DR SANJEEV KULKARNI

Learning is an instinct for every organism. Cats and tigers, dogs and elephants or for that matter any bird teaches its young ones to grow and learn the basic survival techniques and the skills to lead one’s life. This is something which we see all around us in the biological world. For the young one of every species learning is a very natural and essential quality right from the time of birth. This applies to the human beings also. Our children too learn about various things in life as an integral aspect of their growth and development and through this process they go on learning various life-skills. In short, this is the way they learn how to live. All that we as parents and teachers are required to do is to provide an appropriate environment for the children to learn, to explore and to understand the life around them. The child should not get cowed down and close the doors of its mind. It should keep its inborn curiosity and inquisitive nature alive. If a child keeps of the door of its mind open and keeps the organ senses awakened then that child will definitely learn many things naturally.
The very meaning of the word education is to draw out – to draw out the hidden potential in a child. Hence, a good school is one where the child flowers naturally and grows into an individual with a strong character and an allround humane personality. Our dream is to make Baala balaga such a school.
Baala balaga is a small rivulet which started flowing after the confluence of two streams. Mrs. Rajani Garud and her husband Dr. Prakash Garud are both from theatre background. Both of them have had their training in the famous Ninasam and both of them have made a good name as artistes as well as directors. Mrs. Rajani Garud has also worked in the field of pre-primary education. For some time she worked with the well-known theatre person Mr. Prasanna in his Baala Nandana school. She also has experience of working in the educational projects of UNICEF. She had come to Dharwad and had just started a nursery of her own. It was not even a month since she had started this nursery which then had only two tiny tots as students.
On the other hand we – myself and Pratibha had just started dreaming. The reason was our son Chaitanya Shareef (Minchu) had just completed three years and it was time we sent him to some nursery or a school. But both of us were very reluctant to send him to a school where shoes, uniform and a tie are compulsory and where homework is the rule, examinations are supreme, everybody is judged by the marks obtained and where there is unhealthy competition around. We had these thoughts and were wondering what to do. The previous year through Shrikumar, a friend of mine I had got to know of Shri Aravind Gupta, of Delhi, and had got books related to creative education from him. Tottochan by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, Divasvapna by Gijubhai Badheka, Teacher by Sylvia Ashton Warner, How Children Learn by John Holt and A Letter to the Teacher, these were some of the books we got to read. Thus I had some of my own ideas about education. With wild enthusiasm and on a purely experimental basis I had displayed a board Tottochan Putani Shaale in the verandah of our house and had tried to engage Minchu for two days.
By sheer coincidence I happened to meet Mrs. Rajani Garud. We discussed and we exchanged our views and ideas and that very day we decided that her nursery will be shifted to our house. Thus without any fanfare or formalities, with no donation nor any publicity our dream of Baala balaga sprouted in the front room of our house a small house in Dharwad the educational center and the cultural capital of Karnataka on 19.6.1996. There were only three children in the beginning.. By the end of the first year there were twelve children. Baala balaga had no clear long term blue-print of its own and yet with its potential and dynamism it went on growing from year to year. When we celebrated our first Makkala Habba (Annual Social Gathering) at the end of the year Prof. Kirtinath Kurtakoti, the famous critic was the chief guest and Prof. K.S. Deshpande, the famous Librarian, was the President. What was special was that the young children spent as much time on the laps of the chief guest and the president as they spent in front of them!
By the end of the year the nursery got shifted to one of the rooms in the old building, which stood on the other half of Prof. K.S.Deshpande’s compound. And then gradually the school compound got transformed. There was a huge waste dump on one side of the compound. We cleaned this up and made an open air stage there. This we called Ra.Ha.De. Vedike in memory of Shri R. H. Deshpande the founder of the wellknown Karnataka Vidyavardhaka Sangha Dharwad. Very soon we made a sand pond for the children to play. In one corner we fixed two trunks of gauva trees and made “The Dancing Trees”( they have now disappeared.) Later on a small swimming pool cum open air classroom was also constructed and then swings were also added. Thus slowly and steadily the school started getting its own shape. Thus in order to provide a fearfree and intimate enviornment for the children making use of the available resources we have tried make a natural and child friendly envirornment. We have retained the old building with the red tiles. We had always felt that the blackboard should be at the level of the children. Hence on the walls of all the rooms we made blackboards upto three feet from the ground so that children could scribble, draw, write and somehow give expression to their ideas and feelings.
