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Shikshayatan Middle School completed 25 years. Begun humbly in a single thatched roof shed, it now has a green and peaceful campus. It has been an exciting and fulfilling quarter of a century.

The year began with field trips to experience the rains of the Western Ghats, train travel and see at least one wild life sanctuary. The 3rd, 4th and 5th went to Coimbatore and from there to Ooty by the toy train. They saw a part of the reserve there.

6th and 7th and 8th went to Kollam [Kerala]via Shengotta [ after seeing the Courtallam falls] and on to Aryankavu to see the Paalaruvi falls and the deer reserve.

The NIOS went past the Dudhsagar to Goa and Jog falls and returned via Mumbai. The joy of the children can be imagined, irrepressible giggling, comparing eats brought... Each group gave a power point presentation of their trip and each group ended with the question , Why don't we transfer the school to the mountains?

This year the process of democratising the school has taken a greater leap. The children have formed committees parliamentary, academic, administration, events, cleanliness, garden and landscape and budget committee. They come with agenda, conduct meetings, take decision and write out the decision to be read by all teaching staff and other students.

The NIOS group of 9 children, like millions of children like them, are waiting to take their exams and be done with the year. From being extremely well prepared they are now in a state of ennui that does not bode good. We shall have to work with them once the lockdown winds down.

Our friends in Dubai have supported us in gift of cow livelihood programme and scholarship. When we were invited by the Venkats to visit them and meet all the donors we agreed. We spent a week there in march 2020 meeting all the donors whom we have never seen until then. It was a pleasant experience.

We installed solar panels for the school so that computers may be used all the time. Power connection is incredibly poor in rural areas and so the installation. We seem to have done this just in time as we have no idea how the power situation is going to be post lockdown. Mostly rural areas are given a by in any emergency situation.

We also, as a total move to digitalisation, have created a good deal of material for the language laboratory, science and for social studies. We have upgraded the computers, bought 32 / 40 television sets for the class rooms. All of this was done between school being closed down for children and the lockdown. So kids are going to be greeted by a different teaching technique which should be fun to watch.

The academic year that was, was a mixed bag of fun, joy, visitors and visits and heart-breaking moments of results of Gaja cyclone.

The oldest group that opted to stay with us and do the NIOS 10th, were asked to spend the first year learning data entry operation, basic accountancy, languages, maths and creative writing as necessary skills.

Our teachers also attended the Learning Network Conference (LN) at Bangalore.

Two groups of students of the Mass Media from Xavier's College, Mumbai visited us for a week.

The high light of the year was the exhibition on the Indian Railways. An idea that was born to integrate science, history, geography and tourism in India, was loved by the children enjoying the entire process.

Some of our teachers and Students attended the 2018 International Democratic Education Conference in Bangalore.

Shikshayatan turned 21 on 15th August 2016.

A news journal was started by Sushila Narayanaswamy. She and Ashok Yadav, both from Mumbai, were enamoured of the jambool that grows in the campus. The children were amused by the word and so the news journal was named Jambool.

This year we had Laura [for 3 working months] and Maribelle as our volunteers from Germany. Maribelle has come for a year and she continues till August. Maribelle has been teaching French and western flute.

A team of 8 of our teachers and 2 from Oyster Learning Initiative [a school that consults with us] were led by Aruna on a familiarization tour of Delhi and Agra. Only one had seen Delhi before and none of the others have travelled outside of the state.

The second coming-of-age gift were the two trips organized for children from 4th up: one group went to Kodai Kanal where they stayed at a home-stay run by a friend of ours, Bernard. Two days of hiking, looking out for bisons, wearing warm clothes had them wish the school was in Kodai. The other group went to Kumily the nearest town to Periyar wild life sanctuary. It was an eye opener for the children that a sanctuary could be so dense and green and lovely.

Shankar Lakshmam, a performing ghatam artist and advertising consultant visited us with a big box. We opened it to find a telescope; but since then the skies have not cleared at all. Ten days later, we are still looking for a clear patch.

The title of an exhibition-cum-stage show that was put up on Founder's day of January 6th. An idea was conceived to show the children the synthesis that India has created over the millenniums making her what she is today. A synthesis that they could relate to, be proud of and live up to. We wanted our children to know that India allowed changes where change would enhance her beauty; that she allowed transformation only when it would intensify her knowledge of Oneness of life. For that we took 5 aspects and traced the growth through all the millenniums.

Kumbabhishekam of Lord Vidyaganpathy, a once in 12 years event, on the 26th of January.

we got an SOS from a school at Bodinayakanur that we are consultants to. Their head teacher had walked away and they needed a sub. Rajadurai, our headmaster, promptly set off as Sir Galahad. He not only held fort until a new principal was appointed but raised the level of learning so much that the new principal was shocked.

