Life - EducationPromoting `true' education Deepti Priya Mehrotra What difference do schools that practise alternative ideas bring into the education system in India? Business Line Friday, Sep 15, 2006
As J. Krishnamurti put it, the real issue in education is "to see that when the child leaves the school, he is well established in goodness — both outwardly and inwardly".
MAKING A DIFFERENCE: The Rishi Valley School in Andhra Pradesh.
Two schools with a `difference' celebrated special birthdays in July this year. Mirambika Free Progress School in New Delhi celebrated its 25th anniversary, while Rishi Valley School in Andhra Pradesh turned 75 in July. What difference have these `different' schools made to the education system in India?
While most schools today merely prepare children to pass examinations and enter the job market, promoting values of aggressive individualism and cut-throat competition, several thinkers in the past have explained what `true' education is all about. Prominent among them were Jiddu Krishnamurti and Sri Aurobindo.
They not only proposed radically alternative visions of education, but also inspired many schools to practise these ideas. Rishi Valley, run by the Krishnamurti Foundation of India (KFI), and Mirambika, run by the Sri Aurobindo Education Society, are leading schools of this genre.
Mutual learning and teaching
Both are small schools, taking in no more than 20 students per class. This has allowed a strong, affectionate and non-didactic relationship to develop between teachers and students. Teachers facilitate the learning process for children, but essentially they too are learning — about life and their own selves. Thus students and teachers consciously engage in a process of mutual learning and teaching.
Parents are encouraged to play an active part in school. Some join to teach part-time, or even full-time. Thus, for instance, Nutan didi, Mirambika's History teacher, continues to teach even after her daughter, Ananya, passed out of the school in 2004.
Teachers are selected to teach on the basis of their sensitivity and an adequate grasp of the subject, rather than just formal qualifications. Mirambika runs an in-service teacher training programme for its teachers in order to hone their skills and sensitivity, as well as develop an understanding of the aims of education. Rishi Valley also launched an in-service training programme for its teachers recently.
This is a residential school, with children from across the country. Set in the midst of rural plains, with the luxury of relatively much more space, the school has created a lush forest, inhabited by innumerable species of birds and butterflies.
Mirambika, situated in New Delhi's Aurobindo Ashram, is a day school, but keeps its students for long hours (8 a.m. to 3.30 p.m.). Both the schools emphasise harmonious physical development, encouraging sports and providing simple, delicious and nutritious meals to the children.
They also encourage a deep love for nature, with nature walks, gardening and a beautiful ambience. Despite its location in a busy city, Mirambika provides a fairy-tale ambience with neem groves, wide-open skies and children tending flowers and vegetable patches.
Non-competitive ethos
Of great importance to both schools is their markedly non-competitive ethos. Children are not sent for inter-school competitions. "However," explains Ahalya Chari, a KFI trustee, "Rishi Valley holds drama festivals, as also dance and sports events in which children from many schools participate". Rishi Valley has no exams until Class IX, while Mirambika has no exams at all (it goes only up to Class IX). A few mock-exams are conducted in middle school to prepare children for exams in the future. Neither school loads its students with homework, nor do the students go in for private tuitions.
People often wonder whether children from such `alternative' schools are able to adjust to the mainstream. However, most students do well. They study a range of subjects and go in for a wide variety of careers. Amitabh, an old student of Rishi Valley, says, "When I passed my IAS some people were surprised. It is a fact that in school, we were taught not to compete with each other. But we were taught to compete with our own selves. We were taught to excel in whatever we pursue."
The aim of education
Academic excellence is encouraged, but not seen as the sole or main aim of schools. As J. Krishnamurti put it, the real issue in education is "to see that when the child leaves the school, he is well established in goodness — both outwardly and inwardly".
Aurobindo has said that the "aim of education is to help the child develop his intellectual, aesthetic, emotional, moral, spiritual being and his communal life and impulses out of his own temperament." The aim is `integral education', that is education that develops each faculty — physical, vital, mental, psychic and spiritual.
Free progress, an idea formulated by Mirra Alfassa (better known as The Mother) — co-founder of the Aurobindonian philosophy of education — means that each child is allowed to develop at his/her own pace. Even reading and writing are not forced, especially not at an excessively early age.
Both thinkers emphasised that education must address the whole person, not fragmented parts. Merely intellectual education is inadequate, even dangerous. On the other hand, children who are encouraged to develop harmoniously will create new ways of life — for themselves, and for others as well.
Brought up to cooperate than compete, they would develop non-violence and compassion. Such schools provide hope that perhaps such a transformation can actually come about — not only on a small scale, but also on the stage of the world.
As Krishnamurti put it, "You are the world." The world will change to the extent each person in the world truly changes. Social and political change will follow upon the heels of personal transformation — which is what these two schools are about.
What impact have these schools had on wider society? One very concrete impact can be seen in Rishi Valley's reaching out to surrounding villages through its `one-teacher, one-room' schools.
Rama and Padmanabha Rao, who pioneered this approach, are now invited as resource persons to teach their methods to thousands of teachers across the country. .
As for Mirambika, several ex-teachers now work in other schools, or have set up their own schools, in which they attempt to replicate the non-competitive ethos and free progress philosophy, thus reaching a somewhat wider section of children and parents.
