She was awestruck. Speechless. She had never known her son like this. For her Rajiv was a sweet and bright 9th grade kid, gentle and sociable. Yeah, she did occasionally notice his bag bulging with books, but she never really bothered to enquire. She and her husband were content to be sending Rajiv to the school that promoted progressive education and an enjoyable culture for children.

‘Sir, the fact is that we take what we have been told by writers or historians as absolute truth. They can at best make an informed guess based on the primary and secondary sources available from the past. What creates the problem is that these writers and historians are not always neutral. They are aligned to the left or the right, or another. Their interpretations are colored by those biases. Then there are new evidences that are being unearthed every day. Let me give an example- I recently read a book by a historian who uses facts to blast the view that Sati custom was rampant in India in the 18th Century. She uses writings from many contemporary travelers of that time and documents from British parliament to establish that the whole issue was highly exaggerated by the missionaries and evangelists to justify their entry and continued presence in India in the garb of eradicating superstitious customs…….’. Rajiv went on. The ladies and men gathered there were listening with rapt attention!

The above snapshot is from a party Rajiv and his mother were attending in West Delhi where some people happened to be discussing the history of
India during the British time. Rajiv was enlivened by the topic, as you have just seen. On the way back from the party that night, Rajiv’s mother asked, ‘where did

you read so much? Is it there in your history textbooks? We never did.’ Rajiv smiled. ‘No mummy, it is still not there in our history textbooks. But it is there in our school library, and on the internet. This and much more! We never actually look for it because we are always so content with whatever has been handed to us. I was just the same, as you know me, until the school introduced Project Based Learning to us. And then everything changed. We seek the hidden, we ask questions, we raise questions on the accepted explanations, and explore the world to understand and discover what is invisible. PBL has brought revolution in the way we learnt and in the way we looked at things around us. It has changed our relationship with the world…the same world around us, the same books and library and friends, have become so much more richer and intense resources for learning. The power we feel from the PBL is immense…we do not have to fear anything because we can learn from every experience, and we can build what we want, modify what needs change and reach out to the world what we need for ourselves. We build perspective and we engage with those of others with equal respect.”

The mother was on the seventh cloud. So is the family that creates and nurtures a learning member. What they were most shocked at is the hidden revolution called PBL in the school that has changed the learning and lives of so many students, without making big noise.