SAIIER 2014:Future School

Deepanam School		Last School
Future School

Mission

Inspired by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, the vision of Entity::Future School is to develop an educational environment in which Auroville adolescents and all those dedicated to their education may reach their own unique potential through a balanced development of body, mind, emotion and spirit. Underlying this integral approach is the development of faculties that will allow us to pursue the unfolding of our inner truth in harmony with the material world.

Interwoven with this endeavor toward individual development is a collective aspiration toward a manifestation of the ideals of Auroville as expressed in its charter. Toward this, we aim to discover the essence behind our diverse cultural, ethnic, and individual heritages while reflecting the international character of Auroville.

Our deepest aspiration is to progressively develop our consciousness to prepare the youth and ourselves to manifest a truer, higher and more joyful life on earth.

Research objectives

Provide a student-centered, integral education for Auroville youth between the ages of 14 - 20. Develop and offer programs which foster awareness and growth of the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of the being.
Encourage students to follow a value-oriented approach to life in which they have a deeper understanding of personal, community and global responsibility.
Enable students to become self-aware, self-motivated, and self-controlled. Help students to explore ways to set and reach challenging goals.
Expose students and ourselves to new experiences and approaches to learning and understanding.
Provide educational programs and activities that open a wide range of possibilities for students upon 'graduation' from the school.
Establish an interactive environment of beauty and light which inspires progress and creates a variety of opportunities for growth.

Program details

Learning environment

As Auroville is an international community the school maintains an international character by bringing together students from many different nationalities, with their varied cultural and ethnic backgrounds, in an atmosphere of protected freedom and harmony. This is a basic step in the promotion of international understanding, peace and human unity. In addition to this, as most of the teachers are Aurovilians, they are truly dedicated to the ideals and Charter of Auroville and so can encourage, support and guide the mostly Aurovilian student body in their own explorations of their role in and relationship to Auroville. This influences the way they approach their work and sets the framework for the relationships amongst the students and the teachers. We hope that this environment, and the educational program itself, will help the students further understand themselves and their “raison d'etre”.

Program

Future School is currently offering a high school equivalent education to primarily Aurovilian students. This past year there were 72 adolescents/young adults from 14 nationalities enrolled in the school. Each student has an individualized program which is created according to their choices: around core subject areas they choose elective subjects as well as physical and creative arts activities. As most of these latter activities take place outside of the school campus, making use of the many diverse possibilities in Auroville at large, we actively assist them, usually through our mentoring program, in finding teachers/coaches/guides who can help their talents and interests in these areas to progress and grow. Students are generally expected to stay in the school for 4-5 years, which allows ample time each year for students to complete their core courses and explore and develop other areas of interest.

We consider Auroville itself to be a very rich educational resource for our youth so we regularly approach various individuals in order to organize other activities that are requested by students but have not yet been offered. In this way, there is more interaction between the community and its youth, and therefore more involvement and understanding on many levels.

The school incorporates many different teaching/learning methods and environments: projects, tutorials, independent research, traditional lectures; small groups, large groups, one-on-one approach, peer teaching, work experience and self-study. In this way we hope to meet the needs of each individual, and we feel that the combination of required areas of study with choice of particular subjects gives the students the chance to get in touch with new areas of knowledge and at the same time to explore their own interests and needs.

Evaluation

The students are actively involved in assessment and evaluation, of both their own progress and the effectiveness of the teachers and the school as a whole. As the Auroville schools do not give conventional grades or report cards, methods used for evaluation at Future School include:

Reflective assessments
Teacher and class evaluation by students
Student self-evaluation
Self-assessment by staff
School assessment by students
Observation
Mentor meetings and other conferences
Skill-based assessments
Internal tests, assignments and portfolios
Project work with presentations, internal and/or public
Written progress reports
External exams (UK IGCSE's and A-levels), if requested by students

Activities 2013-2014

All-school activities

Weekly Seminars: These have been an ongoing feature of our school for many years and that is open to all students and teachers. This year we had many very interesting people and topics presented, such as:

