Are we providing good schooling to our future?

Jaya Moolchandani
Sep 8, 2018 · 2 min read

My visit to this school named “Kaliyuva Mane”, which means- Home for learning, revived my hope towards a Better India with a beautiful future.This school, located 15 Km from Mysore district of Karnataka is run by Mr. Ananth Kumar. He started with a coaching centre in his village, where students would come after school. He continued teaching the students in his coaching for a few years, but realised he did not believed in the conventional schooling system,and could not teach as he wished to because of the pressure to complete the school syllabus.It was at this point he decided to create an innovative school and experiment with his way of teaching.

This residential school is focused on out of system and underprivileged students, who come from nearby villages.They say, it gives them freedom to explore,learn and pace at their own speed without the fear of any exams.

So what special does this school do for it’s students?

As and when a student is enrolled in the school, which is by the way, open anytime of the year, he is just set free to play and do what he wishes. The teachers and the caretakers just observe the student’s knowledge and emotional needs for about a month.While observing they keep developing the curriculum for that student.

After that the teachers focus on teaching life skills like milking the cow, gardening, banking system and Maths.They believe that each child is special and needs their own time to understand concepts which make them learn things which are useful in daily lives.

They are given a monthly pay slip of Rs. 50/-, which they can use to buy things like soap, toothpaste, brushes etc only after filling a chalaan slip.

They are rewarded with money if they show some act of kindness and fined if they do something bad. Parallely they learn about the banking system too.

If a student complains about any other student or staff, they have a mini courtroom for solving the disputes.This gives them a practical scene of a court .

They help the cooks in kitchen,they clean their own washrooms,milk the cow and sweep the school floors.

At that moment I wished I was schooled like this, I wished this model could reach most children of our country and I wished more people like Mr. Ananth Kumar existed in our country who could create a road to a brighter India, a Better India.

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