July 17, 2003
v Social evolution is the
growth of social institutions.
v Family is the foremost of
them. Marriage makes family possible. Money and credit are age-old
institutions. Education is a significant one. Army, government, library and a
host of other institutions have made today's civilisation possible. Insurance
is a preeminent institution.
v What the collective cannot
do to the Individual, it accomplishes through these institutions.
v These institutions need
physical infrastructure as well as psychological infrastructure, viz. values.
v For the leader and the
pioneer, these institutions enable them to serve the society.
v For the less privileged and
those who cannot progress on their own, these institutions are a boon when they
want to rise in the social scale.
v One cannot write a full list
of these institutions easily, as they are everywhere and in every shape.
v My purpose here is to
indicate
1.
How
even those who find those institutions superfluous have a use for them, a higher
use, and
2.
How
man ultimately outgrows these institutions.
3.
I would draw upon that eternal resource of education in the context of
teaching.
v To fully appreciate this
theme, one needs to fully appreciate the present service of these institutions.
v One who has earned a lot of
money has no use for credit. Looked at from his own point of view, that is
true. His excess funds can be of service to others so that they may move up in
society.
v When one is below the social
average, these institutions help him to rise. When he is above the average,
these institutions are the channels for him to serve his fellowman.
v Hire purchase is a great
system which enables the poor to buy with their future income.
v The affluent have no need
for the hire purchase system at all.
v Education is the yoga of the
society, but the genius has no use for schooling.
v Insurance is a social
miracle that brings all those below average to average. It is an instrument of
social progress where the society takes the full responsibility for the
misfortune of the Individual.
v Affluent persons may not
avail of the advantage of the society in life insurance. Even in fire
insurance, conscientious people may not feel comfortable to draw upon the
scheme.
v Internet almost dispenses
with the great use of the library.
v As the individual grows in
his external capacities, he generally outgrows the use of the physical social
infrastructure. Similarly, when he grows in inner capacities, he outlives
the need for the psychological infrastructure.
v The school is an intermediary
between the family and the society. It is in a position to help the child equip
himself with most of the outer and inner endowments. Theoretically, a good
product of a school of high educational standards can outgrow all such uses of
physical and psychological infrastructures.
v If the theory is valid, it
needs to be reduced to a teaching assignment – a syllabus.
v Supposing all such aids of
teaching are there, it will be a more formidable task to enlist teachers who
can handle such work.
v A naughty child under a
parent of dry emotions changes into a disciplined child under an understanding
teacher.
v This way the school is
replacing the family.
v It is inevitable in India as
well as many affluent nations.
v The scheme I moot is, not to
replace poor, dry, refractory homes, but for children whose lives are not
vitiated by such families.
v How to give the child the
various capacities so that he may not need the help of various social
institutions?
v Each child has two
faculties, one lying over the other, as memory and understanding. The latter
includes the former.
v The child becomes dependent
on memory when memory is fed. The child overcomes that dependence when the
understanding is addressed.
v Salaried employment needs
skills to work. Self-employment demands capacities to organise, produce,
create. These capacities are inclusive of skills.
v It is easily seen that
opinions are part of attitudes and motives include both.
v He who readily risks what he
has in favour of what he seeks, will not meet any risk that needs to be covered
by insurance.
v Productive skills at once
raise the person above the future eventuality of poverty.
v We know the social
phenomenon of bribes and influence to secure a job. But in all these
institutions we also know the dearth of talented candidates. Talents come from
training. No school can train children in all talents or in many talents. But
any talent is created by one skill getting fortified by the entire capacity of
the Individual. To convert one skill into a talent by the general capacity, one
needs that ability.
v For example, a school
teaches a language until all students acquire a full capacity in it. Grammar,
composition, diction, original phrasing, oratory, repartee, ready wit, humour,
vocabulary, pronunciation, etymology are the various lines in which one can
acquire talents. To train the student in one line to acquire the ability to
create talents is enough for him to acquire any other talent in the field of
language.
v Language expands into LIFE. The school instead of
giving academic education, must endeavour to give life education where
the child will have acquired the ability to create any talent life needs. It is
not impossible to raise a child, or help a child raise himself to a pinnacle of
a talent for which he has a natural inclination before he leaves school.
v This is to train one for
life. There is a higher opening for the teacher which need not be taken in the
school for the generality of children but can be pursued at home when there is
a child awaiting education. It is spiritual education. Mother calls for psychic
education.
v A child starts learning
addition. Later when the child learns multiplication, the need to add endlessly
is not there. Such gradations are there in all walks of learning. Initially one
learns facts. Finally, one learns laws that make facts incidental. With
advanced technology instruments – calculating machine, Internet –dispense with
the use of the primary faculties of the mind.
v We see a gradation in
hearing, listening, understanding, assimilating, deciding, determining and
committing oneself to what one listens to. Up to assimilation, it is the part
of knowledge; beyond it is the work of will. A student can outgrow simpler
strategies and end up in the final strategy of committing himself to the
instructions he listens to. A further step is consecration, which culminates
in surrender.
v The teacher exhorts the
pupil to be GOOD. The child can approach it
by any of the list above (hearing, listening, understanding, etc.). Each state
of receptivity has appropriate work to do and has commensurate results. Having
come to the stage of commitment, if the child moves to consecration, the
child becomes GOOD. As
assimilation is more powerful than understanding and the child can directly
assimilate what it hears, she can learn to consecrate also.
v In listening, the child
tries to understand. At each stage, the work of the child is the next stage.
For consecration, the child needs to suspend understanding or commitment i.e.
the child eliminates herself. It produces the result directly.
v An attitude of consecration
or surrender, it can be seen, will directly help one acquire what arises in
one's mind or what is spoken to one. It is an attitude of humility of the
mind to the subject he is listening or the person he is listening to. When
we can listen to someone with such an attitude of humility, what he speaks
becomes TRUE inside us. In extreme
cases, the theoretical possibility is one can learn to be a genius listening to
an idiot as the idiot is the inverted genius. One's attitude of humility makes
the idiot reverse his mind to the other side of the genius which is withheld.