SAMVAAD: THE PRAXIS OF LIVING
(11TH-12TH MARCH 2023, DELHI)
Samvaad 2021 (On-Line)
Samvaad 2021 is offered as a six-week intensive on ‘Facilitating Conversations that Matter’. This is focused on creating alternative structures of facilitation with the intention to create a dialogue for a new future.
Samvaad 2020
The Dance of Education
Saturday 5th December - Sunday 6th December
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought forth many challenges for all the stakeholders in the “dance of education.” Parents, children, administrators and teachers are feeling the stresses of enacting new responses to learning in these difficult times. Is it possible there are opportunities in these challenges? Can we use this historic moment to examine our conscious, and especially unconscious assumptions about the dominant practices in teaching and learning?
Education in its essence is a space of human beings living together in learning. Despite the frustration and critiques of our educational systems, there is an ongoing implicit belief in the current patterns and methods of education as necessary to the well-being of society. We would like to reflect with you on the question, “Are there other possibilities in the purpose and methods of living together in learning?”
We invite you to join us in an on-line Samvaad to reflect together on how we might use this moment to examine our assumptions about education and what it needs to be, to best serve both our society and the direction in which we are moving as human beings.
The practice in Samvaad is based on small group dialogues in a spirit of intimacy, trust and cooperation. This year we invite you and, if you like, a 'significant other' - life partner, work colleague, family member or a close friend with whom you can continue to practice what you learn at Samvaad.
Logistics
We will meet online in four (2.5 hour) sessions over the weekend of
Saturday December 5th & Sunday December 6th.
Sessions will happen at
9:00 am - 11:30 am (India Standard Time)
8:00 pm - 10:30 pm (India Standard Time)
Contribution
In the spirit of the “gift minded” economy, we invite you to contribute what you are able. A suggested contribution is Rs 2000. All proceeds would go towards the work of Youth Alliance.
Guiding Principles of Samvaad
The Dialogues will be facilitated by:
Sadanand Ward Mailliard, Mount Madonna School, California, U.S.A. and Vibhuti, Shashank, Ridhima and Kadambari from Youth Alliance.
Know more about our gift culture here
SOME MUSINGS AND POINTS OF REFLECTION FROM EARLIER SAMVAADS
Samvaad'19: Exploring the Humanness Within
Linking us to Self, Others, our Purpose and the Environment
- Being a part of multiple communities, how do I co-create authentic relationships that are nourishing and sustainable?
- In a world increasingly dominated by machine intelligence and its rhythm, how do I conserve the intelligence and rhythms that are most human?
- What is the connection between the relationship that I have with myself and my relationship with others and the environment?
- What does it take to dance between the dimension of technology and the dimension of being human?
Samvaad’16: Learning & Leadership
How do we understand leadership in learning in these times?
Why are vulnerability and empathy important qualities in leadership?
In a competitive and consumption oriented world, how do we develop the kind of discernment necessary to make choices that will lead to our personal well being and to the sustainability of our communities and the human experiment?
Samvaad’17: Education that liberates
What about the story of education do we need to shift?
What does liberation mean to you in the context of learning?
What effects do the relationships within the learning environment have on the nature of the human being in those environments?
How do we liberate ourselves from the things that hold us back or defeat us?
How can we develop the characteristics of resilience and reflection in education?
“The ability of the space to make us have deep conversations with strangers was something that I loved. Another thing that touched me was the question "Why we need education?". It made me reflect on why I need it and why I am again making my nephews and nieces go through the same system in which I suffered.” - Vibhuti, Team Member, YA
“The way Sadanand ji listened to my thoughts, pricked me constantly in his own beautiful ways to give expression to the myriad thoughts I kept bottled inside of me was amazing.
"Education that liberates" did liberate me in the sense that I now feel that yes I have a voice, some may not agree, some may agree but that doesn't diminish my choice!”' - Priya Maria, GM’16
Read a reflection by one of our team members, Shashank: