Research

Joining a research project

TLC is a participatory research project, with the purpose of creating a new education for human unity and sustainable development, and using the principles of Integral Education and 21st century abilities to guide this exploration. TLC is ever-changing, constantly questioning, and re-looking at our methods and practices to make sure that they support our aspirations and progress toward the vision. As TLC is not a school, nor has a pre-defined program or way of working, it is essential that those joining are open to allow that which comes. To keep this evolving organism alive asks for an eager curiosity, non-judgement, acceptance, openness for change, self-evaluation, and dialogue amongst all members of the community. Experience has shown that roles need to be clearly defined for progress and harmony. Children, facilitators and parents are all learners, and TLC facilitates space for the three equally, which requires flexibility and accommodation of present realities and needs, as well as research focus. It is important to acknowledge that where we are today is not the end but just the beginning, and through ongoing collaboration something beautiful unfolds.

TLC Vision

To enable a clear sense of Self in children and adults through the living practice of integral education, where each part of the being is encouraged to blossom integrally and where children and adults, by living and working together, can grow more conscious of their inner being and develop all parts of their outer being (physical, emotional and mental).

Researching the practice of Integral Education

Our research on Integral Education follows the three Principles of Integral education in their corresponding fields of deepening:

Research setting in TLC

One of the cornerstones of The Learning Community’s approach to educational research is the notion of Community-Based Learning, where learning becomes a process integrated into the Auroville community and beyond. Activities emerge out of real life and the environment in which we participate, as well as from individual and collective needs and interests.

Facilitators are in an ongoing research journey, to discover themselves, and learn to observe and contemplate without projecting themselves and their conditioning onto the children, thereby allowing the children freedom to become in touch with their own authentic selves.

TLC aims to make a very concrete step towards experiencing Auroville as a living laboratory, using Auroville’s richness and conscious research as the main learning resource. Parents are considered very important and are asked to participate through conscious parenting and community participation. 

Following the natural developmental needs and interests of the children, the program evolves to try to create the best conditions for the blossoming of all their faculties. It is within this experience that children and adults not only gain abilities of inner and outer connection as human beings exploring values of unity in diversity, but also develop an eco-literacy through experiencing education as a practice of sustainability. The project enhances fundamental qualities such as courage, endurance, effort, discipline, curiosity, care and support for each other.

Research on the practice of Integral Education

No year in TLC is like the precious year. As a living research project, each year brings new areas to deepen in. Some areas we have researched and developed practices in over the years are:

• Foundations structures to experience values of human unity through education (community, mixed age learning).

• Pedagogical projects created to live the three principles of Integral Education.

• Assessment of Integral learning.

• Challenges with being a research project.
• Questioning what foundational learning is.

• The role of the educator.

TLC Research this year 2023/2024

From January to June 2024 our research will focus around the following questions:

(1) How can a “school” be “a place of being” not “a place of doing”?

(2) What tools and instruments help children to pursue knowledge, acquire skills and build beliefs that are meaningful to them?

(3) How does a self-directed learning environment promote a conscious way of learning?

(4) What mindset allows the authenticity of both younger and older beings to express? 

In 2023 our research focused on the role of the integral educator.

Published Research Paper – Life as /of a holistic educator

Holistic Education Review. Issue: Contemplative Practices in Holistic Education. 3(2), Nov. 2023

The Holistic Education Review (HER) Journal publishes two online, open-access journal issues per year and conducts additional educational activities for the holistic education community to enhance and broaden the scholarship of holistic education. HER envisions a holistic educational movement dedicated to the wellbeing and uplifting of human spirit on behalf of all life.

https://her.journals.publicknowledgeproject.org/index.php/her/article/view/2942: Research

Published Research Paper in NORRAC– Learning to Be Whole Again — Holistic Approaches to Foundational Learning (pages 88-91)

About NSINORRAG Special issue (NSI) is an open-source periodical. It seeks to give prominence to authors from different countries and with diverse perspectives. Each issue is dedicated to a special topic of global education policy and international cooperation in education. NSI includes a number of concise articles from diverse perspectives and actors with the aim to bridge the gap between theory and practice as well as advocacy and policy in international education development.

TLC Research (past documented research)

TLC award winning research documentary 2022 – “Learning from the intangible”

The film has screened at film festivals and educational conferences both in India and internationally.

The Cinema Paradisio award under the category of Auroville films at the 2022 Auroville Film Festival is given to ‘Learning from the Intangible’ by Alessandra Silver. It is a film that truly captures the essence of an Aurovillian educational experience for children, creating space and opportunities to learn and expand their knowledge and experiential horizons. The “Free Progress” pedagogy and curriculum are embedded in a value system that enables “integral education” grounded in reality, culture, and virtues essential for the sustenance of the human and ecological spirit. The voices of parents and children in Auroville make the “intangible” actually “tangible”, and the film becomes a medium of inspiring educators and parents to engage with a process that will build a generation of citizens who would actualise “the psychic being”. The film is shot and edited to make for lived storytelling. As India moves forward to implement the New Education Policy 2020, this documentary can sensitise and inspire educational policymaking and practice to transform education. The words “nothing can be taught” stay with you beyond the 85-minute film.

Research paper – EDUCATION SERVING THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS?!
An interview study of the educational foundations, challenges and opportunities in Auroville, India

Research paper – “Learning from the intangible”

Paper – Philosophy in TLC

Research paper – Travelling at TLC – a learning experience

TLC Progress team 2023-2024

The Aspiration/Progress team holds the long term vison and aims of TLC, guiding its educational research and discovering and developing new and innovative structures, methods and practices towards realizing Integral Education along the way.