Breaking Walls

I'll divide the discussions into posts: one post for one subject / thread. I'll keep updating the post with comments as and when they come. In this post, we'll talk about breaking walls.

1. The wall between living and schooling
This wall needs to be broken because the Sreejan Vidyapeeth (SV) is concerned with the learning of the child and learning happens in school as well as outside school. Breaking this wall implies that SV be conscious of the learning in the entire day rather than during school hours. This means that either the school collaborates with the parents intensively or the child lives in SV. Collaborating with parents will require the parents to take responsibility of part of learning. Prima-facie, in this option, SV needs to communicate intensively with parents and ensure their commitment to execute the learning plan. This may require parents to alter behaviour and modify lifestyle. Staying with parents has its benefits for the child and his learning. Breaking this wall require SV to choose between being a residential school or engaging intensively with parents (assuming that the parents are aligned with the thought process and willing to modify their lifestyle) if required. 

2. The wall between right and wrong
This is a very interesting wall, which keeps increasing in height as a child grows. Most people consider building this wall as the very purpose of education. Breaking this wall implies refraining from judging as good / evil, right / wrong, moral / amoral, successful / unsuccessful and many more. It implies throwing morals out of stories (whether stated or implied), developing teachers, who can be absolutely neutral, allowing widely divergent, even opposing thought processes to co-exist without a hint of preference. Its a tough wall to break. It exists much deeper below the surface, however tall it is above it. 

3. The wall between learning and livelihood
Earning livelihood begins after education ends. There the wall where education is supposed to end. It often indicates a full stop to learning (at least consciously). What one learns during the education years isn't supposed to have much to do with the years that follow. The wall needs to be broken so that learning continues and earning livelihood is based on what is learnt. Breaking this wall implies exposing the child to the world of adults at an early stage, encouraging him/her to choose what he/she wants to learn. The purpose of education then becomes firmer than mere 'success in examination'. 

Why, What and How of Education

Why am I taking responsibility of the school at Barkheda?

Educating children is a responsibility that we’ve already taken on ourselves – our own children. We are very committed to it. Though we’re not experts in the area, we know that we’ll be able to do a good job, just as we’ve done a good job of raising them so far, though we weren’t experts at that either. Just expanding the scope of the responsibility to more children may be an incremental effort, but comes with significant incremental advantages - for our learning, the learning of our children and the learning of the kids in the school.

What the school does not mean to me.

• It is not for social cause nor is it aimed at resolving any social ill like illiteracy, unemployment, poverty gender discrimination or the like.
• It is not for rural children or urban children. It is for children.
• It will not prepare students for academic success. Academic success will be incidental.
• It will not be adjudged as successful on the basis of the growth in number of students, academic success of students, financial performance and media coverage.

Rekha & I have done some thinking about the ‘why’, ‘what’ and ‘how’ of the school. We’ve reached some answers. But, we’re sure that these answers are not all inclusive. Nor are they fool-proof and final. We realize that no answer is fool-proof and final. The benefit of collective thinking accrues when individual expertise, understanding and insight of all ‘dissolve’ such that the individuality of the expertise, understanding, insight and commitment ceases to exist. Also, conviction of a decision is much stronger if each individual is much stronger when one arrives at the decision. Therefore placing these answers for discussion will not be the correct starting point. Therefore, I’d like to begin the thinking process. The subject is vast and complex. Therefore I’ll try and pick threads for discussion and invite views.

Thread 1. Breaking of walls

I learnt this during a discussion with Rajesh Dalal and Saraswati. There are various walls which compartmentalize learning. For example, a wall exists between living and schooling. There is no evidence that learning happens only between 8 am to 2.30 pm, or that learning during these times has higher retention. On the contrary, all the learning other than the school hours may have higher retention because it is experiential.

Are there any other walls, which need to be broken?