 Editor’s Note
A number of strands have been spun off from our central concern with the deeper aspects of education in recent issues. Foremost among these have been home education, teacher training, and the vexed question of the relationship of Krishnamurti’s teachings and academia. In this issue we continue with those themes.
The subject matter of our article on ‘Educating the Educator’ is self-evident. Training teachers for Krishnamurti schools is a subject that is beginning to receive some emphasis, mostly in India. Although it has its dangers, notably that of dogma, we believe it should be encouraged.
It seems that in the debate over whether or not K’s teachings can have a place in academia, there is an assumption on the part of the nay-sayers that academics are incapable of seeing the limitations of purely analytical reasoning and of exploring other or wider means of inquiry. Perhaps Professor Van Groenou’s paper entitled ‘Relational Truth’ might reassure them. We reprint the Introduction from that paper only, but are more than happy to forward the whole thing to anyone who requests it.
There was probably more response to the issue devoted to home-schooling than to any other since we began this section. It raises issues which go to the heart of the argument between holistic and state sponsored education. Both Clive Elwell’s ‘Some Thoughts from a Home Educator’ and our report on the recent Holistic Education Conference on Freedom and Education held at Brockwood Park School address that division.
The two aspects of public education at present which seem most contentious from the viewpoint of its holistic counterpart are probably ‘comparison’ and ‘control’. The problems with these bugbears of holism are to a greater or lesser degree apparent from all the articles in this section. However, possibly the best way to demonstrate their implications is to reprint the opening two paragraphs of a news item which appeared in The Observer (a U.K. Sunday newspaper) on the 3rd October 1999: “Children as young as three will be judged on their emotional and social skills, reading and writing, and even their ability to play, under sweeping new guidelines to be published tomorrow. The controversial Early Learning Goals will say exactly what children can be expected to learn at three, four and five. Next year nurseries, playgroups and child minders will be judged on their ability to ‘teach through play’ by inspectors from a new Ofsted department.”
One of the questions touched on at the Conference at Brockwood Park was ‘Who owns the child?’ Taken in conjunction with the recent attack by those same Ofsted inspectors on the radical independent school Summerhill, it seems that the answer, in the United Kingdom at least, is that the Government does.
Some Thoughts from a Home Educator
Below are some recollections jotted down at various times, on the experience of educating my children at home. It is a personal record, I am not attempting to comment on home-educating in general. Home-educating parents are a varied bunch. Some keep their children at home because they consider schools too competitive, others because they feel schools are not competitive enough. Some parents wish to shield their children from being conditioned in extreme ways, others because they want to do a more thorough job of it.
A Day at the Zoo
First day of Summer here, and so it feels. Some unexpected time at the zoo with the children. Watching and listening to the school parties being moved around emphasises so well the differences in conventional education and the education of my children (note I do not say the education I give my children). Outside the glass panel of the monkey enclosure, a class is being lined up. Order of a sort is established, silence of a sort is enforced, so that a collection of facts about monkeys can be recited by the teacher. And on they march, some knowledge having been installed, perhaps. Incidental conditioning included some guilt-inducing comments about failing to give way to some adults, and some mysterious comments about their belonging to the “best school in the town”.
Education, in relationship to the monkeys, is seen as entirely a matter of accumulating knowledge about them. There is no concern to establish a relationship between the children and the monkeys, and the observation of the monkeys is entirely neglected.
My children have now spent about two hours just watching the monkeys. They have no work sheets to complete, and we may or may not discuss them - as it arises from our observations. They watch the play fights, the grooming, discover the hierarchical structures in the group, they establish forms of communication with them. They notice the lack of a thumb, and take a delight in the attempts of the young ones to reach the tender shoots of a tree just outside their enclosure. There is a solemn fascination in the discovery that one of them (monkeys, not children), has somehow caught a sparrow. It climbs to the very top of its high enclosure to devour it privately. Every feather that flutters down is observed, how the wind catches it, how each one spins or turns, how it is noticed by the other monkeys.
