To The Principal...yours sincerely - The Book

‘To, The Principal…yours sincerely’ is a book that takes you through each and every aspect of school life…physically and pedagogically. So, while the book talks about all the physical spaces in the school…the laboratory, the music room, the art room, the library…it also explores the importance of these spaces visa-vis learning.

Apart from this...the book also talks about important school related matters like annual days, teachers’ day, independence day and critically analyses them to rediscover the meaning in them. So, while the books talks directly to the librarian, musician, Principal and the Vice-Principal in the reader it does ask them about what they are doing to the school?

While the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) talks about the larger issues at hand in the school, this book talks about the nitty gritties of school life, which have an impact on the ‘lonely’ child in the school. One by one the author picks up a theme and dissects it to find what it would mean to the child…for whom this entire show is being run. Where is the child in every aspect of the school? In that sense the book is also child-centric.

So, it may start with experiments and practicals in school and would go on to events in school like the independence day. Nevertheless, it is not an effort of the author to touch all aspects of school life and has left a lot of them…as he didn’t want it to be a text –book in school management…but just a book, which will help people rediscover this boring place…the school.

Towards the end, the author does move on to connecting the school with the development of the country and planet. While a majority of our problems as a developing country are to mitigate corruption, better roads, remove poverty…the school system is geared towards scientific development, robotics and what not. A clear mismatch between what this country wants and what it is teaching. Which was the last school you heard of who did a competition around removing corruption in India or poverty for that matter? No one.

What we require is development education or Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)…for kids to come together and study and experiment with development problems in this country and not just focus on robots in robotic labs…otherwise generations of chief guests at Indian schools will keep speaking about kids changing India…and all that schools will produce is highly skilled engineers working for multinationals …who have no clue on how to make India a developed country. Schools will keep adding to the Indian educated class, which cribs about this country and doesn’t know what to do about it because the school never taught them to engage with the country’s problems.Abha Adams has written the foreword of the book.
Acclaimed cartoonist Rustam Vania has done the illustrations for the book. The book is published by Leadstart

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