CREATIVE CLASSROOMS

HOMEWORK? WHAT’S THAT?
BALA VIDYA
MANDIR,chennai
Annual fee: Rs 17,000

Jaya Menon
While schools flaunt their performances and compete with each other to have ‘‘brilliant students’’ on their roster, Bala Vidya Mandir in Chennai takes credit for an unusual practice. The school has never advertised its achievements. Bala Vidya Mandir, or BVM as it is called, is activity-based and lays less stress on examinations and academic results and more on extra-curricular activities.
Ever since it was founded in 1988, BVM has gone its own way. ‘‘Our philosophy has always been child-centric. Naturally every school would make this claim. But we teach our children in ways that will make them happy,’’ says BVM principal S.S. Nathan.
Tucked away in Gandhi Nagar, one of the oldest parts of Chennai, close to the picturesque Adyar river, the sprawling school houses about 1,250 students and is popular both with parents and children. ‘‘That’s because our children are not burdened with homework till class VI. This is a big relief for parents,’’ says Madhavan Narayanan, who chose to put his daughter Smriti here. Till class V, there is no uniform for children, they have no exams and are graded for the work they do in class.
But the biggest attraction for parents has been the school’s stress on communication skills and confidence- building. ‘‘Right from the primary section, children are made to perform on stage, which helps them shed their fear of speaking in public,’’ adds Madhavan.
Vijayalakshmi Sankar, an IITian, now a director in an IT firm, Xansa, agrees. An alumnus of the school, she says: ‘‘I interview so many youngsters for jobs in our firm. I find those who have studied in BVM bolder and with excellent communication skills.’’
Little wonder then that she sent both her children there. But she admits to having some anxious moments about her choice. She often wondered how her children would fare in the competitive world after the stress-free environment of BVM: ‘‘I have come to realise that what’s more important are the underlying skills, which the school helps to develop in a student. When I look around me and see friends of mine who studied at BVM with me, having achieved so much in life, I feel confident and proud.’’
The school has been ahead of its time in more ways than one. It set up a remedial centre for children with dyslexia 20 years ago. It’s moving ahead even now. It has set up its own connectivity network, using two service providers (one as a back-up in case the other failed), balancing router, a Wi Fi unit and laptops. Teachers in every classroom have their own laptops and monitors.
Now, that’s taking classroom communication to another level.

ALL ARE WELCOME
REWACHAND BHOJWANI ACADEMY, PUNE
Annual fee: Rs 22,000

Shveta Vashist Gaur
IN the real world people with disabilities live alongside others so why should it be any different in a school? That’s what Pune’s Rewachand Bhojwani Academy believes in. Set up 18 years ago, of its 426 students, about 13 per cent are dyslexic, a number of them have a hearing impairment and many have other medical and emotional problems.
The school’s principal Madhavi Kapoor says she started the school to realise her dream of inclusive education. So at Bhojwani, children don’t just fight their own problems but also learn to accept those of others.
This is also a school without sir and ma’am. The principal is called Adi, the teachers masi, didi or whatever the children want to call them. And English is not the only language of conversation. Unlike schools where you hear only English on campus, here you can jabber away in English, Hindi and Marathi. Students learn early about elections. They hold elections, complete with canvassing, to elect a students’ council that takes decisions on everything. ‘‘We recently had this debate on whether we should tuck in our shirts or not. We held meetings on the subject for a month and finally decided that it was fine either way,’’ says Naveen Devnani, the head boy of the school.
The wings of freedom are not restricted to ideas alone—classrooms are not numbered but named after birds: flamingo, cockatoos, the Indian robin.
Madhavi Kapoor says the school works on Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences and education, paying attention on skills other than academics. The school has three special educators who take charge of the children with learning disabilities. This includes taking special classes of these children separately and exempting them from examinations. Teachers work closely with counsellors and parents. In fact, any parent is free to walk in on Thursday and talk out issues.
The two counsellors on campus spend hours with children and their parents. Say one of them Dilmeher Bharucha Bhola, ‘‘A girl who was a dropout from another school joined us some years ago. When she joined us, she was not just painfully shy but peculiarly quiet. After observing her for some time we decided to exempt her from any academic pressures including tests. We found out that she was good at dance, so we helped her put up a solo performance on stage. That one performance changed her life. Today seeing her so confident gives us great pleasure.’’
The biggest compliment to the school comes from Akanksha Agrawal, a parent, who says the school has put a smile back on her 11-year-old daughter’s face.