Rom Whitaker screening his new documentary (made for a BBC nature program) on Indian Leopards
Geography students giving presentations on Alternative Energy
Alumni students speaking about their experiences after Future School
Presentation by students about their understanding of what education, including Integral Education, should be
Presentation of movies made by students in a film-project course
Refugee camps in Jordan and Syria (Jean-Francois)
Ecological Hygiene (Dr. Lucas)
Copenhagen, Denmark and Anthropology (visiting university students)
Violence in Indian Society (Dr. Usha, invited by Tapas B)
Creativity in Education (Sasi)
Women in Society – A Speech followed by wider discussion (led by Yaelle, student)
Capoeira – History and demonstrations (Sam, Jeremy and students)
Turning Waste Into Wonder (Martijn)
Vrata continued his popular series of presentations on Cosmology, The Universe, Quantum Mechanics, and Consciousness

Graduation: This year saw the successful completion of the program by 10 students: 8 Aurovilians, 1 Guest and 1 Outreach student. Once again, for the eleventh year, on the last day of school an event took place to honor the accomplishments of these students with the presence and participation of fellow students, teachers and staff members, and parents of the graduates. There were music performances by students, speeches, poetry readings, a powerpoint presentation with photos of each student at different stages of their lives, and a gift of a 'Goodbye Book' to each student. This event has become a very important one in our school and is always filled with laughter and tears, joy and some sadness; it reminds us that we are a family.

Field Trips

Field trips are very important educational activities to include in any school program. They expose students to new real-world experiences that are often closely connected to topics they are learning about in courses in school; they create an opportunity for closer bonding within the school 'family'; and they provide what is often a much-needed break from routine. This past school year several field trips took place:

Senior class trip: During the term break at the end of September, our senior students plus 2 teachers went on a camping trip to Auroville's Nature Camp in Kavunji (near Kodaikanal) for 10 days. There they organized and participated in activities such as treks, badminton and other games, scientific investigations of the plant life in the region, grounds clean-up, and firewood collection and storage. They also cooked and cleaned for themselves, and covered the majority of the costs, which were supplemented by a small donation. For many of them this was a first camping experience so it was a new learning opportunity.

Indian Culture and Gender Studies: A group of 3 students and 1 teacher went for a 3-day trip to Kaniyakumari, “located at the southern-most tip of Tamil Nadu and known for its beautiful sunsets and sunrises where 3 different oceans meet, the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.” (Yaelle, student) This field trip was primarily part of a course on Indian Culture: they stayed at the Vivekananda Ashram, visited the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, the local market place and beach, using public buses and auto-rickshaws or walking to get around. Additionally there was a visit to the Sita Temple there since these students are also part of a course on Gender Studies; they made observations about and discussed the role of gender in society as part of this trip as well.

Pichavaram Mangrove Forest: This was an all-school field trip to Pichavaram Mangrove Forest located near Chidambaram on the Tamil Nadu coast. Boat rides were organized so the students and teachers could experience and observe the unique biotope that “supports the existence of many rare varieties of economically important shell and fin-fishes,” (Wikipedia) as well as a great variety of birds (177 species belonging to 15 orders and 41 families). This field trip was especially interesting to those studying Biology and Geography, but all the participants gained knowledge and enjoyed being together as a school 'family' during an educational outing.

Workshops and Extra-curricular Activities

Medical Clowning: Fif and Hamish, 2 Newcomers to Auroville, shared their profession in a seminar and then offered a workshop/course for our students, meeting once a week. 5 students participated with great commitment and regularity.

Medical clowning uses techniques such as magic, music, storytelling and other clowning skills to empower children (and adults) with doses of fun that help them deal with the range of emotions they may experience while in hospital: fear, anxiety, loneliness, and boredom.

These visits to hospitals have been shown to help healing patients with the positive power of hope and humor. (Wikipedia)

Self-Defense Through Body Awareness: Two batches of 10 students each worked with Hans, an Aurovilian, to learn some basic self-defense techniques through gentle, slow movements that also improve agility, change posture and help to handle relaxation and stress. Thai Boxing: A group of approximately 8-10 students participated in twice weekly training sessions in Thai Boxing before school. Although the emphasis was on techniques for this particular martial art, general fitness activities were also included regularly (such as jogging, stretching, etc). Also, the instructor made it very clear to the students that this and any other such martial art, should be learned for defensive and fitness purposes only and not for aggressive ones.

Robotics Competition in Chennai: Five students from Future School participated in a robotics competition on the IIT campus in Chennai, December 28th-30th.

