VALUE BASED EDUCATION
The word for 'Education' in many Indian languages is vidya. The root vid, from which vidya is derived, represents a homology meaning, 'to know' and 'to exist' from which words like vidwan are derived nanya pantha vidyate anyanaya.
Thus, the word vidya translated into English means 'To learn is to exits', 'Existence is knowledge or learning to be'. Every living organism is prewired for the capacity to learn, to remember and experience. Therefore, neither can there be life without education nor can there be education divorced form life.
Vidya becomes a-vidya when education initiates a process where wisdom is lost in knowledge and knowledge in information, where materialism divorced from spiritualism seeks pleasure and comfort which distort perception of reality and where complete lack or distorted vision of inter-connectedness leads to alienation, isolation and anomie. When this happens, one's responsibility to oneself, to one's neighbours, country and the world becomes the premium.
Melvin J. Lasky, in his book Utopla and Revolution points out how utopia ends in revolution, revolution turns into dogma, dogma provokes heresay which in turn triggers revolution. This cycle enslaves the minds of intellectuals in such a way that they become victims of a new cycle. In the words of Nietzsche "........life no longer resides in the whole. The word becomes sovereign and leaps out of the page, and the page comes to life at the expense of whole, the whole is no longer a whole".
In ancient India, life was measured in terms of fullness. Since fullness is such a concept that the product of all the four mathematical operations is fullness there was no space for emptyness, isolation and alienation when Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam and Yadum ure yavarum Ke ½ir "the world is my village and every person my kinsman", how can one become lonely? When God is so pervasive that one can accept and surrender, reject and deny, or doubt and question, how can one escape God? Thus, God being a presence even in refusal and rejection, a person cannot, but be aware of interconnectedness, environmental, social and cosmic, value education must, therefore, begin with awareness of one's connection with the immediate eco-culture, with fellow beings in society and with cosmic laws and forces which bind the particular with the universal. The creative interdependence among the three has become all the more essential in face of modern science and technology, which is based on the triple principles of self destructive competition, materialistic acquisition and emphasis on commodity values.
Rabindranath Tagore made a distinction between Mukhos 'mask' and Mukhashree 'natural glow of the face'. That distinction is all the more important to remember today, when education tends to teach the use of mask rather then helping the natural inner glow to be reflected. School is not an extension of home, it has become either a substitution or rejection of home. The school does not treat the child as a resource. The child is treated as an object to be fashioned in the image of the elders by knowing textbook lessons doing social work pre-determined by curriculum makers. There is no effort at relating knowing and doing with being and becoming. That explains why modernity is not rooted in tradition and seeking of status and affluence through grossly improper measures of excellence gets precedence over professional excellence and idealism to fight against untruth, injustice and inequality or to seek the causes of all of these.
The denial of the child and the refusal to treat the child as and independent layer of social science concern finds expression in the rejection of the child's home language in formal schooling. The teacher's lack of cognition of the processes of language acquistion and processes of reading and writing on the one hand and the teacher's belief that there is a single standard and correct form of language is responsible for this rejection. The dialects and the minority languages are also rejected on this count. Whether it is the child or the non-standard 'dialect' speaker, (s)he is not perceived as a human being, but a human becoming. With the waves of educational theories since World War II, the focus of concern has moved like a pendulum from the subject matter to the child and vice versa, but the medium has been taken for granted. That is why curricular reform has meant change in textbooks and methods of approaching them, but has seldom concerned itself with modes of language use, communicability of languages used in textbooks and linkage between home language and school language on the one hand and first, second and further language on the other.
Intellect, emotion and will are the basic faculties of human psyche and all three are integrally related to language development. By rejecting, suppressing, supplanting, or denigrating the mother tongue, not only creativity and innovativeness is curbed, but the resultant intellectual mediocrity and emotional sterility distorts the perception of life as an integrated whole. Take for example English medium education for Indian language speaking children. Lack of words in English for the familiar flowers, fruits, plants, trees, birds, beasts, rains, winds results in an imbalanced relation between the child and the environment. Neutralisation of the three dimensional kin terms by terms like uncle, aunt and cousin result in distortion in the perception of societal relations. Lack of transmission of the myths and other cultural symbols leads to the creation of cultural perception blind spots which affect appreciation of literature, plastic and performing arts and architecture which use such myths and symbols. All these lead to disintegration of society and culture. All these erodes the values the culture holds high.