WHERE STUDENTS SET HE SYLLABUS
MIRAMBIKA, NEW DELHI
Annual fee: Rs 21,000

Preeti jha
Imagine a school where students decide what they will learn and teachers say they do not teach, but help children unearth what they already know. Add to this roaming rabbits and geese, and a slide that children whiz down to reach the dining hall. No this is not a school conjured up by Enid Blyton, floating on top of the magic faraway tree. But 13-year old Avantika Viswanathan will tell you that her school Mirambika is not far from every child’s fantasy.
Founded in 1980 by Neeltje Huppes, a Dutch woman, Mirambika began with students learning under seven trees at the Aurobindo Ashram in Delhi. Buildings later evolved, but even today very few classrooms have four walls. ‘‘This really helps,’’ says Viswanathan, ‘‘seeing birds, trees, sunlight—it makes you a happy learner.’’
Even more striking than Mirambika’s architecture is its approach to education. ‘‘There’s no ABCD, or counting one to 10,’’ explains volunteer-teacher, Shaifali Chickermane. Abandoning formal drills, at Mirambika, children learn how to read and write themselves.
The unstructured approach works by encouraging and building on a child’s natural curiosity. By looking at pictures in books, children begin to ask questions.
A child-centric system of education is key to the school’s philosophy, which is inspired by the work of Shri Aurobindo and Mirra Alfassa, also know as the Mother, on education. ‘‘The philosophy of integral education required setting up an entirely new environment,’’ says Huppes.
Take the way in which students form classes. Open to children aged three to 14, the school is grouped by age, but not divided from nursery through to class VIII. Classes are named after colours or qualities —decided upon by students.This year’s classes include aspiration, humility, and perseverance.
Student autonomy extends to what is learned in class. There are do no timetables or study sharply demarcated subjects, instead Mirambika has an innovative class called project. During a project on panchayats (village councils), the school set up their own elections. ‘‘One year there was even a project on pirates,’’ says Avantika, ‘‘it might seem unimportant, but through it we learned about history and folk tales.’’
Now in her final year at Mirambika, Viswanathan wonders if she will enjoy formal education. Vikrant Abrol—the first student on Mirambika’s rolls— says even after 18 years, adjusting to the wider world ‘‘is still difficult at times’’. Suddenly faced with a system bent on evaluation was tough, he says.
But the Mirambika experience was worth it, and now working as a social entrepreneur, Abrol is keen for his son to study at the school. Ratna Viswanathan, Avantika’s mother, thinks it is a common misperception that the school leaves students unable to contend with the wider world. ‘‘Instead it develops critical thinking at an early age. At Mirambika there is competition, but with oneself rather than against others.’’
Avantika is considering going to Mother’s International or Sardar Patel in April. ‘‘From Mirambika, I know textbooks aren’t the only way to learn. This will stay with me wherever I go,’’ she says.

CLASSROOMS WITHOUT WALLS
RISHI VALLEY SCHOOL, CHITTO0R, ANDHRA PRADESH
Annual fee: Rs 1,10,000

Johnson ta
The Rishi Valley School has literally knocked down the walls of its classrooms. Here an outdoor expedition is as much a class as a formal lesson is. Today, the classroom is under the banyan tree; tomorrow it could be a geography lesson on a hillock. The oldest and the best known of the six schools run across the country by the Krishnamurti Foundation, the Rishi Valley School is at the heart of the Rishi Valley Education Centre that also includes a rural education project and rural healthcare effort. A residential school set up 76 years ago, it’s spread over 250 acres on the Rishi Konda hill in Chittoor district in Andhra Pradesh, about 133 km from Bangalore.
The school still follows its founder J.D. Krishnamurti’s philosophy. Teachers are friends who can be questioned relentlessly and students are individuals who are not judged by their academic, artistic or sporting credentials. On the playgrounds, invectives don’t fly to improve performance—only polite encouragement.
‘‘In the junior classes children are sometimes fickle with their choice of activities, flitting between craft, painting, music and drama but in higher classes, we expect more commitment from students,’’ says principal Dr A. Kumaraswamy, an IIT-Madras alumni who has been with the school for 25 years. Teachers at Rishi Valley have a lot of freedom in deciding curriculum, teaching methods and evaluation, especially in the junior classes and they share a close bond with students.
The average teacher-student ratio here is 1:9 and at present there are 360 students (from formal Class IV to class XII) and 60 teachers on campus.
‘‘As students we did not address our teachers as sir or madam. We were encouraged to address them as anna (elder brother) or akka (sister). This allows a great deal of informality,’’ says V. Nanjappa, a journalist and alumnus of the school. The school counts former president Neelam Sanjiva Reddy among its well-known alumni.
But life after Rishi Valley can be a bit hard. ‘‘The students mostly miss the rapport they enjoyed with their teachers. But in the long term they however do well,’’ says Kumaraswamy.