PLAY ’N’ LEARN: Students at the Indus World School, Indore, do a spot of rope climbing and (below) get familiar with the Internet.

Ever heard of schools where students don’t write exams, get no homework and study through the medium of art, dance and craft? Step into the growing world of innovative schools in India that are changing conventional teaching methods to make learning a fun-filled experience for students. Unlike most other schools, there is no room for competitive performance-based education and rote learning in these institutions. Instead, they believe in nurturing the students’ creativity and sensitivity to make schooling a happy experience.

Schools such as The Rishi Valley School, Karnataka, and Mirambika in Delhi pioneered the concept of alternative education methodologies. Today, many new educators are trying to make schooling an enriching experience. So if the philosophy of the Indus World School in Indore is completely child-centric, students in Shikshantar School in Gurgaon are assigned a period every day when they are free to do whatever they want to. The emphasis is on learning through action and inquiry. At Shikshantar, children can choose to do a science lesson through art, drama or music. For example, they can learn about the life cycle of a butterfly either by painting the various stages of its evolution or by enacting it in a dance drama. Art, craft, music and dance are not extra-curricular activities here but actual media of education.

At the Shloka school in Hyderabad maths and science are taught through pictures and stories. The underlying belief is that children learn best when they are deeply engaged and excited with the learning process. Says Nirmala Diaz, founder trustee of Shloka, “The idea is to make them rounded personalities through the wonder of teaching.”

Good schooling is not about designer interiors and state-of-the-art facilities. It is a commitment to make the child an integrated human being,” adds Diaz.

Children in innovative schools are also encouraged to voice their opinions. “We believe that children are intuitive and can learn from their own environment and that the joy of discovery is when there is no fear,” says Manmohini Gujaral, co-ordinator, Shikshantar School. So a typical day in this school starts with the games period, followed by “circle time”. This is when students sit with their teacher and exchange views. They then do theme-based projects and have self-study periods intermingled with a lot of time to read in the library, play with friends or just do nothing.

“All efforts in the sphere of innovative teaching are welcome as we believe that children must be self-driven and need to take a more active role in their own education . Though these upcoming schools are a drop in the ocean, they are an inspiration for many others,” says educationist Prof. A.K. Jalaluddin, who is also the founder-trustee of NEEV, a public trust engaged in promoting educational change.

These schools do not really follow a set curriculum, though. Some of these schools broadly follow either CBSE or ICSE curriculum. Though the teaching is not restricted to prescribed textbooks, the children learn the concepts and in Class X and XII they appear for the board exams. But in most of these offbeat schools, students take the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) exams in Class X and XII. Students can also opt for international boards such as IGCSE and CIE. Some of them are only till Class VII or VIII, so the students then join either other alternative schools or mainstream schools. Past experience has shown that these children were successfully integrated in the mainstream schools.

A lot of the credit for the emergence of innovative schools goes to the parents. They value their child’s happiness and want to make schooling a fun experience. It could be partly because they themselves may have missed out on that in their childhood. Agrees Vineeta Sood, mother of two boys aged 16 and 12, “My own memories of school were not happy.”. That explains why Sood never sent her sons to a traditional school and instead, home-schooled them for years. Her older son appeared for his Class X exam through NIOS this year.

Anustup Nayak, of iDiscoveri, a Gurgaon-based educational research organisation, attributes this change to the many upcoming professions that require out-of-the-box thinking. Be it fashion designing, advertising or management, the demand is for professionals who can innovate. “In fact, being innovative is fashionable today and as a result many new schools will try to market themselves on this basis. But only time will tell the difference between the walk and the talk,” says Nayak.

For now, these schools promise Utopia –– end of mugging notes, heavy school bags and corporal punishment!