Teachers Write
Priyanka Soman
Paper planes, name blunders and life lessons: Building relationships with middle schoolers
Over the past six years, I’ve had the joy (and occasional experience of chaos) of working closely with
Ajin Thomas and Tarun Suri
The Process of a Neighbourhood Study: An Interdisciplinary Approach
As school teachers we are often looking to create learning contexts that draw from real world situations
Kavitha M
On Learning a Language
How do we describe a language? A language, as it is often characterized, is a means for communication
Kanthi Phatak
Book Review: Face to Face and Side by Side
Parenting, an essential human activity, has seen several rapid changes and resulted in varying trends
N. Vaishnavi Narayanan
A Living and Learning Space: Approaches to Education in a Krishnamurti School
The school is a place of relationship with nature, with the adults and students around me
Janani Venkat
Navigating Uncertainties
I ask myself the following question: if change is all-encompassing, omnipresent and imminent
Sangeetha M
Breathing Life into the Classroom
The morning light creeps in gently into the classroom, warming and awakening the space for another new day...
Vaishnavi Narayanan
A Living and Learning Space: Approaches to Education in a Krishnamurti School
I have been a teacher for the past eighteen years, fifteen of which have been at a Krishnamurti
Aarti Kawlra and Rajiv Varadarajan
‘What Ails the Adyar?’ A Chennai River Study
‘What ails the Adyar?’ was the title of the sociology project last year at The School, Chennai. The idea to
Uma Shankari
A Trail of Learning
My intention in teaching the ISC Environmental Science course is that when these children assume influential, decision-making positions
Sumanya Raman
The Hundred Languages of Children: How little children make sense of the world
Recently I stumbled upon Ria, a sixyear- old, playing with sticks and stones outside the class by the trees.
Ashwin Prabhu
On Reward and Punishment
No, no! I can’t do that, I’ll get a consequence,” exclaimed the young child of not more than ten to his friend at breakfast in the school dining hall.
Renu Galada
Thinking for Oneself: A Theme Meeting
As children grow into their teens, their minds are fast developing in the intellectual space. As part of their increasing need for autonomy,
Akhila Seshadri
A Lost Port and Our Quest
Muchiripattanam, or Muchiri or Muziris was, “The city where the beautiful vessels, the masterpieces of the Yavanas [Westerners],
Bina Shivram
Vignettes of Conversations
Conversations create spaces which build and nurture relationships. In these spaces, qualities of listening, patience and compassion are
Jayashree Nambiar
Examining Fear: The Daily Life of School
Three statements I read recently from a talk of J Krishnamurti with students struck me as most significant as
Aarti Kawlra
Approaching Adulthood
My son is fifteen years old. We have both quick and deep conversations as a way of sharing what is uppermost in our minds.
Ashwin Prabhu and Arvind Ranganathan
Examining Adoption of Technology in Schools
Technology is seen as a revolutionary agent in many fields of human endeavour, including education.
Arvind Ranganathan
Pulls and Pushes: On Pressure
During a discussion with a group of children about comparison, one of the students said, “When I am good at something, others come
N. Vaishnavi
Beauty
I walk into school every morning down a path strewn with differently-coloured flowers in the different seasons of the year.
Akhila Seshadri
To Stretch Oneself…
The nature of attention has always been a vexatious issue with me. From the days of being a student, the purpose of attention
Ashwin Prabhu
Witnessing Conflict
It was a bright, sunny day in the hills, with clear skies, and the children were bustling around trying their hand at bouldering.
Sushil Shintre and Chaitrali Ranade
Examining Conflict, Outer and Inner
It is ‘circle time’ and the class has to decide on a cooperative game for sports day. The emphasis is on choosing a game or activity that
Arvind Ranganathan
The Unpursued Excellence
In the world of education, ‘excellence’ is thought of as synonymous with ‘success’. One of the consequences of this thinking is that school
N. Vaishnavi
Mind of the Middle-Schooler
I am often struck by the openness and earnestness with which these questions are raised by middle-school children, all of 10-12 years,
Arvind Ranganathan
Learning the Craft of Teaching
In my first year as a teacher, I was fortunate to chance upon Kamala Mukunda’s book What did You Ask at School Today? From the
Rajani Arjun Shankar
Charms and Challenges of an Ancient Language: Teaching Sanskrit in Middle School
'Why do we need to learn a dead language?' 'Where shall we ever use it?'
Arvind Ranganathan
Process Behind a Pageant: An Interview with Akhila Seshadri
After the middle school MAG (Mixed Age Group) Day at The School- KFI, I spoke with my colleague
Akhila Seshadri
Theme Meetings: A Conversation Space for Educators and Parents
Looking back at my own school days, the only time my parents visited school was for academic meetings
G. Gautama
Prashanti’s Dilemma: Wisdom and Struggle in Students’ Voices
I attempt to explore the teachings of Krishnamurti, the role of education and secular ethics.
Padmavathy
A Mathematical Enquiry
It was an unusually pleasant Wednesday afternoon in July. A visitor, an experienced mathematics teacher from overseas, was eager to observe
V. Arun
Joy of Geography
It is quite astonishing that adults know so little of the world around them. They possess a poor subjective understanding
Sumitra M. Gautama, Suchitra Ramakumar
Reaching out to Government Schools in Tamil Nadu
The School, KFI, Chennai has created a new methodology that seeks to build a link between knowledge
G. Gautama
Chakravyuha
The formation called Chakravyuha was used in one of the battles of the Mahabharata. It is a secret and complex formation which is easy to enter,
Akhila Seshadri and S. Padmavathy
A Structural Answer to a Cultural Question: Mixed Age Group in the Middle School
When one comes across a work of intricate art, like a beautifully carved wooden table,
V. Arun
An Approach to Environmental Education: Lessons from Krishnamurti
This article is based on my experience of teaching Environmental Education for Classes 9 and 10 for the past ten years.