A very special celebration: this year the teachers had been forthcoming, extraordinary and inspiring. So on the 12th of April, the last day of school the teachers were each awarded with a wrist watch!

Sangitaa Advani and her two lovely daughters visited us. The first few days went in getting to know the children; they then arranged for some classes. The request was to talk of their travels. The children learnt a lot about London and other European countries. It was their first exposure to an I-phone. One can imagine the ooohs and aaahs and a few questions asked re the cost. Ahana went back and wrote about her visit to the school in the DNA newspaper.

Shridhar, Rajani and Swarashree visited us with the clear purpose of sharing their days with us. So while Rajani taught the children a few bhajans, Shridhar conducted a leadership course for 20 of our best. Team work was the fundamental and children were taken through the process step by step with great humour and gentleness. But the last day took everyone's breath away. Swarashree performed a ballad in Kathak. It lasted an hour and the children sat in utter absorption. When the performance was over there was a collective sigh. It was an extraordinary performance.

On August 15th, Independence Day was celebrated with Mr Raghuram of Dainik Bhaskar. He conducted a short and interesting workshop on "Do good it will go a full circle and come right back to you. As always, our senior students of the 6th, 7th and 8th standard attended the talk. For days after that the children recounted to the younger children the various incidents Raghuram had cited.

Last year, our teachers conducted a summer camp for children of other schools. The idea was to make teaching practices of Shikshayatan known in local circles as also a small pocket money for the teachers that would not be expected at home. The summer camp was a huge success and gave enough pocket money for the teachers to take a 3 day trip to Mysore.

Our teachers went to Spice Valley School, Bodinayakanur [350 kms fro here, near the western ghats] and KVR Convent at Kattur [5kms away] to help troubleshoot learning challenges such as language building, spelling, math tables and reading. The teachers there are now following our teaching practices effectively.

Shikshayatan turned 20 this academic year and seems to be making quite an impact: on the community, the teachers, the children, other schools and educational institutions. The year began with distribution of colourful uniform one of a kind to every class. The little ones had small flowered printed tops that made them giggle helplessly.

This year, we had a one month intensive English course for all students. We divided all classes from 2nd up into 3 categories: gold, silver and bronze. Having fixed their threshold levels we drew up a challenge course.

Our alumni are doing well too. Abhirami, who finished her 10th scored 93% and topped her school. She just about managed to keep ahead of 3 others who scored 91 and 90%. It seems all the prizes were bagged by children of Shikshayatan.

Govinda, our oldest student at 18years who refused to quit Shikshayatan, has finished his 12th, and has won a place at DJ Academy of Design at Coimbatore.

Govinda and Vetriazhagan at Vapi. Govinda was to lead the art and crafts section of the summer camp at Lumens School while Vetri took care of hands-on science.They were much appreciated.

In August, Aruna Kumar and Durga went as resource teachers to Sudarshan Vidya Mandir, Pudukottai and worked with children who were not doing well in Tamil and Math. There were more than 30 in each subject ranging from 1st standard to 8th.

September 5th the seniors[7th and 8th grade] conducted classes. They had detailed timetable and lesson plans that they drew up. They set up their own classes before school and were the best teachers ever. The classes were conducted well and the students told us that they quite liked their new teachers!

25 children cleaned 3 temples;14 visited an old age home and staged a play they wrote and directed; sang songs that Gandhiji loved and had all the old people reminiscing.

Vetri has been visiting government schools conducting experiments in science. We went with him on such a trip on Children's Day and we were delighted to see children pour out of their classes to welcome him. 45 schools have been gifted with basic science kit enough to keep primary school children engaged for a few hours.

This year we decided to bring the world to Shikshayatan. We simulated as much as possible 5 interesting regions: Equatorial rain forest, the grasslands, desert, the Mediterranean and the Polar regions. For a fortnight the children were asked to read up, understand and then make a list of the models / posters they would like to create. The target of each region was to do 10 models/posters. At the end of two weeks the children generated more than 30 models and posters for each of the regions. The periphery of the school which has been allowed to grow wild became the rain forest. A path was slashed open teachers and parents worked together.

During the summer vacation of 2012, the school took on a fresh look cream and cadmium red for the Hamied block and grey and blue for the primary block had the children look happy when they returned in June.

May was also the time for various teacher education programmes that were conducted here. The month was spent in preparing for the coming year in earnest. Vetri, our science teacher, was in Vapi along with Raghavan assisting at their summer camp for children. June / July saw us in Vapi help start Lumens School, a unit of Micasa Educational Trust.

Syllabus as drawn by the State Government was completed by November and the children were to enjoy activities in languages, history, sciences and math having signed up to learn what they would like to. Obviously, they do better when they opt to learn.

