A Journal from The Valley School: Reflecting on School Leadership
“The right kind of education consists in understanding the child as he is without imposing upon him an ideal of what we think he should be.”- J. Krishnamurti
I stumbled upon Jiddu Krishnamurti’s writings in early 2020; it was a phase when I was reflecting on my thoughts about education in India. Since then, I have found his philosophy on education, freedom, and inquiry fascinating. Last month, I along with my team from Alokit accompanied a group of school principals to The Valley School, KFI. We were hosting a 3-day leadership program for a group of 8 school principals there.
The Valley School is a private day school 20 Km south of Bangalore city, in a quaint valley with farms and a reserve forest on the fringe. One of the many reasons we chose The Valley School for this program was to understand their philosophy. The three fundamentals of their philosophy are — Observation, Inquiry, and Discovery. Ramkumar Mahadevan, the Principal, explained how the students and teachers engage in constant dialogues with each other and themselves. They encourage students to be honest in confronting their thoughts and inquire.
In this school, all the students from grades 1 to 12 contribute to the diverse ecosystem within which the school resides. What is truly fascinating is that they do not consider soil conservation, farming, or arts as co-curricular. They are very much part of their curriculum. Here, the teacher and the taught are exploring the wholeness of life together. In the words of Jayaram, the Secretary, “We are more into not intruding with Nature than conserving it through conscious efforts”.
We experienced the philosophy in action as we took a walk (hike, to be honest) around the school campus. I also had a perceptive dialogue with Darshan Bhat, the Founder-Director of CreatNet Education, during the walk. He was there to take a session on the importance of having a vision before taking action. In his own words, “Vision helps to create hope for yourself. Vision, purpose, and values are closely connected.”
During this session, the school principals shared their personal aspirations for their schools. This session helped them reflect on their role as educators in India and the immense power they have in influencing the communities they serve. By the end of the session, they were able to build a ‘collective vision as a community of school principals.’ I was quite taken aback by the nuanced deliberation among them when they drafted their collective vision -
“By 2025, we want this to be a community of 50 school leader facilitators who would be actively involved in exchanging ideas and learning from one another. This will empower us with a thriving community and a voice.”
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that I learnt more from just listening to their individual journeys in sustaining an affordable school in India than from the stack of national and international reports I had read so far. In almost all my conversations with the school principals, I observed a common thread — these school principals made a choice to build good quality schools at affordable fees to make a more equitable society; the challenge they face now is sustaining this model with limited funds. They are part of our program to keep abreast of modern pedagogical methods and build a larger community of school principals who could share resources and ideas to support one another.
Originally published at https://medium.com on December 7, 2022.
