Learning without boundaries: Buddhi school
Two weeks ago, I spent a day at Buddhi school, near Hebbal in Bangalore to understand their philosophy of education. The school was founded in 2004 by Seema and Prathima Rao. Seema had worked in the IT industry for many years while Prathima has a PhD in Ecology and many years of university teaching experience. In 2006, they were joined by Rajeshwari Kulkarni, who was head of preschool at East West school in south Bangalore, and has a rich experience in early childhood teaching and school leadership.
When Prathima’s son started school in New Zealand (where she lives), they were exposed to the Reggio Emilia approach, which puts the child in control of his learning journey. It was a doorway into a more open, exploratory style of learning that builds confidence in the child. Even today, Buddhi offers a progressive learning environment where the focus is on the individual needs of every child. The teachers work with the students to create a personalised curriculum that is designed to spark curiosity and make learning enjoyable and purposeful.
In 2013, they moved to their current premises, a lovely mud-brick building with airy corridors and hallways. The unpainted walls are a canvas for displaying the work done by the children. Rooms are furnished with bookshelves, sofas and little chairs and tables that can be rearranged in different configurations. The number of learners in each mixed-age group ranges between 8–12 at any time. The overall school size is only about a hundred students.
Forms of government
My day began by observing a group of middle-schoolers (ages 11–13 years) who were learning about different forms of government. The discussion was facilitated by an external expert Rajini, along with a Buddhi teacher, Uma ma’am. It was held in the library and the eight students had settled themselves in different corners of the room — on armchairs, the floor, the divan in the corner. It was a very informal and un-school-like atmosphere!
First they did a recap of the different forms of government that they had learnt about.
‘A’ talked about Anarchy — where there is no government in charge of the community. Her view was that an anarchy is built to collapse because people’s values change over time (and generations). What brought them together in the first place does not continue to hold them. The advantages of an anarchy are absence of bureaucracy and personal liberty and happiness of individuals; the disadvantages are a lack of a centralized support system in difficult times and that it is hard to sustain. Rajini added that examples could be very small cults.
‘J’ talked about Democracy — where the government is chosen by the people. Different forms are direct and indirect democracy. The advantages are that citizens choose their leaders and influence decisions, disadvantages include slow decision-making. Rajini chipped in and talked about the need for the population to be well-educated and aware so as to choose the right leaders.
‘I’ presented Communism — or rather refused to, because she had very strong views against it. ‘It’s just BAD! It doesn’t encourage private enterprise, there is surveillance by the state, etc etc.’
Two girls presented Autocracy — where one ruler governs. Different forms could be Monarchy or Dictatorship. Another student talked about Fascism, where a group of leaders, who are driven by a specific ideology, make the decisions. ‘A’ chimed in to say that it is easier to spread an ideology if there is economic well-being, because people will not revolt.
They moved on to Theocracy — which is a government based on religion, and finally Oligarchy (rule by a few) which could be an Aristocracy (rule by nobles), Plutocracy (rule by the rich) or Meritocracy (rule by those who excel in their fields). There was some discussion in favour of a Meritocracy because it seemed like the government would be in the hands of experts in their fields.
After this recap, Rajini played a video describing the Indian Electoral Process. It started with the number of MPs in our Lok Sabha and how each of them represents a constituency on the map of India. She explained how the constituencies are drawn based on population, so sparsely populated regions have a single constituency while a single city can have multiple constituencies. One student made the connection with the pictures of candidates doing Namaste that are pasted on pillars and walls across the city before elections!
The children were confused about the two Anglo-Indian nominees to the Lok Sabha. Why was that needed? One student theorized that maybe it helped in building diplomatic relations with the West?! Rajini prodded the discussion and got them to the conclusion about representation of very small minorities who might otherwise not be elected.
The video also described the process of electing MLAs for the Vidhan Sabha at at the state level.
Rajini ended the discussion with quotes from two movies:
- one from Spiderman: “With great power comes great responsibility.”
- the other from Star Trek: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
In the next class, they plan to work in groups to design what they think is an ideal system of government, based on the various forms they have studied so far.
During the snack break, Seema took me around the school, explaining the Reggio Emilia approach and The Theory of Loose Parts that their preschool environment is based on. The idea is that children learn through play when they find open-ended materials in Nature or indoors with which they can construct things. So a leaf, a twig, an old car tyre, bricks, discarded components from a machine — any of these could trigger an idea in a child’s mind.
The teachers scatter such objects around in the environment for the children to find and use. Often children come together to collaborate and build complex structures using these, learning social skills in the process. She showed me an elaborate setup that they had made in the sandpit, using tyres and planks and toy cars.
The art of writing
After the snack break, I observed a group of primary school children in their Literacy class taken by Uma ma’am. They were to write a descriptive essay on the topic “My best memory”. The children suggested various types of memories they could describe — a vacation, a family outing, a celebration, meeting a special friend, etc.
Uma ma’am asked them to incorporate adjectives, figurative language (similes, oxymorons), different types of sentences and punctuation. They revisited the structure of an essay — it should have an Introduction, the Body (preferably three paragraphs) and a Conclusion. She reminded them that this is a descriptive essay, as opposed to the persuasive essays that they had written earlier. She handed out sheets of paper for them to write on — each sheet had a space for a picture and ruled lines for writing.
