Circle’s Case For Reinvention: A Case For Rediscovery

“Innovation isn’t simply ‘newness’….sometimes it means that which we have known for many years but have lost in our systemic practice of school.”

 -Radical Departures by the Reinvention Lab

We, at The Circle, talk a lot about reinvention. Our tagline is predicated on the ambitious notion of ‘reinventing India, school by school.’ Reinvention, for us, goes beyond innovation. It is not merely thinking of new ideas from scratch to solve a problem that exists in education in India today. We believe, in fact, that many of Indian education’s current problems can be solved by diving deep into our ancestral and civilisational understanding of learning; by delving into revolutions that have already been started and have transformed life paths before; by leveraging the wisdom testing through the ages, and adapting them to the needs of today. In essence, we make the case for rediscovery as an essential element of reinvention.

For years or so, and even that has existed in parallel with (and eventually encroached upon) models more ancestral, more attuned to humanity and nature, more focused on well-being than narrow academic pursuits. India, especially, has been home to several systems of learning - chatuspadis (gurukuls), viharas, ghatikas, agraharas, basadis were some of the models prevalent across regions in the ancient period, transforming into pathshalas, maktabas, and tols during the medieval period. 

There were, of course, legendary spaces for higher education such as Nalanda and Takshila. 

They focused deeply on natural sciences and languages, incorporating logic, spirituality, economics, history, sports, and so on. 

We have much to learn from these systems. They were deeply personal, focused on the whole child,  mixed-age groups, and interdisciplinary. Several of these systems, however, were exclusive to children from more privileged backgrounds (high-caste, male) - something that remains true about access to innovative, deep learning even today. The evolution of the world - industrialization and colonization, and consecutive population expansion, rapid urbanization, democratization all led to a shift in how learning happened for India’s children. Some of the changes were encroachment of a specific model (McKauley), and some of them were necessities (standard board and curriculum). 

"Our ancient years are the futures that are going to be."

-Gitanjali Angmo, Co-founder & CEO, HIAL

At the turn of the 20th century, several reformers, educationists and philosophers were going back to that idea of education deeply ingrained in our ancestral heritage. These include Jiddu Krishnamurthi, Shri Aurobindo, Rabindranath Tagore, and Mahatma Gandhi, among others. These educational philosophies have seen a resurgence and  influenced contemporary education by promoting a more integrated, values-driven, and student-centered approach to learning. Even so, they remained only within the reach of the already aware and privileged.

Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of education, known as Nai Taleem or New Education, was rooted in his broader principles of truth, nonviolence, and self-reliance. Nai Taleem aimed to create an educational system that would be deeply connected to the social, economic, and cultural context of India. Umang, a democratic learning space in Sonipat, demonstrates this Gandhian set of values and is deeply rooted in the concept of Swaraj. Jiddu Krishnamurthi’s views were centered on fostering self-awareness, critical thinking, and the development of a balanced, integrated individual. Pathashaala, meaning "School of Life," is an alternative school that The Circle’s team visited in Elichimpet outside of Chennai. It draws inspiration from Krishnamurti's educational philosophy, focuses on holistic education and self-discovery, and focuses on the pillars of nature-as-teacher, Socratic thought around values, and community between educator-learners and learner-educators. Sri Aurobindo valued play and creativity as crucial elements of education, promoting imaginative and joyful engagement with learning. Inspired by Aurobindo's vision, Mirambika School in New Delhi follows integral education principles. It focuses on the holistic development of children, incorporating spiritual and cultural aspects into the learning process.

Savitribai Phule and Fatima Sheikh, 19th-century revolutionary educators, championed an inclusive and progressive philosophy. They built a chain of schools in Pune that catered to the deeply marginalized - with transformative student outcomes. Their approach emphasized critical thinking, practical and relevant curricula, and community involvement, aiming to challenge societal norms and promote social reform. Their work forms the basis for a core argument that The Circle espouses - if one believes in reinventing education in India today, solving for inequity isn’t optional, it is a non-negotiable.

(Nazaria, a grassroots arts collective based in Mumbai, works at the intersection of digital arts education, media democratisation, and community activism within low-income, informal settlements in Mumbai. They believe that if creatively-inclined youth and women from marginalised identities are equipped with the tools, platforms, and creative agency to tell their own stories, in their own voice, and on their own terms, what they share with the word can transform our ways of understanding and responding to critical social and environmental issues.)

“Innovation solves problems. The most inextricable problem in education is inequity.“

-Radical Departures by the Reinvention Lab

At The Circle, we exist to reinvent learning for India’s children, in doing that we’re committed to serving those who need it most by focusing on solving the problem of educational inequity. Reinvention can be amplifying best practices and bright spots that work to have a systemic impact, or it could mean bringing back traditional and forgotten practices and philosophies that serve local contexts more, or it could mean adapting to the changing world and devising solutions that weren’t needed before but are necessary now for all our children to thrive with opportunity and choice.