[Rencontre #3] [Take a chaï with Manish Jain]

During last weeks we have met many people working to improve education system, Manish Jain is one of them and our meeting with him was particularly insightful and inspiring ! Manish graduated from Harvard in political science and worked several years for the UNESCO convinced that education is one of the most powerful tools for change. Disillusioned by the inefficiency and the methods used by UNESCO, he decided to come back to India and started his own education project. According to his words, the classical education approaches are “crime against humanity” because it disables creativity. Moreover, the freedom of children is threatened by a very hierarchical student/ teacher relationship. This freedom is all the more reduced as children don't make any choice in the subject they study neither the approach they follow. Manish developed a model based on practical projects and peer-to-peer (P2P) learning. Thus, there is no more pre-defined teacher/student relationship. Each child would alternate from student to teacher along his schooling. Eventually, this system is based on trust. Each child is considered clever enough to make his own choices and to design his own curriculum, his own path. It should be noted that theoretical learning is not prohibited, it is just not imposed and need to be a choice! This way of teaching and Manish’s life reminds us how much education is a political tool. Realizing and understanding the hidden political ideology behind each education system enables to improve them and to compensate what they lack. This applies to traditional schooling systems as much as the most alternatives. In that process, association involvement and family circle have a great role to play.

If you want to know more on Manish's model here is the websitehttp://www.shikshantar.org/ or a very good talkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul96LrUkpbQ