If there seems to be pride in what I write, let me quickly say that I do not deceive myself for a moment that I have taught them to observe. Even if observation is a skill that can be passed on (is it?), I would not know how to begin to do this. I think it is freedom, space, which has allowed the skill, the art, to flourish. Like all things that have real meaning, it already exists in the children, it is their birthright. Perhaps all home educating has done is to keep away the influences which inhibit, which crush their natural flowering. In this sense, education has, indeed, “led out”. (I am reminded of an incident when Jarrath was about three years old. We were in some park and he was apparently loitering near the concrete toilet block. Somewhat impatiently I called him to come, and asked what he was doing. “I’m LOOKING at the wall”, he explained rather indignantly.) I should add neither of my children exist in some infinite state of attention. They are both forever leaving their boots lying around and their bedroom doors open.
More school children pass by the monkey enclosure, pausing just long enough to make comments like “they’re boring” or “they’re cute”. In the entrance block of the zoo is a door marked ‘education room’. The implication is, of course, that being at the zoo is not educational per se. Only through the input of teaching staff, only through the use of “educational material” can the experience of a zoo visit be turned into education. Life is not, presumably, in itself, educational.
After Clearwater School
Regular readers of The Link will remember that a few years ago I, together with a colleague, attempted to start a school here in New Zealand. When it seemed the venture was no longer viable, for reasons I won’t attempt to go into here, I still had the challenge of the education of my own children - Saoirse, then aged five, and Jarrath, 12, who had been previously home educated. An offer from a friend, of a home and employment which would give me the necessary time, meant we could home-educate them both.
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Freedom seems to imply that children have
the space, the leisure,
to observe what is around them.
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The situation was almost ideal - just in the countryside but with the amenities of a town very close by, an established home-educating group to provide social contact, trees to climb, a property with space enough to play and to garden in, animals to care for. We had the physical freedom - could we all grow in psychological freedom? The answer to that is, of course, an ongoing enquiry. Freedom is my basic concern in Education, including for myself, but, perhaps strangely, I cannot define what freedom is. One thing it seems to imply is the children having the space, the leisure, to observe what is around them, especially the natural world. It has seemed crucial to allow a lot of unstructured time in which the children can play. Play - what a misleadingly simple little word that is! Time and opportunity to create their own activities; to explore; to discover what does, and doesn’t, have significance for them.
Freedom from Measurement
Freedom seems to be denied by measurement, by comparison. I feel that particularly strongly with children. To compare a child is a heinous crime - to compare with another child or to compare with some artificially laid down set of standards. To compare any two human beings, any two relationships, is surely tremendously destructive. It is also what we are conditioned to do. Perhaps the very function of the brain is to compare, to measure. Certainly, we cannot function in the world without measurement. So the question arises, what is the right place of measurement in our lives? I’m not claiming to have discovered criteria that will always give an instant answer to that question, but I’m convinced that conventional education is besotted with measurement. Non-measurement, non-comparison has been a cornerstone of the education of my children. As far as possible, today is not compared with yesterday.
They do not know what they “should be” capable of at their ages. Their work is not graded, although it is examined critically, in the non-comparative sense. They have no heroes to live up to. But these are all superficial examples. It is the basic psychological climate that is important, not how that manifests in particular details.
"That’s all very well, but what happens when your children have to go out into the world and earn a living” is the common response of people when I talk in this vein. Frankly, I do not know what will happen. Neither am I sure that the sort of education the children are receiving now will continue to be appropriate in the future. There is a constant danger of turning what might be an appropriate response to a particular challenge of the moment into a system. But looking at the children developing, I do have a certain confidence in their relatively uncorrupted state. And I do feel fairly sure that comparing a child can only help to internalise comparison, to inculcate the habit of comparison in their own minds. And anyone who has begun to look at the activities of their own self can’t help but realise that psychological comparison, manifested as envy, jealousy, fear, is the basis of all pain, all conflict. It denies the possibility of simply seeing things as they are."
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If we are at all serious about wanting
to bring about a different world,
we have to educate for the possibility
of a child’s transformation.
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Our society is so strongly based on measurement it tends to disregard those aspects of living which cannot be measured. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in mainstream education. The ability to think logically, to memorise facts, to calculate and to measure - all these areas are easily measured, and so form the basis of the examination system. Thus, what is considered a child’s “ability” is assessed. Whether this assessment reflects qualities like goodness, intelligence, caring, insight, qualities that might help bring about a different kind of society, is doubtful.