With much enthusiasm and support from Mr.Vasudevan and Mr. Venkat we began a small software section, fully equipped with laptops, wifi, 24-7 internet and power supply. We roped in five young fresh computer qualified persons from areas with the rural radius of the school. Coaching modules were brought in as well as expertise of Mr.Vasudevan and Ms.Neela with the idea that we would enable freshers with computer qualifications of the rural to gain expertise in the fields of industry demand.

We are more and more convinced that it was the right time for us, with our years of experience in our schools and the 18 schools we had helped start; with the 50 odd schools that we had been invited to, to share our methods and teaching aids, to go ahead with the idea of Quadseek Teachers Education (QuaTE). The clear dream is to make available our accumulated knowledge base to young folks who could be coached to be assistant teachers, teachers, heads of department, principals, academic and administration coordinators and find placement in the several schools we have been lucky to be associated with, where there is a dearth of talented, enthusiastic teachers.

We teamed up with Dr.Hanspeter of Coverdale Germany (HR consultants) with the desire to set up an academy to coach young freshly qualified HR graduates with the methods of Coverdale International, who after a meeting in Spain, were enthusiastic about this idea.

The approach from the main road to the school nearly 500 meters had always been a kutcha road; every time we found out the cost of laying the road we thought we could put the money to better use! But then we felt that the time had come to lay a proper if simple road leading from the main road to the school. The land being ours was classified as private and hence it would have been inappropriate for the panchayat to expend on laying the road.

2012-2013 saw Ms. Miriam Kluger from Munich with us continuing the German course for the children. Hearing a word or two in German dropped casually in conversation is becoming an in thing. Miriam is a 19 year old who has taken a year off to see the world and know a new culture.

Laura Nason joined us as artist-in-residence in the first week of January 2013. An artist from Room13, UK she will be with us until April. Already, Room13 Shikshayatan seems to have got art shots in the arm. The children flocked like birds to Room13 and when last heard they were putting up timetables for entrants! Room 13 and TBWA, a global organisation, one of the chief sponsors of Room13 International, decided to raise funds by having the artists of various Room13s do portraits of their staff.

We now have a core team made up of a college of teachers. To that vision, a core team was built very carefully and with great attention to the person's commitment to education and to the school's philosophy and teaching techniques. We have now a young and vibrant team.

The children here are doing well. Every time our alumni drop in and talk about what they are doing and how well, it acts as an inspiration to the little ones and there is an air of promise.

2011-2012 children from the 4th standard up were given an option to learn French, German or Spanish. We had Fiorina Shroder and Maximilian Klaeger from Munich, Germany and they opened new opportunities.

Maxi was the hub to get our children to trek and climb (we have no mountains in a radius of 120 kms), so we began walking and trekking. The first attempt at mountain effort was 30 children led by Maxi and Raja walking down from Kodaikanal [at 2189 meters] to the plains. The best six of them were chosen to go to Manali for five days of trekking in the Himalayas. Aruna accompanied six kids led by Maxi and had a ball of a time in the cold mountains in March 2012. For the first time they saw snow! And for us who are always on 30+ degrees C reaching maximum of 45+ snow is a luxury!

We also visited Delhi and Agra on the way back.

Govindaraj decided not the leave the school like others at the 8th grade. So he completed his Grade X through NIOS scoring over 75%. With a year to cool off before NIOS Grade XII, the budding painter wanted to feel his way into the practical world of art, with a view to understand whether ART was to be his profession.

Primrose Institute, a play school run by Aruna's sister, Sushila, at Juhu, Mumbai was getting ready for an exhibition of "Art and Architecture of India".

Aruna took five of our teachers to Mumbai, the excuse being they need to see Govinda's displays and Sushila's showcase. A week was a whirlwind tour of Mumbai and they returned with their eyes filled with memories. For almost all of them it was a first major trip anywhere.

The academic year came to a close with 12 of our children moving on to the nearest high school [4kms away] while one opted to stay back and learn with us. Methana's interest is in sports which she excels and she felt that moving would impede further forays. She plays Kho kho at the district level and underwent a month's coaching in hockey under the aegis of Hockey Association of Tamilnadu in Chennai.

Our Venkat connection: 

For Shikshayatan, he has initiated a special scholarship for children who have been with us and are now trying to get into college. The scholarship has been instituted either as free studentship or as a no interest loan depending on the student and the need. Already 10 children have availed themselves of this almost all from Arasavanangkadu and Vellapallam.

Project Cow for sustenance: For residents of Arasavanangkadu and mostly for parents of children of our school, a project go-daan has been instituted. This will give a dignified and added livelihood and until now 20 cows have been given and as many as 15 families have benefitted from the scheme.

Project stationery: what started as environmentally conscious project of sending marginally used stationery has now become a major project with more than a 1000 children getting the years supply of pencils, erasers, sharpeners, pens and colouring materials. The project has received much appreciation and fan following in Dubai.