{"id":1379,"date":"2024-12-23T09:38:19","date_gmt":"2024-12-23T09:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bullseye.ac\/blog\/?p=1379"},"modified":"2025-01-03T07:42:44","modified_gmt":"2025-01-03T07:42:44","slug":"1379","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bullseye.ac\/blog\/learning\/1379\/","title":{"rendered":"The Values School – Muni International"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One of the schools that we want to emulate is Muni International. It is a school for under-privileged children in Delhi. It operates in one of the lower income localities. They have an interesting way of education: the Eklavya System. It positions every child as both a learner and a teacher. Children at Muni International learn not just from the teacher, but also are equipped to seek knowledge from usual and unusual spaces \u2013 themselves, their peers, their juniors, and the world outside. The idea behind guided Discovery is that children could and should be inventor of their own theories, critics of other people\u2019s ideas, analyzers of evidence and makers of their own personal Marks. Interestingly, while the founder and the teachers speak very little English, the students of Muni International speak the language fluently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within school, the Student Parliament allows children as young as age 4, to take part in collective decision making. Outside of school, each child takes ownership of the area around their homes \u2013 equipped with the skills of first-aid, this child becomes the neighbourhood point person for any queries, illness, and accidents \u2013 building a societal belief in the agency of children in bringing about change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Preeti Rao of Bangalore had given me the reference of Ashok Thakur, the founder of the school. Even Deepak of Ambala has been singing paeans of his praises for a long time. So reached out to Ashok ji to try to meet him on my return journey from Jammu via Delhi. Was initially disappointed when he did not respond to my WhatsApp messages for a meeting, but was given a prompt approval when I send the same message by SMS. Moral of the story: When it is important, don\u2019t WhatsApp. Took a bus from Madangir Village (near Hauz Khas) to Uttam Nagar via Andrewsganj. Experimented with a full day DTC pass, which was a very VFM 50 bucks, but realized that it does not work even with the orange contracted DTC buses. Donations to public transport services in any case makes me happy, so no regrets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should have used Google Maps and come in by metro to Dwarka Mor station. On second thoughts, it might have taken the same time \u2013 and the bus was cheaper! Got down at Uttam Nagar bus terminus and took a Rural Phatphat seva to Navada Metro station. Mistake \u2013 had to take another phatphat to Dwarka Mor. Anyways, the phatphats operate at an unheard of 5 bucks fare! When you get down at Dwarka Mor, you take an electric rickshaw, which is parked in the lane between Aggarwal Sweets and Grover Sweets. You realize the wisdom of limiting rickshaw width to 1 m in the narrow lanes that take you to Gandhi Chowk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The whole journey of adventure ensured that I was late for the appointment \u2013 by a huge 1.25 hours. The large hearted Ashok ji, still managed to fit me into his schedule. He embarrassed a late comer by giving him a traditional garland and aarti welcome. Must try that with late comers in our school, am sure it will set them right. More importantly, we always need to budget 50% more time whenever we visit a place for the first time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Guest of \u2018Honor\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having a sore throat, I threw all my rules of no tea, no sweets out of the window. Started the visit with a nice soothing hot cup of tea without sugar as I gossiped with Ashok ji about our Pune school. Muni is the name of Ashok\u2019s mom. He has photos of both his parents in his room. The property in which the school is located used to be their house. I asked him about affiliation. He has a CBSE affiliation. There are 700 students in the school, all of whom have trooped out by 1400 hrs. The obvious question was that why does he not run the school in the second shift. Bureaucracy, red tape, corruption has ensured that he struggles even to get the permissions to run the single shift. Surprising, considering the excellent PR work that he does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Reception Area \u2013 like a drawing room<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What struck me as the USP of the school is the focus on values. This hits you when everyone refers to everyone else with a ji suffixed to the name. And my sandals would have lost count of how many students touched them through the course of the one hour that I was visiting classrooms. He had an interesting way to drive in the importance of values. If Atul Gopal dies, people stop referring to him by that name. If his photo hangs on a wall, it is not Atul Gopal, it is Atul Gopal\u2019s photo. If he is being taken to the cremation ground, he is now referred to as \u2018the body\u2019. Indeed, there is no life without a \u2018soul\u2019. And every education system considers that to be such an insignificant part. At Muni, about half the time is spent nurturing this soul. More than aptitude, it is attitude and habits that are the drivers at his school. Students spend a lot of time answering and discussing these questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Why is that our needs are limited, but our wants unlimited? Who owns our shadows? Or the water that we use? How can we be better co-existors? How do we manage our individual relationship with the environment? How do we become change makers instead of just idea champions? Interestingly, the values lecture is the first lecture of the day for all classes. In terms of weightage, 50% is given to skills, 30% to values and 30% to why these values. This ensures that students learn to question. One of the hallmarks of the Muni student is that they will never end up becoming blind believers of any baba.