CLiC is a project based on love – to nurture the love for learning in parents and children, to create a loving environment for them to play and work together, and to help them learn to how to love. It started with a thought not long after we started homeschooling our kids: “What can we do to provide a positive environment for parents and kids to hangout and learn together? And the idea of CLiC was born!

Parents’ involvement

CLiC (Community Learning Initiative Center) is NOT a homeschooling center – we do not do curriculum or classes or tests here. What we do a lot is allow children to be themselves, to express themselves (through play, drawings, stories and music), and to love and appreciate others (they sing a “Thank You” song before meals and use the words “please” and “thank you” a lot! Parents get their support from one another through informal sharing sessions over mealtime, tea time or park time. This is the core element of CLiC – parents’ support for one another and their collaboration work to make their days at CLiC as happy and as positive as possible.

A Learning Mindset

The main criteria for such a group to work is for parents to adopt a different mindset about learning – from one that is reliant on a fixed structure to one that is adaptive to change. Because change is a constant that needs our adaptation without which there will be no growth. So parents learn to be mindful of how their children learn best and to help support their learning through sustained interest and involvement. When something does not seem to work with the kids, they are not afraid to change it or to try something else. For ultimately, when the child is happy learning, the learning will be positive!

Commitment to the ideals

Another key to the success of such a group is commitment. Those families who understand that to truly benefit from such a setting is to be truly committed to the group. This means being prepared to spend regular times together and to switch from “Me” to “We”. Meal preparations take up quite a lot of time and energy, but when everyone does her part in bringing something over to be shared, it makes life easier for the cooks! Children get involved in the day-to-day work too and this teaches them to have a positive attitude towards house work, cooking and cleaning.

Over time we begin to see positive changes in the families who have been coming together on a regular basis – the children display less and less of negative traits such as anger issues or a lack of confidence. Instead, they have grown to be happy and confident kids, ever ready to include other kids into their lives. It is a very beautiful and touching process to see these positive changes in parents and children. And this can only be seen with loving and non- judging eyes. Those who equates success to test-smartness alone will totally miss the picture! And that is sad indeed because beauty is actually staring us in the eye. Yet we fail to acknowledge it.

I would like to thank all the parents and children who have made the concept of Clic a success story, as well as to the many friends who have supported us in one way or another. And the story is still unfolding before our eyes! This proves a point we had wanted to make from the very start: if you cannot find good and affordable education, create one! And you do not need to do it alone 🙂

Gamelan class in progress.

Learning to ride a bike at the park.

Playing with friends.

Creating and sharing stories together.

Parent-training session at Clic.

Their smiles are worth a thousand words!

CLiC will continue in our absence as parents put their heads and hearts together for the happiness and positive future of their children! I will be flying off to Nashville with Amrita for some music adventures there. Will be reporting from Nashville soon!

Au revoir!