Our Journey

In 1982 CFL began as a criticism and an alternative to mainstream, formal schools. It was a personal response to contradictions in experiences of schooling.

Firstly, despite a love for learning and going to the so- called ‘best’ schools, why did we hate our schools? Secondly, if learning is fun, why did most people hate learning and have to be forced to learn? Our own positive experiences with a few good teachers and our parents made us realize what a difference a good teacher can make and what it means to have a good teacher. This inspired us to try to create a place where learning could be fun.

A few years after we started, we discovered that changes in methods and functioning or even the curriculum itself did not quite lead to the aims we envisaged – of self-actualizing, independent learners who were self-disciplined and socially responsible individuals.

We realized that education was equated with schooling and there was an increasing acceptance of whatever happens in schools as being educational. Schooling, in turn, was reduced to mean academics only. Privileging academics over all other means has meant misery for those who are differently inclined and has impoverished society by reducing the path of self-actualization to a single track.

We felt the need to move out of the framework of schooling. CFL's attempt now is to understand what education means as distinct from schooling. We also seek to understand how education can be made fun, personally meaningful and socially responsible.

We also recognized that there is an overt and covert, witting and unwitting, anti-poor bias of the whole ‘education’ system. The attempt is to discover and understand the challenges of an inclusive educational space that does not compromise on quality or flexibility. CFL is a small attempt to correct the anti-poor bias of the ‘education’ system.