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CHARLOTTE BROWN

AIF Clinton Fellow, Class of 2014-2015

By AIF

January 6^th, 2015

Film, photos, illustrations, and text by Ilana Millner | Media Fellow, Class of 2014-2015

Charlotte Brown’s day begins at 3:45 am. Rising from her cot in a small hut built on the side of a steep mountain, she reaches for her headlamp and ear warmers, fitting both snugly across her forehead. She steps into well-worn boots, then out into the cold night. The ground beneath her feet is damp, shifting slightly as she trudges towards a small concrete complex nearby. When she reaches the row of buildings, she removes her shoes, climbs a few stairs, and gently nudges open a door.

A flashlight clicks on, revealing a room full of silence. To the right, a raised platform upon which a small man sits wrapped in a thick blanket. The flashlight in his hand casts complex shadows across the room; they waver slightly before settling in the hollow of his cheeks. To the left, the shrouded figures of Charlotte’s cross-legged colleagues, each enveloped by silence and wool. Charlotte steps quietly to the left, weaving among her fellow teachers until she reaches the back of the room and takes her normal place on the floor. The flashlight clicks off. In the resumption of darkness, Charlotte cocoons herself in her own blanket and settles in for an hour of meditation.

View from the roof of the APV School

Occasionally, the man at the front of the room speaks, calling the attention of those who are dozing, guiding them back into the present. Minds drift and return as the sun inches its way towards the lip of the mountain peaks, until at 5am the session concludes. The meditators stir, shrugging off blankets and slowly rising. Lucky, one of the youngest teachers at the school reaches for Charlotte’s hand and together they exit the room and walk towards the kitchen. A fire is burning, a kettle is being heated, and Lucky begins to brew the sweet, buffalo-milk chai that everyone at APV favors.

Mohan (left), Charlotte (center), and Manisha (right) serve breakfast after morning meditation.

Charlotte grabs a long wooden bench and sits down at the massive table at which the teachers share every meal. It’s her day to cook for the community, so she picks up a knife and a cutting board and begins the time-consuming task of peeling garlic and chopping bitter gourd. The kitchen is silent but warm, and as the chai boils itself into wakeful movement, so too does the sun, finally breaking across the valley and streaming into the room. Eyes adjust, as does Charlotte, to the new landscape that lies before her. This is life at the APV School.

Morning assembly at the APV School.

Although Charlotte has only been at the APV School for fourth months, she has many years of experience in the practice of mindfulness that lies at the heart of the school’s mission. Born in England, Charlotte moved to Walnut Creek, California at the age of seven. She studied Contemplative Neuroscience (a blend of neuroscience and Buddhist studies) at Stanford, and played for the university volleyball team. In both her academic and athletic careers, Charlotte found inspiration in the infinite complexity of the mind and its ability to both ground and transcend our physicality.

CHARLOTTE BROWN

Charlotte's drawing of San Francisco, which she shared with her students.

Charlotte (right) and Anand Dwivedi (left), APV's founding teacher.

On the road to APV from Delhi: Devprayag, where the Bhagirathi and Alaknanda rivers meet to form the Ganges.

A main street in New Tehri, the administrative seat of the Tehri Garhwal District; about 50 km away from Anjanisain.

The highly controversial Tehri dam—India's tallest dam. The original town of Tehri used to sit in the now-flooded valley

At once modest and gregarious, Charlotte speaks with a gentle ease about her experiences with meditation, including a two-month vipassana retreat that she completed in the spring of 2014. The APV School’s focus on mindfulness in education was a main factor in her decision to join this year’s class of Fellows. As she describes it:

“APV School is a primary school in a small village in the Himalayan foothills. It’s a holistic school; there’s a large emphasis on creative expression and community. We start every school day with assembly, in which we meditate with the children and spend about forty-five minutes singing songs and prayers, most of which have been written by the founding teacher. It’s a very grounding way to start the day, and if you ask most kids in the community what their favorite part of the school day is, they’ll say it’s assembly. Then, when you move into the classroom, all of the teachers are very innovative in their methods. They’re creative, relaxed, and intuitive, and I think what enables this is that all the teachers live in the community together, where meditation is a crucial practice of the community, along with service, and collaboration. The teachers’ emphasis is not so much that students remember facts to perfection, but rather that the students enjoy the process of learning and that they are able to ask questions and express themselves. Students often enjoy learning about what the teachers enjoy sharing, and APV School recognizes this and encourages teachers to teach from their interests, or dare-I-say, hearts.”

A student sits during morning assembly.

Charlotte observes a lesson on the concept of buoyancy, which was taught by a visiting instructor.

CHARLOTTE BROWN

Lucky (left) and her class enjoy working in the sunshine on the roof of APV's new school building.

