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

2005 Goa, India39SUMAVANAMSumavanam is a small village school drawing itsinspiration from David Horsburgh. It has 20 students inthe age group of 8-14 years. There are no competitionsand no exams. We have been influenced byseveral writers of education, science, and math. Allof us sit in a room of 20’ by 12’ with individual deskfor each student. It is a fact that children in our areado not get the affection, attention and time ofparents. There is a felt need to make those basicrelations complete. For the first few months allnewcomers start with oral work and are familiarisedwith listening, speaking and memorizing. We do thiswork with stories, flashcards and many languagegames that Usha has developed over the years.David Horsburgh encouraged teachers to maketheir own learning aids based on children’s needsand requirements.Children in the villages, once familiar with theteacher, will confide many personal details. There israrely a teacher-student relationship in small villages.We encourage children to talk a lot and tellstories. In the span of few months we are able tothen identify each child’s learning abilities. Based onthese insights we then move on to simple workbooksfor children. Sumavanam uses a lot of learningmaterials.Once the child gets into textbook mode, languageis taught through phonetics. Usha has developedbooks with groups of words for all the alphabets.Children are now able to make their ownwords and also use these words in sentences. It isamazing how in a span of 2 to 3 months children areable to make sentences, read small story books andanswer questions related to comprehension, arrangingsentences in a particular order etc. There arework books which the child first reads with theteacher, then tries to understand the lesson throughindividual self learning and works with exercises incomprehension. For the first 5 years of schooling weuse books published by Oxford and Macmillan apartfrom books developed by ourselves.Sumavanam is a village school with its attendantvillage perceptions to deal with. Given this, becauseparents want their children to have a certificationand a sense of achievement we thought it appropriateto cater to their needs and perceptions ofeducation.I cannot claim to say that ours is an alternativeschool. I cannot say that children are not learning ina classroom. I do not have the heart to tell myvillage people that I do not believe in examinations,and that certifications do not teach anything aboutlife and are not required. I do not have the heart tosay this.So on completion of five years at the VI and VIIgrade we introduced government prescribedtextbook to help children to prepare for the class 7thand class 10 th examinations. Though we follow thesebooks we do the lessons as we think they should bedone and now there are several audio visual aids,audio, CDs, microscopes and other equipment andtools that we put to use regularly.We even give the school a very formal atmospherein the morning. There is morning assemblywhen the children stand in lines, and sing local folksongs and other value based songs. This ritual coincideswith local perceptions of what a school shouldbe and that, for a village school is very vital.