Becoming and being a Shifu (master)

Auroville Today: Why did you name the programme BnB Shifu?

Sanjeev: ‘Shifu’ in Japanese means master. We are looking at mastery in skills, in the ability to use skills to shift culture and also mastery of the self. The youth need to ask themselves: Am I willing to invest a year for my own growth? Not for a certificate but to develop myself integrally. And the second reason is that ‘Shifu’ was the name of my dog. She was very sick for two weeks at the end of her life. I paused all my busy doings and was with her. The pause also gave me time to still myself and to think about how we could add value as a team to ourselves and our community. The idea for this project became concrete during that quiet time. In a way it was to honour this time she gave me as her last gift. Becoming represents the process and practice needed to BE a Master. BEing also represents the need to continue these practices learned for life.

I am told that no fees are charged for doing this course. How do you fund the programme?

One of the volunteers at the NGO ‘Asha for Education’, which I am associated with, was keen to set up a scholarship fund in memory of her mother, Smt. B. V. Kameswari. Her family wanted to create a corpus so the interest could be used for the scholarship of one youth. After reading about the Shifu programme, the family decided to give the entire amount for this programme. Due to this seed fund, we were able to offer the programme free of charge. Further, it is a ‘pay it forward’ fund and when the youth graduate and join work we ask the company to replenish the funds used for their programme. The expenses are primarily food and stay and come to between INR 4000 to 5000 per student per month. The students take up roles to run the programme to keep the expenses to a minimum. The investment for infrastructure for the programme came through donations from Aura Semiconductor Pvt. Ltd. and Quilt.AI

Why are there so few students in the programme?

We have space for nine men and nine women. Last year, around twenty people applied and we selected 8 of them as we felt they were serious and would benefit from the programme. Three of the students left mid-way, though one of them has joined again this year. The applicants have to fill up a very detailed application form and then there is a written examination and a series of interviews. We have kept the programme open even for those who were inclined immediately after 12th standard, but only got applicants who had completed a bachelor’s degree. The number of people who are willing to invest in themselves and learn rigorously for a year is very low. Everyone wants a degree. And after getting a degree, even though they may have no skill, the general attitude is that if I have completed my degree, I need to get a job. I don’t need to learn. For the next batch, we have already selected five people. We have designed the Shifu course as a running programme and people can join at any time of the year. We may have more people joining as we find more suitable candidates. It’s much better this way as there is an overlap and the interaction of old and new students supports peer learning.

I understand there is no classroom teaching in this programme?

It has turned out like that. We had initially planned it, but we found that the method of individualised learning with mentors is far more powerful and effective. One of my friends, Sanjay Tumati, had moved here because he thought we would be teaching the students. And then we both realised that the students were learning well enough without ‘classes’ from us. He ran a lab for them which spilled over to children who wanted to learn electronics!

How do the students learn?

A lot of learning right now is peer and mentor supported online learning. We have a tie-up with Navgurukul that allows the youth to do courses on Coursera and also get certification. The online courses for programming are quite rich. We have identified some courses that really support development of programming with project based learning. The electronics part of the course is more guided. Here they are doing laboratory experiments or they are working closely with a mentor. Each student has a mentor who supports and tracks the progress of a student on a one-to-one basis.

How does mentorship work ?

Each student gets a mentor based on what they are working on for at least one semester. The mentors are practitioners who are working in the area the student is learning and who are willing to invest in the growth of the student. All students reflect at the end of the day. Mentors start with reading their reflections and are available for them to have a conversation, give guidance and clear their doubts. This supports self-directed learning where a person is learning on their own and help is available when needed.

Where do the youth get employed?

We provided an opportunity for all the graduates to join us at C3STREAM Land Designs at the end of the programme. They have all joined us and like each of us, they also commit to volunteering to support youth and children through STEM land.

Why do you have only two streams, programming and electronics (specifically VLSI)?

It’s because these are our skills. We can only ‘teach’ what we practice. Actually, one of our students started a new stream which we hadn’t even thought of. It is VLSI automation with electronics and programming together. This stream seemed more suitable for this student, given her interest and skills. We can always create something new, depending on the inclination of the students.

How does inner growth take place for the students?

We decided we will include what helped us grow. This included Vipassana Meditation, the Radical Transformational Leadership (RTL) programme, yoga and sports. Also the whole programme is framed for reflection. We have created an online portal where they reflect on ‘what I did well today’, ‘what I learned today about myself’ and ‘what will I do differently because of what I learned today?’ If they’re working on improving their English, then they will write about what happened today and they will send it to me, and I will correct it and send it back.

Every morning, the students join us for a ten minute practice of Anapana meditation where we observe our natural breath (it is a part of Vipassana meditation) and that helps us be calm and concentrate the mind. We organised a ten-day residential Vipassana retreat for the students on the premises and most students do a one hour sit before meeting us. They also did a RTL programme last year and every couple of weeks we do one hour of RTL refresher in the morning. RTL tools are self-awareness team building tools and we apply these on a daily basis.

Tumati related how one of the students benefitted from the daily Anapana meditation. She had a problem in maths which she was unable to solve. She meditated for 10 minutes and immediately after that she could easily solve the problem. Thus, the concentration developed by meditation was helping the students in their work.

Are you coming up with anything new in the future?

We are hoping to start a three year Bachelor of Vocation (B.Voc) course (after 12th grade or equivalent) in ‘Applied electronics and Chip Design’and ‘Programming and Machine Learning’ this year, along with the Auroville Institute of Applied Technology (AIAT). Last month, Auroville tied up with Pondicherry University for this. B.Voc are new programmes introduced as part of the 2020 National Educational Policy (NEP) that are meant to be practical and industry oriented. We would like to be in-line with integral development of skills, competencies and inner capacity, as happens on the BnB Shifu programme, with Pondicherry University taking care of the certification. It is hard to transform old programmes like BTech or BSc bit by bit. The hope is since we are starting from scratch we can do something new that is really needed for the youth.

Sivaraman, one of the graduates recounts his experience.

I joined this course after doing a four year engineering course but I learnt very little or rather nothing in those 4 years of engineering. We used to memorise and then take the exams. We could not apply anything. Even our teachers could not help us apply as they too had learnt from textbooks and did not know how to apply. But in this year I have learnt so much. Here we learn things and then we apply them. I learnt programming and then I made software and developed games. I learnt embedded programming and I applied it in hardware or in software communication. I play with it and get confidence in using it. Some nights I did not sleep because I was enjoying so much what I was doing that I did not want to stop. I was able to see the results instantly. I didn’t take any leave during the last year and I didn’t even feel like going home during the Covid lockdown as it was so interesting for me. We would get up at 5.30 am, brush our teeth and then go together for a 30 minute morning jog. After we come back, we will do the yoga practice of surya namaskara for another half an hour. Then we freshen up and we do a 10 minute practice of Anapana meditation and then we start our work. We start it with a morning meeting with the whole team. We work till 5 PM and then I go and work out in the gym.

Most importantly, I learned how to learn during this programme