THE VALLEY
Rishi Valley School
No. 41, March 1998
 
 

FROM THE STUDENT EDITORS

Hello! - and welcome to the II Term edition of the Rishi Valley Newsletter.

In our last newsletter we had raised many questions. This term it would appear that some of them have been answered. Rangingfrom the creation of clubs, to garbage collection, to organizing several hikes, there has been increased enthusiasm from teachersand students alike.

Inspired by Sridhar Sir, a group of students formed a Literary Club. Its activities ranged from discussing Ayn Rand excerpts toviewing interesting films. On the initiative of a large number of students, Shirali Sir held a few sessions on Astronomy. Under thebeautiful night skies, he showed us how to read star charts and identify some familiar constellations. Taking advantage of oursurroundings, hikes were organized for almost every class; some were led by Senior students!

A striking example of student enthusiasm is the formation of an animal care group, RVAC (Rishi Valley Animal Care). SashaSud (11th), leader and initiator, hopes to extend his programme to all the animals of Rishi Valley but is currently concentratingonly on the stray dogs. RVAC cares for the stray dogs by feeding and grooming for them regularly and is interested in dogpopulation control with assistance from a voluntary group in Bangalore.

Our music teachers Srinivasan Sir and Seshadri Sir will be visiting University College School in London, UK, as part of theRVS-UCS teacher exchange programme. They will be giving many concerts during the tour and accompanying some renownedartists. We are sure that it will be a most enriching experience for them.

We bid sad farewells to several teachers this term. Ambika Akka, Sumita Akka and Padmini Akka-who have been with us formany years-are leaving us. The term also said goodbye to Aroop Sir and Bipin Sir. We shall miss them a lot and wish them wellfor their future careers. Parekh Sir too will be away from School, but only temporarily-he will be spending the year teaching inSahyadri School (KFI). We look forward to seeing him next year.

As the year comes to an end, yet another batch of ISC and ICSE students will be leaving us. The School will surely feel theirabsence and we will miss them.

The term has been culturally productive and eventful and we hope the enthusiasm carries into the coming year.

- Ishier Raote, Arzanne De Vitre, Kiran Keshavamurthy, Kadambari Misra, Pronoti Datta, Theodore S. Kaye.

FROM THE PRINCIPAL

Following the pattern set during earlier years, the II term has been culturally much richer than the I term. There have beenworkshops and events of one kind or another right through the term; practically every class has partaken of the feast. Theexamination batches too had their fun, with exposure to a rock climbing workshop.

New programmes instituted this term include the class outings to Kaigal, a plot of land near Palamaner (less than 2 hours drivefrom Rishi Valley), owned by the KFI and currently being used by the three southern KFI schools. The idea is to exposestudents to a rich natural environment in small doses, via short stays at the site. Meals are prepared by the students and escortsthemselves over a wood fire, and washing is done in a nearby stream that runs through the plot. There is even a waterfall withinwalking distance. The experience is thus very much an open-air one. In keeping with the intention behind the programme, musicsystems are not permitted to be brought along, nor card games, frisbees, volleyballs, ...; indeed, anything in the nature of outsideentertainment. So far the experience has proved to be a very positive and enjoyable one. (The students were reluctant toreturn!) We hope to make these outings a permanent feature of the term calendar.

Krishnamurti's words on man's relationship with nature come to mind as I write this.

"We have become far too clever. Our brains have been trained to become verbally, intellectually, very bright. They are crammed with a great deal of information and we use this for a profitable career. A clever, intellectual person is praised, shown honour. Such people seem to usurp all the important places in the world: they have power, position, prestige. But their cleverness betrays them at the end. In their hearts they never know what love is or deep charity and generosity, for they are enclosed in their vanity and arrogance. This has become the pattern of all the highly endowed schools. A boy or girl, accepted in the conventional school, gets trapped in modern civilisation and is lost to the whole beauty of life.