G. Gautama
Welcome to an unfolding journey
We are most delighted to welcome each one of you to this meeting, and thank you for taking the
trouble to be here with the teachers
G. Gautama
School Administration For Humanness and Vitality
'Administration': the very word carries with it a ring of authority, aloofness, an antiseptic flavour. Starting with the word is
Dr. Suchitra Ramkumar
Health Education
What does health mean to young people? They are active and energetic and rarely lack in physical vitality. So what can health education mean
G. Gautama
Youth in Transition
The youth of our times are in a special situation. The past four or five decades have unfolded into hitherto unknown situations in terms
Akhila Seshadri
A New Way of Thinking for Children: New Approaches to the Curriculum
In an age where there is constant manipulation of the senses, of decisions regarding lifestyle taking place,
Bina Shivram
Reporting on the Kindergarten Child
A report for a child in the kindergarten is a recording of the teacher’s observation of the child within a sensible framework. It is also an attempt
Jayashree Nambiar
The Student as Historian: The Possibilities of a Study Visit to a Historical Site
This article describes an attempt to place the student at the centre of the process of learning history.
Sumitra M. Gautama and V. Arun
Making School Trips Meaningful
Just a few days before our last school trip, a friend of ours, an anthropology scholar, visited us at school. We requested him to speak to
Dr. Aarti Kawlra, Deepa Kamath, Kalpana Shah Korwar
At School with Design
As parents of children at the school, three of us (Aarti Kawlra, Deepa Kamath and Kalpana Shah Korwar) have been associated with different projects
Suchitra Ramkumar
Erik Erikson’s Theory of Development: A Teacher’s Observations
Erik Erikson was a psychologist who did most of his work in the post-Freudian era, in the 1930s to the
Tarit Bhattacharjee
Learning in Relationship
An aesthetic approach towards life and environment is inherent to human existence. This aesthetic approach, a search for beauty
K. Ramesh
Haiku: Art of Perception
At the outset, I would like to explore the meaning of the word 'communion', which Krishnamurti often used in his writing. One of the meanings
G. Gautama
Creating an Atmosphere in School: For ‘teachers-who-are-learners’
One of the features of schools is that teachers are expected to do what they are allocated.
Arvind Ranganathan
Review of “The Courage to Teach”, Parker J. Palmer
Teachers choose their vocation for a number of reasons: love of a subject, a desire to share
Suchitra Ramkumar
The Kindergarten Teacher
The work of the Kindergarten teacher involves many dimensions of understanding. The environment we create in the Kindergarten,
G. Gautama
The Ground beneath our Feet
To a thinking person, it is quite clear that human beings have collectively contributed more problems to the earth than any other species.
Anurag Jain
‘A Meandering, Dancing, River of Learning’: Excerpts from a Teacher’s Diary
Going back through my diary and taking out excerpts for the Journal has been a rewarding
Revathi Sreenivas
Stepping into Kindergarten
I undertook training in Kindergarten education at the Children’s Garden School in Chennai in 1978. In October of that year,
Sumitra M. Gautama
Challenges of an Urban K School
The School is situated in Madras near the sea and close to the Adyar Estuary on the campus of the
Theosophical Society.
Divya
Watching Television
Imagine you are a person from another planet, observing human beings on earth.
Observe a family on earth for one evening.
Neeraja Raghavan
Cup of Comfort
"What do you mean, you called home and asked for the car to pick you up? Don't you know school doesn't give over
Arvind Ranganathan
Baptism of a Boy Miss!
The buildings were the same. So were some of the faces. The nagalingam tree with its deliciously fragrant flowers,
Divya Kumar
Learning in Mixed Age Groups: How We Made the Transition
A school, like any other institution, is a complex amalgam of intentions, processes, practices and of course,
Ananthapadmanabhan
Creating the Attention Classroom
As a teacher who has spent over ten years teaching senior school students in those tumultuous years when they are growing up,
Divya
Learning to be a Teacher: Impressions of the Teachers’ Conference – 1998
Krishnamurti has often spoken about all our schools being one. It seems to me that
Ananthapadmanabhan
Science and Insight
The greatest challenge facing a science teacher (I have been one for more than a decade now) is this whole matter of the student's intuition.
G. Gautama
Challenges of an Urban Day School
The City of Madras in which The School was born 25 years ago, was a very different place from what
it is today.
Geetha Varma
Reflections of an Artist on Education – An Interview of Tarit Bhattacharjee
It would be wrong to consider art as a separate entity. "It is very much part and parcel of your life and existence.
G. Gautama
Comparison and Education
At the outset these two words would to appear to have little in common. However, the entire schooling system depends on comparison.
Prema Veeraraghavan
Understanding Taxonomy
Teaching and learning of classification in Life Science can be very wearisome and dull if taught in the conventional way, using Greek
Kamala Anil Kumar
Tamarind Seeds and Little Children
All too often in our staff meetings, we have deliberated upon our concerns - how to help our children understand that there is more to
Padmavathy and Ananthapadmanabhan
Fostering Mathematical Intelligence
Mathematics, its teaching/learning has evoked wide discussion ever so often. Aptly so because everyone has encountered Mathematics
Prema Veeraraghavan
A Tree Through the Year
The School at Madras is located in a very quiet, verdant part of the city in the grounds of the Theosophical Society.
Teachers' Working Group
Essential levels of learning for the Primary Classes
For the last few years, there has been a growing,informal movement against unnecessarily loading a
young child at school.