✍ A. Laxman Rao
Jiddu Krishnamurthy was born on May 11, 1895 in Madanapalle of Andhra Pradesh state. He was a philosopher, speaker and writer.
Many philosophers and visionaries worked out on the purpose of education to human beings. Bharatiya sages and rishis also contributed a lot in studying and researching in the field of education which essentially enriches the character of the individual. Jiddu Krishnamurthy is one the best eminent philosophers of Bharat, whose true concern about education is very deep and he feels that education makes an individual physically fit, fearless, have values, intelligent, creative and have good aesthetic sense. According to him, the purpose of education is to make a holistic personality.
He was not satisfied with the existing education system all over the world as it is faulty and it has not been aiming at creating a free and holistic human being and creating a sane society. It is focusing on marks and degrees with ranks and promoting fear among the students. This is creating slaves; who do not think in their own way. Hence, he advocated integrated curriculum and even integrated teachers to focus on experiential learning and formative assessment.
Education, through the teacher, directs the young children towards true living at the very beginning of life. The art of living life is a must in the curriculum unconditionally by keeping their mind free and fresh. All the stakeholders such as parents, educationists and teachers are moulding the student’s mind according to their own wish and will. They are imposing their ideas upon them ignoring the desires and mindset of the students.
Right Education
Krishnamurthy’s educational philosophy is popularly known as ‘Right Education’. He also discusses the right environment, right functions of education, right curriculum, right teaching learning methods, and even right teachers and right schools are essential to achieve the objective of education. Right education is that which brings about individuals who are neither rich nor poor, neither Indians nor Americans, but just human beings who are not divided ‘within’ and ‘without’.
Only acquisition of technical knowledge is insufficient to make a human being. Right education is a process of self-knowing and self-discovery. It teaches the children how to learn about the workings of mind, its conditioning, its prejudices, likes and dislikes. Right education has to awaken the intelligence of the body of the student. It should enable the students to release their total energy, it should make them function, respond with all senses and with the same intensity of energy. In fact, there is no division between senses, sensations and the body. They are for a single organism.
Major Aims of Education
Aims of education must be physical development, development of fearless individuals, inculcation of values among the students, make them explore, to think, to question, to inquire rather they are made slaves. Intelligence of the students is to be awakened, to develop creativity among the individuals, to nurture aesthetic sense, vocational development, nature of working for world peace and integrated personality are the core areas of curriculum.
Education is a positive process of programming the students’ minds like a computer. It is not just to acquire and store knowledge and apply it mechanically. It is to understand the truth as truth and false as false. He clearly says that education is not only learning from books, memorizing some facts or data, but also learning how to look, how to listen to and what books are saying, whether they are saying something true or not?
According to Krishnamurthy’s observation, the word discipline comes from the word disciple – to learn, not conform, not rebel, but to learn about your own reactions, your own background, their limitations, and to go beyond them. He admits of discipline as its true sense of constant learning about oneself without accumulation, prejudice, opinions and conclusions.
Krishnamurthy does not believe in comparison and competition in education as it destroys the creativity of the students. They are obstacles to the harmony of love and affection. Comparative and competitive approach involves struggle and conflict. It is very cruel to ask a student to compete with a cleverer one and it becomes a barrier in future learning also. Thus, awarding marks and grading are negative areas of learning. It develops envy, jealousy and a strong negative attitude towards cleverer students. Sometimes it destroys their own future.
The school, headmaster and teachers
A school which is successful in the worldly sense is more often than not a failure as an educational center. A large and flourishing institution in which hundreds of children are educated together, with all its accompanying show and success, can turn out bank clerks, and super-salesmen, industrialists, or superficial people who are technically efficient…. which only a small school can help to bring about.
The school may not be run by only the headmaster. He is not the boss and the teachers are not the employees working under him. No teacher should be afraid of the headmaster, nor should the headmaster feel intimidated by the teachers. There must be cooperation among all the teachers in a school of the right kind. All the staff members meet often, to talk over the various problems of the school; and when they come to an understanding up on some areas, there should obviously be no difficulty in carrying out what has been decided. No teacher should be afraid of the headmaster. Harmonious relations among the staff and headmaster are helpful for the nurturing of the students.
Role of parents
Parents are largely occupied with their own conflicts and sorrows. Rich or poor, most of the parents are absorbed in their personal worries. By observing the present society, the parents desire that their children shall be equipped with capabilities to adapt in the world. They are mostly anxious about the future of their children, eager to have them educated to hold secure positions, or and to marry well.
Being absorbed in their own problems, many parents shift to the teacher the responsibility for the well-being of their children; and then it is important that the educators help in the education of the parents as well.
Teachers and parents have a great role and responsibility in educating the children and bringing about a new generation of human beings. They should own and discharge their duty in nurturing the wards in the right way. Focus of education should be nurturing the natural intelligence of the physical body. Thought with hopes, habits, desires and pleasures narrows down the energy levels by stimulating one sense as against the other senses.
Everyone should understand that education is not merely a matter of training the mind. Training makes for efficiency, but it does not bring about completeness. To bring about the right education, we must understand the meaning of life as whole, and for that we have to be able to think, not consistently, but directly and truly. Education for lasting values but not to repeatedly memorize formulas. Without an integrated understanding of life, our individual and collective problems will not be solved. Right education comes with the transformation of ourselves. We must re-educate ourselves not to kill one another for any cause, however righteous, for any ideology, however promising, it may appear to be for the future happiness of the world. One must learn to be compassionate, to be content with little, and to seek the Supreme, for only then can there be the true salvation of mankind.
(Author is educationist and Mantri of Vidya Bharati Dakshin Madhya kshetra.)
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