When you wander through the woods with heavy shadows and dappled light and suddenly come across an open space, a green meadow surrounded by stately trees, or a sparkling stream, you wonder why man has lost his relationship with nature and the beauty of the earth, the fallen leaf and the broken branch. If you have lost touch with nature, then you will inevitable lose relationship with another. Nature is not just the flowers, the lovely green lawn or the flowing waters in your little garden, but the whole earth with all the things on it. We consider that nature exists for our use, for our convenience, and so lose communion with the earth. This sensitivity to the fallen leaf and to the tall tree on a hill is far more important than all the passing of examinations and having a bright career. Those are not the whole of life. Life is like a vast river with a great volume of water without a beginning or an ending. We take out of that fast-running current a bucket of water and the confined water becomes our life. This is our conditioning and our everlasting sorrow."

An outing to Kaigal is not going to change in any essential way our relationship with nature; nor will a trek in the Himalayas. Butit may help .... It may open our eyes to a world to which all too often we give very little attention. The world of nature is allaround us, from a sunset with its supreme dignity and silence, to a tuft of grass or flower growing unnoticed in a ditch. Probablythe most extraordinary thing about nature is its complete anonymity and lack of centre-it does not demand to be seen,appreciated, photographed-and also the touch of mystery about it which is so utterly uncontrived. Can we understand andcapture the essence of that feeling?

Another idea being tried out this term is that of attaching a 'tutor' to a small group of students (numbering ten or so). The idea isto increase the interaction betwen staff and students and to provide an additional avenue for students to access when they feelthe need to do so. (The existing avenues are those provided by the Class teacher and the House parent. ) The programme hasbegun on a quiet but successful note, and we hope to enlarge its scope. It seems particularly relevant for standards 7 and 8, andperhaps for standard 9 too-this being the entry point into the senior school.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the years of adolescence are difficult years for our children. This may sound naive andfatuous, perhaps true tautologically; but things have not always been this way. There have been times when this country wasmore stable, when life was less open-ended, more secure, more certain. But times are changing rapidly, under the onslaught oftechnology and the media and the aggressive demand for entertainment. And by and by we are seeing these changes reflected inour own students, particularly the younger ones. In the western countries it has now become routine to find traumatic difficultiesexperienced during the growing-up years, and it would seem that girls have by far much more harrowing 'rites of passage' thanboys. "With puberty girls crash into junk culture" writes Mary Pipher in Reviving Ophelia; she wonders why at a time when thewomen's movement has made so many gains, the culture as a whole has become so much more oppressive towards girls. She isof course writing about American society, but is the situation in India so very different? Unfortunately, no .... The peer culture ismuch tougher today than it was twenty years back, and this is as true of India as it is of America. "Girls today are ... coming ofage in a more dangerous, ... media saturated world. They face incredible pressures to be beautiful and sophisticated." She adds,"Wholeness is shattered by the chaos of adolescence." These words may not apply wholesale to our social environment; and yetthe reality of this country too is cause for deep concern. What is the right action in the face of such a problem?

What is the problem, really? Is it lack of relationship, and therefore profound isolation? Is it that the ambient culture is so cynical(political cynicism, the hypocrisy of big business, ...) that children growing up in such environments inevitably view the worldwith the same cynical eyes? Are we witnessing the inevitable denouement of a way of life which has been around for manycenturies?-I refer to our essentially self-centred way of living, our incessant obsession with ourselves. Probably each of thesefactors is playing its part, to a lesser or greater extent. The problem is clearly not a superficial one, and there may be no simpleor direct solution.

Krishnamurti's words once more come to mind: "... [and] you wonder why man has lost his relationship with nature and thebeauty of the earth, the fallen leaf and the broken branch. If you have lost touch with nature, then you will inevitable loserelationship with another. ..." Perhaps this holds the key to what we can do. We have lost touch with the Earth; why can't webuild the relationship once more? And if we do, will this not bring wholeness and a sense of the sacred into our lives?

- Shailesh A. Shirali

NEWS FROM THE JUNIOR SCHOOL ...

This term the Junior School was exposed to a wide variety of activities, ranging from ribbon dancing to drama. There weremany interesting visitors. At the start of term, Stephan Harding, an ecologist and now a regular visitor to Rishi Valley, held a fewassemblies for the Junior School on the concept of the "ecological footprint" and how its impact can be reduced. Derek Hookheld his usual story-telling assemblies filled with innovative sound effects. (Stephan borrowed some of these sound effects for histalks!) Gerry Balcombe, now on his 15th visit to the School, directed a play, "Fudzel the Wise", with the 7th standard.

