... for they have their own thoughts - Multiworld India

2005 Goa, India19AKASH AND MANAS MUKUL DASWe had an offer from the Krishnamurti FoundationRajghat, Banaras to do something in their villageschools for 9 months. So we came to the school inAugust 2002. The dialogue started with 18 teachersfrom the school. Can we have a school where nochild will fail? Can we have a school where eachchild will be taught upwards from the level of efficiencyhe or she has in whatever subject?Ten days later, I felt that the old teachers wereresisting the idea. They said you tell us how to do itwe will do it. In university the subject is important. Butin the school the child is important and not thesubject. I told them that I can show you the path ifyou are ready to go through the jungles but if youare not then I will not impose anything on you.However, it will be difficult for you to teach a class offailed and passed students. So I told them to takethe students who had been promoted and I will takethe children who have failed and that is how aschool came into existence out of the deadwood,deadwood because these children were not part ofany tree.On the first day the ‘failed’ children were weeping,demanding, why are we not with our friends?But the teachers responded saying – Can’t we beyour friends? And by the third day the children werehappy and were saying that it was a good thingthey had failed. From this started the experimentconducted by Akash. For nine months we hadprofound relations with these children.SHRUJAL ANAND VIDYALAYA, KOLHAPURWe are a team of 22 teachers who commit our time,skills, talents as per our convenience. Every weekteachers meet to evaluate, review the happeningsof the week and plan for the next. In educationcircles everybody talks about motivating the child.What does this mean? – Does it mean: to encourage,to stimulate? Some one said that one shouldallow the world to enter the classroom and the childwould learn on its own.Our school stands for a lot of joy, lot of creativity.‘Vidya - aale’ means ‘learning comes’. In a way theschool is a vision of a new world. Children learn inthe mother tongue because language is an indicationof freedom, thought and expression. If one losesone’s language, in a way freedom is lost. Childrenhere see the sense of equality and confront usadults all the time. The school allows a lot of scopefor this. We believe that as adults tomorrow, they willlearn to discern, question and confront and notaccept everything that comes their way.The most serious problem of all is competition.What our children do or are persuaded to do in itsname is so very contradictory to what I have read ina small booklet on the rights of the child publishedby UNICEF.