The Levelfield School is a co-educational

private school A private school or independent school is a school not administered or funded by the government, unlike a State school, public school. Private schools are schools that are not dependent upon national or local government to finance their fina ...

, located in the village Husnabad,

Suri, Birbhum Suri () (also spelt as Siuri) is a city and a municipality in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the headquarters of the Birbhum district. Geography Location Suri is located at . Suri is 220 km from State capital Kolkata (Calcutt ...

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

, that was founded with the aim of practising

experimental pedagogy A teaching method is a set of principles and methods used by teachers to enable student learning. These strategies are determined partly by the subject matter to be taught, partly by the relative expertise of the learners, and partly by constrai ...

that differs from the conventional methods of the Indian education system. The school emphasizes reading, discussion, debate and the use of multimedia technology over

rote learning Rote learning is a memorization technique based on repetition. The method rests on the premise that the recall of repeated material becomes faster the more one repeats it. Some of the alternatives to rote learning include meaningful learning, ...

or a textbook-based education. Levelfield was founded in 2010 by Arghya Banerjee, a graduate of the

Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur The Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur or IIT-KGP) is a Public university, public institute of technology, research university, and autonomous institute established by the Government of India in Kharagpur, West Bengal. Foun ...

and

Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM Ahmedabad or IIM-A), is a business school, located in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. It is one of the Indian Institutes of Management and was accorded the status of an Institute of National Impor ...

who quit his engineering job to start the school. He planned on founding a school that did not follow the usual Indian teaching methods, which often give extreme importance to examinations or over-rely on textbooks and rote learning. The school, instead, focuses on overall development and employs teaching methods that include watching

world cinema World cinema is a term in film theory in the United States that refers to films made outside of the American motion picture industry, particularly those in opposition to the aesthetics and values of commercial American cinema.Nagib, Lúcia. ...

to discuss subjects such as

sociology Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociol ...

ethics Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...

or history; playing

board games A board game is a type of tabletop game that involves small objects () that are placed and moved in particular ways on a specially designed patterned game board, potentially including other components, e.g. dice. The earliest known uses of the ...

to understand

strategy Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "troop leadership; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the " a ...

; reading books, solving

puzzles A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together ( or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to find the solution of the puzzle. There are different ...

or watching documentaries. The unconventional methods of the school have been covered by the Indian media.

References

External links

* Private schools in West Bengal Schools in Birbhum district Cambridge schools in India High schools and secondary schools in West Bengal Educational institutions established in 2010 2010 establishments in West Bengal Primary schools in West Bengal {{WestBengal-school-stub