We must be very clear in ourselves what we want, clear what a human being must be - the total human being, not just the technological human being.
If we concentrate very much on examinations, on technological information, on making the child clever, proficient in acquiring knowledge, while we neglect the other side, then the child will grow up into a one-sided human being. When we talk about a total human being, we mean not only a human being with inward understanding, with a capacity to explore, to examine his inward being, his inward state and the capacity of going beyond it, but also someone who is good in what he does outwardly. The two must go together. That is the real issue in education - to see that when the child leaves the school, he is well established in goodness, both outwardly and inwardly.
There must be a starting point from which we function so that we will cultivate not only the technological side but also uncover the deeper layers, the deeper fields of the human mind. I will put it another way. If you concentrate on making the student excellent in technology and neglect the other side, as we generally do, what happens to such a human being? If you concentrate on making the student a perfect dancer or a perfect mathematician, what happens? He is not just that, he is something more. He is jealous, angry, frustrated, in despair, ambitious. So you will create a society in which there is always disorder, because you are emphasizing technology and proficiency in one field and neglecting the other field. However perfect a man may be technologically, he is always in contradiction in his social relationships. He is always in battle with his neighbour.
So technology cannot produce a perfect or a good society. It may produce a great society, where there is no poverty, where there is material equality and so on. A great society is not necessarily a good society. A good society implies order. Order does not mean trains running on time, mail delivered regularly.It means something else. For a human being, order means order within himself. And such order will inevitably bring about a good society. Now from which centre are we to start?
One perspective on education suggests that schools are institutions that specialize in giving the student access to knowledge about certain subjects, which can be divided into the sciences and the humanities. The larger process of upbringing and human development is seen as something that is not part of a school's main task, but rather the responsibility of the parents, the family. Of course, in the case of boarding schools, this view cannot be maintained, because the child actually spends a lot more time at school than with the family.
ReplyDeleteIn this talk, K. seems to be challenging this whole perspective by pointing to the danger of such specialization. If the school is not concerned with "the deeper fields of the human mind", then there is a danger that those fields would be neglected altogether. And the ultimate result would be "a society in which there is always disorder". I wonder how many schools today recognize this broader responsibility in their mission?