Alternate Education - an overview
What is alternate learning? It all stems from a deeper dissatisfaction with the mainstream education system that leads schools to shun traditional forms of rote learning and provide the child with holistic development across multiple disciplines. Our approach is to make learning meaningful & purposeful yet joyful. Efforts of educators and facilitators are always centred around the child and her/his specific developmental needs. It is our constant endeavour to nurture children in their path of development towards a brighter future.
It is not an entirely new concept to India where Gurukul and Vedic systems of education have been prevalent from time immemorial. These systems fundamentally tapped into providing life skills, livelihood skills, cultural enrichment, and spiritual enlightenment in surroundings that fuelled logical thinking and reasoning among children. However, with the advent of colonial era, the focus shifted towards a one-size fits all curriculum with schools focused on unimaginative teaching, rote learning, accumulation of facts and a keenness to mass produce literacy. Great thinkers and philosophers like Maria Montessori , Rabindranath Tagore, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Sri Aurobindo, John Dewey and Rudolf Steiner with a deep commitment to promote holistic education, propounded models for alternate education. At the core, all these different schools of thought propound "child centricity".
These schools try to inculcate deep appreciation for the environment, art and aesthetics, music and culture, sports and athletics, in addition to traditional subjects in the curricula. Fundamentally though, these schools offer a learning environment that provides freedom of thought, sense of cooperation amongst children & educators alike, through increased self-awareness, dialogue, and observation. An expectation of courtesy, kindness, and mutual respect helps to create an atmosphere where children feel empowered to take the initiative required for active learning.
While these schools approach learning in a variety of ways, the common thread that binds them together is to provide a platform where children can excel and to not encourage mindless competition in the form currently accepted by society. Contrary to mainstream schools, the children to adult ratio is quite low that manifests in small learning groups ensuring a higher and more engaging interaction between children and educators. There are a large number of schools following this curriculum all over the world with diverse teaching methodology, governance structure and autonomy of curriculum, content based on local regulations, socio-cultural environments, and economic statuses of different countries.
To sum it up, a child's mind is a seed. The transformation from a tiny seed to a mighty tree depends on the environment that nurtures the seed! Interested to learn more about alternate education and why it is the right way to educate your child, mail us info@theaalam.org.