`Help the child educate himself'
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The 127th birth anniversary of the Mother of Aurobindo Ashram falls on February 21. The Mother guides teachers in moulding children morally and socially.
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A class in progress ...
THE EDUCATIONAL process has been the subject of much comment by academics and writers. Their observations range from praise to cynicism, mostly the latter. Education is an easy target for criticism because its stated aims are often so nobly ambitious that they have little chance of being realised. So many people who have made their mark in the world of ideas, who have been acknowledged leaders and innovators, have held formal education and educational institutions in low regard. Some examples of this phenomenon:
"Education is what remains when we have forgotten all that we have been taught." — George Savile — English Statesman and author
"Education is one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought." — Bertrand A. Russell
"We are shut up in schools and college rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
And Abraham Lincoln says, "Colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed."
Perhaps, education is too important to be left solely to educators. For, it is not about filling a brain but lighting a fire for true learning. I think the philosophers have been able to get a closer picture and aim of education.
The Mother of Aurobindo Ashram.
"Do not train children by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each," said Plato.
Today, the student is pressured by his parent to take a certain kind of occupation which determines his journey into education. He is not permitted to choose a profession or a vocation that interests him and in which he displays talent. I have two instances where my friends took strong exception to what their son wanted to do. Rahul wanted to become a musician.
He played the sitar rather well. But he came from a family of doctors and a war broke out at home. His mother refused to eat unless he promised to become a doctor. Mahesh came from a family of lawyers. He wished to become a painter. I understand he loved painting since the age of six and had won many awards in his school. He was forced to join law school.
The parents seek admission in schools, which claim to have the largest numbers of pupils passing out in the first division. And hence expect their child to pass in the first division as well. No enquiries are made about sports or any other vocational activities.
The child barely returns from school and his parents chase him to finish his homework. It seems as if he was skipping his childhood. The Mother has addressed all these issues relating to education: its true purpose and the method to achieve it.
While the key responsibility lies with the teachers, the parents will have to play a critical role in helping their children.
She says fundamentally the only thing one must do is to teach them to know themselves, and to choose their own destiny, the way they want to follow. The intention is to help the child to learn to master himself. While, to give a moral law to a child is evidently not an ideal thing. However, it is difficult to do without it. The child can be taught, as he grows up, the relationship of all moral and social laws so that he may find in himself a higher and truer law.
"The business of both parents and teachers is to help the child to educate himself, to develop his own intellectual, moral, aesthetic and practical capacities and to grow freely as an organic being, not to be pressured into form like an inert plastic immaterial."
Here are some pointers for teachers from the Mother:
Teachers who do not possess a perfect calm and unfailing endurance, an unshakable quietness, who are full of self-conceit will reach nowhere. They must have the perfect attitude in order to be able to extract from one's pupil a perfect attitude to learning. You cannot ask of a pupil what you do not do yourself. It is a rule.
You must look within you at the difference between what is and what should be, and this difference will give you the measure of your failure in the class.Unless the teachers themselves get above the usual intellectual level, it will be difficult for them to fulfil their duty and accomplish their task. One must be capable of projecting oneself inside each student so as to give him what he needs and what he lacks. No preferences: one must be able to judge the correctness of a reply even with eyes closed.
To send away or to scold a student has no effect whatsoever on his nature. One must have a moral control, which influences even by a word.
And finally, if a teacher wants to be respected, he must be respectable. The teachers have got to realise the critical role they are playing in a child's life. It is not just a job — it is about moulding and directing the growth of valuable assets that will shape the future of a nation.
Teachers need to become `icons' for the young people.
RAM SEHGAL
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