AT SIXTEEN, HE FINDS THE COLLEGE OF WILDLIFE MORE EDUCATIVE

From Pamela D'Mello Asian Age. http://www.asianage.com

Panaji, May 13 -- A teenager who got excellent marks and was rewarded with a year's break from school says that one can learn much more free from class than constrained within walls of a classroom.

Rahul Alvares, who was otherwise like just about any middle-class youth from Goa, has now come out with a book that lists how he spent a year "free from school" doing the things he loved.

Rahul, who was 17 when he began writing his book a couple of years ago, says he learnt a lot "in the company of snakes, earthworms, frogs, spiders and other creatures who have much to teach us".

During his year's break from schooling, he learnt to travel independently across India, work with pets and wildlife, and manage so many other things that children in school simply don't have to deal with.

"Some kids like school. Most don't. Many parents will agree that schooling as we know it today is disagreeable to children by and large," said his parents lawyer Norma and environmentalist
Claude Alvares.

Encouraging other parents to adopt a similar route, they say that such experiences would surely help the children make a realistic estimate of what they are most suited for in life.

They offered their son a year's break from education if he scored well, and promptly kept to their word after he stood at the top end of the secondary certificate exams here.

Rahul got a chance to visit the Snake Park at Pune, organic farms in Kerala, an earthworm institute and crocodile bank in Chennai, studying spiders, and building fishtanks.

"My parents tell me that as a child I would watch ants crawl by for hours, or chickens scratching around for food, and would later describe in great detail all my observations," says Rahul.

He got a chance to give full play to his wildlife-oriented interests, and has no regrets for it.

During his year-long 'sabbatical', one condition laid down by his parents was that would would keep a daily diary of everything that happened. This has now been turned into a book titled 'Free From School'.

This is his story of a year out of school, when he learnt much much more than he would have while inside, according to the young author.

Rahul says his aim is to encourage other boys and girls of his age to move out of India's antiquarian educational system, so as to experience "another side to life and learning".

"He caught snakes in the company of Irula tribals. He got bitten by hot-tempered reptiles. He came out of it all grinning and wiser," says the book released here recently.

"This book can offer parents good reasons why avoiding school for limited periods of time may be a healthy practice," say Rahul's parents, who were also publishers of the Other India Press book.

Forwarded by Eddie Fernandes. e.fernandes@ucl.ac.uk - GOANEWS - GOANET