Introduction:-
Today’s education prepares us for various professions and vocations that
can only contribute to our miseries and illusions. True education not only trains the mind to
take-up various vocations but also educates the mind. Education develops love and understanding
among people and does not promote only industrialization that has the potential
to annihilate others. Education should
help us learn the permanent values of life and develop creativity.
Life
History:-
Born in a Brahmin family in Madanapalli, Andra Pradesh in 1895. Jiddu Krishnamurti acquired
a theosophical background, since his father had been a theosophist and had
migrated to Madras on being invited by the President of the Theosophical
Society, Annie Besant. After being
educated privately, he wanted to prepare himself for some examinations of the
London University. He left for
California in 1922 with his younger sibling Nityanand who suffered from a
respiratory disease. In 1924, while he
was traveling to India, he received the news of the death of his brother and
this transformed his entire psyche. He
began to think about the very basis of all existence on earth.
Krishnamurti
Said:-
On Life
and Education:-
We are all endowed with emotions, moods, feelings and sentiments searching
for a place where there is no fear or mutual distrust. To avoid conformation with the authorities
and the forces that bind the society, we hesitate to revolt and prefer the
status quo. There can be no two opinions
on the need for reforms. The purpose of
life will be narrow and zero if we live to get more and more out of the mundane
affairs of life.
Education should enable us to understand the importance of life. We should understand the difference between
individual and personal spheres. The
individual is accidental that is he is shaped by the circumstances and the
environment in which he is brought up.
Today’s education prepares us for various professions and vocations that
can only contribute to our miseries and illusions. True education not only trains the mind to
take up various vocations but also educates the mind. Education develops love and understanding
among people. Education should help us
learn the permanent values of life and develop creativity.
True
Education:-
The current education is making life dependent upon machines. Education should promote inner experiences
and enable one to avoid self-deception.
It should enable us to help our fellow-beings and unshackle them from
worldly affairs.
Man is not a machine and cannot be adjusted to predetermined structure
of things. True education cannot be
based on any established system of things and should not be regarded as an
instrument of molding individuals into a particular shape.
True education should enable people to feel free from mundane bondage
facilitating people to love one another and feeling pride in helping others,
making people realize their real selves in their individual capacities.
Education should enable the child to become a complete person and
perceive life in its entirety. The world
is facing a crisis today and this is the consequence of the current system of
education.
A teacher
who understands the complexities of a child’s life will help them develop their
personalities in the desired fashion. If
the child is to be free from tensions that hamper growth, the atmosphere at the
school should be similar to that of home.
The School:-
Real
education can be imparted only through small schools where the strength of the
students in each class is limited to manageable proportions and individual
attention is given to each child. In a
class with limited strength, the teacher will be more concerned with his
students interaction with them on an individual basis and helping them to reach
their maximum potential.
Work
should be distributed to teachers according to their interests, aptitudes and
abilities. Every teacher should make
sincere efforts to understand the background of each child as that helps a lot
in providing the desirable direction to the child.
A
big load of books should be avoided in school.
The co-curricular activities should be conducted in a democratic manner
where participation of all the children and teachers is made obligatory. If the education is to serve its intended
purpose, the teacher should lead the student to understand the truth and
purpose of life and help the student in his search for truth.
J.K’s
Educational Philosophy:-
In
his essay `The Noisy child and Silent Mind’ he states that children should open
up and be aware of the great beauty in nature around them. Noisy children become silent when they are
absorbed in doing something which is of high interest to them. Then there is perfect peace. Hence education is the percept of taming the
noisy mind by letting it in its own track which is excited to `see this’ or `do
that’.
1.
Education
and Discipline:-
True
learning should promote independent thinking in the individual, critically
analyzing what he has seen, listened or read, in relation to his own personal
experiences. True learning demands
application and order. To learn, it is
necessary to observe. To hear or to
read, we have to pay attention which is not compelled, not under any pressure
or expectations or reward or punishment.
This is called `Discipline’.
Discipline means to learn not to conform, that is not to act
according to others expectations but to observe those in which one is
interested and get absorbed in activities what one likes. Learning results from discipline.
Education has become a functioning of many
subjects in our brain, conditioning us to conform that is all of us are
thinking alike. But true learning is the
one which enables the individual to express his uniqueness in thinking by
integrating the different subject contents he has studied.
2.
Education
and Attention:-
Attention is the pre-requisite for learning. Attention is different from
concentration. Concentration is to bring
all our energy to focus on a particular point.
In attention there is no such point of focus. When there is attention, there is no
concentration and therefore no conflict.
Attention is not mechanical or repetitive. It is the way of looking at a thing as a
whole with the sense of detachment.
3.
