Before visiting, I had never heard of Loreto Day, or its fiery principal. Irish-born Sister Cyril is nearing her 50th year as a nun in India. She’s a story in herself, but I want to tell you more about this school.
When Sister Cyril became Principal in 1979, Loreto School - in existence since 1857 - was predominantly a middle class institution, serving a token number of non fee-paying students. She felt “uneasy” about being part of a school system that taught a privileged few, while millions of Indian children got virtually no schooling at all. She vowed to do what the school could to change that.
The school is based on three principles – community, flexibility, and simplicity. The community principle is not only about creating a sense of community within the school, but espouses that the school needs to be outwardly focused to the poor beyond its walls.
Today, Loreto has 1400 pupils, of whom 700 are totally free and from the nearby slums. These children, in turn, along with those who pay fees, are involved in reaching out to others even less fortunate through a broad spectrum of services:
- A feeding program for homeless elderly. The day I was there, many more huge kettles of dhal, potatoes, rice and onions were cooking than could ever be eaten by the students. I learned that the students bring food to the elderly who live on the nearby streets and train stations, and share a meal with them. (The children know where the street-dwelling elderly are.)
- A drop-in school for street children. Called the Rainbow program because “like a rainbow, they come and go as they please, giving joy as they appear,” homeless children are welcomed into the school at any time throughout the day convenient to them (because they often have to pick up odd jobs to feed themselves). On the roof of the school, the day students in Grade 5-10 teach them basic reading and numbers on a one-on-one basis. (Each class has assigned 2 periods/ week).
Many of the street children have families to which they return; others do not. Some of them sleep overnight at the school. In the morning, they roll up their mats and store them, and the rooftop returns to being their classroom. Begun in 1985, this child-to-child teaching was first proposed by Loreto students. On average, some 50 street children a year are mainstreamed into regular schools, including Loreto, as a result of this program.
- An intervention into hidden domestic child labor. Started in 2002, this program reaches the most forgotten children of all – those employed in urban houses as domestic “servants.” Many children, as young as 5-6 years of age, are thus “employed.” (A survey of 1999 estimated 4900 such children in Calcutta.) Class 5-7 children of Loreto School have formed into small clubs of 4 girls each. They try to make contact with child servants in their neighborhoods - and watch for new arrivals. Together, they ask each “employer” if he/she will let the child out for an hour of school/ week. To date, employers who would have slammed the door on adults who asked the same thing, have allowed these children servants to meet at ‘veranda schools’ the girls establish – and the one hour/ week in many cases has grown to several hours/ week or an agreement to attend the Rainbow school.
- Rural outreach. Every Thursday, girls in Class 11 and 12 go to nearby rural villages and teach basic reading/ math to children – using a specially developed curriculum.
The best evidence of Loreto’s principle of simplicity in action that I saw was their ‘barefoot teacher’ training program. This initiative has been running since 1988 and has trained 4000 rural ‘teachers.’
The program uses the term ‘barefoot’ to refer to the fact that people need only feet to walk – that is, shoes are a luxury. Similarly, given the literacy needs of millions of children, a regular teacher education represents a luxury. The ‘barefoot’ program consists of a one-month program that prepares a person with some education (maybe equal to Class 9 or 10 high school level) with methods to teach reading and math to others.
I saw the ‘kit’ they are issued at the month’s conclusion that includes a basic chalkboard and a few materials. However, these ‘barefoot teachers’ are encouraged to use local resources, such as pebbles for counting or dyes from local plants/ spices for paints. (When I visited, they were teaching nursery songs to the teachers so they could use them to help children learn English. I had the privilege of teaching “Itzy Bitzy Spider” to some 30 teachers in training.) Oh, and by the way, these rural teachers also live at the school!
You can probably already see how the principle of flexibility is utilized in this multi-faceted school building! It is an orthodox school, a night shelter, a training institution, a ‘soup kitchen’, a drop-in school for streetchildren, and a residence for para-teacher trainees. Oh, and I forgot to tell you that they hold Principal and Teacher training on how to transform schools!
How does Loreto do academically? The school measures well against other schools. More than 50% of Year 12 pupils attain a “first class” pass annually. Additionally, this school was chosen in 1997 as a study site for “Best Practice” in India.
How has it happened? There are a lot of reasons given for the success of Loreto. It’s obvious it has a visionary leader, clear principles, teacher responsibility and freedoms. But, I’m intrigued by the possibility that one important ingredient is the expectation that all – teachers, administrators, and students alike – are engaged in the hard issues of poverty and each must make a contribution.
These results reflect a transformation process of about 20 years. In the journey, as Sister Cyril says, they learned that “the ways of schools are not inevitable.” I personally loved the ‘common myths’ that Sister Cyril has posted on the wall:
Ten Common Myths that Loreto Challenges
- Schools need massive physical resources to educate properly.
- Low teacher: pupil ratios contribute to effective teaching and learning
- You can’t run two schools within one building, at the same time.*
- Children need to be protected from the harsh realities of life.
- Good fences make good neighbors.
- Teachers are too overloaded to take on new and challenging roles.
- You must know where the money is coming from before you make the plan.
- Freedom is dangerous. Teachers and pupils will take advantage of it.
- Rich and poor children mix like oil and water.
- You can’t change the basic structure of how a school operates.
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I can’t get over this school. I don’t consider this just an interesting story about one school in India that is reaching so many more kids than anyone ever dreamed possible. I think of it as a ‘wake up’ call for us. In America, right now, 30% of our kids are not graduating from high school on time or at all. How might we use this story from Loreto School to ignite our own ideas of how to reach them? As Meier challenged us: “The question is not, Is it possible to educate all children well? but rather, Do we want to do it badly enough?”**
America can learn from India. Let’s challenge a few myths today.
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* Revised now to read: “You can’t run two schools, a soup kitchen, a night shelter, and a teacher training program within one building, at the same time.”
** D. Meier (1995), The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons for America from a Small School in Harlem. Massachusetts: Beacon.
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