A Novel Way of Learning
A school with a difference
Today I wish to share and bring about a very innovative way of learning. You must have heard of regular schools and ancient schools but I am going to talk about a rare school that not many people know.
There have been many reports about it in newspapers and television in India, yet very few people in the world are aware of it.
One of the most interesting schools is located in a remote village area in Madhya Pradesh, in India where there are very poor people.
In Budhela village in Singrauli district of Madhya Pradesh, there is a school named The Veena Vadini Public School. There are 150 students enrolled in the school.
This school is with a difference. In this school, there is a novel way of learning. The students are taught to write with both hands. They are able to write in 5 languages.
It challenges the notion of a ‘dominant right hand’ by training all of its students to be skillful with both hands.
Vringad Sharma founded the school on July 8, 1999. He was earlier a soldier. He was inspired by India’s former President of India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, who was known for his ambidextrous skills.
Vringad left his army training and first learned the skill and then started to spread the word around. Then he experimented by imparting this training to a few students.
In the beginning, it was hard work, and not too many people were adventurous to learn because it required a lot of discipline and skill.
Vringad did some research and found out that in the ancient Nalanda University, the students were trained to write about 32 thousand words per day. He then founded this not-so-ordinary school on July 8, 1999.
Students in this are taught to write with both their hands at a young age. They are made to practice continuously until they are able to write up to 24,000 words in about 11 hours.
Vringad calls it a spiritual practice because such skills cannot be mechanical. This skill can be achieved through meditation, determination, and yoga.
To achieve the purpose of developing this skill meditation and yoga are taught daily for about one and a half hours in school.
Writing with both hands simultaneously increases the ability to remember, sharpens the mind, and most importantly saves time.
Students learn to count in Urdu, Hindi, and English.
They are able to write from 1 to 100 in Urdu in just about 45 seconds, in Hindi and English in 1 minute. They are taught to translate about 250 words from 2 languages in a minute. The most interesting thing is they write a mathematical table of 2 with the left hand and a table of 3 with the right hand.
The takeaway
Our brain has two parts. The left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body.
The theory of Nobel Prize winner, psychobiologist Roger W. Sperry (1960) states that the brain’s two hemispheres function differently.
The left brain is verbal analytical, and orderly and is called the digital brain. It is good at reading, writing, and computations.
The right side of the brain is visual, intuitive, and creative. They both work as a whole and can be trained to use both sides effectively together.
The people who can work or are trained to work with both their hands together are called ambidextrous.
To wrap up
In this school, the left and right brain are treated as a whole based on the theory and with discipline training, and skill they function easily and quickly.
©Dr. Preeti Singh, 2024.
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