Value is not mask to be worn, but is a glow permeating culture. It is manifested in the personal, societal, psychological, cultural, educational, economic and political behaviour. As the seminar on the New Education Policy and Moral Education convened by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, rightly observes, "A society wallowing in luxury, conspicuous consumption, obscenity, dissipation, corruption, disparities, exploitation, rivalries, hatred and violence can never achieve any real progress howsoever vast and well planned the efforts of Government may be for its economic development." It is unfortunate that neither social scientists nor agencies engaged in the study of development have undertaken trend measurement is respect of values among the youth both in school and out of school.
Let me share with you my perception of changes in values which have taken place during my life time. When I was young, money was not the defining criteria of success and respectability. Family tradition was a major factor. A Complex set of factors explained respectability of family and cut across castes and class. Joint family was still the norm and naturally family ties were cohesive and dense which absorbed a lot of socio-economic shock and tension. Marriage was arranged by the family, where informally the son or daughter's consent was obtained, family traditions were checked and the whole society participated in celebrations. There was a work ethic. A person who did not work was criticised. Today a person who works is criticised. We were then told that, early to bed and early to rise, keeps a man healthy, wealthy and wise. The present day youth addicted to late night TV shows or nocturnal violence wakes up late from an alcoholic slumber. For him/her to be lazy, corrupt and inefficient is to be healthy, wealthy and wise. In my young days, a person who did not take loan was respected. Now a person who does not take loan is considered foolish and one who gets away with the loan is considered clever. There has been a movement towards "deauthoritisation" as a result of which there is lessening of obedience to authority of law, the police, the government, the principal in an educational institution and the boss in a work situation. In my young days a sense of patriotism led us to movement of disobedience to an alien authority. The present trend appears to have no respect of the traditional concept of patriotism. The un-critical acceptance of Marxian dogma that labour has no country and the capitalist dogma that capital has no country has made the Indian intellectuals rootless and abettors of ruthless exploitation. Uncritical acceptance of liberalised sex modes without reference to the individual and social values has created a class of people who are neither Indian nor Western. The present day Indian youth is taught in a dilemma. Their values are not a synthesis between what is good in traditional and in modern values, but an antithesis of traditional values. It is primarily due to ignorance of tradition and its distorted representation as seen through Western eyes. Ideologically, they are opposed to a purely economic society bound in daily routines and which has no care for others, but practically they seek security in money which leads them to support an undering society. Neither organized religion nor organized schooling has been able to present a synthesis of life which would help deal with opposites and steer a course which would make a person to be Indian as well as universal without losing many identities which link the local with the universal.
In the past Hinduism was a cover term for all those who practised their own religion, without disrespect for other religions. Thus Hinduism encompasses monism, dualism, triad, transcendentalism, immanence, worship of 23 millions of gods including nature, idea and object gods as well as those challenging the existence of god. This was not a religion in the narrow sense of the term, but Dharma which binds together apparently disparate elements. In a single thread by which one perceived one self as a part of cosmic whole. Unless the core value of respect for different is emphasized in all disciplines and in all modes of behaviour, the thurst of Western values incompatible with the India, will continue to erode the value base of the Indian society and threaten its very existence. At the time of doubt and despair, Buddha's message to his discipline, was Attadipo bhava. This has been variously translated as "make yourself a light' and 'look inwards of light', At a time when we are uncertain and afraid of our own identities and confused about the road to take, there is greater ne4ed to emphasize an integrated life and value based education. Therefore, all of us, young and old, who are victims of identity crisis, disbelief, dismay, and resultant paralysis of thought and action join together in involving the cosmic principle.
Asato ma sadgamayaTamaso ma jyotrigamaya
Mrityor ma Amritangamaya