If we are at all serious about wanting to bring about a different world, we have to educate for the possibility of a child’s transformation, not merely try to ensure that the particular children we are educating are equipped to be more successful than others in the world. Comparison can only keep the child, and the educator, firmly anchored in this world.
Fields near Brockwood Park, England
The Home and the School
The ability to observe the world as it is seems to lie at the heart of all learning. I have often asked myself if observation can be encouraged, developed, both in children and in myself. Ever since they were young I devised games, pastimes, that would seem to help them use their senses - blindfold activities, grading sandpaper by touch, recognising natural things by their smell, sound, taste, touch. Just encouraging them to look. I certainly have my doubts if any of this did have an effect (in fact, I think I have learned more from them). However, it does seem they have developed observational ability to a marked degree - unless, indeed, I am judging them by comparison to my own inability. A group of ducks in the lake, all much the same to me, quickly become individuals with names to them, to be recognised on future occasions. They will happily spend their time watching a spider weave its web, watching the activities of the birds. So from where does this capacity come?
Is this a right question? Or is a better one: what is it that destroys our ability to observe, both externally and internally? And how big a part does our education play in this destruction? Looking back at my own super-conventional, elitist education, I suspect the overwhelming emphasis on using the intellect alone did at least contribute to the withering away of my observational functioning.
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What is it that destroys our ability to observe,
both externally and internally?
And how big a part does our education play
in this destruction?
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Reflecting on home-education - and I have many reasons not to feel discontented with the outcomes up to now - I often find myself wondering what has had the greatest effect on the children. Is it the so-called positive - by which I mean the decisions I have taken, the resources I have provided, the directions I have suggested? (By using the word positive, I am certainly not claiming to have been an unmitigated force for good in the children’s lives.) Or is it the negative, by which I mean all the conditioning the children have NOT been subjected to by non-attendance at school?
I am aware that by talking about “school” in this way I am generalising. I am sure there are schools which are exceptions. The semi-imaginary “school” I am talking about is the one I read about in the local paper, the one represented by the behaviour of the young people in the streets, the school attended by the children of the parents I talk to, the one with the statistics I read about. “School” is the collection of problems experienced by just about every parent: the violence of the playground, the drug pushers at the gate (and inside), the peer pressure to conform to destructive behaviour. It is the regimentation, the large class sizes, the who-knows-what neuroticism of some of the teachers. It is being forced to learn from curricula laid down from upon high without reference to the needs and interests of the student. It is the more subtle underpinning of the psychological environment, the endless measurement and comparison, the rewards and punishments, the encouragement of identification, the inculcation of competition as a way of life. It is unchallenged assumptions and values, the lack of enquiry - or at best, enquiry within very narrow boundaries. And behind all this is the action of fear.
If this is an accurate description of the state of conventional education, perhaps the first question I have to meet as a home-educating parent is: can I bring about an environment that is free of these influences? This seems a far more crucial question than the ones the authorities try to focus on, “do I follow a curriculum or not”, or “do I follow regular school hours”, etc. In facing this question one starts to ask if it is not misleading to focus on the inadequacies of the education system in this way. The influences of school are but a reflection of the influences of the society all around us. In fact, the influences of society stem from human consciousness, which is my consciousness. Thus, by removing the children from school, fundamentally I have removed them from nothing. I also am neurotic. I also am conditioning the children according to my background.
In the light of this more fundamental understanding, the question of creating an environment free of these conditioning influences, although still valid, becomes an ongoing enquiry with the children into understanding how our minds are conditioned by the influences all around us. In a sense, this defines our curriculum.
But given all this, I am convinced that the children are freed from a tremendous burden by not going to school. There do seem to be indications that such freedom can leave a certain fallowness in the soil of their minds, perhaps allowing the germination of some new seed.
Clive Elwell, January 1999
Notes from India
The following short passages were excerpted from reports written by G. Gautama, the current Principal of The School-KFI-Chennai (formerly Madras), one of the educational centres under the umbrella of the Krishnamurti Foundation India. The first is taken from a brief minute of an unscheduled meeting of four Principals from the Krishnamurti Schools in India and the Administrative Director of Brockwood Park School in England, which occurred in Saanen this summer. We have chosen a paragraph that addresses a particular difficulty affecting, to some degree, all the schools.
