‘Right Relationship’ between Teachers and Students

Abstract

This chapter is an ethnographic examination of the teacher-student relationship at Rishi Valley School, Andhra Pradesh, India. Departing from Krishnamurti’s vision on right relationship, the study reconfigures the pertinent dimensions of freedom, authority and hierarchy (or the lack of these) between students and teachers in the school’s everyday life. Interspersed across multiple spaces, contexts and situations, the study weaves together diverse narratives of how teachers and students grapple with challenges in their approach to build ‘right relationship’. Methodologically located at the intersection of anthropology and educational practice, the attempt is to understand educational philosophy as an action, and not merely a concept.