up where they would have particular subjects or activities on particular days and times but the children were quite quick to reject the idea saying that each person had different schedules and that it wouldn’t be fair to everyone.  We also talked about how we could try and have files for each learner so they could have an idea of what they had done each day and also a perspective of what they were doing throughout the year. The learners seemed really enthused and excited about this and I saw one of the children telling his brother who had not come that he would be getting his own file to keep all the sheets he had worked on. These learning files would also help us capture the progress of each learner.  It would have been great for the children themselves to come up with these ideas or to be able to co-create the concepts but it is encouraging that the children didn’t just accept everything and did reject some of the ideas that were on offer. It’s also encouraging that the learners feel quite happy about having a blended learning space where they can learn and master concepts and ideas before moving on to the next. There is a lot of science behind what we’re trying to do and it’s definitely encouraging that the children too feel excited about these things and that we have arrived at them quite independently and democratically. One of the important feedback the children gave to us today was that they would really like the center to be open 6 days a week. They mentioned that they are super bored on Saturdays since they don’t have much work and that having the center would allow them to learn more. We promised them that we would do our best to try and make it happen and that perhaps after I was back in July this is something we can consider.