Inflicting ideas and information that feel distant and irrelevant with seemingly meaningless facts and figures, can be quite stifling for young minds. We try therefore, to create a child-responsive learning environment in our classrooms and we have found the project method invaluable for this purpose.

The "project method" involves choosing a particular theme or topic (like Seasons for e.g.) and weaving several activities, spanning multiple subject areas, in the effort to integrate and make whole all the information about the chosen topics. We try to tap the creativity of the children and help them reach their their horizon of possibilities by encouraging them to participate in innumerable activities related to the theme of the project. The children and teacher both, throw themselves into the spirit of  the project and begin by engaging in serious and extensive research about the topic in all its aspects. Foe weeks encyclopedias, magazines, journals, newspapers, parents  and friends are consulted in the effort to gather in and outside the classrooms. Art and Craft are used to express ideas generated by the children's research. Once the imagination is let loose, there is a support of  creative compositions by us all, taking the form of plays, poems, stories, dialogues and formal reports too. Eventually all this material is organized in individual scrapbooks or project files and the plays and poems are performed informally for each other or for parents in a more formal display.       

We have been doing at least one project per year for the last several years,  with very satisfying results. The most valuable outcome of this method is that it succeeds in helping children understand and grasp the wholeness of knowledge. We have divided knowledge into different subject areas for organizational facility, which is essential, but it has also the disadvantage of creating permanent divisions in children's mind, which we must be wary of. As children explore the various aspects of the topic, the artificial divisions of the different subjects, begin to dissolve naturally. Projects generate an intense involvement and enthusiasm along with encouraging a healthy spirit of co-operation and collaboration in the children, as they work in teams. A free and creative exploratory spirit is developed in the children which becomes a habit of the mind, spilling over to other areas of learning as well. Children learn to create and recreate the subject matter for themselves making it relevant to their own purposes and thereby rendering it meaningful for themselves. By the end of the project, our children have truly made this knowledge their own in a permanent sense, not to be easily lost.    

There is no formal individual assessment and the lack of it has not hampered or hindered the pursuit of excellence, by any of us. Unthreatened and free from the fear of judgment, children work at their projects motivated entirely by their curiosity and the joy of discovery. Instead of individual assessment, the projects culminate in a performance and a display of their scrap files and art and craft work.

The performances, informal and formal, have a special value. Children get an opportunity to display what they have learnt, discovered and created. They are empowered by finding an appreciative, responsive, audience and this lends further meaning to their learning. We have found the confidence level of our children rising with each project performance. Unafraid of embarrassing themselves  in front of their teachers, classmates or parents, the children perform unabashedly and with great ease. Every child is included in the performances and a special effort is made to avoid giving recognition to outstanding performers. This makes every child feel special and included. 

The general spirit of fun generated by project leads many sceptics to think that the projects are all fun and games, and "extra-curricular", having only a peripheral relationship with "real learning". This is from the truth, since not only does much hard work, rational thought, organization and  serious research go into this project, this is one of our methods of teaching the syllabus. Despite the hard work that projects entail, we are all convinced of their value and would all heartily vouch for it. Exhausted and spent at the end of each project, we often say, "Never again !", and yet when a new project is announced at the beginning of the session, our brains start ticking instantly and we find that once again we're ready and rearing to go.