SAIIER 2021:Future School

Last School		Aikiyam School
Entity::Future School by Cameron for Future School team

Future School seeks to provide an environment in which Auroville youth and those dedicated to their education may reach their potential. Inspired by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, the school aspires to create a platform for self-discovery. Students have the opportunity to find a deeper understanding of their responsibility to self, community and the world.

The school reflects the international character of Auroville, bringing together students and teachers from many different nationalities and cultures in a spirit of openness and harmony.

By offering many choices, the school seeks to balance independence and freedom on one hand, with respect and responsibility on the other. Students are supported in an interactive and open environment. They are at the same time encouraged to be aware of their choices and to forge their own path of growth and progress.

We strive to build an environment and educational program which will help the students to become self-aware and motivated while reaching their potential.

Activities of the year:

For the school year 2020-21 there were 58 students enrolled, sixteen in the ninth grade, fourteen in the tenth grade, seventeen in the eleventh, and eleven in the twelfth.

We offer a wide range of subjects to our students:

Languages - English (with Literature and Language options), French and German;
Mathematics;
Pure Sciences - Physics, Chemistry, Biology;
Social Sciences - History, Geography, Economics, Psychology, Global Citizenship, Sports;
Extra-curricular subjects such as Photography, Film, and Art.

Through our mentoring program we assist the students in making good individual choices that help them to explore and progress.

The school incorporates many different teaching/learning methods and environments: interactive teaching with class discussions, projects, tutorials, independent research, traditional lectures, online classrooms; small and large groups, one-on-one approach, peer teaching, work experience and self-study. In this way we try to meet the needs of each individual.

We feel that the combination of required areas of study and choice of subjects gives students the chance to both get in touch with new areas of knowledge as well as explore their own interests and needs.

This academic year due to the coronavirus pandemic the school was physically shut. We resorted to online classes using Google Classroom. By doing this we worked towards meeting our school goal – development of the mind – maintaining full school hours throughout the entire lockdown period.

The Google Classrooms had been set up for Future School by Prashant in 2016, but with the onset of the pandemic we made full use of them. Rather than using them as a supplementary resource to in-person class we made the shift to online learning. Teachers and students adapted to using Google Docs, Google Meet, Jamboard and other online resources to continue their education throughout the pandemic. Students learned how to submit work online, receive feedback and edit work all online.

Outcomes:

Future School managed to run its classes through the lockdown and provide education to the youth of Auroville.

This year Future School also started a Teachers’ reflection group, where through weekly meetings teachers had the opportunity to discuss teaching methodology, and were encouraged to try to implement new methods in their classes.

Research highlights - online learning:

The shift this year to online education provided an interesting opportunity to compare online education and the opportunities it provides with in-classroom learning. The advantages of online learning were the flexibility of sharing resources with the student body, and the greater computer literacy this encouraged in the entire school – a skill that is becoming increasingly valid in the modern world. However we found the net impact of online learning a negative. The loss of classroom interaction was detrimental to learning. Furthermore students and teachers missed the social element of classroom learning, and the fluidity of in-person discussions. Many students found asking questions and contributing to discussions over Meet overwhelming due to the novelty of having a class online. Some students also reported difficulty remaining engaged in classes without the physical presence of a teacher.

Reflections:

This year brought us many challenges. There was the pandemic, we had many technical issues with online classes, we had a shortage of both administrators and teachers and we struggled with the budget cuts. The unforeseen closing of the school was the first challenge we faced this academic year having to make the shift to online classes within two weeks. Running online classes required all the teachers to have access to the internet. This was challenged by both our server being hacked in the middle of the first term and a lightning strike that did significant damage to our infrastructure. We have had to adapt to having no full-time administrative staff due to difficulties finding qualified people, and also we will stop offering Global Citizenship and Psychology for incoming students next year due to teacher shortages. The insufficient budget was extremely challenging, due to the wages not being raised last year we lost a long-run employee who had worked eight years at Future School. We cut down on all expenses we could including staff welfare costs, repair costs, and printing – but we do not see this as being sustainable in the long run.

All of the above challenges however led us to developing greater resilience as a school. The ability to adapt to difficult situations and the capacity to find areas of improvement in each setback has proven meaningful to us throughout the year. We have drawn together as a team, both students and staff working together to achieve our educational goals. We have shifted the entire school system online onto Google Drive, making our documents more secure. Furthermore we have streamlined our processes to try and keep the administration running.

Future School learned that we have the ability to adapt and evolve through challenging times. As a team and as individuals we learned that we have the capacity to surpass our preconceived limitations. And on a more mundane level, we all learned a lot about using technology to aid education. The initial shift online was a crucial moment where students and teachers came together to cooperate in building a new educational framework to carry us through the pandemic.

Conclusion:

Our goal for this year was the development of the mind. We tried this academic year to enhance mental capacities through an emphasis on academic studying and learning. Despite all the challenges and changes we faced we managed to complete a full academic year and cover the standard educational material we would have studied. On a more noteworthy element this year allowed us to develop the mental endurance and the capacity of the mental to work against the vital distaste for demanding work.

Our goal for next year will be: To discover and see the Truth behind apparent life happenings and events.