The second is an abbreviated version of an article published first in a newspaper in India. It refers to the difficulties and decisions facing students as they prepare to leave school and enter university - or not. Although referring to the Indian context it seemed representative enough to be of interest to a wider audience.
From the report on the meeting of heads of schools:
We asked ourselves what were the most central issues facing our schools. S voiced the question: “There will be fewer and fewer people who had contact with K, or had listened to him directly, as we go along. How are we going to retain the sense of a K school?” It appears that the movement of our schools depends largely on the manner in which teachers’ interest in the ‘teachings’ and education can be drawn out and sustained. We spoke further about what each of the schools is doing to create the atmosphere, what steps are being taken to see that teachers are drawn into the larger concerns. It became clear at once that we needed to steer a careful course between the voluntary and the compulsory. We do not want an atmosphere of compulsion, but if things are left entirely to individual interest, no movement at all may occur. In the schools in India we don’t often get new teachers who are acquainted with the teachings. For those schools the paramount question is: what needs to be done for a shift to take place from this position to one where the teacher sees the significance of the teachings? At Brockwood Park staff members, including teachers, are considered only if they have that interest. The question there is more: what needs to be done to keep the teachings at the centre?
From ‘School and After’:
This summer was not unlike previous ones. Students fill out application forms for admission tests in an uneasy and uncertain atmosphere. College admissions become difficult - many applicants and few seats. Students are aware that they may not get the course of their choice and they know, too, that money can purchase seats for qualifying in professions that will pave the way for earning the money spent and more. Peer pressure, societal dictates, images of the good life, plenty and status exert an inexorable pressure.
Why the hurry? One can work by starting with something simple and fulfilling, thereby reducing the parental burden. Our society believes that if you are unqualified you cannot be employed. This needs to be challenged with common sense - it is important that one act intelligently.
Put down on a piece of paper why you want to go to college after school, and then discuss it with friends and adults to find at least three ways of accomplishing what you wish to do. This will enable you to arrive at multiple possibilities and also realise that you are not part of a mindless herd.
The future is here all too soon, catching us off guard. The Internet is here, transforming the world. In a few years it will not be necessary to go to school or college to acquire knowledge, non-physical skills, and certification. The cyber college is already upon us. Students participate in discussions on the Net, attend ‘classes’, do assignments and receive comments and guidance on their work. They may soon take examinations on the Net. Of course, human companionship will not be possible, and this will be a true challenge.
Students at this point hardly know what they wish to do. The advice they get is generally along these lines: ‘do as we did; choose a profession and work hard; stick to one profession; specialise; choose one of the new careers that seems to have bright prospects; select the one everyone else is choosing’; or, ‘do whatever you wish, but make sure you earn enough money’. They are sometimes, too, encouraged to choose the career they are interested in, although one needs to deliberate carefully here: how is interest different from mere fancy? I would answer this question in this way: all of us have capacities that are valuable for the present, and latent potentials that can be honed. A person who is ‘alert’ will never be jobless and hence without any resources, or without viability. Do you have an ‘alert’ mind? Discovering one’s viability is the key issue.
Also, choose an exploratory mode of learning. Accepting that one is not clear about one’s choice, gathering information and learning about this will make the magic work. This means trusting that there is something in oneself waiting to be discovered. Spending time searching for one’s vocation is far better than spending it tied to something just for the money.
One can always choose a career, but better to do so after trying to find one’s vocation, that special thing for which one would happily work long hours, for which one needs no external rewards.
G. Gautama, July 1999
Freedom and Education
Holistic Education Conference at Brockwood Park School in October 1999
The field of holistic education, although somewhat marginal to the main stream, seems to be very much alive and infused with enough diversity to make for a wide ranging dialogue. On the one hand it looks like the natural extension of everything that has been done in education so far and on the other like the voice crying in the wilderness of competing public and private systems. The ten speakers who participated in this educational conference, organized under the title of Freedom & Education and meant to mark the 30th anniversary of the founding of Brockwood Park School, succeeded remarkably in mapping out some of the key concerns and the overall evolving spectrum of holistic education. Although the majority of them came from the United States and addressed these issues against the particular background of that society, their contributions painted a picture that is broadly applicable to Western style societies as a whole.