In an earlier class, the children had prepared a list of points that they would incorporate in this essay, so they consulted their checklist as they prepared to write. Some of them began to write immediately. A couple of them needed to sharpen their pencils and ran to the dustbin in the corner. There was some giggling and fidgeting as the class settled down.
One child was stuck and didn’t know how to begin, so Uma ma’am helped him get started. He was writing about a trip to Rajasthan. So she asked him, “How long did you stay there? What did you do? Who did you go with? Did you go shopping? Did you take a camel ride? Write about each of these points.”
A child asked how long each paragraph should be. Uma ma’am suggested one topic sentence and three or four detail sentences. She reminded them to use sensory details to describe their experience.
Discovering Santa Claus
I followed the same group of primary school children into the Art room for a Discovery session taken by Sushma ma’am. The topic they would be discussing was Santa Claus (Christmas being around the corner).
Sushma ma’am had prepared a board on the wall in red-and-black (to represent Santa’s belt) and put up three questions on it:
- Who is Santa?
- Is he real? (Yes/No) Why?
- Do you know the story behind Santa Claus?
Each child wrote his/her answers on a post-it note and stuck it on the board below the question. Over the next few weeks they would be filling up this board with the results of their discoveries.
They sat around a table and began their discussion, led by Sushma ma’am. No one in the group believed that Santa was real, so she was relieved that she wasn’t bursting their bubble! She asked if they know the story behind Santa Claus. They did not. So she began to narrate it.
St. Nicholas was a person who lived in modern day Turkey and was very kind and generous. He gave money to a poor man who would otherwise have to sell his daughters into slavery. From there on the legend about him grew. He died on 6 December and that day was celebrated as a feast day. Later it was incorporated into the Christmas celebrations. In the 18th century he was called Sinterklaas, which later became Santa Claus.
She then talked about other aspects of the Christmas celebration. The Christmas tree came into fashion when a picture appeared in the newspaper of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert gathered around a decorated tree at Christmas. The custom of giving gifts at Christmas hearkens back to the story of the three wise men who brought gifts for baby Jesus in Bethlehem. A couple of children chimed in with what they know about the story, and how they celebrate Christmas. They talk about different Christmas carols that are sung and she told them the names of people who had composed some of the well-known ones, like “Rudolf”.
In the next session, the children would be preparing a timeline of the story of Santa Claus and Christmas celebrations. On another board in the Art room I saw their work documenting the festival of Diwali in Term 2.
The basics of film-making
After lunch (which I had in the school cafeteria with the students and staff), I observed the middle and high school students in a workshop on film-making conducted by Rajini. They were learning the basics of this craft and would be applying it to make a film about their school.
In earlier sessions they had covered the basics of cinematography — different kinds of shots, camera angles and composition. They did a recap of these concepts and talked about the rule of thirds which tells you where to place the subject in the frame.
Today, they discussed editing. She played a video that describes various cuts that are used to join video clips, pausing to discuss each type of cut with examples. The Standard cut — where the last scene of one video flows into the first scene of the next. The Jump cut — where little bits are left out, creating a staggered flow to show the passage of time. The J-cut — where the audio from the next scene is superimposed on the present visual to show a change in location. The L-cut — which is the opposite of the J-cut and is often used in a conversation scene as the camera pans from one actor to another. Cutting on Action, Cross-cutting, Cutaway, Match-cut and Montage — each of these was discussed in detail with examples of movies/shows where they have been used and some thumb rules on how to use them with good effect.
Then they moved on to screenplay. In earlier sessions they had covered the creation of a story arc and how it is translated into a script that details location, costumes, dialogues and actions. Today they would dive into the details of screenplay and its format. She emailed them a link that they read on their laptops over the next 20 minutes. She then asked each of them to pick a story and convert it into one page of screenplay for her to review. The children pulled out sheets of paper on which their stories were written and settled down to work on the screenplay.
All the sessions I observed today were in a workshop format — with very little instruction, a lot of discussion and activity. Thus, they were longer than a typical class would be, but the children remained engaged throughout because they were driving the learning process.
At the end of the afternoon I spent some time in discussion with Seema. At Buddhi, most of the academic sessions are scheduled for the morning hours. In the afternoon, the children are taken to a nearby sports club where they play different games. They were careful to choose a club where the emphasis is on sports for leisure, not competition, especially in the early years. In middle school, if a child shows both aptitude and interest in pursuing a sport competitively, they have a discussion with the parents so that they can opt for special coaching elsewhere. Such children come to school only for the morning hours. The same is true for children who train in performing arts.
Buddhi also has 10 neurodiverse children who come to school in the morning. The special educator plans which session each of them can be part of, in conjunction with the teacher who is taking that class. Parents are requested to schedule the child’s therapy sessions in the afternoons.
As the students progress from primary to middle school to high school, they become more and more independent in organising their own learning. In the high school years, Buddhi offers pathways to examinations — either IGCSE or NIOS. These boards allow the student to create their own examination schedule in accordance with the pace they wish to set for themselves. The teachers offer guidance in a tutorial format and the learning is largely driven by the student. In this way, Buddhi offers an environment that supports each student based on their learning styles, cognitive abilities, interests, personalities, and life goals.
Photo credit: Buddhi school team