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An interesting example of values is the electricity bill of the school. With 700 students and 300+ fans, water coolers et al, you would expect it to be running into the tens of thousands. Especially so, when you are informed that the meter fitted in is a commercial one, which runs at Rs. 8.5 per unit. In fact he has been \u2018raided\u2019 more than 3 times by inspection teams of the electricity company, who are sure that his Rs. 6000 monthly bill in summer and 1500 in winter is the result of some meter tinkering. The tinkering here is of another kind. It is that of the child\u2019s mind. You will never see a room in the school which is empty but has fans running. In fact he himself has been \u2018fined\u2019 once by his PA, when he left the room for a minute with the fan running.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All classroom benches are arranged for group work<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This concept of waste extends to the community. His KG kids harass their mothers when they switch on both the fan and cooler in their house. The mothers are threatened with police complaints! Talking of police complaints, Ashok recounts an incident where one of the students went to request a neighbourhood auntie to complain about the overflowing water tank in her house. She hushed up this girl. A few days later the Muni girl was back with the same request. This time the auntie\u2019s husband threatened to rough up the student in case she made another visit. The doughty girl, with the help of Ashok, managed to make the third visit. This time the local DCP sent two constables for her help. Needless to say the auntie got the message! Some of the parents complained after this episode \u2013 that the activist students are endangering their own lives in this anti-waste campaign. But Ashok is clear \u2013 values can only develop when you take a stand. And Muni\u2019s methods are always non-violent. Continuing on the subject of parents, there is a WhatsApp group of best parents. The inclusion in the group is decided on the basis of home visits which are done by representatives of the school (not teachers, but a hired agency). The agency checks student behavior, discusses their activities with their parents, shoots videos of some of the NGO kind of stuff that kids are doing at home. This decided who gets into this group. Btw, most of the interesting videos are posted in this group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ashok today runs 5 municipal schools on a PPP basis. He is also responsible for 6 schools in Ambala. And Varanasi has just been added to the kitty. In spite of all his responsibilities, he was chatting with me till 1630 hrs. Ashok proudly mentioned to me that he also devotes 3 hours a day to his favourite sport, swimming. And so what is the mystery of his abundance of time? One small cause is that he does not attend any meetings or lectures which are not related to education. The more important one is mentored delegation. If you ask him about the manuals used by the school, the fees collected, the website address \u2013 he knows nothing. But he knows the people who know. And he has ensured that even his reportees have mentored their own teams in the same way. This was very much in evidence when the task of training me on values was delegated to a young teacher. The school has exhibited these values on the walls of the school facing the road. So I spent an hour with her understanding the pyramid of knowledge: physics, chemistry, biology, anthropology, humanity. About how our physical evolution is complete, but our spiritual \/ values one is still WIP. One last question that I asked this teacher was would she admit her 6 month old to Muni as a student? She didn\u2019t even take a second to think. Of course! All the teachers here do that. Dogfooding is always a good sign for a business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did a quick one hour round of the school. In order to guide me through the school, I had a team of young parliamentarians from the school. The one word that hits you every time you interact with the students is the name in the school logo \u2013 Eklavya. Classes seem to be functioning so well even without teachers present. Eklavya signifies that you are the best teacher that you can have. You don\u2019t need anu insincere Dronacharyas who are busy pandering to only the gifted Arjuns of this world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every student is given an opportunity to run the school, host visitors etc. Their terms are short \u2013 only one month \u2013 so that most of the students end up becoming, if not an MP, an MLA or a councilor. You don\u2019t get a shot at membership again after your term is over. The MPs also act as judiciary \u2013 enforcing their self made rules in the class. One of the interesting rules is that you always walk on the left side of a yellow central line in the corridors. You can cross over only where there are zebra crossings. I was ticked off on quite a few occasions as I unknowingly broke this rule. Students also run their own bank, with every student being a share holder in the bank. Passbooks are maintained \u2013 and any student who leaves is able to encash her savings and her shares. The bank also finances the school tuck shop. Btw, the tuck shop also stocks books. The simple rule of the thumb is that profit is shared 50-50 between the students and the management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The school MP showing me my way<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school follows a UPLC model for learning. Understand, Problem, Learning and Complete Information. Am not too sure of this \u2013 but will add over here from my old notes on Muni.