Opinion
Part 2 – Students themselves tell us what they want in a school! Are we ready to listen, minus judgement?
Forget about what students ‘need’. Students themselves tell us what they want! Are we ready to listen, minus judgement? Here is the second part in our series on children’s views on their dream school.
From the government to the management to educators to parents – everyone seems to have a say in the school system but for the main stakeholders: the children themselves. With World Children’s Day (November 20) and National Children's Day (November 14) this month, ScooNews threw open its pages, inviting this long-neglected and most important segment – children – to tell us exactly how they envision their dream school. Read on, educators, there might be nuggets of value for us all in here…
“There will be seesaws and dance classes”
Qiana Shu
My dream school would have a swimming pool, playground and a place for very young kids, with lots of toys for them. There will also be seesaws to play on, and dance classes. The older and younger children would play together.
(Qiana Shu, age 7, studies in class I at Vibgyor Roots and Rise, Mumbai)
“Children will live their childhood because it will never come back”
Atulit Singh Kushwah
Schools are our second home. We spend most of our time in school. School helps us to build the foundation of our future lives because we learn to read, to write, and to understand the difference between good and evil. School helps us to build confidence in ourselves. School makes us smarter, more curious about knowledge and determined to find our place in the world. My dream school would have good teachers. The teachers here are kind and helpful. They are not only our teachers but also our good friends. In my dream school teachers will emphasis on other activities also rather than studies only. Other activities like music, dance, theatre, sports are equally important. I want children to be free and learn through fun-based activities.
My dream school will have a good canteen facility with healthy food to refresh ourselves. It would have classrooms, labs, library, pools and a beautiful garden also. The school building would be surrounded with many kinds of flowers, so the sweet fragrance spreads all around. Every student should be provided tabs, so that the heavy bag would be avoided. All notes and lecture classes could be stored in tabs. We need not do a lot of homework.
In the school of my dreams I want children from all backgrounds whether rich or poor, of any caste, religion etc. I wish children to live their childhood because it will never come back. I want their childhood to be free from tensions and worries in my dream school. We will grow up to be happier there.
(Atulit Singh Kushwah studies in class II, DPS International School Singapore)
“Uniforms will be in our favourite colours”
Inika Patwardhan
I would like my dream school to be in a valley, surrounded by mountains and waterfalls. My school will have rooms for singing, dancing, and lots of other activities. I would like to have a room full of paints, crayons and papers to draw and colour whenever we want. I would also love to have a swimming pool so that we can all learn how to swim and play in the water. A garden and three sports grounds will keep us fit and healthy, so I would like that in my school. The school should also have a big trampoline in the garden. In my current school they give us food – roti, two vegetables, dal and rice. They also give us Chinese which I hate, so on that day I would like the school to allow us to get a tiffin from home. We get sweets on Friday and that is my favourite day. I would like to have sweets every day in my school. I love to write. I want all the children to wear uniforms but the uniforms have to be in our favourite colours. Instead of the school bus, my family should drop me to school. I like studies and I would like my dream school to have a class to study cartoon characters. It must also have lots of game time, where there would be lots of games and toys so I will not have to repeat games and get to play new games.
(Six-year-old Inika Patwardhan is in class I at Vidya Valley School, Pune. She loves going to school)
“Exams should be banned!”
Ahana Patnaik
I like my school very much but there are some things which I would like to change in my school to make it the perfect place to study. I want my teachers to be friendly and they should not give us any homework. When we all come to the class in the morning it’s very clean but when it’s time to go home the classroom is all messed up. I want us all to keep our classrooms clean so the school will look beautiful. Maths is a difficult subject for me and some of my friends so I want the teachers to find ways to teach the subject so it becomes easy to understand. My school should be very colourful and we should be allowed to play a lot of games so we can have fun with our friends. I wish we have more fun in class and have some class parties, as now it is only reading and writing in class. I want my teachers to give us free periods at times. I wish there were more sports at school than studies. I don’t want any school to have any exams. Exams should be banned!
(Ahana Patnaik studies in class III, Euro School North, Yelahanka)
“They should let us wear dinosaur costumes”
Siddharth Anoop
I want my school to be like my home with a toy-box full of toys. I want Vaishali aunty to be my teacher because she sings rhymes well. There should be a lot of singing and dancing in school. Teachers should give us paints and we should be able to draw on the walls. There should be lots of chocolate and gummy bears in school which we can eat all the time. There should also be chocolate ice-cream which we can eat whenever we want. There is a TV in my school and my teacher should let us watch cartoons every day. They should let us wear dinosaur costumes and I will be T-rex because he has an angry face and he is my favourite. My school should have a huge playground with swings and slides and sand toys. It should have colourful kinetic sand because then my hands won’t get dirty. Every day when I go back home, my teacher can give me a lollipop for being a good boy.
(Siddharth Anoop studies at Pitter Patter Pre-school, Bangalore)
“We would be allowed to bring our pets to school”
Aayushmaan Singh
My dream school would have timings of 8 am to 1 pm and there would be two continuous periods for games. We would have an annual Speaking Day. There would be art and karate competitions every month and we would have Saturdays off. The school would replace our heavy bags with tabs. There would be a biology lab and astronomy lab and we would learn these subjects through experiments. I would study about the universe using the telescope in our school. We would be allowed to bring our pets to school and have a special class for training them. My dream school would have a world class kitchen with cookery classes and where the students will take part in cookery competitions and also be the judges. This kitchen will feed the school mess.
(Aayushmaan Singh is a student of class VII C, Sanskar School, Jaipur)
This story was our Childrens' Day special feature in the November 2017 issue.