M K BHAN
Whenever we talk of education… education itself stares at us and searches herself in our eyes. She gets confused and remains in dilemma to decide about her right and real face. We have encountered face-to-face in the mirror of deep definitions, searched one-another throughout the pages of heavy leading books and walked miles together on the spiral paths of extensive research papers, but, failed to establish a life-long relationship with it.
Education-the fire, cannot be confined to the vocabulary restrictions and instructions of the literary world. It never dwells in the luxurious palaces and comforted zones of air-conditioned buildings. It treads on unknown paths, emerges from the dark depths, burning sands, frozen stones and mysteries of this universe. Smooth sails are never so thrilling and adventurous as sailing through challenging and roaring tides under thundering moods of wandering clouds. Education sprouts and blooms from the point where one gets challenged by the circumstances, where the struggle for our survival starts alarming us and when confronted with the existence of self having nobody around to interfere, no torch bearers, no helping hands … nothing… and no one else… except Me and My Soul.
It was the fire of heart that guided these great teachers of the world- Lord Krishna teaching Arjuna in the battlefield to fight for the cause of ‘Dharama”, Chanakaya searching and discovering a qualified leader in person of Chandragupta Mauraya for the unification of India, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa’s vision to prepare Swami Vivekananda as messenger of Indian wisdom to the western world, Gautam Buddha explorating the secret of salvation, ‘Sacha Saudha’ of Guru Nanak Dev Ji showing keen care and concern for the masses…..Revolutionaries of the times – Prophet Mohammad, Nelson Mandela, Cubian Ernesto Che’ Guevara, Vladmir Lenin, George Washington, Mao Zedong of China….struggled against injustice and immorality, stood up in times of tyrannical darkness to dispense social justice, righteousness and humanity on the earth.
Education is everybody’s concern now, but, when we start making it our individual and private concern, it loses its sanctity and that is the point where we go and grow wrong. Going wrong is not bad till we are ignorant about the length and breadth of this educational canvass. We have to accept this fact that no one remains ignorant for always and all the time, finally the sun rises after a brief time-bound spell of darkness. Keeping the windows of our room closed and cursing darkness is an outdated concept and no excuse if we stumble, fall down and get hurt in this self created darkness of our mindsets. This wrong…wrong will stay for how long? Take courage, light a candle and see the things in right perspective. In the history of aviation, Albert, Ader, Whitehead, Pearse and others (I am giving them the name Wrong Brothers) did not succeeded in bringing out the flying objects (airplanes) that can fly long distances due to some limitations and technical errors, but Orville and Wilbur Wright (I can call them as Right Brothers) succeeded Wrong Brothers and made it happen before the whole world. In this way the Wrong’s laid strong foundation for the Right’s to explore the possibilities of aviation in this world. It is a universal fact that ‘Right’ succeeds ‘Wrong’ like ‘Light’ follows ‘Darkness’. Right and Wrong- true companion of human civilization.
Education-the fire, cannot be static like the needs of the society. Rapid demographic and technological changes and huge disparities in our populace necessitate a search for newer models appropriate for their locale of operation. This calls for a wider understanding of the ground realities. Finland, Singapore and South Korea have produced significantly better results in school education than others including India. Here, anybody can argue at this point that how India can be compared with these countries on the basis of its size. It is true that complexity increases exponentially with size but, it may be possible for us to at least compare our Capital City with Singapore and visualize the reality, see the comparative hazards at socio-political fronts and then decide about the claims for our achievements in understanding the concept of education.
Education never can termed be as a noble business because business is confined to transactions alone and where the end product is calculated in terms of profit or loss, but, education is an eternal journey and transformation is its ultimate goal. Education is therefore, a noble service and can’t be interpreted as a noble business. Education is not about anything except education.
Education is not the luring figures and digits written boldly in the marks-cards and assessment sheets or what we are going to achieve in future by living in the company of few titled books prescribed in the syllabi of our schools, colleges, universities and other professional institutes. It is an open universe of pristine nature beyond the narrow boundaries of satchels, study-rooms and world class libraries. I do not mean to say that books should be totally avoided or there is no requirement of books in our education and life. It is true that books bind us together, but we can’t deny this fact that excessive binding means blinding ourselves to see the reality standing beyond the known facts and figures.
Education is always at the top in hierarchy of world order but it is coming down due to employment of misfits and mismatches in its system. ‘Education is not everybody’s cup of tea’- can be proved wrong if we sincerely are interested to serve it. Actually, fault lies not in the education but in quality of tea and the way it is being served to the aspirants as per their age, health and need. In this ever expanding technological world, education is everybody’s cup of tea now and maintaining its quality, taste and flavor lies with the policy makers, caretakers and implementing agencies.
After analyzing the concept of education we can say, that it is now a cry of semantic despair because we are putting contents before the processes and prioritize what to learn before how to learn. We no longer know what is education for and what we are sending children to school for? Education is not testing and preparation for life; it is a concern for the joy of learning. Competitive pressures are damaging the promising and passionate lives, in addition to generating debilitating anxiety and cheating culture among the educated youth. To be educated, does not necessarily mean piling of the facts, information, data, skills, abilities-rather making it visible what is hidden in a seed and getting exposed to transformative events of human activities.
Tips, tricks and techniques are not at the heart of education. Contemporary crisis of education is different rather than being a crisis about the content of education, it is a crisis of meaning. One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but a few are educated. We are creating a race of dyspeptics, converting men into machines and making their lives like the existence of jelly-fish. Education is really is a troublesome activity and leads to discontent because it demands sacrifice like- Jesus Christ, Socrates, Mahatma Gandhi…. True educationalists were executed for offering young people a critical and logical thinking for making social cohesion as a goal and this whole universe as family of one God- ‘Vasudeva Kutumbhkam’.
The bitter fruit of present is the result of ignoring this fire in the past and continuing with the same attitude of carelessness and negligence at present, anybody can imagine about the encounter of approaching disaster with entire human civilizations. Education-the fire we carry along, the fire we play with, the fire in a coal and not the least-the untamed forest fires, demands brainy people, who can control and use it at their own will for the benefit of society.
“Education-the fire, Students its ultimate fuel and Educators the igniting force”. Arise, Awake and Realize your roles and responsibilities as educators and human beings, otherwise we will be witnessing the entire globe resting in the ashes of this uncontrolled and neglected fire.
The author is Director/Principal SGGJ Model Schools, Sunderbani
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