That these schools are much in demand despite being so `different' is testimony to their intrinsic worth. Despite the erosion of values in mainstream education and the spread of consumerist, materialist values throughout the globe, these small centres of learning remain committed to a very different kind of vision. Women's Feature Service
As J. Krishnamurti put it, the real issue in education is "to see that when the child leaves the school, he is well established in goodness — both outwardly and inwardly".
MAKING A DIFFERENCE: The Rishi Valley School in Andhra Pradesh.
Two schools with a `difference' celebrated special birthdays in July this year. Mirambika Free Progress School in New Delhi celebrated its 25th anniversary, while Rishi Valley School in Andhra Pradesh turned 75 in July. What difference have these `different' schools made to the education system in India?
While most schools today merely prepare children to pass examinations and enter the job market, promoting values of aggressive individualism and cut-throat competition, several thinkers in the past have explained what `true' education is all about. Prominent among them were Jiddu Krishnamurti and Sri Aurobindo.
They not only proposed radically alternative visions of education, but also inspired many schools to practise these ideas. Rishi Valley, run by the Krishnamurti Foundation of India (KFI), and Mirambika, run by the Sri Aurobindo Education Society, are leading schools of this genre.
Mutual learning and teaching
Both are small schools, taking in no more than 20 students per class. This has allowed a strong, affectionate and non-didactic relationship to develop between teachers and students. Teachers facilitate the learning process for children, but essentially they too are learning — about life and their own selves. Thus students and teachers consciously engage in a process of mutual learning and teaching.
Parents are encouraged to play an active part in school. Some join to teach part-time, or even full-time. Thus, for instance, Nutan didi, Mirambika's History teacher, continues to teach even after her daughter, Ananya, passed out of the school in 2004.
Teachers are selected to teach on the basis of their sensitivity and an adequate grasp of the subject, rather than just formal qualifications. Mirambika runs an in-service teacher training programme for its teachers in order to hone their skills and sensitivity, as well as develop an understanding of the aims of education. Rishi Valley also launched an in-service training programme for its teachers recently.
This is a residential school, with children from across the country. Set in the midst of rural plains, with the luxury of relatively much more space, the school has created a lush forest, inhabited by innumerable species of birds and butterflies.
Mirambika, situated in New Delhi's Aurobindo Ashram, is a day school, but keeps its students for long hours (8 a.m. to 3.30 p.m.). Both the schools emphasise harmonious physical development, encouraging sports and providing simple, delicious and nutritious meals to the children.
They also encourage a deep love for nature, with nature walks, gardening and a beautiful ambience. Despite its location in a busy city, Mirambika provides a fairy-tale ambience with neem groves, wide-open skies and children tending flowers and vegetable patches.
Non-competitive ethos
Of great importance to both schools is their markedly non-competitive ethos. Children are not sent for inter-school competitions. "However," explains Ahalya Chari, a KFI trustee, "Rishi Valley holds drama festivals, as also dance and sports events in which children from many schools participate". Rishi Valley has no exams until Class IX, while Mirambika has no exams at all (it goes only up to Class IX). A few mock-exams are conducted in middle school to prepare children for exams in the future. Neither school loads its students with homework, nor do the students go in for private tuitions.
People often wonder whether children from such `alternative' schools are able to adjust to the mainstream. However, most students do well. They study a range of subjects and go in for a wide variety of careers. Amitabh, an old student of Rishi Valley, says, "When I passed my IAS some people were surprised. It is a fact that in school, we were taught not to compete with each other. But we were taught to compete with our own selves. We were taught to excel in whatever we pursue."
The aim of education
Academic excellence is encouraged, but not seen as the sole or main aim of schools. As J. Krishnamurti put it, the real issue in education is "to see that when the child leaves the school, he is well established in goodness — both outwardly and inwardly".
Aurobindo has said that the "aim of education is to help the child develop his intellectual, aesthetic, emotional, moral, spiritual being and his communal life and impulses out of his own temperament." The aim is `integral education', that is education that develops each faculty — physical, vital, mental, psychic and spiritual.
Free progress, an idea formulated by Mirra Alfassa (better known as The Mother) — co-founder of the Aurobindonian philosophy of education — means that each child is allowed to develop at his/her own pace. Even reading and writing are not forced, especially not at an excessively early age.
Both thinkers emphasised that education must address the whole person, not fragmented parts. Merely intellectual education is inadequate, even dangerous. On the other hand, children who are encouraged to develop harmoniously will create new ways of life — for themselves, and for others as well.
Brought up to cooperate than compete, they would develop non-violence and compassion. Such schools provide hope that perhaps such a transformation can actually come about — not only on a small scale, but also on the stage of the world.
As Krishnamurti put it, "You are the world." The world will change to the extent each person in the world truly changes. Social and political change will follow upon the heels of personal transformation — which is what these two schools are about.
What impact have these schools had on wider society? One very concrete impact can be seen in Rishi Valley's reaching out to surrounding villages through its `one-teacher, one-room' schools.
Rama and Padmanabha Rao, who pioneered this approach, are now invited as resource persons to teach their methods to thousands of teachers across the country. .
As for Mirambika, several ex-teachers now work in other schools, or have set up their own schools, in which they attempt to replicate the non-competitive ethos and free progress philosophy, thus reaching a somewhat wider section of children and parents.
That these schools are much in demand despite being so `different' is testimony to their intrinsic worth. Despite the erosion of values in mainstream education and the spread of consumerist, materialist values throughout the globe, these small centres of learning remain committed to a very different kind of vision. Women's Feature Service
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