The objective was to assemble a pre-designed robot on stage that had been designed for a specific obstacle course; the details of the course were available on-line before the competition. The robot was made from a standard NXT kit that was supplied by Future School.

The reward for winning the competition was a hydrogen fuel cell, android controlled remote car, but unfortunately we didn't win, mainly because our robot went rogue in the last section of the obstacle course where the participants had to control it over Bluetooth to pick up balls and drop them in hoops. We still had a lot of fun and adventure preparing for the competition, fixing last minute bugs in the program, and watching the wild life that was strolling around the campus!

This competition combined what we have been learning in Physics, Math and Programming, and also brought together what we learned in school with our interests. Some lessons we learned through this experience were not overestimate ourselves, not to rely solely on information given to us but rather to do our own research and discovery and be prepared for the unexpected. (Chandran, student)

Course spotlights

Program for Practical Lab Activities in Chemistry: A program with a set of instructional materials was created by 2 of our science teachers, Evgenia and Sergei, as a supplement for the Chemistry courses that are offered at all levels. This set of materials includes 25 practical works with instructions, equipment and chemicals needed, and questions and problems to solve. Some of the topics included are titrations, analytic chemistry, preparation of salts and gases, kinetics, quantitative electrolysis, organic chemistry, Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, and many more. In addition, each student is required to keep a laboratory notebook to record details of each experiment, observations, conclusions, background information, graphs, etc. This has been successfully utilized several times with different ages and academic levels.

Alternative Living Spaces Project: The advanced Geography class – comprised of 5 senior students – started a hands-on project aimed at creating a model for an alternative living space. This project came out of class discussions regarding the current state of the world and Auroville, which raised the issue of sustainable living. In fact, the main idea is to create a practical and comfortable living space using natural and local resources for the building, with a water conservation system, alternative energy system and garden with vegetables, medicinal plants and trees with various uses. The students first engaged with various experts and then put the ideas into practice. This project was funded through Stichting de Zaaier and is ongoing, with the completion date estimated for April 2015.

Follow-up on previous goals (for 2013 – 2014)

Review and improve the balance between academic and non-academic aspects and activities

There are more electives available than ever before, and many workshops and extra-curricular activities were offered. In addition, with the help and initiative of a new Aurovilian, Vikram Mani, we have been exploring the possibilities of developing an apprenticeship/vocational training program for Auroville youth, starting with 4 students of Future School. These students are continuing with some academic courses in school but at the same time have been placed in various activities in Auroville, based on their interests, for skill-based learning experiences.

A new building with a Multi-purpose Space and classrooms

This was put to use and has become an integral part of the school and its program. Some of the activities that took place in the Multi-purpose Space were a parent/teacher meeting, the Thai Boxing classes described above, the Capoeira presentation and demonstration described in Seminars, and the Relaxation and Self-Defense through Body Awareness workshops.

Refine documentation of our ex-students: where they are, what they are doing, what are their plans for the future (short and long term), etc.

This has not been taken up as planned because the alumni student mentioned took up teaching full-time along with a research project about vector-borne diseases, so did not have the time. Therefore, this remains as a goal for us.

Goals for 2014-2015

Continue to develop the work/study, skill-based learning program that we started to explore with a few trial cases this school year.
One of the primary and ongoing challenges that we face is a shortage of teachers with the necessary level of knowledge for high school education, who have the ability to teach courses in an organized yet creative and integral way, and who integrate well with the existing team. Also, we are anticipating increasingly large incoming classes in the next few years. Therefore, the most important goal for the coming years will be to add individuals to our team who meet the above criteria so we can continue to meet the educational needs of Auroville's teens with high standards and great diversity.
Work with an alumni to continue to refine documentation of our ex-students: where they are, what they are doing, what are their plans for the future (short and long term), etc. with the intention of creating a support network for Auroville youth who are exploring the world.
Extend and cover the outside dining and study area, and raise the funds to finance the work.

Conclusion

Within Auroville's endeavor towards unending education and human unity, the development of an educational system that equally benefits teachers and students is a necessary step in helping us reach our fuller potential as conscious, discerning individuals who are open to different ways of thinking about and responding to the world around us. Our primary goal continues to be the development and implementation of an integral education that is deeply rooted in the ideals of Auroville.