School Of Thought

Education With No Barriers
DILIP D'SOUZA

Scouting around as I have been for an education for my four-year-old, I can vouch for this: Often enough, you hear talk about the "philosophy" of a particular school. That it's new and innovative. I don't doubt there are schools in India that break fresh ground in one or more areas.

Perhaps some do follow philosophies that are thoughtful and stimulating. But it must be rare to find a school whose philosophy you can almost see: In its students, the trees all around, its building, the way its teachers talk to the children and to you, the visitor.

The Kamala Nimbkar Balbhavan in the small town of Phaltan, Maharashtra, is one such. In many ways, it seems just like a "normal" school "should" be. Except that the reality it reminds you of is that "normal" schools in India are not like this. To much of the country, KNB would seem strange indeed.

Before KNB started in the mid-1980s, its founders thought that their sole commitment must be to poor children. But they realised soon that even middle-class kids were forced to attend
what an early progress report calls "joyless schools that destroyed their spirit", whose "highest values are success in examinations and conspi-cuous consumption".

That was 1986, but those remarks apply just as surely today. Another report noted: "It was equally clear that middle-class children needed the interaction with the poor if they were to grow up with an awareness and appreciation of the social reality in our country". Therefore, its founders decided, KNB would be a school where "Dalits would learn  alongside the elites".

It happens in KNB nearly by the way, this mixing of children from disparate backgrounds, this offer of opportunity to those steadily denied it. Yet it is emphatically not by the way, but an important part of being at KNB. The proof is evident when you speak to the higher-caste students here. They are unable to see why there is, or was, or should be, any difference between them and their lower-caste friends. They are bewildered that this is an issue at all.

Perhaps this teenaged bewilderment is this school's greatest achievement. It's because caste is so underplayed that KNB has had success in dissolving caste differences among its students. Nor is there any particular distinction on religious lines. These children are generally free of the mean-minded prejudices that get drilled these days into millions of Indian heads. They concentrate on helping themselves to a good education, period.

The classrooms are bright and airy. The library is filled with stimulating books.   The teachers are proud to show off the work of their students. They talk of cliches like "job satisfaction" with feeling, as if it truly means something. The students are curious, enthusiastic — even alive, in ways you
think other schools have forgotten. Girls and boys mingle freely, sharing a healthy informality.

Parents know that their children will be well-schooled at KNB, but will almost certainly not be toppers in the SSC exam. Because unlike elsewhere, turning out toppers is not a priority.
Even so, it is by far the most sought-after school in the area.

The classes are small, usually about 25-strong. Even with the small sizes, standards 1 through 4 are allotted two teachers per class. And two other features are worth mentioning. One, there is a concerted effort to make the student body a fair cross-section of the Phaltan community. Nearly 60 per cent of the students belong to backward classes; admission policies work to ensure this. A study of other government-aided private schools in the district found that only about 23 per cent of their students are BC.

KNB fees are low. Even so, about a fifth of the students pay no tuition fee. Their books, uniforms, class trips and mid-day meals are also free. While raising the fees makes financial sense and some parents could certainly afford an increase, consider this from a 1996 report by the principal: "By
raising fees, we would be in danger of alienating those lower middle-class people who are the backbone of our school and give it its distinctive      character". How many other schools acquire a "distinctive character" from their poor students and are proud of it? How many other school principals aim to be distinct in this way?

So how did KNB come to be? Through the vision and drive of its founder and principal Maxine Berntsen, once of Esca-naba, Michigan, USA. Maxine-maushi, as kids call her all over town,
came to India in the early 1960s and stayed, except for the few years when she returned to the US to complete her PhD. In 1978, after a long struggle with suspicious and apathetic officials, she became an Indian citizen. She is now a renowned educator and a respected Marathi scholar, with several acclaimed Marathi textbooks to her name.

It took a woman born outside India to inspire a KNB, that speaks most of all of her profound compassion for, understanding of, and commitment to India. Which is why just spending time at KNB put this involuntary thought in my mind: How cynical and bankrupt is the notion that your birth alone decides your worth as an Indian. As a human being. Today — especially today — when we begin the weary and shop-worn election-time foray into the "threat" from the foreign-born, there
are many of us who might take note.