There were a number of workshops for all age groups in the Junior School. The 4th standard students participated in apuppet-making workshop conducted by a parent, Mrs Vakil. Mrs Prasanna, another parent, held a 3-week drama work-shopwith the 5th which included activities like writing dialogues. In fact the 5th even staged a play on Asthachal hill. They also learntribbon dancing from Andrea, who has now become a familiar face in Rishi Valley. The students were so enthused by theworkshop that they put up a ribbon dancing assembly two weeks after she left. Andrea also helped create a programme forJunior Games which includes a wider varity of sports.

A novel workshop on sketching and painting trees was conducted by Nalini Malani, parent and well-known artist, for the 6th.This was held in conjunction with the Science classes. The students studied trees in detail and then sketched or painted them inwater colour.

The 8th and 9th took part in a drama workshop held by Mr Vakil, a parent who is actively involved in theatre. The workshopwas mainly centered around "voice production". Dr Gieve Patel held a poetry workshop for the 7th, 8th and 9th.

Tom Harrison and Jonathan Shenfield, exchange teachers from the University College School in London, spent a few weeks inRV. Tom spent the first half of the term in the Valley and took a few classes in English and Drama for Junior School students.Jonathan who arrived a few weeks later took English classes for the 9th and French classes for Junior and Senior Schoolstudents. Both Tom and Jonathan spent a lot of time with students from the Junior School, accompanying them on hikes andexcursions and regularly visiting them in their houses.

Excursions ...

A number of hikes were organized during the term. Students from the 12th went on their last hike in RV to Bodi Konda whilethe 10th and 9th standards scaled Middle Peak and Rishi Konda respectively.

The 8th enjoyed a 3-day excursion to the Kaigal Waterfalls which seems to have become a favorite spot amongst the students.The 7th standard students went on a 4-day trip to Anantapur, Bellary, Hampi, Raichur, and the Hutti gold mines. The highlightsof the trip were the visits to the Tungabhadra Dam and the Hutti mines where the students descended 2400 feet into the earthand held 2 kg of pure gold! Mr Dalwai, a parent, helped organize the excursion. The 6th standard students were invited for 2days by the Valley School in Bangalore. The trip provided for an interesting interaction between the two sister schools.

A few music students had the opportunity to attend concerts held by L. Subramaniam and Zakir Hussain in Bangalore.

Music and Dance ...

The term has been an active one in the field of music and dance. The talents of students and staff have been in full display.

Reza Ganjavi, an Iranian settled in Switzerland, was in Rishi Valley as part of a tour to the KFI Schools, which he has beenvisiting because of his interest in Krishnaji's teachings and his love for children. He has been trained on the classical guitar, and he played several pieces for us. He followed this with some energetically sung Beatles' songs. He was accompanied on stage by Arzanne and Vandana (standard 11), who made the performance still more lively.

Mrs Revathy Ratnaswamy, professional Carnatic singer and teacher and now a regular visitor to the School, conductedworkshops during her visits. She presented assemblies with the staff and students and also gave an individual concert. For oneof the morning assemblies, Vijay and Abhijit of the 11th and the Kambe brothers (Aditya, 8th; Siddhartha, 11th) put up aspirited tabla performance. They were accompanied by Srinivasan Sir. Madhusudhan Sir and Srinivasan Sir presented anotherassembly in which they sang classical Carnatic songs. They were accompanied by Seshadri Sir on the violin and Ananth (12th)and Vijay (11th) on the mridangam. Madhusudhan Sir later presented a solo performance to lively accompaniment.

Sarah Akka's Christmas Choir came up with yet another commendable performance. The stage, lit by decorative red candles,highlighted (pun intended) the beautiful singing. It made for a very enjoyable evening.

In January, a special dinnger was followed by a presentation of Carnatic music. Students of the 8th sang a variety of songs,following which Seshadri Sir and Srinivasan Sir, on the violin and mridangam respectively, performed together with guestaccompanists on the morsing, ghatam, and mridangam. It was a great performance.

