SAIIER 1985:Kottakarai - Alankuppam - Pettai Schools

New Creation School		Ilaignarkal
Kottakarai, Alankuppam, Pettai Schools

The direction of research pursued in these schools lies predominantly in the use of music, song and dance as media of teaching. Various experiments are going on in the different places. There are now 3 night schools, a day school, a crèche and a hostel for 9 children.

At the Alankuppam night school, for instance, a voluntary teacher teaches traditional bhajans on weekends and this has created a special atmosphere in the school.

At the Kottakarai night school, disco music is in and the children are encouraged to improvise lively dances.

The day school children, with the hostel boys as leaders, have been trained in singing and dancing and they take great pride in performing for village festivals.

Two children are studying Bharat Natyam in Pondicherry and they pass on what they learn to others. Teachers also learn the tabla, guitar and the harmonium. They share what they learn with the students.

Besides music, the other most important element in the entire programme is 'the cultivation of the unexpected'. Time tables and formal routines are discouraged and the ability to break into musical performance at the drop of a hat is practiced very much to the delight of the visitors. Spontaneity and liveliness are considered to be the important qualities to be brought out in the child over and above the inculcation of good behaviour and the imparting of information, although the need for literacy, fluency of verbal expression and numeral ability are not neglected.

However, the chief area of research at the Kottakarai schools is that of living together. In our large house, there live one Dutch Aurovilian, two village women (widows) with there three children and six boys from the village.

It all functions like a big family, with no formal designation: each one participating in the work according to her or his capacity.

In the construction of the new school building and the roof repairs of the house, for instance, all the residents participate when they are not busy with their regular duties, whether at school or in the training programme.

The style of life and work is very informal and lively, completely non-conventional and, therefore, very educative. No prejudices or assumptions stand unchallenged as East meets West, rich meets poor, illiterate meets the academic... on the basis of a shared life.