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It would seem that not all has blown over with the idea that we are Christians building a church, which was banded around last time I was here about 7 months ago, and prevented Rob and I visiting the school in over a month.

This time it is much the same; RBKS telling us that there rumors going around about us, and that problems will come because of my white presence. Sharmaji tells us that he made an agreement with the previous trouble makers saying that no white person would return to the school for 12 months. This is the first we’ve heard of that, and it is a completely ridiculous agreement anyway.

The funny thing is, none of the teachers knew about this problem until they were told by a friend of RBKS, no-one who we spoke to in the village knew about it until we asked them, and none of RBKS’s pawn fieldworkers knew either. It seems that the only people who know anything about it is RBKS, 120 km away in Jhadol…

That was yesterday. Today when we spoke to an RBKS fieldworker, we were told that there is a charity in Kotra (a town about 30 km from the school) that is having meetings saying that there is a Christian going about converting people, and thus rallying a nice bit of religious hatred, so we shall have to see what comes with that.

We had a good chat with a few key people of the village, and they said that if anything did happen, they would support the school and get the people of the village to support it too. When it comes down to it, the corrupt politicians rely on the little trouble makers for power, and the little trouble makers can’t make trouble for several hundred villagers very easily, we ‘ope.  Whatever happens, we want to get it sorted properly this time. If this is going to be a recurring issue, which could place the school in trouble further down the line, we need to know whether we should make that investment here or not.

This school sets the benchmark. We visited it yesterday in Ahmedabad while in search of inspiration and to get an idea of the kind of quality of education that it’s possible to provide in India.

What we found was indeed inspiring; children in classes of less than 20, led by initiators (the school’s teachers), who lead the children through 6month projects of anything from film making to water harvesting. These projects are led by the children’s interests, not by a curriculum- if a class is particularly musical, one of the projects may be to create a band, but within a project lasting half a year the initiators use their imagination, as well as that of the children, to draw out as many varied learning experiences as possible- the physics of sound, history and culture as reflected in music, design technology, linguistics of musical lyrics etc. There is no rigid curriculum, no fixed timetable and limited formal examination, yet the children end up learning all the useful skills taught in more conventional education, but without having to be dragged kicking and screaming through it; without the need to stifle each child’s individuality by moulding them into a set of hard and fast systems training them to jump hoops and pass exams.

In essence the pedagogy understands the immense complexity and diversity of knowledge and learning that can be found in almost anything, and realises that with resources and great initiators children can learn a great deal from a perspective that interests them. For example a 6 month dress making project can cover measuring, understanding areas of cloth, the technology that goes into fabrics, chemistry of dyes, fashion and culture from a historical perspective, aesthetics and design, how natural fabrics are grown and processed, an understanding of our own bodies and body shape, obesity, annorexia etc….

One  of the greatest testaments to the success of their education is the problem they have when children are ill- they just won’t stay at home! Seeing the school was at once a sobering and inspiring experience, confirming that the education we dream of is possible in India, but also reminding us of what a long way we have to go in order to provide it. It’s taken them 10years to create such a fantastic school, with fexcellent teachers, nigh on unlimited resources and in the midst of a city, with fewer problems of poverty and ignorance. We want to do the same, only in a place with no electricity or running water and no teachers in place with the potential to provide such an education. But for all this, we have an entire village as our playground- we don’t need to buy so many things into a fenced off city school to provide the experiential education- most of the things needed are already there in the environment that surrounds us. This is why if we can find the right people I believe we can provide an education that is more relevant and inspiring than that even provided at MG International School.

I have no idea how to start to tell you what’s going on, so I thought I start by telling you that. Now, the further the charity progresses the more there is to take into account at any one time, so dissemination of this into understandable blog posts becomes harder. I guess that means we should do it a bit more regularly.

Ash and I are in Amhedabad, the home of Ghandi’s ashram, for the next few days. it’s about 350km and a 12 hour journey from our school. We’re here to check out and steal ideas from a selection of great schools here, find sources of ecologically and socially sustainable cloth, wood and other materials for both in and out of the classroom.

We’re also here to try and find a source of decent teachers. Putting aside we more than acknowledge the fact that we need to invest in people too, it’s slow going getting our education quality up. As far as we are concerned, the quality is poor to say the least, but compared to other local schools it is excellent, and it is this comparison that our teachers, understandably, make. They have no experience of quality education, so how can they know what it is, or give it? We need to increase their exposure. That presents the next problem, they aren’t that bothered. In India, getting a job as a civil servant is luxury. Sackings virtually never occur, there is little accountability, the pay is good and they last a life time. They are cushy. Working in our school they aren’t a civil servant, but they compare themselves to them and wonder why they should do any more work.