It is practically a given that freedom is of the essence of holistic education. It is necessitated by the basic purpose of bringing about integrated individuals whose intelligence is highly awakened and who are then able to deal with life as a whole. This sense of wholeness implies the needful absence of coercion and the natural development of the child. As one of the speakers put it: “Education is to bring forth that which is”, which in turn implies the movement of self-understanding so that unbiased perception unfolds and there can be a rich inner and relational life. Being present, staying with the facts from moment to moment, without the imposition of preconceived ideas, is seen as a key aspect of freedom in the total context of relationship. In this sense freedom is primarily freedom to observe, which necessitates the understanding and dissolution of such distorting factors as conditioning, identification and self-interest. Seeing things as they are is obviously essential in relationship (unless one prefers to relate to a fiction and not to actuality), which goes together with the etymological meaning of freedom as friendship and love. This basic sense of freedom can then be explored in the different social, ethical, cognitive, creative and religious or spiritual aspects involved in holistic education.
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For the true religious spirit to emerge,
inquiry and critical thinking must be exercised
to free the mind from its blind adherence
to traditional systems of belief.
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The question of freedom meets a first challenge in the relationship of the individual and society. The current democratic social organization is caught in its own internal dialectic regarding the balance between individual freedom and social responsibility. Within it there is invariably a struggle between different groups and the national government, each attempting to preserve its own ways of life. This is particularly poignant in the case of religiously oriented groups, who find in the secular humanism of the state a denial of their own values. The public school system, following on the principle of separation of church and state, tends to ignore the religious tradition and every kind of spiritual instruction. At the same time, it is clear that not everything is right with society. Religions generally have been based precisely on a critique of what has gone wrong with the social structures and mores. There is inequality and injustice brought about by the social aims of success, hierarchy and status. In a culture bent on progress as driven by the market place, schools are concerned with economic development, and so education itself is viewed as one more consumer good whose worth depends on matching service and costs. But if one of the basic purposes of education is to bring about a good society and a peaceful world, the values of competition, greed and acquisitiveness need to be questioned. From this point of view, the transformation of society is not primarily an economic but a moral or ethical issue.
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Creativity is the meeting place of science,
art and religion.
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One very important aspect for education concerning the relation of social aims and individual freedom is, evidently, how the child is viewed and how it is treated by the public institutions. The UN manifesto on the rights of the child was brought to the attention of the participants in the conference. It proposes three basic principles, namely Provision of the basic needs, Protection from all kinds of harm, and Participation of the child in the decision-making process relative to those things that concern him/her. It was pointed out that this latter principle is generally not being observed. Children are not being heard in schools or political forums - not even in the UN. Instead, children are increasingly demonized and viewed as a dangerous new class by the establishment, which, as can be seen by the new official educational programmes, instead of listening responds by extending its bureaucratic control over the young, enforcing curfews and prescribing testing for 3-year-olds. This shows how hard it is for the state to view its young as human beings first and foremost.
The speakers concerned with these questions proposed various answers. One was that the community was a fitting middle ground between the rival claims of parents and state over the life of the child. This seemed to be one of the possible answers to the question “To whom does the child belong?” But the child is not only a passive absorber of influences but also a maker of meaning. The values being promoted by their given environment may be antithetical to their own outlook. One of the speakers went as far as saying that society as a whole is morally bankrupt, which for him is the source of what he called ‘moral outrage’ and what drives people to look for their own confessional community of meaning. They all cautioned against the extremes of chauvinist conformity and cynical nihilism and advocated healthy scepticism and dialogue to keep the communication open.
Lac Léman in spring, Switzerland
There was a general consensus that the change that’s needed is spiritual in nature. Here different views emerged as to what was implied in this ‘spiritual’ transformation. One proposed that the antidote to the current alienating materialist set of values was the affirmation of the truths contained in the religious tradition. According to the speaker, this was one way to turn what is into what should be. Another proposed the development of mindfulness or attention and the practice of meditation. It was generally agreed that the religious spirit was not to be confused with organized dogma. Rather, for the true religious spirit to emerge, inquiry and critical thinking must be exercised to free the mind from its blind adherence to traditional systems of belief. They considered that the essence of spirituality is the oneness of being and that the way of spiritual unfoldment, the journey to the source, necessarily involved self-knowledge, an understanding of the disordered as well as the healthy aspects of thought and self.
