Technique: Regulation, Challenge, Reorganization
While the concept of RCR is appealing and I could see it work, it is challenging to keep coming up with RCR designs. Further, RCR is not a technique to practice for a few minutes daily. It is a way of teaching and learning.
An easy way to practice RCR:
Choose experiences that have built in Regulation, Challenge, Reorganization structure.
In this post, I describe three types of learning experiences that have built-in RCR. Ananth consistently thrives when this type of design is used.
Bharatanatyam
Ananth just finished his hastas class workshop with @Ujwal Ujwal. A unique feature of Bharatanatyam is the systematic use of hand gestures to communicate ideas and feelings. Ananth has to learn 52 hastas for his diploma exam. Each one has many viniyogas. Watch the video:
1) The pattern of interaction: Guide demonstrates, student imitates (motor and oral part),
2) Simple back and forth interaction creates a regulatory pattern,
3) Imagine 10 hours of hasta workshop over the last 10 days. Ananth has got a lot of RCR experience. My sister-in-law commented about how focused Ananth seems to be in Ujwal's class. It is because the entire class is a big series of RCRs. Arts instructions, especially the way an art form like Bharatanatyam is taught has built in RCR.
Ananth learned hip hop and tap before discovering Bharatanatyam. We did not experience this type of RCR in those lessons. This is an important difference between doing say a bunch of Bollywood songs or children's songs versus an art form that builds in RCR. @
Since Ananth some momentum with hastas project now, I am practicing some hastas with him. So a lesson by someone who specializes in RCR can be easily used by parents to implement RCR without keeping on thinking about how to do it. Since my grandson Ishaan loves all the Ujwal stories I tell him, I figure practicing these hastas will also help me develop a movement/gesture vocabulary that I can use in storytelling with him too.
2. Wholemovement
A second set of experiences with built in RCR is Wholemovement. Ananth has folded paper circles for over 15 years. Interestingly, Ananth shows no interest in origami. My guess is that he loved Wholemovement because like Bharatanatyam it is also full of RCRs. Mostly, we would start with a three diameter folding (see from about 11 minutes in the video. This 3-diameter folding is evolved to tetrahedron, octahedron, and many other forms in a systematic way. Regulation: Basic pattern is touching one point on the circle to another and creasing! Challenge: Challenge is slowly introduced. Reorganization happens as we keep adding challenges. Like Bharatanatyam, Wholemovement is consistent, incremental, and has built in RCR.
3. Shurley Grammar
A third example is Shurley Grammar. Ananth made tremendous progress in English under this approach. When we learned grammar, I recall learning by parts of speech. One chapter on nouns, one chapter on pronouns etc. Shurley organizes by parts of sentence. Parts of speech are taught as students keep analyzing parts of sentence. Ananth also learned writing. Rather than introduce many different types of writing, Shurley focused on enumerative as the basic one. I think the year when he learned from Shurley grammar is the year his language acquisition grew tremendously. Again, sentences give an RCR pattern automatically.
[6:38 am, 20/5/2024] D. Rama: There are other examples. Key point is that there are many educational approaches that have built in RCR. That is how they are structured. Ananth thrives on every one of them. Once you experience it, you start designing experiences this way. So when I started teaching Ananth cooking, we did not make a different dish daily to have fun. I started with rasam and we made rasam daily! We established an RCR pattern. Ananth had a role that evolved over time. Challenge also through different forms of rasam.
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