“दीदी, इसमें से
बच्चे कब
आयेंगे?”
“Didi, when will the babies come out of these?”
She did not answer. She crouched down and asked the children what they thought.
Four children, four theories, nobody corrected.
Why Teachership exists
India has fellowships that truly form educators. It has degrees that let you teach. Almost nothing does both.
Somewhere in this country a young woman is doing a fellowship that will change how she sees a child forever, and will not qualify her to be hired as a teacher.
Somewhere else, another is collecting a B.Ed. she barely attends, and nobody has once asked her to look closely at a child.
Teachership is built in that gap.
Our students, presenting their own answer: अच्छे teacher बनने की recipe.
The whole idea, in one line
Children do not absorb what you teach.
They absorb who you are.
The way we show up, handle conflict, nurture relationships, manage failure and learn new things, amongst others, shapes young ones more than the writing on the board.
Two paths
Two ways to become that teacher.
Pick the one your life allows.
Same fellowship. Same faculty. Same B.Ed. from CCS University, Meerut. What differs is where you are formed — with us at Baghpat, or inside the classroom you already stand in every morning. Which path you take reflects what your household and your finances allow. It says nothing about how far you can go.
Fellow in Residence
You are near the beginning. You can give two years to this, live at Baghpat, and be formed among nineteen others before you take a classroom of your own.
- FormedWith us at Baghpat
- Practice groundKadam Experiential School, with exposure visits to five leading philosophy schools
- RhythmResidential, across two years
- You needTwo years, and permission at home
Fellow in Post
You already teach. You keep your job, your salary and your children — and the classroom you walk into on Monday becomes the place this fellowship actually happens.
- FormedIn your own school
- Practice groundYour own organisation, with weekly classroom practice
- Rhythm10 days at Baghpat, twice a year
- You needTwice a week, a 2-hour online session with homework — and your employer's yes
Not sure which one? Apply to the path that fits your situation today and say so in the form — we will talk it through with you before anything is decided.
Path one
Fellow in Residence
Two years at Baghpat, living and learning with nineteen others. Your days are spent with real children in real classrooms — at Kadam, at schools built on the lineages we learn from, and in ordinary government classrooms where most Indian children actually sit.
You will be taught by people who have spent their lives at this, and by visitors who come and stay a while. You will be watched closely and told the truth. And you will do it alongside nineteen people who are changing at the same time as you.
- Who it is forGraduates near the start, who can give two years without a salary to protect
- Where you liveOn campus at Baghpat, for the two years
- Where you practiseKadam Experiential School, with exposure visits to five leading philosophy schools — Montessori, Waldorf, Integral, Nai Talim and Rabindranath
- What you leave withA B.Ed. from CCS University, and a documented body of your own teaching
- What it costs youTwo years, and a household that agrees
Path two
Fellow in Post
You do not leave your post, your salary or your students. Every three weeks you plan one named practice, teach it to your own children, record it on your phone, watch it back, talk it through with your Diya, and try again.
Twice a year you come to Baghpat for ten days. Twice a week you meet the cohort online. The rest happens where it matters — in the room you are already standing in.
- Who it is forTeachers and educators already working, for whom leaving the job was never possible
- Where you practiseYour own organisation, with weekly classroom practice
- At BaghpatTen days, twice a year — twenty days a year away from your school
- HonestlyAbout 8–9 hours a week, four of them live, on top of a full job
- What you needTwice a week, a 2-hour online session with homework — and your employer's yes
What a Fellow becomes
करुणा। सृजन। साहस।
Compassion. Creativity. Courage.
Three things a child must carry out of school for the next fifty years to go well. None can be taught from a board. All of them are caught from a person.
Compassion
For herself, for others, for the living world. A child who is gentle with herself when she fails. Who notices the one left out. Who knows the names of the trees she walks past, because somebody who knew them walked with her.
Creativity
The nerve to build what is missing. Drawing and singing, yes. Mostly the habit of looking at a broken thing and thinking: this could be solved, and I could be the one who solves it.
Courage
To make the hard decision, in the right direction. The capacity to choose well when choosing well is expensive. In herself, in her family, in her village, in her country.
How it works
Whichever path you take, the work is the same.
We will not form you in a garden and send you to a field. Everything you learn here, you try in an ordinary classroom — with the children, the syllabus and the forty desks you actually have. You cannot change the syllabus. You can change the next fifteen minutes.
Every three weeks, one cycle
- Plan. One named practice, built into the topic you are teaching anyway.
- Teach. A normal lesson, your phone on a stand at the side.
- Look. You watch yourself first. Then a fellow Fellow. Then your Diya.
- Talk. Thirty minutes, one to one. One change is named.
- Circle. Your weekly hour, on somebody’s real teaching.
- Again. The named change becomes the next cycle. Ten times a year.
“Not sir. Not madam.”
Your faculty are Diyas — the clay lamp that reminds you of your own light, and the word Mirambika gives its teachers: the one who kindles light in children, and who must therefore be lit herself. Four Diyas. Twenty Fellows.
The people we are looking for
Twenty educators willing to be changed in front of their own students.
That is the whole criterion. Not your marks, not your English, not how many years you have taught.
This is for you if
This is not for you if
Anchored by
The people who will know your teaching by name.
Your four Diyas — they hold the whole two years
Not sir, not madam. A diya is the clay lamp that reminds you of your own light. Each one holds five Fellows: a weekly circle, a regular hour alone with you, and a call the week you go quiet.
And the people who come to teach alongside them
Before you
Three and a half thousand people have started where you are sitting.
B.Ed 2005–06
BSA, Hapur
M.Phil 2008–09
PGT, Dallas
D.El.Ed 2017–19
JRF Adda · YouTube
years
alumni
faculty
We are still tracing where they all went, and we will publish what we find.
Straight talk before you apply
Every brochure tells you what it will give you. Here is what it will cost you.
The first year is hard
Teachers who change how they teach describe the early months honestly: confusion, some loss of control, the feeling of being worse before being better. One of the best of them wrote that his first six months were a disaster. If it is uncomfortable in February, you are not failing. You are exactly where everyone is.
What we cannot promise Cohort One
- No trained mentor inside your school yet. Your Diya and your circle carry you.
- No tour of fifteen schools. You will go deep at a few instead.
- The silent retreat is optional, not required.
- Our Hindi library is still being built, partly in response to what your cohort asks for.
- We will measure ourselves and publish what we find, including what fails.
How to join
Twenty Fellows. Applications close 20 August.
The form asks two real questions
Map an honest week of your life and show us where the study hours would come from. Then tell us about one time you changed how you taught after someone criticised you, and what exactly changed.
Three conversations, wherever you live
One about your work and your thinking. One where you teach for five minutes, take a single piece of feedback, and teach it again. One with your employer and someone at home, so everybody starts with the same picture.
Cohort One begins 31 October
Bring the question about your own classroom that you have not been able to put down.
We want twenty educators willing to be changed in front of their own students. That is the whole criterion.
Fees are set on a published sliding scale, with full scholarships in every cohort. Nobody is refused for money alone — ask us for the bands when you write.
बच्चों के सामने बदलने की हिम्मत चाहिए।