Prelude

Hey, readers!

I ask you,

Have you been to a school?

Ofcourse, you are going to say Yes. Okay, don't hurry up. Keep the answer in your head and then after when you have read this piece, do tell if your answer still remains the same which you thought just now.

Okay, I know. You all must be thinking what kind of a stupid question it is to ask?

Isn't it?

Pause, but, are any kind of questions stupid? Ofcourse, No! Why?

For the simple reason, that, as Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist and sociologist,t once remarked, 'No actions are illogical. They are either Logical or Non-Logical, that is the former an expression of the head and the latter of heart.

So, why our schools focus on the questions coming from head alone?

Why is the heart not heard of?

Ohh, you all must be thinking that that's how schools have been to train you to manufacture grades and harness the cognitive abilities alone. Ohh, you are not alone. We have all been in the misery of not attuning ourselves to our emotional capabilities and as misery loves company, we all have been sailing in the same boat.

But isn't it unjust of the industry to have worked on only one aspect of our identity, that is of head?

Or what if, if that wasn't even the real identity but a false consciousness. Who shall discern that for us?

Let's seek out an answer from you, readers themselves: We are humans or machines? And if humans, what makes us human?

You will say, the ability to feel deeply is human. You got that right!

Humans are humans because they help each other grow together and collectively, that means to rise together, that is, Udhbhavaha.

Must be thinking that the question started with school, then moved to type of questions, identity and the sense of human being alone. Where are they being directed to? Okay, enough suspense created. To know where these questions are being headed to, I request my readers to explore the story of a 'Community-based school' in Bengaluru, Karnataka, by the name of Udhbhavaha.

Udhbhavaha, a name that sounds uncanny!

• A classroom not built of bricks and mortar alone but with the sense of humanity cemented together.
• From structural invisibility to being seen and heard and finding you in the web of social networks.
• Fearing about results to fearlessness in life.
• Monologue of classroom replaced by triangulated efforts of teachers, parents and students.
• Embracing cultural roots while delineating Western modernization.
• Lack of skill set and theoretical knowledge to applying whatever learnt in the real-time space.
• From top-down curriculum model to inquiry and reflection in the process established.
• Carrying uneven development by so-called intellectuals to creating a fertile ground for the world sustenance.
• Passive acceptor to identifying the nuances and subtle nature of things around us.
• From always being preoccupied and cognitively overloaded, allowing boredom to seep in to create window for creativity with a scope for deep observations and contemplating.
• From competing against each other (Sangharsha) to rising with each other together (Udhbhavaha).
• From being away from world of spirituality, Udhbhavaha strives to keep the mythological stories alive in people not as something that's only written in texts and are forgotten elsewhere. Based on K.S. Narayancharya works, the school aims to keep the spirit of great epics unwavering.
• Ravindra Sharmaji's inspiration to keep the lost history of oneness and spirit of unity in diversity alive in students, the one that was seen even in pre-colonial era. Emphasis is on understanding the socio-historical conditions from a humanist perspective.
• The idea of holistic learning that involves the head, heart and hand has been adopted by the Waldorf Methodology developed by Rudolf Steiner. Emphasis on rhythm and repetition thereby contributing to balance. Encouraging creativity and application of practical activities for learning life situations coupled with spiritual development. Waldorf Methodology also prescribes age-appropriate curriculum.
• They follow a 'daan-based model' meaning there are no fixed fees unlike the head-breaking fees of private schools today. Their belief is that financial affordability should never became a blockage for the growth and education of child.
• Udhbhavaha is a initiative of Vidyakshetra Trust is a not-for-profit organization. Here the teachers don't get paid specifically for their position or expertise instead they follow 'needs-based model', where the teacher who joins shares their requirements and the management of Udhbhavaha sees if that can be managed with feasibility. Parents are requested to donate as much as they afford to do. This marks the transition from a barter system to a more humanistic and welfare oriented thought towards education. If you feel like donating for the cause of Udhbhavaha, you may reach them on this website (www.udhbhavaha.org)

So, a stark contrast can be seen by you people what our classical school environment offers vs the space that Udhbhavaha offers.

