Rethinking School

Reflections from Farm Hill Learning

Let’s begin with a confession: we rarely call ourselves a “school.” The word feels too tight, too loaded with assumptions about time, authority, and what it means to learn. Instead, at Farm Hill, we speak of a learning community-a space where children, adults, and even the land itself are invited to learn together. This is not just semantics. It’s a deliberate stance, born from years of working in both mainstream and alternative schools, and from the deep conviction that the system itself needs questioning, not just tweaking.

System: Questioning the Frame

Most schools, whether state board or CBSE, operate within a rigid frame: fixed schedules, age-based grades, teachers as knowledge-holders, students as recipients. This frame persists even in well-intentioned “innovative” schools, where the curriculum may be more flexible but the underlying assumptions remain untouched. We’ve seen this up close-children with and without disabilities, all squeezed into a system that often ignores their needs, their rhythms, and their right to explore.

At Farm Hill, we started with a different question: What if we built from scratch, not just a new curriculum, but a new relationship to learning itself? What if we acknowledged that our own imaginations are limited by the systems we’ve inherited? For example, many of us-parents and teachers alike-believe that children need to be taught everything, from eating to sleeping, by experts. This belief is so deep that it shapes our very definition of education. But is it true? Is school the only way to learn?

We found that even when we experienced curricular or philosophical freedom, there were other freedoms-freedom from structure, freedom from the compulsion to teach-that we hadn’t dared to try. The idea of not having a weekly Hindi period, for instance, can be deeply unsettling to a teacher who has never seen learning happen outside that frame. Our challenge, then, is not just to innovate within the system, but to question the system itself.

Pedagogy: Innovation and Its Limits

Pedagogical innovation is often the most visible face of “rethinking school.” Activity-based learning, project work, value education, environmental sensitization-these are all important, and we do them. But we are also aware that pedagogy is always shaped by the system around it. Freedom is never absolute; it is always negotiated.

For instance, with a small number of students, we can be flexible-if a child needs an extra year, we can give it. We can ramp up or down according to the child’s needs, not the demands of a fixed calendar. But as the scale increases, as the need to train more teachers and accommodate more children grows, structure becomes inevitable. The very innovations we cherish must be embedded within a framework that can be explained, replicated, and sustained. This is not a failure; it’s a reality. The question is not whether to have structure, but how to design it so that it supports, rather than stifles, genuine learning.

Support: Community, Technology, and the Teacher’s Journey

Support is often thought of as something given to students, but in our experience, it is equally about supporting teachers and parents as they unlearn old habits and assumptions. Most of our teachers are navigating the curriculum for the first time, especially in higher grades. They need hand-holding, not just in content, but in reimagining their roles.

Technology, too, is becoming a companion. Tools that record and analyze classroom interactions can provide mirrors for teachers, helping them see patterns and biases they might otherwise miss. But these are just tools. The real work is in building a culture where questioning-of oneself, of the system, of what counts as success-is not just allowed, but encouraged.

We are also mindful of our constraints: space, resources, the willingness of parents to walk a slower, less certain path. No school or philosophy can cater to everyone. We focus on those ready to join us in this experiment, knowing that even here, independence is always relative, always negotiated.

An Ongoing Conversation

If there is one thing we have learned, it is that rethinking school is not a project with an end date. It is an ongoing conversation-sometimes circular, often messy, always unfinished. We are not interested in being a spice store, offering exotic educational products for the discerning parent. We want to be the store that’s open all night, offering only what is necessary: space to explore, freedom to question, and support to grow-together.

“I want to be the one store that’s open all night
and has nothing but necessities.
Something to get a fire going
and something to put one out.”

• Christian Wiman, I Don’t Want to Be a Spice Store

At Farm Hill, we keep our door open, our bells ready to ring, and our questions alive. The work is never done-and that, perhaps, is the point.