Bhaskar has been associated with the Krishnamurti schools for three years now. He began his journey as an educator with Shibumi and is now a member of the staff in The Valley School. He has taught mathematics to middle and senior school classes, though he currently teaches Global Perspectives and Kannada. Bhaskar is also a musician and teaches students to play the guitar.
I had just begun teaching in Shibumi, a small space for learning in Bangalore inspired by Jiddu Krishnamurti. At that time they were looking for a mathematics educator. With no background in teaching, except for the occasional guitar lessons I gave, and with my work experience being mostly in the corporate and start-up world, I was not sure what it meant to teach mathematics to children. That was when I met my two mentors in Shibumi, Ganga and Vishwanath.
Working with them was more like a collaboration through which we built a relationship. What was clear was a common interest in finding out what it meant to go into the questions that Krishnamurti had raised about daily living— and how this was related to education.
After going through the curriculum and spending time with Vish and Ganga, I remember candidly saying during a staff meeting that I might not be able to teach mathematics. What struck me, which was rather unexpected, was not only their response but also the conviction or clarity with which they put it across. It felt more than mere encouragement. They simply said ‘You can do Math and you are good with children’. Of course, there was the data: I had studied math for a long time and was an engineering graduate after all. It was a pivotal moment for me as it communicated something very important about what it means to be a mentor and how crucial that role could be for someone who is trying to discover something new in a completely unfamiliar environment—to see possibility in a person first.
The second aspect that influenced me was watching Vish and Ganga work with the children during class. I especially worked alongside Ganga, and it was a delight to see her slowly explore a math question or a problem with students in order to facilitate its comprehension first. Just like we might curiously examine an object from all sides, she had this capacity to walk the children through a problem by asking questions and encouraging them to describe it as well as they could and in all possible ways while simultaneously writing their descriptions on the board. It had a very specific impact which helped children, even if momentarily, actually forget their own beliefs about being bad at or fearful of math. This helped me set a sense of what it might mean to ‘stay with’ a problem for as long as necessary. The ‘staying with’ was a period of high mental activity and a deeply immersive state to be in, unpacking what is in front of you, one step at a time.