As could hardly be otherwise, creativity is at the heart of holistic education. This was brought out in many ways, but particularly in the exploration of liminal moments and the question of the central importance of teaching for insight. Creativity and insight clearly go together. Insight was defined as the perception of relationship among seemingly separate elements. Given its importance, this quality must be taken into account in the curriculum and the approach to teaching. These creative insights begin when the established conceptual frameworks are shaken by the perception of contradictions and incoherence. The dropping away of the frameworks themselves is an important aspect of the liminal moments, when the division between subject and object is dissolved and there is a unified state of being, and the perception of a new set of relationships can take place. This is the meeting place of science, art and religion.
The conference proved to be of the highest interest to those who attended, who also enjoyed spending time in the educational environment of Brockwood. The idea was put forward that, in view of the outcome, a similar conference might be organized in the near future. Given the importance of this educational proposal and the need for dialogue at all levels, one can only hope that it will be given another chance like this in the same forum. One can’t help but think that it will all be for the good.
The speakers at the holistic education conference were:
Nel Noddings, Professor of Education at both Stanford University and Teachers College Columbia. She spoke on ‘Freedom and Public Goods’.
David Purpel, Professor at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He spoke on ‘Education for Personal Freedom and Social Justice’.
Kathleen Kesson, Director of Teacher Education at Goddard College. She spoke on ‘The Educational Visions of John Dewey and J. Krishnamurti’.
Scott Forbes, doctoral candidate in holistic education at Oxford University and a former Principal of Brockwood Park School. He spoke on ‘Freedom in Holistic Education’.
Jack Miller, Co-ordinator in the Curriculum Teaching and Learning Department at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. He spoke on ‘J. Krishnamurti in Relation to Holistic Education’.
Mary John holds a Chair in Education at the University of Exeter. She spoke on ‘Children’s Rights and Power and What Can Be Done’.
Ron Miller, founding editor of Holistic Education Review and current editor of Paths of Learning magazine. He spoke on ‘The History and Context of Holistic Education’.
David Moody, former teacher, Educational Director, and Director of the Oak Grove School in Ojai, California, currently working on a book on Krishnamurti’s teachings. He spoke on ‘The Insight Curriculum’.
Josette and Sambhava Luvmour, originators of a holistic approach to parenting, childhood and human growth and development. They spoke on ‘Natural Learning Rhythms: The Wisdom of Developmental Stages and Relationship as Freedom’.
Javier Gómez Rodríguez, October 1999
Relational Truth
Willem Van Groenou is a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Services at California State University, Haywood. He presented a paper entitled ‘Relational Truth’ in 1995 at Miami University in Ohio at the occasion of Krishnamurti’s centenary, from which we have reprinted the Introduction. It serves to demonstrate that academics can deal directly with those aspects of K’s teachings which appear inimical to academia’s supposedly fundamental processes. This excerpt outlines questions that are dealt with at greater length in the body of the paper, but which nonetheless demonstrate effectively an examination of thought, or ‘cognitive function’, from this particular viewpoint. We recommend the whole paper to our readers, which we can make available on request.
J. Krishnamurti unswervingly identifies ‘thought’ as the culprit of divisive relations, both outwardly and inwardly. This identification, if valid, must originate from another resource of the inner life that may perhaps bring integrity to the person and compassion to the relationships.
Krishnamurti’s views of the cognitive function of the mind are disturbing to people who make their living in the field of knowledge. The prevalence of analytical patterns in educational, political and economic institutions is so momentous that it is no wonder that this rebellious voice is still being ignored. His relentless attacks on religious traditions as trapping people in exclusive beliefs, in ritual circles, in monopolies of dogma, and in systems of meditation, have set him aside as a solitary person outside of institutional settings.
