The Hummingbird School, located in Majuli, a river island in Assam, has been making quite the buzz for providing quality education in a place where the children might not have been able to go to school. Apart from their innovative pedagogy, it has a very flexible curriculum that adjusts according to the natural cycles, like when the island floods during the annual monsoons. Apart from educating the children of this village, it’s also responsible for training the local youth and giving them employment, leadership, and training opportunities to earn an income, which was otherwise very low.
However, what makes this school still stand out from the others is that it accepts plastic as fees from the students! Plastic bottles, bags, and other kinds of plastic waste are collected as fees, which are then recycled by the teachers and students to stop mindless plastic disposal around the island.
Today, with 240 students, of which 60 are hostellers, and 19 teachers, the Hummingbird School stands as a symbol of holistic learning. The sex ratio of the students is quite commendable and the school fee either free or nominal. The teachers are mostly volunteers, and many are from different places all over India, like Chennai, Manipur, and Delhi. Most teachers do not own typical qualifications like B.Ed. or TET which is required to teach, but on the other hand, this is far from a typical school.
Teachers are accommodated after a successful training program. But, like someone wisely noted, the most important factor to teach is the willingness to learn. One such teacher, Digangana Medhi, who was a journalist by profession in a leading daily, decided to leave her job and the bustling city life to join the school as an English faculty for students in class five. She narrates how the decision to work here has changed her life for the better.
She started off by apologising for not being able to respond to my calls the previous evening. “I was out for a party”, she laughed. “We were celebrating last night because the villagers had now officially handed over the ownership of the land to the Hummingbird School. I guess that speaks something about the work we are doing here.” I agree that it actually does!
I ask her to describe the work they are doing which has garnered such a level of trust and positivity in the village. Apart from teaching the regular curriculum, the school teaches indigenous crafts like bamboo weaving, organic dying, and weaving cloth, fishing, and agricultural activities which then find their way back to their hostel mess! The school holds regular workshops on gender-sensitisation and environmental awareness to make the students conscious beings.
The school does not believe in the strict traditional sense of examination and rote learning. The syllabus is not completed for the sake of completion without waiting for students to catch up. There are countless, innovative ways of assessment that decide the curriculum and learning of the student. This encourages students to be motivated by knowledge rather than participate in a rat race to get marks.
I asked her what the Hummingbird School experience gave her on a personal level. “The love and warmth of the students and villagers here are unparalleled. Most of us come from very traditional, strict, and formal versions of schooling. This is very different! I would like to believe that I have learned as much, or even more than I have taught.”
Medhi went on to tell me how teaching at the Hummingbird School gave her such a rich experience and let her “learn new things every day and learn them in a new way.” She said, “I often row a boat to the other bank to visit the students and their families, something I could have never been able to do in a city or in a conventional school. I walk all over the place. There is public transport but I love these long, lovely walks through nature. I can’t do that in the city, right?“, she asked, breaking into a smile.
It’s usually the city life that pulls people out of the villages. I wanted to ask her if the city pulls her back now that she’s stayed quite a bit here. “Sometimes I remember the city life but I don’t miss it much”, Digangana said. “I am absolutely happy here…and have changed so much as a person that I wish to continue being in this happy state. The life here gives you so much yet helps you become a ‘minimalist’ in terms of material wants.”
When I asked her what a “minimalist life” meant for her, she said “It’s basically to cut down on your unnecessary consumption and also methods of consumption. I don’t live the life of a heretic. When I go out and feel like having a cold drink, I have one. But I would rather get a small glass bottle that’s enough for my craving than a larger one in a handy plastic bottle. It’s not just about reducing, but also reusing and recycling as you go.”
Her life today, amidst the river, green and golden fields in harmony with nature has taught her a way of being that she could only have read in books earlier. Following Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary, his words still resonate, “Education is the development of body, mind, and soul.” The work done by the Hummingbird School in Majuli exemplifies exactly that. They give back to the community, as much as they receive.
Note: The author is part of the current batch of the Writer’s Training Program.