Of course it is all possible, it’s just about working out how. The first thing is to get a decent coordinator. So let me introduce Deepak, our coordinator. He’s a nice guy from Rajasthan and has been working with Educate for Life for a month. While he’s learnt a lot in that time and certainly improved, he leaves a lot to be desired. Like our teachers he is the bastard product of the Indian education system, one that suppresses creativity and individuality to allow unintelligent subordination and compliance to flourish, so that they may keep in check a population of over 1 billion. Like we said, we completely understand the need to invest in people, but we’d like a little more to start off with. We have to wake him up in the morning, remind him to get to school on time, remind him to use his diary, tell him to do up his shoe laces, or clean the kitchen, basically we have to guide him like a 12 year old. I’ve used the singular there, but we’ve told him repeatedly for a month and he still doesn’t do the basic things. It’s amazing really, you can tell him to try really hard to think about something and come up with ideas, and within half a minute he will be staring blankly into space or asleep. It’s not his fault, but it is still unfortunate. And if our coordinator can’t even coordinate himself, what hope is there for the school.

There is the added complication that Ash is only here for another 6 months, so in 6 months time we must have someone that can manage everything, and take it further, and take more on. Perhaps Deepak will come through, perhaps not. As we can’t trust RBKS*, it is even more important that we have someone good and reliable to count upon, so this is our task too, as yet without solution, but we’re hard searching for it!

*RBKS, our partner organisation. The latest story of their incompetence. Ash has managed to reduce the amount of work they have to do for us to just receiving money into their account, and giving it to us when needed, and keep and account of that. Simple enough, no? No. Ash asked for Rs 30,000 to make payments, which needs to be brought from Jhadol to Swaroopganj where we live near the school. Despite Sharmaji promising to send the money with anyone that came from Jhadol to Swaroopganj, there were five people how made the trip empty handed and we had to wait 15 days for the money, missing the payment date. When the accountant finally came (he let us down 5 times too) it turned out that the accounts hadn’t been updated since last September. So the two things the had to do, they didn’t do. We’d really better find this coordinator!

Like Ash said in the previous entry, things are starting to come together a little more and it’s exciting to see. I don’t think, when I became a part of this chariity, that I had any idea what I was going into. I often don’t know what I want from the charity until we’ve done it; it’s like flying at full pace with your eyes shut. The difference is, we’re in control (famous last words!) in a less concious way. To continue the analogy, it’s ok to fly at full pace with your eyes shut if your a bat, you just need to realise your a bat. Crikey, that’s possibly the most rubbish explanation I’ve ever given to anything, but perhaps you get the idea.

I wish I could clearly verbally express what I think and feel about development, education and the charity, but I’ve not learnt how to do that yet. I wish I could even rationalise some things in my concious mind, fo some things exist only in the sub-concious. But although we, or at least I, can’t verbalise it properly, we do have one excellent way of telling people what we’re all about – it’s Educate for Life. Every action we take, every stone that is laid or book read is realisation of our elusive theories into positive action. So let’s hope positive action turns into positive outcome.

I spent the last three days sitting in on lessons, so I know understand a lot better where we are, and from taking to Ash a lot better where we are going, and what capacity we have to set realistic goals and challenges. We have a long way to go, but time is on our side and we’re in no hurry. We hope that the suggestions we make will be taken up and last generations, so what does a few years matter? I fear I’m starting to sound a bit airy-fairy, so I’ll leave it here. Don’t be put off by reading this post though, because we’re on the case in a very real and physical way, and dedicated to the task in a way that ceases to be dedication, and instead is a way of life. that’s how I feel, at least.

I have to say, it’s absolutely fantastic having Ed out here; seeing his continued energy has revitalised me and for the first time in months I feel as though there is someone here who has a sense of where this school is going and what it’s going to take to get there.

 It’s the first time that we’ve managed to sit together, within the physical space of the school, and discuss the direction it’s going in, the challenges we face and how we can overcome them.  And now that both of us have had a chance to experience the realities of life at the school, I can feel our theoretical vision condensing into a practical approach to making a school that fits the community we’re working with.

 We’re now coming up with real solutions to problems of low educational quality, difficulties with staff reliability and also paving the way for volunteers to start helping at the school. The plan is that over the coming months we go from being the people creating to the school to those managing a project that is being run locally and continuously improved!