In the following (presentation paper), I would like to examine, firstly, whether the cognitive function deserves the treatment it receives in his care. Secondly, is there something like an historical rise and fall of the cognitive function, and are we witnessing its departure from the throne in the inner life? And if the cognitive function ends, what new ordering source is possibly going to emerge?
Thirdly, is the cognitive function driven by irrational forces which are only getting rationalised? We hear Krishnamurti’s voice in a different mode now: here he warns us against image-driven relationships, against identification with the nation, against the pursuit of ideals, against all escapes from relationships, against all calculated action based on self-centredness. Positively speaking, Krishnamurti accompanies his warnings with invitations to verify the possibility of giving undivided and non-judgemental attention to the inward connections we make to unhappy relations that we are in. Perhaps these connections disappear in such inner light. Is it relational truth that sets us free?
Fourthly, I should like to test cognitive processes known as problem solving, critical thinking, and moral education in real life situations, and see whether by this route we may be able to see more clearly what Krishnamurti meant with his accusation against thought.
Lastly, perhaps there are some ways to open the cognitive curtain a little bit and get a glimpse of that which brings something more powerful than thought to divided relationships.
Willem Van Groenou, 1995
Educating the Educator
There has been a lot of talk lately among those associated with the Krishnamurti schools about a teacher training programme. Teacher training is by now an integral part of every educational system, be it state or private. Each prepares teachers to carry out the functions it considers consistent with its overall conception of the educational process. Montessori and Steiner schools, for example, have their own colleges for training teachers in their vision and methodology. Now the feeling is spreading among those concerned with K’s holistic education that the time is ripe to set up something similar in order to convey to the new teachers the scope and implications of such an approach. This brief article is an attempt to sketch out some of the aspects involved in this proposal.
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The overemphasis on the functional has led to
the neglect of the psychological,
producing a dangerous imbalance
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The scope of K’s holistic education has been described as being concerned with imparting knowledge and skills, global awareness and culture and the unfolding of creativity, which is primarily viewed as an integral part of a religious quality of mind rather than the mere cultivation of talent. Implicit in this range of activities is the proper harmony between the ‘outer’ or functional, normally represented by the academics and aimed at making a living, and the ‘inner’ or psychological, which is concerned with relationship and life as a whole. The general sense is that the overemphasis on the functional has led to the neglect of the psychological, producing a dangerous imbalance, as demonstrated in this century by two of the most devastating wars mankind has known, any number of bloody revolutions and social upheavals, and the ongoing threat of destruction, locally and worldwide, as the result of the use of the most advanced technology for essentially tribal, exploitative and violent ends. This kind of education is therefore concerned with bringing about a reversal of this process.
The stated purpose is to effect a radical psychological transformation in both the teacher and the student so that a new culture and civilization can come about. This transformation implies unconditioning the mind, freeing it from the habit-forming machinery, and the creation of new values that are integral to ethical behaviour. One short-hand way of saying it is that this education is concerned with the awakening of intelligence and the quality of love that goes with it. These qualities are at once the basis and the outcome of self-knowledge, of a deepening inquiry into oneself.
This quality of cooperation and inquiry requires that there be right relationship between the teachers and the students. From the first day at school, the student should feel at home, loved and cared for. This implies that the teacher be non-authoritarian, that he not be on a pedestal or concerned with status, that he is not using teaching to satisfy some personal motive or psychological self-interest, as all these distort relationship, making it into a means to an end. Such teachers are responsible for the whole operation of the school and not only for one particular area of competence, and they are entrusted with the overall well-being of the child, which implies not the imposition of an ideal but attention to what he actually is in every aspect of his daily life.
This brief list of the contents of the teacher’s responsibilities in relationship is sufficiently subtle and complex to deserve a good deal of investigation. One would have only to reflect on the question of authority to draw out of it all the other implications, as perhaps couldn’t be otherwise, since all psychological manifestations are interrelated. However, the inquiry into and application of these things is an essential part of educating the educator. After all, the field of relationship encompasses the whole of human existence and it is here that a different way of being has to come about.