The much-awaited annual musical evening was held towards the end of term. As always it was hosted by Parekh Sir, whoinaugurated it with one of his favourite melodies. There was a lot of participation (with nearly 70 entries!) and the songs weresung with great enthusiasm, many of them spiced up by accompaniment from Ashwin (11th) on the keyboard, Ashish andAnanth (both from the 12th) on the guitar, and Abhijit's (11th) drumming. Students of 11th stole the show with eye-catchingfancy-dress costumes. (Robin Hood, Nehru, Satan and Hitler were some of the characters impresonated!) It was a memorableevening!

Sandhya Jade, an ex-student of Rishi Valley, visited the Valley in February (her first visit since she left in the 70's!) and staged adelightful Bharatanatyam performance. She is now a professional dancer and lives in California.

Sharada Akka, our dance teacher, staged a Bharatanatyam performance under the Banyan tree. She presented the concert inthe traditional style, starting with the Allaripu and ending with a Tillana. She danced with grace and the performance was apleasure to watch.

The term has clearly been a very active one culturally, and there has been enthusiastic participation from both students and staff.Music and dance performances have made for some very memorable evenings this term, and we certainly hope to see more ofthis next year.

Arts and Crafts ...

The term has seen numerous activities taking place in the field of Art.

Early during the term a pottery workshop was held by a visitor from Canada, Mrs Bharati Vadgamma, for students of the 11th.The students improved their clay-work skills greatly during the workshop. Ms Bharati also gave a talk on her occupation asradio therapist.

This year's Arts and Crafts Exhibition, "Srujana", presented an impressive collection of work done in Pottery, Batik, Tie andDye, Carpentry, Stitching and Fine Art by students ranging from the 3rd to the 12th. A few highly intricate pieces of Kalamkariwere on display too. The exhibition was over a weekend and one could sense the enormous effort that went into making it sucha success.

Another round of the annual Hand-Made Paper Workshop was put up for the 11th by Mrs Patricia Gokhale, a parent. It washeld over 3 days and proved to be hard work. The students learnt a great deal about the principles involved and the instrumentsused in paper-making. The workshop was challenging but also lots of fun!

Art students from the 9th and 11th visited the Valley School, Bangalore, for 2 days, to attend their annual "Art Mela". Theexhibits included Batik, Pottery, Carpentry, Photography, and several others. It was a colourful and enriching opportunity forour Art students to interact with the teachers and students of our sister-school.

Sports ...

The term has been an active one in the sports arena. Ample opportunities provided by the School have encouraged greaterparticipation from students.

Numerous tournaments were conducted. An inter-class Volleyball tournament held in January this year included teams from 9,10A, 10B, 11 and 12. The 12th swept through the tournament without losing a single match. A much awaited Badmintonmixed-doubles tournament, originally scheduled for last term, was finally held early this year. After an exhausting round ofmatches, JT and his 7th standard partner Aarya defeated the 10th standard duo Ravi and Shruti in the finals. In the tennisdoubles tournament which was held at the same time, Kartikeya and Vivasvat recovered from a shaky first match to beat thefavourites Nikhil and Ryan in straight sets and clinched the title.

Football proved to be especially eventful. A coach from Tirupati stayed with us for a month and worked on sharpening ourstudents' football skills. Later he invited a team coached by him in Tirupati to play against Rishi Valley. The School team wontwo out of the three games. Nearly a dozen other matches were played against other teams: the Madanapalle FootballAssociation and the Besant Theosophical College, to name just two. The success rate was phenomenal-only two matches werelost by the home team.

The term was a good one for cricket too. The traditional clash with Kolar, held as always on Republic Day, resulted in a closematch. Despite a spectacular start by the School team, Kolar won the game. Numerous other matches were played. This yearthe success rate for cricket also has been one of the best in the past decade; the cricket captain Fraaz (11th) is to becongratulated.

Visitors ...

Gieve Patel, now a regular visitor to the School, conducted a poetry workshop for children of the 7th, 8th and 9th. Heintroduced the children to poetry as a form of expression, encouraged them to create their own work and finally organized anassembly where a large number of students presented samples of their poems.

He also gave two talks on ancient Mughul painting and illustrated them with spectacular slide shows. His presentation exposedthe cultural and historical background of the Mughal rulers starting from Babar and moving on to Arangzeb. He showed thechange in their lifetstyle throughout their glorious rule of India. The slides were extremely vivid and he described them in minutedetail. This made the experience very real for the audience.