After seeing some abstact tenets of Udhbhavaha, we should now see how the concrete form of Udhbhavaha manifested before all of us?

Magic happens strangely. So, that happened here as well. Strangers who came from different walks of life and who had been defining success in their own language/field came to realize the concept of Udhbhavaha.

Before we start to understand the 'methods' employed by Udhbhavaha for teaching, we should understand the 'Methodology' behind it.

Henceforth, let's spend some time on the Philosophy of Udhbhavaha:-

A learning space that involves children, it works for them in the following ways:

• Learn to be yourself. 'We are all born unique and die a copy'. We have to avoid become copies of someone else. Being ourselves lends the highest degree of confidence in us.
• Freedom that is sought external to us is never actual freedom instead it only stimulates mind only. The freedom that aligns with the natural self, that is, the heart is true and inner freedom.
• As long as we continue to see duality in things, we will always be stuck in good or bad, pleasure or pain. We must aim at connecting the source of this endless and vicious cycle that just keeps on deluding us.
• Arrogance says that it is self-capable for everything while humility says that even dust is needed before we bid our final goodbye to this world. Udhbhavaha always works on realizing the idea that interconnectedness and interdependence of social networks should never be taken for granted.
• The demons inside us have to be cut through the sword of discernment (using your discretionary powers- the concept of Vivek Shakti upholded by Udhbhavaha.
• When the student is ready, the teacher appears, as is said. Here, at Udhbhavaha, teacher strive to create an environment that serves as the conduit for making the student ready to receive all this knowledge.

Teachers are engaged to focus on the 'What of Education', meaning that whatever we are learning is meant for what in the larger sense'. The conventional models so far have been able to answer 'What is Education' but 'What of Education' is something for which our system still needs to be equipped about. The 'Why' and 'How' of education will reveal themselves then in the course of studies. A teacher, before being a teacher, is still a learner and is always learning everyday before he or she teaches something to a child. He or she is always on the trek of continuous realizations which is only possible the model is super pervasive and all-inclusive.

For them, knowledge and learning is not something which is surviving in textbooks itself but realizes that knowledge and learning are not relative instead deep rooted in social location. The relationship between the Ideology and Structure is what is always the underlying facet of Udhbhavaha. As Bhagvad Gita says too, 'As the mind, so the man'. We are not what we do, always instead what we keep perceiving regularly.

Without parents coming into intersection of space of confluence between teacher and student, nothing fruitful germinates. Parents have to be inextricably connected with the teacher-student relationship, specifically, working with the child at home in subtle ways. Udhbhavaha also has the concept of 'Manthan', which are monthly meetings with parents, as the name suggests, a deep analysis about the human development aspect of children, comprehensively different from the formal, non-interactive PTM's organised in traditional classroom setups.

Following are some core values of Udhbhavaha that the triangular correlation of parents, children and teachers have to abide by:

1. Sahaja- Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
2. Sanathana Sathya (Eternal Truth of universal and natural laws)
3. Satyanishte (Integrity and honesty in relationships)
4. Sookshmathe (A sense of sensitivity, empathy and reciprocity between people)
5. Karthavyanishte (duty-bound and abiding by Dharma to attain the four pillars of life-- Dharma, Arth, Kama and Moksha.

The vision of Udhbhavaha correlates with the idea of sustainable development, an extension to that is emphasis on an aesthetic environment that's rooted in Bhartiya culture and feeling of NIRAALATE (A Kannada non-translatable term that stands for simplicity, being at peace, balanced and contended)

Udhbhavaha has seen some dreams. Surprisingly, readers, you people will be shocked that these are not just the dreams of Udhbhavaha alone, but all of us. Something that's less talked about, probably.

• Why is our education system making us more lonely?
• Why are we forgetting the culture of being a Bhartiya?
• Why are we not ready to deal with the practical realities of life?
• Why are we all becoming conformists and following a herd-based mentality?
• Why does our education system stimulate only IQ and not talk about EQ?
• What is our identity?
• What does real education mean and what does it impart?

We always need to keep on cross-questioning and scrutinize if our education system is equipped to lend meaning and worth to these dreams.

