May 18th – May 21st was a busy weekend for ITSA team members. Congregating in
“After months of anticipation, on Saturday, May 11th,
training finally began. Indu Chugani, one of the co-founders of Educators for
Teaching India, led a creative thinking workshop at Bard College .
As a student at Bard, I was already familiarized with the atmosphere and
teaching style – classes went for the entire day and were intellectually
challenging. However, the format was different from the typical
discussion-based classroom. Instead of having an open discourse, students
responded in writing to what they had read.
Then, in no particular order, everyone shared what they had written. While
there was an assortment of exercises, some more complicated than others, they
mostly followed this format: reading, thinking, writing and speaking. While all
my courses at Bard had required active participation, critical analysis, and
creative thought, none of them had been structured quite like the experience of
L&T. I remember a couple of L&T exercises, but one in particular that I’ve
enjoyed both times: Poetry Explosion. (…)
Its conclusion resembled a cubist painting: rather than simply seeing the poem
from our own perspective, the various viewpoints layered on top of one
another. The subject was no longer
clearly identifiable. It became both an amalgamation of thought and a
divergence of ideas, taking the poem into new, uncharted territory. (…)