As the saying goes: Each time a child is born the whole world lights up with hope. Indeed every child is born with immense potential. All that we as a society have to do is to provide a homely, fear-free, natural, competition-free atmosphere full of love and affection for the child. This will enable the child to flower into a responsible and caring individual with a zeal to excel in any chosen vocation.
Education is essentially the drawing out of the learning instinct that already exists in the child. For this to happen, teaching and learning has to be creative, rooted in the soil and experiential. A good school is one where learning is natural and joyful. Children should enjoy their childhood while learning various life skills. Hence in Baala Balaga we have tried to create a very child-friendly and eco-friendly ambience. We strongly believe that mother tongue / local language should be the medium of instruction. This enables the child to grasp various concepts and subjects with clarity and express one's ideas and opinions properly. It also helps the child in better application of his/her knowledge in real life situations. At the same time we do realize the importance of English and hence in Baala Balaga English is taught as a language from the first grade itself and children switch over to English medium from eighth grade onwards.
The prevailing concept in the field of education is something like this: the children are empty vessels and the teachers are overflowing tanks of knowledge. The children should silently fill into their brains whatever is poured from above, memorise all of it and vomit it out on the day of the examination. But from the very beginning we have thought otherwise. Like a seed a child has all the potential within since birth and just needs an appropriate environment to grow up and flower to one's fullest extent.That school which has such an atmosphere for the child will be a good school. A good school should be like a home to the child and a good home should be like a school. If a child gets a fear-free open atmosphere then education will never become boring or burdensome for such a child. That is why we believe that in every house parents should seriously get to know about the various developmental aspects of a child. When such a concerted effort is put into practice naturally every house will become a school and children will get a holistic and joyful education.
A healthy student to teacher ratio is extremely important to ensure adequate care and guidance for every child. So we have only 25 students in a class. This not only enables the teacher to provide individual attention to all children but also makes it possible for every child to use various opportunities for self development. From the very beginning we have tried to integrate cultural, sports and environmental activities into the syllabus. Thus our school is always full of songs, dances, plays, treks, walks etc. In fact, some people have the mistaken impression that ours is a play school with only cultural activities!