We’ve been exploring the idea of project based learning at the center. We’ve been reading about this a lot and to an extent have also seen that this has sort of worked for us in this space. Typically there is a specific idea of what projects could be but we’ve tried to implement project based learning while keeping the projects as open and broad as possible. Projects could be anything including things like “learning skipping” or “building a car” or “learning addition” or even “wanting to make friends”. The idea with this approach is to have learners work on something they want to do over a longer term while encountering challenges and powering through them.  The discovery of projects has been a challenge and as of now we have only a few projects, mostly facilitator initiated. There are one or two ideas from learners who had done something in school as well but it seems like without an internet connection or some other approach project discovery is tough. However, the interest levels and resourcefulness of many learners has been really exciting and encouraging. Many learners are keenly working on things and have built teams to make something. We had one group recently build a projector using a bulb case and a cardboard box, projecting a phone screen onto the wall. It has been quite encouraging to see learners persist even when encountering failure and we had one group struggle but finally build a car with CDs as wheels and straws as axles. We have also seen that older learners aren’t very keen to participate in trying something new. While we had hoped that they would take leadership and build things, they seem to be quite happy to come in, do their homework and just play around when they don’t have any. Even if one or two learners approach us to work on something they are teased by the other older learners and this peer pressure has been really hard to overcome. I’m really hoping that with the other learners building something and a decent internet connection we’ll be able to make things more exciting for them. I can really see how schools are killing any curiosity and joy of learning that the children may have had. It almost feels like there is an inverse correlation between time spent in school and having fun learning. I’m cautiously optimistic about this project based learning approach. I feel that with some better opportunities for discovery and more interesting resources on offer we might help every learner rediscover the joy of learning.