The center around which our education is moving is wrong. Our
educational system is revolving around ambition. We are taught a race to
get ahead of everyone.
Even in a small child learning in Kindergarten we are creating an anxiety about coming first in the class. We are creating competition in him. Competition is a kind of fever. When you are feverish there is a rise of energy. You can run faster, you can do things, which you ordinarily would not be able to do. This fever of competition gets hold of the children. They start thinking about becoming a Doctor, an Engineer, an I.A.S., a Pilot etc., without taking care of their aptitude and without acknowledging their capacity or capability.
Even after they come out of the field of education that fever persists. They want to build a bigger house, have a bigger shop, reach a higher position. From being a junior clerk, they want to be the head clerk; from being a deputy minister they want to become a minister and then the prime minister. In this mad race the whole peace, energy and capability in their lives get destroyed. What do they achieve in the end? They reach nowhere. So far in the world nobody has got ahead of everybody. But we are still teaching our children to come first. They remain in the race throughout their life and waste it.
We go on saying to people, “Do not be envious, violent and jealous,” but our whole education is rooted in jealousy. We point to one child and say to the other, “See how intelligent he is, and how dull you are. Be like him!” Thus we create envy and jealousy. This poison of envy goes on flowing through the mind and veins of our children, saps their creative energy and causes them the cancer of competition. This is a fundamentally wrong teaching. If we want to create a new world we will have to change this center and create a new center. What can this new center be?
The center of education should be love. To learn anything, humility and egolessness are required. Not competition with a fellow student, but love, sincerity and delight in the subject to be learned are required.
It is better that we teach love for mathematics, rather than competition with others learning mathematics. Everything can be learned when we have love for that thing; then only is it possible to learn. But we are not taught what love is. Our education has nothing to do with love. So what actually happens is that if you have studied literature in the university, after coming from the university you do not continue to learn literature, because it has harassed you and bored you a lot. If you have learned poetry in the university, your love and joy for poetry in life will have already been destroyed because it was studied during the race of egos, studied only to get through the examinations and studied to come first. No love for poetry was really created.
Therefore, in fact, it happens that our education destroys our genius. We study mathematics aiming at 100 out of 100 so that we may create an unbreakable record. Mathematics is the language in which nature communicates with intelligent living beings and what we do with it, we make it such a boring subject that most of the students feel afraid of it. This subject conveys eternal truths but many students start hating it because of the syllabus, which is practically useless.
Same is the situation with all other subjects. The entire approach to education needs a complete overhaul.
Even in a small child learning in Kindergarten we are creating an anxiety about coming first in the class. We are creating competition in him. Competition is a kind of fever. When you are feverish there is a rise of energy. You can run faster, you can do things, which you ordinarily would not be able to do. This fever of competition gets hold of the children. They start thinking about becoming a Doctor, an Engineer, an I.A.S., a Pilot etc., without taking care of their aptitude and without acknowledging their capacity or capability.
Even after they come out of the field of education that fever persists. They want to build a bigger house, have a bigger shop, reach a higher position. From being a junior clerk, they want to be the head clerk; from being a deputy minister they want to become a minister and then the prime minister. In this mad race the whole peace, energy and capability in their lives get destroyed. What do they achieve in the end? They reach nowhere. So far in the world nobody has got ahead of everybody. But we are still teaching our children to come first. They remain in the race throughout their life and waste it.
We go on saying to people, “Do not be envious, violent and jealous,” but our whole education is rooted in jealousy. We point to one child and say to the other, “See how intelligent he is, and how dull you are. Be like him!” Thus we create envy and jealousy. This poison of envy goes on flowing through the mind and veins of our children, saps their creative energy and causes them the cancer of competition. This is a fundamentally wrong teaching. If we want to create a new world we will have to change this center and create a new center. What can this new center be?
The center of education should be love. To learn anything, humility and egolessness are required. Not competition with a fellow student, but love, sincerity and delight in the subject to be learned are required.
It is better that we teach love for mathematics, rather than competition with others learning mathematics. Everything can be learned when we have love for that thing; then only is it possible to learn. But we are not taught what love is. Our education has nothing to do with love. So what actually happens is that if you have studied literature in the university, after coming from the university you do not continue to learn literature, because it has harassed you and bored you a lot. If you have learned poetry in the university, your love and joy for poetry in life will have already been destroyed because it was studied during the race of egos, studied only to get through the examinations and studied to come first. No love for poetry was really created.
Therefore, in fact, it happens that our education destroys our genius. We study mathematics aiming at 100 out of 100 so that we may create an unbreakable record. Mathematics is the language in which nature communicates with intelligent living beings and what we do with it, we make it such a boring subject that most of the students feel afraid of it. This subject conveys eternal truths but many students start hating it because of the syllabus, which is practically useless.
Same is the situation with all other subjects. The entire approach to education needs a complete overhaul.
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