If the answer is, No?

Maybe it's time when we should seek new alternatives now.

By now, readers, I hope you people have understood that Udhbhavaha as a community school is a model based on novelty and has something different to offer that's way different from the routine systems. So, it is essential to know who were responsible for building the bedrock of Udhbhavaha, yes, rightly understood, the Founders.

Founders

The details about all the founders have been extracted from the website of Udhbhavaha itself. An attempt has been made to do a retelling of the stories of the founders simply for the work they are doing.

1) Diwakar Channappa (Diwakar Mama)

• Role: Mukhiya (Head) and Farming Teacher
• Identifies himself as 'Son of Soil' and holds deep love and connection with Bhumi (Earth) Taayi, making it unique for all children at Udhbhavaha to call him Mama over anna as is the case with other male teachers. From switching from Social Work, Administrative, Teaching and Research Roles at accredited institutions and his dream of bringing education to life soon changed his life and brought him on a new chapter. Reading the book 'One Straw Revolution' by Japanese farmer, Masanobu Fukuoka, he made a return to his soil and his love for organic and traditional farming ignited. A practitioner of mindfulness and emphasis on the state of being makes the space of Udhbhavaha to always see the pearls of ancestral wisdom flowing from him.

2) Deepa Shekhar (Deepa Akka)

• Role: Founding Member and Class Teacher
• The harboring dreams of becoming a teacher or a journalist later ended up getting into the IT sector. Topsy-turvy experiences and the haunting realities of the education system brought her closer to her dream of becoming a teacher. She wanted to find the premise of meaningful education, the education that makes you realize the true purpose of your life. According to Deepa Akka, teaching is a journey of a teacher with children as much as the journey is of the teacher. Hence, learning and teaching both of them is a lifelong experience.

3) Umesh Prabhu (Umesh Anna)

• Role: Founding Member, Class Teacher and Finance Manager
• An ex-IT professional with deep passion and love for learning about Bhartiya culture. A spokesperson of inclusive learning based on nature and what far-sighted impacts education holds. He has worked as a grade 1 teacher at Vidyakshetra and also served for the Snehdhara Foundation. He is married to Sandhya Prabhu, who shares his interest in the field of education.

4) Sandhya Prabhu (Sandhya Akka)

• Role: Teacher
• An anaesthetist by profession teaches English. Incorporating and intersecting art, culture and music in learning. Shares her wisdom from medical practice and regards teaching as the window that leads to inner-realizations. Penchant for script writing and making Rangolis. For her, teaching is self-exploration in the larger sense. She says a teacher is always a learner, as nothing can be taught; we can at most drive the students to see a particular truth and assimilate it. Teaching is, infac,t more about learning, making mistakes each time and then getting up the next time with a ray of hope.

5) Manjunath (Manju Anna)

• Role: Founding Member and Story-teller Teacher
• A former software engineer with exceptional delivery in storytelling, languages and philosophy. A practitioner and supporter of the sustainable mode of lifestyle. He takes children to multiple places around the world with the power of imagination. Incredible ability in him of building a story to an extent which he himself says, that he is a storyteller by head, heart, kidney and all parts of the body. He builds such compelling narratives that one can lose their state of being while being all ears to the story. His interest lies in ancient wisdom, history, study of languages. Adding the broader meaning to literacy than what is understood in the most common sense. Germinating the young brains into beautiful human beings is what has become his life goal.

6) Prithvi Raj (Prithvi Anna)

• Role: Founding Member and Class Teacher
• A college dropout who turns out to be a wildlife enthusiast. He doesn't finds the label of 'drop-out' on him to be stigmatizing for him; instead, it liberates him further to pursue anything under the sun. He has been totally disenchanted by the urban lifestyle with skyscraper buildings, with anxiety and stress peaking high in urban areas. For this, he resorts to meditation to invite calmness into life.

7) Shashank Srivastava (Shashank Anna)

• Role: Founding Member and Class Teacher
• Again, someone from the corporate world, despite having expertise in it had a calling to do something else. His fortune brought him got connected to Vidyakshetra and after serving, he gained greater clarity on what teaching is. He has the ability to think out of the box, focus on adolescent behavior and observe nuances in behaviors and how that can be a transformative learning for everybody. With emphasis on relationships and connections, he attempts to define the ideas of cohesion and adhesion running parallel in the society.

