As part of Ethnobotany, a branch of study that deals with native knowledge of useful plants, I realized just how "educated" these tribals were when compared to us city dwellers, who would have not bothered to look at these simple "weeds" that "grew" underfoot and needed to be "removed". On the contrary, the tribal was so knowledgeable on this regard and explained the medicinal properties of so many herbs that made our heads swim in a few minutes!
He did not know how to read and write English, nor did he know how to "present" a paper in an international conference, but he knew his environment. He was an expert in his "field". He was "educated" but not literate.
I know of my "educated" friends- some of them from top notch schools with fabulous reputations and high paying jobs. The ignorance and disregard for the environment and earth is truly amazing. They have huge carbon footprints but care less. These people are certainly "literate" but uneducated, IMHO.
Now that we have "defined" education in a roundabout fashion, let us see how we go about "educating" a child. Let us look at an infant. Unless there is a severe disability like loss of hearing or sight or a learning disability caused by genetic or neural reasons, most babies are curious about their environment, respond to stimuli, be it light or sound and they identify many sequences of actions. There is an authentic exploration of her immediate environment with all the senses.
This simple phase in one's life is feted by all and make babies "cute". Then the toddler emerges pushing the boundaries of the parents and challenging the limits of freedom provided by new-found-legs! Again the explorations continue and the "realm" of curiosity is extended. Again the "naughty" child is favored with gentle smiles and half hearted frowns!
Enter School.
Suddenly children are sequestered into rooms with several others of the same age and expected to "behave" and show "results". And the results should fall into the area of the teacher's expectation. I remember last year when Satvik was attending an Art class. All the kids were told to draw this "stained glass" design with lotuses in a pond and a rising sun in the horizon. While all the children followed the color scheme and painted the water blue and the sun orange, Satvik went for a "natural look" and decided to make the water orange along with the sun to show the "reflection" and of course, his was not within the purview of acceptability as the "Tiffany" stained glass design was not faithfully reproduced.
There are many more instances that I can list that tell of these small ways by which "adults" destroy the curiosity, creativity and willing-to-take-risk attitude of childhood making dull-eyed A plus students. I have often wondered if it is some sort of revenge the adults take out on kids as they feel envious of the fresh-eyed curiosity of kids and it forces then to realize what they have lost (or forced to lose!)
I think this world needs spiritually awakened teachers who sees beyond the marksheet and see the divine being who needs no "teaching" residing within each child. The more we attune ourselves with our inner "being", the more we will know what each child needs to "learn".
Like Sri Aurobindo beautifully explained, " The first principle of teaching is nothing can be taught." How powerful a statement! Unfortunately, "information" is stuffed down a child's throat in the name of "education". The learner, the child, needs to unravel his own ability as he finds himself in unique situations in life and explore his inner potential. All he has to do is shrug away the cloak of ignorance that appears limiting.
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so well said ! We do kill their god given talents and convert them into the miranda ad zombies. We can't handle that they can do things differently than us or the aam janta kids. We cover up our own lack of maturity by pointing out their "ignorance".
ReplyDeleteImagining telling the sun "maybe you should be less hot" or telling the river "you know, you should be yellow in colour". Would we dare ? No, because we know there is a Higher power playing in the way the sun and the river do their things.
But with our kids, we feel powerful. We are the Higher power. And we shall determine how they shine or what colour they be. It is our attempt at playing God ?
Are we God enough for that ?
We are afterall, just regular people, imperfect in so many ways, unable to handle our personal relationships smoothly, unable to remove poverty, crime or death.. what makes us think we are BIG enough to tell a child how he must become a man ?