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One interesting experiment that is going on at Muni is the bagless school from 5th<\/sup> onwards. (Disclosure: Must report that I did see some 4th<\/sup> grade students with 5 kg bags.) This has been done through the use of tabs. Students are charged 2500 per year for the tab. This includes the hardware and the software cost. We had a discussion on tabs versus e-readers. Ashok feels that the multi-functionality of the tabs makes this win this battle hands down. Students not only access the lesson pdf files through their tabs, but they also do their HW on tabs. They take photos, record audios and videos, type out assignments in the attached keyboards. Ashok believes that this is not just the future, but it is also a great saver of paper. Another interesting use is that students study some random topics of higher grades. Having text books of all years on the tab is helpful in that sense. Maybe I need to look differently at my fixation with Kindles. This is not to say that Tabs don\u2019t have disadvantages. First, tabs are not designed keeping students in mind. Also, we tend to become a slave to technology, instead of using it as a tool. Although the internet and phones in the tabs have been locked out, some of the tabs do get mis-used. There have been reports of parents watching blue films on student tabs \u2013 and worse still, not deleting the same after viewing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A student using his tab<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming back to my visits to classrooms, I was accorded a warm welcome by most students. In keeping with the philosophy of every visitor being a teacher, I ended up taking small snippets of Hindi, Geography, Science and Math with the kids. Most of the assignments were my usual off-beat ones \u2013 and hopefully students will be still thinking about what is special about the North Pole, Hindi self-authored poetry and finger counting patterns. About half of the kids were all ears in this session \u2013 the rest being absorbed in copying down stuff from the board. The same ratio was also what I experienced with teachers \u2013 half of whom took the opportunity of bonus time to immediately sit down with their piles of books waiting for HW correction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Groups discussing a math problem<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, I asked Ashok for advice for Peepal Tree. He advised that we should end up investing at least in a land parcel of about 15,000 sq ft. The land norms vary for primary and secondary schools. For most boards, for schools up to 8th<\/sup> standard, the norms are very relaxed. The reason why land parcel investment is required, is because seldom can you get 30 year leases, which are a stipulation for affiliation to a board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the stuff that I picked up which makes for good quotations:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We act immediately, but miracles take time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aisa sona kissi kaam ka nahin, jo kaan kate<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ek Anar, Sau Beemar<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Competition is important, but only with yourself<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Padarth, Jeev, Pran, Gyan<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bhav purti, not iccha purti<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ek mutthi anaj, roj daan<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One very interesting practice followed by the school is to train students on acupressure. There are two teachers who have been trained on acupressure, who in turn train all the school students. Students are expected to visit their neighbourhoods, as part of a school assignment, in order to help their neighbours with their medical problems. Although there have been some objections to these kind of assignments, but the goodwill created for the school because of this is immense. Another side-effect is that students have now got a life-long internal doctor which will ensure that they lead healthy lives. On the health front, an interesting experiment done by the school is hospital visits. Students spend time volunteering in the trauma section of AIIMS. Ostensibly, this is so that they can learn about CPR. But in reality, the idea is to sensitize students to see what happens to careless two wheeler riders \u2013 and brawl participants. Needless to say, there are marked changes in behavior after these visits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Interesting door to Class 5 A<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ashok can be reached on muniinternationalschool@yahoo.co.in<\/a> (Email address is probably not working)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ideas from Muni Systems that we can implement at PTP<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Self competitor<\/u><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

           Need:Competition with other is a root cause of all negativity in relations and world.Competition with others creates problems and spoils relations, no goal after attaining the level of best scorer student.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

           Meaning:To compete with self\u2019s previous performance instead of comparing with others.
    Purpose: Continuous development of self with bully free environment.
    Procedure: Self-competition is followed by progress chart in which students write their learning and understanding in their respective progress chart every day. Each student competes with his\/her previous performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

           Result: – Students become self dependant for gaining information. No bully, develop to get habit of no fear of other, Excellency from previous performance an atmosphere without Jealousy, leg-pulling, depression. No habits of spoon-feeding etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n