(This article builds on the learnings from EkStep Foundation’s Early Childhood Project that Primalise has been part of; and is also a consolidation of the key insights into living, learning and livelihood that Primalise has gained over the years.)
“Can you see a cloud floating in this sheet of paper?” Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese philosopher, posed this question to illustrate the interconnectedness of everything around us.
Considering this, can we view living, learning, and livelihood as a single, integrated life system? We invite you to explore the interconnections and synergies within this nested life system. This system encompasses all our experiences and provides a rich foundation for learning across all age groups, particularly in early childhood, when children are beginning to make sense of their world.
The Fragmented Reality
Currently, the three subsystems – Living, Learning, and Livelihood – each with their own structures, orders, and values, operate separately in silos, missing out on potential synergies.
Living environments, especially modern households, are often insular and disconnected from the wider community. Within these homes, spaces are compartmentalized, leading to disconnection among family members.
Learning predominantly occurs in schools and educational institutions, which not only keep young children away from their families for most of the day but also often turn them into passive recipients of knowledge rather than active participants. This dependency on receiving information persists for far too long.
As for the livelihood subsystem, it is often removed from both living and learning spaces. The skills and expertise acquired for earning a livelihood often remain inaccessible to these environments since work typically occurs in separate settings.
This fragmentation insidiously disrupts our interconnectedness, which is essential for a cohesive society. When interconnectedness is lacking, individuals may feel fragmented internally. A cohesive society with strong family units provides a secure environment for children to grow up in. Conversely, an insecure atmosphere can foster a toxic culture characterized by a scarcity mindset, mistrust, unnatural competition, and narrow benchmarks of success.
Reconnecting with Our Core Essentials
What is Our Normal?
When the super-normal becomes normalised, what we once considered normal appears sub-normal. Our fast-paced and highly efficient world increasingly marginalises normalcy, overshadowing average intelligence. In a context of systemic compartmentalisation that alienates individuals and societies, it is crucial to reconnect with ourselves and our authentic human nature – our normal. This reconnection encourages us to value what we have and who we are while fostering respect and inclusivity.
Returning to normal demands a fundamental shift in our mental models around learning—a shift from a mindset of:
- Scarcity to Abundance – of time, space, resources
- Inadequacy to Adequacy – of abilities of children, parents, caregivers, teachers
- Denial to Acceptance – of the child’s uniqueness and our own
- Exclusion to Inclusion – of differences and diversity
Isn’t it time we recalibrate our understanding of normal?
Normal human nature, normal human pace, normal human scale.
This recalibration is what our children will absorb as they grow up in this environment.
Inducing Learning?
Are we rushing to transform children into students? Forcing structure too early interrupts natural processes designed to provide children with a solid foundation. Learning occurs when children interact directly with nature and culture; their first-hand experiences resonate more deeply than second-hand or processed encounters. An excessive focus on ‘education’ at an early age deprives children of rich multisensory engagement with the world around them.
In an ideal setting, learning is a natural consequence of living; sadly, we have turned it into an intervention. Humans are the only species that confine their young ones into rigid time and space boxes for indoctrination. In our pursuit of recognition and validation, we inadvertently push our children onto the same treadmill we ourselves run on.
Isn’t it time we reconsider learning as a life process?
If learning is part of the nested life system where livelihood, living and learning overlap, then early childhood learning need not be artificially induced; rather, it should occur naturally. In this elegantly congruent system, livelihood focuses on securing life essentials, living is organized around these essentials, and learning emerges as a natural consequence of both. Here are some principles this system will follow:
- Children are not merely adults-in-progress; they are childhood-ready – prepared to be, do, relate and grow.
- Active feedback loops are nature’s way of fostering self-reliance in children. During early years, children engage in fascinating processes that build complex feedback loops that stitch the essential interconnections within and between living, learning, and livelihood sub-systems.
- We live life; we don’t ‘do’ life. Similarly, learning is not something you ‘do’; it happens organically. Modern living often feels overly deliberate and designed; however, the best learning arises as a natural outcome of living.
Loss of Instinct?
The early childhood years – the first 3,000 days from birth to age eight – form the foundation upon which one’s life journey is built. This foundation allows individuals to reach their full potential. The pace of growth during these years is unparalleled throughout life; it provides children with the foundation for age-appropriate self-reliance. During this critical phase, foundational instincts develop – instincts that empower children with the agency needed for self-reliance.
Are these instincts inborn, imbibed or induced?
The foundational instincts that develop in the first 3,000 days are in various degrees inborn, imbibed, and induced.
- Natural instincts are inborn.
- Cultural and occupational instincts are imbibed and induced.
In most living beings, development during the initial stages is essentially led by and rooted in natural instincts; the development of cultural and occupational instincts follows.
These instincts should take root at appropriate times; well-rooted instincts lay the groundwork for future success. It is suboptimal to induce skills that should ideally be imbibed through experience. Activities of daily living (ADLs) are best learned through natural engagement rather than forced intervention. Unfortunately, many children today experience suppression or weakening of innate behaviors due to inhibitive conditions such as insecure upbringing or performance-related stress stemming from societal challenges like discrimination or competition.
A healthy childhood requires the richness and abundance of a holistic ambience where instincts can unfold naturally. Instincts flourish through unstructured play—play that children lead themselves without adult intervention or expectations. Such play engages all senses and fosters curiosity and autonomy while allowing confidence to grow.
Play is Primal. Play is instinctive. Children don’t play to learn; learning happens while they’re playing. This is not structured play; this is the ‘attitude’ of play, the idiom of play. Learning happens firsthand, the child gets experience of everything, and everything is in the child’s grip. It’s self-initiated, the child enjoys the whole learning process, and instincts are at play. There’s an age appropriateness for these instincts to unfold. Play allows this essential opportunity, space and time.
The optimal ambiance for childhood is simply childhood itself – Bachpan. Nature ensures that both child and family are instinctively prepared for this stage. Childhood must be recognized as a complete phase worthy of respect and celebration – a celebration long overdue: 3,000 days dedicated to honouring childhood – Bachpan Manao.
Our Commitment to Our Children
Vibrant first-3000-days should be every child’s birth right and the society’s responsibility. This could be our manifesto for change:
Nature ensures that the child and family are instinctively ready for childhood. The first 3000 days of life help the child build foundational agency to become self-reliant. Fair access to an enabling and responsive 3000-day support system is every child’s birthright and the society’s responsibility.
This support system must include all carers – natural (family), social (community), health (medical) and learning (pre-school/school). Lack of access to it could lead to a child going through cycles of underachievement, which widen achievement gaps and further restrict opportunities through life—a precarious agency-robbing downward spiral.
Seamless access to it will put every child on an agency-enhancing upward spiral.
And this is the minimum we owe to our children.