It is our conviction that education should be provided in a free and intimate setting. For this from the very beginning the teachers should be close and affectionate with the children. Precisely for this reason children in Baala balaga address their teachers as “Maushi” (Auntie) and “Mama” (Uncle) and not as ‘Madam’ and ‘Sir’. Secondly we have always believed that the children should be educated in their mother tongue. This helps the children to understand the world around them better and to express their ideas and opinions more satisfactorily. Hence, Balabalaga is a Kannada Medium school. But we do realise the importance of English in today’s world and so the children start learning English as a language from the first standard. But the medium of instruction is Kannada.
Thus our Baala balaga which started with three children went on growing from strength to strength, from standard to standard and now we have reached upto eighth standard. Today the total strength of the school is 185. It is interesting to know the backgrounds these children come from. As far as we know this school is the first of its kind in North Karnataka. Today the craze of sending their children to the English Medium Schools has spread even to the villages. Given this reality the kind of response this small Kannada Medium School – an open and different school has received from the parents is really very heartening. Bank employees, traders, industrialists, doctors, engineers, auto-rikshaw drivers, hoteliers, in short people of all backgrounds – of rich, upper-middle and lower-middle class have shown the courage of sending their children to our school. And parents have been helping in many ways in the school activities. In certain instances where the parents are keen to send their children to the school, but are quite poor the children are given concession in the fees.
The prevailing concept in the field of education is something like this – the children are empty vessels and the teachers are overflowing tanks of knowledge. The children should silently fill into their brains whatever is poured from above, memorise all the stuff and vomit it out on the day of the examination. But from the very beginning we have thought otherwise. Like aseed a child has all the potential within since birth and just needs an appropriate environment to grow up and flower to one's fullest extent.That school which has such an atmosphere for the child will be a good school. A good school should be like a home to the child and a good home should be like a school. If a child gets a fear free open atmosphere then education will never become boring or burdensome for such a child. That’s why we believe that in every house parents should seriously get to know about the various developmental aspects of a child. When such a concerted effort is put into practice naturally every house will become a school and children will get a holistic and joyful education.
Every year we celebrate the annual social gathering of the school as ‘The Children’s Festival’ with special emphasis on theatre activities.. All the children take part in the cultural events on that day. Two years ago we paid homage to the famous theatre director Shri B.V.Karanth by staging “Panjara Shale” a play on the theme of real education written by Ravindranath Tagore and originally directed by B.V.Karanth. Special feature of this play was that all the children and all the teachers of the school had taken part in it. Twice thus far SPICMACAY (Society for Promotion of Indian Classical Music and Culture Amongst Youth) a premier lecture-demonstration organisation has deemed it fit to organise music programmes in our school. Every year we celebrate 15th August, 14th November and 26th January in a special way involving all the children. We also try to take our children out to different institutions like The Post Office, banks, theatres, hotels, museums, art galleries, etc., at regular intervals.
In our school the children do not have to wear uniform. Compulsory uniform and shoes we feel is a very unscientific and anti-life concept. Instead the children in our school they come in their day to day simple cloths because we feel that children should play a lot, and be free to involve themselves in various activities. Discipline is something, which should blossom from within, and not something to be thrust forcibly from outside. Our school doesn’t have a prayer either. Because daily compulsory prayer means the children will have to sing the same song everyday and naturally this becomes very boring for them. They lose all the love and devotion for that song and sing it mechanically. In order to avoid this our children start their day by singing various songs of different languages. Our children start learning music-both vocal and instrumental, dance, meditation etc., in the kindergarten itself. Hindi is introduced in the IVth Standard and Computer Education from the Vth Standard. In order to provide a proper foundation in their food habits we encourage the children to consume more fruits and sprouts and always discourage them from bringing bakery stuff in their lunch boxes.
