Guess who cast a spell at our school library yesterday?
Lost words...
Lost spells...
All found and cast during his delightful session with the children.
One of the perks that I love about my job as a library educator is meeting inspiring authors and educators, delighting in their interactions with children and learning from observing them spin their magic as they inspire reading and creating.
When I got the opportunity to interact with one of the best...a Cambridge professor, award winning author and nature lover, I was delighted, honoured, gobsmacked and humbled....all at the same time.
Robert Macfarlane visited our school, on his first visit to India to meet his friend Yuvan Aves and see the amazing work he is doing in nature education through his Palluyir Trust.
He visited the Abacus Montessori Farm School....Songlines, on one day and the school and library on another.
He came across as just a regular guy. When he visited the school library he chatted with me about the children he went with to the Farm School.
On seeing our little 'Authors of Abacus' display of the books that children had written, he immediately connected it to a few children he had met and spent time going through them.
He was excited to give me notebooks (designed with his book illustrations) to encourage the children to write.
His session was just magical.
From taking the random thoughts the children were sharing, to guiding them collectively to write a ‘spell’…..logically, yet with a touch of magic...Robert Macfarlane had the children hanging on his every word!
Democratic, gentle yet firm guidance, encouraging, respectful of the children’s voices...it was wonderful to observe. The children and teachers were all caught in his magic as he guided the children to create a 'spell' collectively.
Truly the greatest souls are often the humblest.
Genuine, easygoing and encouraging...so much to observe and absorb.
A meeting I will cherish for a long time, as I'm sure will the children.
I’m truly honoured and humbled and thrilled to have interacted with Rob MacFarlane and inspired by the easy going, encouraging manner in which he interacted with the children.
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Watch to listen to the spell he created with the children.
This connected so beautifully with the Micha Archer books we had done just a few weeks earlier....drawing children's attention to the poetry in nature.