adarshila, ah-dahr-shee-lah, "founding stone," the first stone put onto the land to build a house.

The independent page for Ad(h)arshila is up and running. But go on and read my commentary below, if you please.

Adarshila Learning Centre is an alternative school for Adivasi (tribal) children in Madhya Pradesh, India. Founders Amit and Jayashree titled it "learning centre" to get away from the rigid, didactic stereotype of mainstream schools in India. Their school is far more flexible, with a curriculum that combines academics, world issues, practical skills, and cultural heritage with a lot of fun.

Amit and Jayashree, who believe in Paolo Friere's ideas of popular education, feel that education is especially important for an oppressed people. They started the school in an effort to inculcate Adivasi children with a value for learning and an awareness of important issues facing their community. They strive to teach the children from an early age to think critically and to be community leaders.

Learning at Adarshila is hands-on as well as textual. The students do science experiments, seek oral histories, write plays about important issues in their community. When the hand pump was being drilled, they paid attention to what sort of rocks were present in the earth every fifteen feet down. Each student made a chart illustrating the geology of the ground beneath them. Once when they were gardening, some students found a petrified tree root. They interviewed village elders and discovered the history of the land, and how government contractors had come in and massacred the forests that used to grow there. They are making books out of Berali stories, which they have translated to Hindi. The older students read about issues going on in the world and discuss them. Their teachers present them with the information and then let them discuss and debate it themselves. When Earth Summit was going on, the students had an Earth Summit of their own, breaking into committees to discuss relevent issues.

Everything growing on school grounds comes from the students' efforts. They grow all their own food, planting and cultivating grains and rice, fruits and vegetables. They pump their own water, and make dinner on Sundays when the cooks are on vacation. Two of them, Majalee and Suklal are trained as medics, have taken care of their peers when they were sick or injured. They are training the two new medics, Rindu and Jagan. One student is in charge of the library. Another runs a bank, where all the students keep their money. The students even dug pits for the electical poles that were put up, although the electricity is fickle. When I was visiting, it only came every other day, and even then it was sporadic.

There are roughly seven grades at Adarshila. Last year, the groups were named after plants, starting with Beej, "seed," the Kidergarten group. This year, each group is named after a famous river, although "Beej" stuck for the first group. Students in the oldest group have started teaching the youngest ones for a couple of hours each day as part of their own learning. Amit and Jayashree hope that when some of the students are older, they will stay and become teachers at the school. That would be ideal since the current teachers are unfamiliar with the system of education at Adarshila. Often, the teachers have to learn the cirriculum themselves before teaching it to the children. Moreover, they do not understand how a classroom can function with the informal teacher/student relationship that Amit and Jayashree advocate.

The remoteness of Adarshila's location causes problems. Students have to study by karosene lamps when the electricity is not working. Termites have eaten through many of their books, which they now store in metal trunks to protect.

However, despite these problems, Adarshila is obviously "working." Students are enthused about learning and taking initiative. One boy, Ramlal, has planted over a thousand trees near his family's farm. Another, Sohansingh, is cultivating and keeping track of thirteen varieties of indigenous tomatoes. The students have created their own performance group, which they call the All India Theater Troupe. They have gone on field trips to cities and put on their plays to raise money for their school.

When I asked the kids what their favorite thing to do at Adarshila is, the answers varied somewhat, but all of them love to sing songs and play football (soccer), which they are playing in the picture to the left. They could not conceive of why I would be shy of singing and insisted that I teach them a song in English. I settled, unoriginally, on "Row, row, row your boat." They latched on the to "merrily, merrily, merrily" line, which sounded to them like "mewwily, mewwily, mewwily" thanks to my American accent. I enjoyed listening to their Berali songs, their clapping rhythmic, contagious.

Adarshila charges a tuition fee of forty rupees (less than a dollar) a month per child. Teachers make about $30 a month. Since the school serves an extremely poor community, it is difficult to have access to many resources. If you are interested in volunteering to teach at Adarshila, donating school supplies, textbooks, or money, please contact Amit and Jayashree.
Phone (from the US): (011 91) 7281 2 83221.
Address:
Adarshila Shikshana Kendra
Village Sakad
Post Office Chatli via Sendhwa
District Badwani
Madhya Pradesh
India 451666

Please let me know if you have any questions or want want to reproduce/link the material on this page.

Some other links of interest:

The Jeevanshalas, which serve Adivasi kids who live in the Narmada valley, are wonderful ("jeev" means "life" and "shala" means "school"). I visited several in November. The rest of the narmada.org site is also worth checking out.