The responsibility of imparting all this knowledge in a very child-friendly fashion is borne by the teachers. Hence, a word about our teachers. While selecting the teachers more than their educational qualifications what is important to us is their love for the children and their enthusiasm to teach. As the teaching methodology employed in our school is quite different the teachers have to necessarily get trained in this aspect. This they do on the job as well as by going to other similar schools at regular intervals. Presently we have a total of 15 teachers who are working their hearts out though what they get in return as salary is definitely not commensurate to their involvement and efforts.
Like the Annual Children Festival we also celebrate The Parents Festival every year. This is generally at the end of the academic year. In this event the parents come out with their now hidden talents like singing, dance, telling jokes playing music etc. And the children for many of whom such a show of talent by their parents is a revelation simply lap it up. The evening ends with a potluck dinner.
In the last couple of years our children have started entering into various competitions with the children of schools and have won quite a few prizes.
We do have a library in the school. In order to increase their love and respect for the books and thereby broaden their horizons of knowledge we encourage the children to spend quite a lot of time in the library. What is special about our library is that there are many books dealing with the philosophy and practice of education. And we constantly encourage the parents also to make use of the library. In these days of IT revolution a library doesn’t mean mere books. Today computers, CDs etc., have become an integral part of the library and we too dream of providing all this to our children.
It is imperative on our part to say a few words about the finances of the school. Ours is a private school and we do not get any grants from the government. In fact, we have given an undertaking to the authorities that we will never ask for funds from the government. And there is no compulsory donation system in our school. That is, at the time of admission we collect only the regular term fees from the students and do not ask for any hefty donation as a pre-condition for admission. Our fees too are on par with those of the other schools. Thus, the economic mainstay of our school is the amount collected in the form of fees and the voluntary donations made by our friends and well wishers once in a while. We have certainly covered some distance and have come up to the eighthh standard now but obviously, a lot more still needs to be done. The number of children is increasing every year and the children are getting bigger and hence we are increasingly feeling the space crunch. We definitely need a bigger campus and for this reason we have been searching for land. We do need more and more financial assistance so that we can prepare the necessary teaching materials, have a simple yet well equipped laboratory, have adequate sports materials and most importantly provide a big play ground for the children. Its our bounden duty to pay our teachers properly for their efforts. But unfortunately we are not in a position to do so. For this also we look towards our well wishers and friends. At this juncture we must extend our heartfelt thanks to Prof. K.S.Deshpande and his family, who have been very very supportive of this effort from the very beginning.
A school should have its own bulletin. This will provide a good platform for the children, parents and the teachers to express their views about the school as well as education in general. We have been thinking about this for quite sometime now and will shortly launch the Balabalaga Bulletin.
It goes without saying that all our dreams will not come true. In fact it is quite unrealistic to hope so. And yet we should always have big and beautiful dreams and strive our best to work these dreams true. The ultimate happiness and joy we know is not in achieving our goals but in striving for them. And we also know that this path is strewn with many thorns and stones and that there are many ups and downs along the way. The real joy is in going along and trudging ahead, sometimes running with a song on our lips and sometimes walking very slowly with pain and worry in our hearts. Sure there is no end to this road. It goes on and on . . . . . . . . . . . . . Please join us, we request you, come along with us. Let us join our steps and march ahead . . . . . . . . . towards the distant horizons . . . . . . towards the happy and beautiful tomorrows of our children.





P.S--- Rajani Garud who was insrumental in starting the school and shaping it and served as the principal from the very beginning has since resigned (in November 2004) due to difference of opinions and personal reasons. Dr Prakash Garud has also moved away from this venture. Both Rajani and Prakash continue to be on the board of trustees but they are no more actively involved in our institution.