manthan- the introspection

At The Heritage School, we believe that, as educators, it is our responsibility to reflect deeply on questions that are fundamental to education and its long-term vigour. Only by questioning ourselves and involving all our stakeholders in this quest, can we rise above the mundane to provide learning that is relevant, interesting and challenging.

Do schools provide a learning centred environment?

Is learning a joyful and enriching experience or a burden for children?
Is learning about the one right answer or about nurturing perspectives and curiosity?
Do children understand why they are learning what they are learning? Do they relate to it?
Do children's interests inform all choices about curriculum, instruction, and scheduling?

Are teachers truly empowered?

As an organisation, have we empowered teachers to co-create experiences that result in true learning?
Do they question familiar ways?
Do they research and study or is there a stifling reliance on text books?
Is the teaching organised around problems, projects and questions?
Is it truly interdisciplinary as most of life is?
Are they punishing with rewards?

Does the school culture bring out the best in everybody?

Is it more focussed on students’ weaknesses rather than strengths?
Is the classroom experience about co-operation and self-esteem or comparison and ridicule?
Is acquisition of skills (e.g., arithmetic, vocabulary) over-emphasised as opposed to being seen as a means to the end of understanding and communicating ideas?
Do students spend so much time thinking about how well they're performing academically that they're no longer engaged with what they are doing?

Is education a means to an end or an end in itself?

If education is the journey as well as the destination, what needs to be the nature of schools and what kind of children would be nurtured in such schools?

At the Heritage School, we constantly seek answers to these pertinent questions. After all, these questions and their answers impact all stakeholders - children, parents, school and society –fundamentally; they also decide the kind of future that our children will have. These questions and their responses form the basic edifice upon which we have built our dharma (beliefs and values) and karma (doing and praxis). We are convinced that we must continue this quest to arrive at the true meaning of education and learning in a constantly changing society.