Over the course of her ten-month Fellowship, Charlotte is working on a number of projects, the largest being Link Syllabus. “The idea behind Link Syllabus is that we link the national standard syllabus—the NCERT syllabus—to what’s meaningful to the students,” thus ensuring that the children receive a comprehensive education.

The project is three parts, the first being a review of APV’s current syllabus and the NCERT syllabus. This assessment process will ensure that APV is covering everything in the national standard. The second component is documentation of the uniquely creative ways that the APV teachers engage their students across subjects. Charlotte explains: “I’m going to document in a way which enables us to share these exercises with new teachers who come to the school, and develop a teacher-training program,” which is the final aspect of Charlotte’s project.

“I’m very excited about the prospect of building an online platform on which to share these exercises with anyone who’s interested in holistic education. I think of this as something like seva—that the APV School can give to teachers around the world because the APV School has situated itself in a way that’s very conducive to being creative and intuitive, and because of that, they’re in a position where they can help teach other teachers how to tap into these resources and create a mindful classroom.

It’s just inspiration really; I think a lot of people who come to visit the school, they tap into that in themselves. It inspires them to be more creative in their own work—whatever it is—and to develop almost a more nurturing relationship to themselves because of our focus on personal development, which our founding teacher [Anand Dwivedi] refers to as ‘evolution.’”

Lucky (center, red scarf) and her students enjoy experimenting during their lesson on buoyancy.

Charlotte’s passion for promoting mindfulness within the context of a holistic education is apparent in the way she speaks about APV:

“What’s really important about APV School and its offering of holistic-style education is that the centerpiece of the education for the students is their development, rather than their skills of memorization, or other things that often come into play more dominantly in a traditional education. The kind of tagline for the school is: ‘Knowledge is that which liberates,’ and in developing these skills of personal reflection, mindfulness, confidence, creativity, problem-solving—that I think are really cultivated within these students—we‘re enabling a much more qualified human being to be in positions of leadership and development. [The APV School] really gives them space to explore each concept, and I think that it’s the groundwork that will build a more conscientious, responsible, and respectable set of adults.”

CHARLOTTE BROWN

Charlotte and her students meditate in the sunshine.

The APV School has a long-standing relationship with AIF, and Charlotte is the twelfth in a line of Fellows who all remain deeply connected to the school. Of this lineage, she says: “It definitely feels like an honor to be here, and to continue and contribute to that legacy and also be the recipient of a lot of wisdom and guidance from Fellows prior.”

This guidance is invaluable in many instances, including in handling what Charlotte describes as “a host of challenges in being in a rural location and pretty far from everything that’s familiar to me. Everything’s done in a very different way, so there’s been a huge learning curve with that, but I’ve been amazingly supported by the community.”

Charlotte also faces unique social challenges: “Living in a tight community of eleven people that live together, meditate together, and teach together can have have the challenge of intense contact. Finding ways to create personal space, and also let go into the community—let people support me and be in my business to a certain degree, and that kind of thing —has been a huge learning curve. […] There is also the challenge of witnessing gendered and racial inequalities, and lack of access to proper healthcare. I feel like everything’s been turned upside down and I’m walking on the ceiling, looking around, and finding a new orientation.”

A view of the APV School.

Mohan, one of APV's devoted teachers.

A view from the Chandrabadani temple on the top of Chandrabadani, a mountain near the APV School.

Charlotte tells the story of how she (center), Shanti (right) and Bijli (the dog) were once attacked by a snow leopard.

APV teachers at the Chandrabadani temple (from left): Mohan, Lucky, Reshma, Khushi (former AIF Fellow), and Shanti.

At APV, Charlotte’s days end much as they begin; she returns to the kitchen to help prepare dinner, and then sits down to eat with her community. They rest afterwards, brainstorm lessons for the next day, play music by the fire, and then gather once again in the founding teacher’s small room for evening meditation. Night has fallen by this point, and on clear evenings the moon casts a cold light across the valley. The teachers eagerly reenter the cocoons of their warm blankets, settling into the moment. Lungs exhale and fill the room with silence, preparing to both close and welcome another day at the APV School.

The staff kitchen at the APV school.

APV teachers Reshma (left) and Lucky (right) prepare dinner.

Sunset at the APV School.

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Manisha and Charlotte practice drawing mehndi designs while enjoying a view of the sunset from the roof.

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An illustration of the APV School's location in Uttarakhand (map not drawn to scale)

Footnotes

Film, photos, illustrations, and text by Ilana Millner | Media Fellow, Class of 2014-2015. © Ilana Millner for the American India Foundation.

FootNotes

Film, photos, illustrations, and text by Ilana Millner | Media Fellow, Class of 2014-2015. © Ilana Millner for the American India Foundation.

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