Things often look different to students and teachers in a school. Having played both roles, I am acutely aware of this. But some things never change. Looking back to the time I joined school in the 7th, I vividly remember my first meeting with my future classmates. One of the first things I was asked was what games I played. Last year a new boy in the 8th joined my house. When I took him to his bedroom there were a couple of boys chatting there.

A year after I joined the Rishi Valley School I was asked to be a 'house parent' to 16 boys of ages 10 to 13. I was to live with them in a newly extended two storey white brick building called Palm House. I had one large room of 10 boys directly above me and a smaller room of 6 on the same floor. I was 24 years old then, with little experience of working with children. What was to be my role as 'house-parent' to 16 pre-adolescent boys in a residential school, living together

We recognize the growing complexity of the challenges facing schools today and we seek answers in educational reform and innovation. There have been enough educational reform movements - as well as political, social and economic reforms — throughout history, yet we must genuinely ask, have human problems been resolved by them?