Class action

I’m sitting in a room in the tiny rural hamlet of Vardenhalli near Bangalore, listening to a mild-mannered young man explain the origin of life through a squiggly chalk-drawn “Tree of Life” to roughly dozen children between the ages of 9 and 11. He is barefoot, as are the rest of us on the redoxide floor and in that 90-minute class peppered with words like “protis”, “algae” and “arthropods”, the young faces turned inquiringly towards him never once look bored.

Whenever attention begins to flag, a sharp-eyed, silver-haired woman sitting upright on the other side of the hut-like room stirs things up — a question here, a comment there — and interest seeps back into the class, for that is what it is at the Centre for Learning — the last Science class of the term before the entire school comes together to work for their annual mela. This year’s theme is Magic, so students will be demonstrating magic tricks along with the usual mela activities — creating science, math and art exhibits — making everything themselves, hammering, painting, discussing, creating along the way.

As I watch these kids, I think of all the youngsters who have just finished with their board certification exams — the assembly lines of students that factory-like schools churn out through the mill of rigor and rote, ably aided by the giant eco-system of coaching institutes. And then I look around. Here’s a group of dedicated educators (and parents!) committed to subversive education — and I’m watching them create yet another batch of students who won’t just accept the world as it is presented to them, who will question the given and change existing patterns to create something original and fresh.

Oh, there’s nothing wrong with rigour and rote learning, especially if you want a steady supply of back-office workers, sweat shops, BPOs, KPOs and other ant factories stoking the country’s GDP fires. And its great for encouraging discipline, hard work, competition. But if we want to create people who are more likely to make a real, meaningful difference to our planet, we need more alternative schools like CFL. Schools which encourage critical alertness, constant questioning, deep thinking and experiential learning, run by motivated and committed teachers who feel strongly that such education is “the key to the regeneration of self and society,” as the CFL website says (www.cfl.in).

Teachers share close relationships with their students — imagine homeschooling scaled up — and focus on social and emotional development as much as academic excellence. There are no hierarchies among teachers, and no tests and exams for children (though they take board exams).

The disadvantaged demographic of developing countries sees education as the only route towards social betterment. Conventional rote learning, professional courses lead into a productive workforce. But alternative education provided by schools such as CFL is a “risk” education, because there is ultimately no guarantee about what the child will professionally do or become — it may lead her in very many non-traditional directions. This makes it unattractive to the risk-averse middle class as well as those who view education purely as a financial investment. Alternative schools end up being perceived as a luxury only the privileged can afford. But alternative education isn’t really a luxury — it is essential for a balanced society, especially if we don’t want to end up creating an army of robots capable of memorizing, following instruction but few visionaries with imagination and leadership. Many conventional schools are beginning to realise this and are integrating some aspects of an alternative stream within their existing framework. Awareness is a good place to begin change — even though it may be a long journey towards the pure, radical model of a CFL.

Writer and journalist Jyoti Pande recently relocated from Calilfornia to New Delhi