Raighat Besant School is one of the six Krishnamurti schools in India that strive to educate children based on the philosophy of Shri J Krishnamurti. The other schools are Rishi Valley School, Sahyadri School, The Valley School, The School and Patashala. Here, teachers and students are co-learners, learning about themselves and the world around them. Education is not just about learning specific disciplines or subjects, or acquisition of skills in the pursuit of a career but an enquiry into the whole movement of life itself. The following words of J. Krishnamurti best captures the intent of the school: “"There must be a cultivation of the totality of the mind, and not merely the giving of information. In the total development of the human being through right education, the quality of love must be nourished and sustained from the very beginning ....... Love cannot be brought through knowledge; and a mind that is pursuing knowledge without love, is a mind that deals in ruthlessness and aims merely at efficiency. The man of right education, he is considerate to all, including the animals and plants, and this is reflected in his behaviour and manner of talking." The school is residential and co-educational, with English as the medium of instruction. It is affiliated to the CBSE, New Delhi. The school has approximately 250 students in Classes III-XII. A teacher-student ratio of 1:5 and class strengths of less than 25 across the school promote greater classroom interaction. Learning in the Junior School (Classes IV-VII) is mainly through activities, especially arts and crafts that nurture creative development. Activities like storytelling, plays, town watching and assembly presentations inculcate skill sets in children that are crucial for academic excellence. At the level of Senior School (Class IX-XII), children are accorded higher levels of responsibility with the curriculum reflecting the onset of qualifying exams. Reflecting the higher academic demands, senior students spend an hour and a half in prep classes supervised by a teacher. The choices available for pursuing senior secondary are discussed from the beginning of class X. Students seeking admission to Class XI can choose from Science, Commerce or Humanities groups, and a wide variety of subject options including Psychology, Computer Science, Economics, Political Science, Physical Education and Fine Arts. The sprawling; wooded campus on the banks of the Ganga in the city of Varanasi provides an ideal setting for a school. Campus life is modest and comfortable, without the frenetic pace and needless distractions of city life. Teachers live on campus, and share responsibilities in a variety of areas from managing the dining hall to taking the children out on educational tours, house-parenting (looking after a few children in a hostel) to conducting hobby classes. Apart from Academics, the school is concerned about cultivating a sound body. The spacious campus provides rich opportunities for children to walk and exercise. The children spend on an average about an hour or more each day in vigorous games like football, cricket, basketball, handball, volleyball, badminton, table tennis etc. The nutritional program is well balanced with a in house snacks plan to satiate their need for tasty items. The food plan is complemented by produce from our own farm & dairy activities conducted on the rural side of our land bank. This also provides educational opportunities for children. The school believes in harnessing the power of information technology for the academics and also to improve general awareness. Coding based computer science curriculum starts in the middle school with seniors able to choose Computer Science as a subject. We have a tablet based access infrastructure with best-of-breed books, magazines, newspapers, videos, blogs and other multimedia & app based tools for children to tap the power of net. At the same time, we believe in creating a safe environment for such activities and hence the entire network is protected with firewalls keeping out inappropriate content as well as social media out of reach. As children move from junior to middle school and then onto senior school, the school engages them in deeper conversations on the questions that Krishnamurti raised about self, identity, attention and awareness.