Process
of Learning:-
Discontent is like a flame. In enquiry satisfaction is not the goal. In fact dissatisfaction triggers the
enquiry. In studying there may be
exchange of thought and silent observation.
Enquiry uncovers the light of intelligence. It is our responsibility that this flame of
enquiry sharpening our intelligence is spread wherever we are in school, home
or in government.
4.
Freedom
and Learning;-
Freedom
is obviously not to do whatever we like.
We think we are free because this and that. But in fact we are not at all free but `programmed’. We are programmed to be Hindus, Muslims,
Christians; we are programmed to be communists, socialists or capitalists
etc. Our minds are programmed like the
computer is programmed. When a mind is
programmed, it says `I am a Hindu, I am a Buddhist, I am this, I am that’.
Freedom in learning means that the learner has got the capacity to
independently observe everything around him, and examine all ideas without any
pressure or compulsion.
Freedom denotes the opposite of `being imprisoned’; capacity to go out
or beyond anything.
The school and its educational practices should provide adequate
opportunities for students to independently observe and enquiry everything
around them without the pressure of competition, examination etc. In the classroom fearless and non-threatening
atmosphere should prevail offering total freedom to students.
5.
Learning
without Competition:-
There
should be no competition in learning.
Competition leads to fear, jealousy, fear of failure, violence etc. On
the contrary learning with co-operation will be more effective. Every student should set his own goal based
on his learning speed and individual abilities and then progress towards the
set goal devotedly with the cooperation of all others.
6.
Freedom
and Responsibility:-
Individual freedom refers to the ability of independent enquiry
critically evaluating everything based on one’s own personal experiences and
acting as per one’s own judgement.
Freedom and responsibility are the two sides of the same coin.
In
our country, the family and the parents play an important part in students’
education. Though the young ones may
earn a livelihood in different parts of the world, the family is the centre of
their lives. This is fast disappearing
in the Western world. So the students
are caught between their own desire for freedom to do whatever they wants and
the society which demands conformity to its own norms. This affects greatly their learning climate.
Teachers are responsible for the total behavior of students and their
progress. The teacher is to bring about
the unconditioning of the human brain not only of his own but that of the
students. In relationship with the
student, he is helping both the student and himself to free consciousness from
limitations.
7.
Individual
Awakening and Liberation:-
Every
individual should have communion with other human beings who suffer, struggle
and have great pain or the sorrow of poverty.
By watching, perhaps we learn more than from books. Schools are there to gather knowledge and
information about the world outside, world around us, nature, the social
environment and economics. If
individuals change for the better, the society will change. The essence of J.K’s philosophy is: “changes should come from you; from within
you; because you are the seed of change”.
Thus J.K emphasized individual awakening and liberation through
education. True learning frees the brain
and thought of prestige, and status; it brings about equality among human
beings.
Conclusion
For him knowledge or
educations are conditioning factors of our thinking. Knowledge makes man either conform to it or
differ from it. Learning has been the
ancient tradition of man, not only from books but from others sources like
nature and the psychology of human being.
As this has been neglected entirely, there is disorder in the world;
terror, violence and all other cruel things are taking place. To learn listening and reading alone are not
sufficient, as they will result only in indoctrination; instead of thinking
independently, because slaves of others thinking.
Shortcoming
in the present of education
j.k noticed the following deficence
in present system of eduation.
1)Education
at present is simply accumulating knowledge and collecting information from
books.
2)Today
education , not only kills the spirit of child but also debars him from
becoming an integred individuals.
3)Education
has come to mean acquiring skills, learning techniques whicw help in learning a
living only.
4)Education
doesnot encouraga creativity.
5)Todays
education create more or less ‘Yes man’.
6)Large
impersonel schools with crowded class and mass instruction fail to bring
about accomplishment of true education.
7)The
present systm of education depents upon authority and dominatin at all levels
the government, tne head of the school and teacher.
Main
features of educational philosophy of Krishnamurthi
(1)
Integral Education
According to him, “ The highest
fucntion of education is to bring about an integrated individual who is capable of dealing with
life as a whole.
Education
according to him was a trnsfermatio of human mind and creation of new culture.
Education must free the mind and sprit of children.
(2) The
educators role
The teacher should be a properly
integreted human being. The teacher has to be careful, thoughtful and
affectionate in the creation of right environment for developing of
understanding to be enable the child to deal intelligently with human problem. For a teacher, teaching was
not a technique but way of life.
(3)
Responsibility of the parents
J.K held the view that education was
dual responsibility of the parents and the teachers. He said.” The problem is
not child but parent and the teacher.
Conclusion
He was a great auther and also
writter. The books by him were the result and ouitcome of his speeches. He
wished that our children and youth could develop fully alll their faculties
unhindered by rigid and narrow systen of our schooling.
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