Advisors

1. Pawan Gupta: Co-founder of SIDH, an NGO that works for education, rural development and youth empowerment. A graduate from IIT Delhi is an educationist, speaker and author to many books. He runs many village schools also.
2. Govinda Das: Advisor on Indian Culture and Vedic wisdom. Shares his reflections from mythological stories and great epics. His metacognitive discussions benefit different people from myriad of backgrounds.
3. Arun Elassery: Founder of ASLI Shiksha, Arun Elassery voices for innovation in education thereby promoting and seeking alternative learning methods. His book, 'Learning to Learn' brings a fresh perspective on learning.

Educational Program and Instructional Strategy:

Conceptual learning is emphasized with the inclusion of activities and practicals. Maths, Science and Social Science are introduced as per the age-appropriate requirements. Life skills and psychological lessons become the cornerstone of learning. Stories from Ramayana, Mahabharata, Panchtantra and Dashavtara are also taught for spiritual learning intact. Technology is offered when it's relevance is considered. For linguistic abilities, Sanskrit, English and one regional language, Kannada, is taught.

Aesthetics/Kala are regarded as the expression of the soul. Skills such as art, music, folk culture forms such as Carnatic, Bharatnatyam, etc. Activities such as weaving, clay work and building something are also skills that make the soul realize its quintessential purpose.

Aarogya- state of healthy body as it is said. A healthy mind dwells in a healthy body. Focus is on developing a sustainable lifestyle which automatically keeps the ailments at bay. Activities such as Ayurveda, cooking, Yoga and Kreeda are helpful in maintaining this. Developing mental faculties in different sectors leads to an improvement in the quality of life.

Udhbhavaha recognizes the importance of rational thought but stresses on the experiential learning of things. To learn about the external world, it encourages the concept of traveling. Traveling makes you more self-independent, ability to handle stressful situations yourself. Makes you realize that how much the world is different from what we see regularly. Ours is not the only culture, we get to develop a lens for others' culture and a spirit of cultural relativism. What appealed to me was the concept of Samvaad (Dialogue) - which means being involved in meaningful and engaging conversations. When we engage in the conversations, our decision-making ability of decision making gets improved. We develop the ability to listen over just being reactive. Churning (manthan) of thoughts opens us to many more and develops newer perspectives on the understanding of social reality.

Then comes the concept of Dhyaana Akarshane (drawing attention to see the truth) - This is an attempt by the organisation to make the child beyond the binary oppositions of modernity and develop a stand-point and a Post-Modern Perspective, example, Competition Vs Conflict, Tradition vs Modernity, Good Vs Bad, Wants Vs Needs and many more. Unlearn and re-learning the established truths. The Capitalist and conspicuous consumeristic tendencies around the big-tech organisations and their products. The curriculum is not always only about these set things but a battle to fight back and learn a new skill consistently.

Reflections:

Udhbhavaha, a community school indeed captures the community sentiment. Udhbhavaha really stands by what it means. In an age, where schools are considered to be indispensable and are necessary for every child, Robert King Merton, an American functionalist sociologist, would have seen Udhbhavaha as a functional alternative to the traditional schools here and there. Lastly, I would like to extend my special thanks to Deepa Akka for her valuable time in investing in engaging conversation themes. Udhbhavaha as a concept has come so close to my heart that whenever in future, I will request to get a real-time experience about Udhbhavaha's working and an opportunity to connect with the young children or maybe re-defining and finding myself.

Udhbhavaha is supported through CSR Initiatives. One can connect with Udhbhavaha as a teacher, parent, children, research assistants, benevolent donors, you just have to write to Udhbhavaha at udhbhavaha@gmail.com

To further contact the team of Udhbhavaha, one may reach them through their website www.udhbhavaha.org.

Thank you so much to the readers and everyone who contributed in making this write-up a reality.

So, readers, now answer, have we all actually ever been to a school?

Will wait for your replies readers in the comment section.

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