By Jana Donovan

For the Post

Škola hrou — literally, Play School — differs from most Czech schools in one fundamental way: Children love it.

The gray, inconspicuous Břevnov building that houses the private grammar school contrasts with the liveliness inside of happy children enjoying learning in a cozy and friendly environment.

But one thing so typical of Czech schooling is clearly missing from this rare educational idyll: fear.

When the school's director, Ivana Málková, and a colleague founded Škola hrou in 1991, they wanted to make a radical break with what they saw as the rigid, stifling Czech educational traditions, many of them carried over from communism.

"[The period following the Velvet Revolution] was an enthusiastic and authentic time that cannot be repeated," says Málková. "People were eager for a change and everything new was bringing hope that it will be better than what came before."

Today, Škola hrou is a full-blown private elementary school with six grades, each boasting about 16 kids, where tuition costs about 3,000 Kč ($140) per month. While the school eschews the traditional Czech focus on discipline, rote learning and even grades, it places a high percentage of students into the most prestigious high schools in Prague.

The idea of starting an alternative school came to Málková when a friend and partner Eva called her up one day to complain about a bad experience.

It involved meeting her young son's future teachers. The boy, it turns out, was talkative — and the teachers could not help but criticize his "bad behavior."

"Then she told me the only way her Mikuláš would be starting school next year is if we open a school of our own," recalls Málková, who had been an elementary teacher herself.

Málková and her friend accepted the challenge.

They plastered posters on lampposts in Prague 6. They ran ads in newspapers. Finally, they managed to persuade a mother to send her two kids to the fledgling school. "That gave us three students all together," Málková says, laughing.

Somehow the first school year began with two full classes. Some of the kids were even willing to repeat their first year.

"And these first kids were the best we've ever had at the school," says the principal. "Why? Perhaps because some of them had already had some sort of bad experience at a state school, so they enjoyed the freedom here even more."

Janek Kadleček, 12, finished his sixth and final year at the school last spring. He says he will always remember Škola hrou as a tight-knit place where everybody knew each other. Every Monday morning, his class would meet for a tea party to talk about what happened over the weekend.

"We talk a lot with the children here and they feel they are in a safe place," says Kadleček's former teacher, Eva Říhová. "In a big school, only the strong ones win."

That's the kind of atmosphere that won over Janek's mother, real estate agent Jana Kadlečková, when she was looking for a school for her son. Janek had suffered brain paralysis during birth and still has trouble walking.

"I was frightened to put him in a normal school because I knew he would be bullied there," says Kadlečková.

And those early years, says child psychiatrist Dana Janotová, are critical to a child's future. "In the first years of school, a child starts to orient himself emotionally," she says. "Personal relations, at this stage, are more important than education. Children want their teacher to be a model and are sensitive to injustices. If their first experience is bad, it can have a negative impact on their whole future relationship with school."

When Říhová teaches, she lets children walk during class and even lie on the floor if they feel like it. Kids interrupt her with questions and address her informally.

The teacher admits that in the beginning, she was afraid of losing her authority. "But kids here are more responsible than those who are constantly scared of their teacher," she says. "They are not afraid to express disagreement. We respect them and take them equally."

The teaching itself is informal. Subjects are often mingled together. Kids are encouraged to be creative. Teachers support them.

"Our children are eager to learn and they want to learn for themselves, not for the sake of parents or teachers," Říhová says.

As Málková puts it, "Parents are not in such a hopeless situation now. They can choose a school, unlike before when children were enrolled according to where they lived. And there is a broader choice, even of state schools."

Janek is now a confident boy who deals well with his disability. He, along with about a quarter of his graduating class, has been accepted into the No. 1-ranked Czech public high school, PORQ, where only 25 kids from some 120 candidates were accepted.

But for many, the most important thing is that the values kids learn here accompany them throughout their lives. Or so says former student Zuzana Veselá, 21, who often drops in at Škola hrou — if only to say hi.

"For me, it's the sweetest reward that kids keep coming back," says Málková.