The beginning of term saw the return of much loved Derek Hook, the master storyteller. He spent several enjoyable hours withthe Juniors narrating stories in his unique style. He also presented an assembly where he narrated two stories using hisimprovised musical instruments, much to the fascination and amusement of the audience.

A remarkable student-teacher pair, Anne Hojhott and Jane Smith, visited Rishi Valley as a part of the Teacher Trainingprogramme of their College DNS in Denmark. They were interested in rural education and visited our centres. They also took avideo film of some of the educational and environmental aspects of Rishi Valley.

Augmenting Rishi Valley's environmental spirit, Spanish permaculturist Gras Eugenio spent a month helping develop our variousnature-preserving activities. He helped out in compost gardening, mending a septic tank, and renovating our soap-water tankcleanser. He also gave talks to a number of classes on his work and the need for eco-consciousness. He travels around theworld teaching methods of permaculture. We hope to see him again next term. Priscilla, a teacher from Costa Rica, spent acouple of weeks in the Valley, giving talks to the Junior School. Deeply impressed and inspired by the philosophy and ambienceof our School, she plans to set up her own school in Costa Rica based on some of the Krishnamurti's educational principles.

After living in Rishi Valley for many years, we sometimes tend to take our surroundings for granted. This term aBangalore-based outdoor gear company, Wildcraft, changed this by holding a 3-day Rock Climbing Workshop in late Januaryfor students from the 9th and 11th standards. Though it was hot, the students enthusiastically grasped at the sport (pun intended)and even rapelled down a 40-metre face in the Valley! By the end of the Workshop, the wildcraft instructors had left ourstudents with a new sense of respect for Nature and a very different perspective of their surroundings. Wildcraft has suggestedthe setting up of a rock-climbing wall for making the sport more accessible to our students.

Much to our students' delight, Australian social worker and circus trainer Louise Moriarty spent a week in the Valley holdingworkshops on acrobatics, juggling and meditation. She gave lessons to students from the junior-most to the senior-most oneverything from making human pyramids and doing the traditional Brazilian Capoiera dances to juggling clubs. Ms Moriarty hasbeen training people for the circus and can juggle upto five balls! Her boundless energy enlivened our activites and her visit wasenjoyed by everyone.
 
 

From The Estate ...

1997-98 was a good year for the Estate-we produced nearly 700 bags of Paddy, reached self-sufficiency in items such as Rice,Coconuts, Groundnuts, Tamarind, Tomatoes and many Vegetables, and had an extremely good crop of Watermelon andSugarcane. Thanks to this, students got plenty of Watermelon and Sugarcane to eat during the II Term. As the summerapproaches, we have cultivated 10 acres each of Paddy and Sugarcane, and we are now trying to grow Bananas, Sapotas andGuavas. Unfortunately the Mango yield this year is expected to be very poor (this is so for the entire region around here).Electricity shortages continue to be a source of difficulty, but thankfully the water supply has held out.

The multi-grade teaching and learning methodologies created at the Rishi Valley Education Centre have met with wideacceptance in Andhra Pradesh and other parts of India. The Director DPEP (A.P.) visited Rishi Valley and toured the satelliteschools to study the methodology adopted. There is now a proposal to adopt the methodology in some 2000 schools spreadover 20 mandals in 7 districts of the state. A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed with the District PrimaryEducation Centres of Haryana, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh for capacity building in this area. Training of programme coordinatorsfrom these states has begun; the programme is of one year duration.

Work on producing the education kit in colour for the Andhra Pradesh non-formal education department is in progress.

Vicky Colbert, an expert on multi-grade education from Colombia, visited Rishi Valley with associates from the World Bank toevaluate our work and discuss the feasibility of creating a global network. Visitors to the Rural Centre included a group from thePhillipines, and participants from Assam and Maharashtra attended courses on campus.

We have produced six audio cassettes containing twelve Panchatantra stories set to folk music by the well known folk musicianMrs Vinjamuri Sita Devi in collaboration with Mr Seshadri. There is also an accopanying workbook.