At Brockwood there used to circulate a statement concerning the seemingly dual aspect of teaching: “You teach what you know and you educate what you are”. The phrase was perfectly meaningful, though not completely grammatical. As one can see, teaching has a content that is transmitted from one person to another, whereas educating only has a direct object without a content: one teaches something but educates someone. In a way this illustrates implicitly the function of education as a training in the ways of knowledge as well as the unfolding of one’s being. And, naturally, there has been a question as to the relationship between the two.
Even at a superficial glance one can see that this type of education implies a different approach to curriculum. For example, that it not be nationalistic or sectarian, as this would be contrary to the global outlook. In particular, it means the development of a quality of sensitivity to the presence of incoherence and implicit assumptions that is the ground of critical thinking. In this way the cultivation of technique goes together with the cultivation of the capacity to find things out for oneself, and thus the academics are not in contradiction with the deeper intent of awakening intelligence. However, the responsibility for awakening this intelligence in teachers and students is greater than for the academics. This intelligence is not only the comprehension and skillful application of knowledge but also, and much more importantly, the capacity to perceive danger and act on it immediately. And the primary dangers are not outward but inward. And it is when we don’t know how to tackle the inner that the academics become all-important, which is what is happening in most educational institutions worldwide, which is in itself one of the greatest dangers.
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Relationship encompasses
the whole of human existence
and it is here that
a different way of being has to come about.
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The toughest challenge of this education is precisely the inquiry and insight into the nature of conditioning and its habitual and traditional patterns. This includes the exploration of such things as nationalism, authority, violence, attachment, dependence, jealousy, fear, prejudice, etc. The awakening of intelligence means immediate perception and action regarding the danger of these divisive psychological factors. One might readily agree that each of them is deleterious in its own way: nationalism leads to war, authority implies oppression, violence is destructive, and so on. One can then proceed to examine their subtler aspects, for example, that imitation is a form of violence. And one can also trace their interconnectedness, for example, that attachment, which is a form of possessive dependence, leads to jealousy and fear, from which violence arises. So, to see the danger of violence also means seeing the danger of the factors that lead to it. The inquiry further reveals that behind all these things lies the mechanical operation of the brain as a sequence of word, thought and image. This image-making mechanism is the essence of psychological habit, at the root of which lies the “me”, the artificial division in consciousness between the self-image and the image of whatever it observes, which means that the observed is part of the observer and not something independent on which he can act. This would indicate that the whole thing is basically a movement of prejudice. And prejudice is of the greatest danger, for it distorts observation and prevents the understanding of the present.
The question then arises as to what can be done in the educational context to bring such an awareness or intelligence about so that there is freedom from the destructive structure of conditioning, as this is the educator’s primary responsibility. Naturally, first the teachers must see the importance of bringing this transformation about and be actively engaged in self-inquiry. They must talk these things over together so that they deepen their understanding and so are clear when they meet the students. The existence of contradictions among teachers regarding this basic intent will tend to create confusion in the student and thus defeat the purpose. The students may or may not be interested in it but, as with any other subject, its importance will be conveyed by the clarity and intensity which the educator brings to it.
The communication with the student is established on the basis that, as human beings, they are in the same boat. Both share this heritage of conditioning and egocentric activity. It’s something they have in common. In this communication both must be at the same level and the first thing is to learn to listen and to observe. In fact learning to observe, which means without the distortion of personal motive or prejudice, is the beginning and the end of this inquiry. They must be able to observe together the movement of word, thought and image without missing a step. This direct observation of things as they are opens the way for the dissolution of the habitual patterns of consciousness and the cessation of conflict resultant on the structure of prejudice, of the “me”. This quality of the absence of division and conflict is love and the essence of the religious mind.
These are some of the aspects of this holistic approach that, as it seems to me, are central to educating the educators. Even by such a cursory overview it appears to be a tall and delicate order. Which inevitably makes one wonder about all kinds of potential pitfalls and even its feasibility. For example, can the full scope of this educational proposal be materialized into a teacher training programme? How will the subtlety and intrinsic freedom of this kind of learning go together with the structuring tendencies of method? How well prepared are we to tread the ways of self-knowledge? To what extent is this approach necessarily open and experimental? All these and more questions come readily to mind and, no doubt, will be pursued further as we go along. What is not in question, however, is the importance and the necessity of the attempt in this culture and in these times.
Javier Gómez Rodríguez, October 1999
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