Jeevan Vidya on Education

Jeevan Vidya is a philosophy based on Madhyasth Darshan (Vision of middle or balanced path) and Sahastitvaad (Co-existentialism). It is proposed by Shri A. Nagaraju, who has spent his life in understanding human life.  More details can be found here.

I recently attended a 7 day workshop on Jeevan Vidya and in this article I'd like to share some ideas proposed. The Shivir (workshop) began by proposing the role of education.

Role of Education : 

Role of Education is to facilitate the development of competence to live with definite human conduct.

Being a learning activist and associated with deschooling movement, at first this role of education came to me as a blunder ! I said to myself , "What ? Definite Human Conduct ?" . Is that not the factory schooling all about ? Shaping the human behavior to meet society and industry standards, to suppress rebels.

However, it took me sometime to keep aside my conditioning and really understand what the proposal was.

Overtime, I understood it differently and here is my understanding-

In nature everything has its definite conduct. For e.g. Stone, Metal, Elements (Jadavastha, Physical world) they have their fixed properties. How they will react, how will they behave is inbuilt in them, they follow rules of nature. Similarly a seed, plants, trees, animals (Jeevavastha, Living World)  also have a definite conduct (and thus a specific role in ecosystem). For e.g. a Neem seed will grow to become a Neem tree, a tiger will grow and behave in the way tigers live. Usually both Physically world and Living World has a definite conduct and each entity has a specific, mutually enriching role in nature.

The same cannot be held true for Human being (Conscious or Human world) . A human being's living style, his behavior is not dependent on something totally innate ( a part of it is, DNA and our body for e.g. ).  So how does a human being's conduct shape ? It shapes through education, culture, experiences and knowledge.  In this light, role of education is to facilitate the development of definite conduct (thus have the defined role in ecosystem).

Then question comes, what definite conduct ? Here it touches the question of purpose of human life and basic desire of all human beings. This is explained in diagram below. Simply put, we all strive for Happiness which is living in harmony at three levels. (Individual, relationships and nature)

 

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="613" caption="Jeevan Vidya on Education"][/caption]

 

Harmony and Happiness

Jeevan Vidya defines Happiness as the state of being in Harmony and thus unhappiness as the state of being at disharmony at any of the three levels.A human being who is in harmony within self, enjoys harmony in human-human relationships and ensures harmony with nature will be happy.

Our current state of world is different. We have conflicts and wars in human relationships, we have huge disharmony that we have induced in  nature (climate change, exploitation of nature) and even personally we are unable to ensure joy, satisfaction and prosperity.  Most of us feel rather empty inside inspite of having riches and facilities.

Jeevan Vidya proposes "Right understanding" along with Practice (living according to right understanding) as a solution or alternative. This forms the foundation of education as well.

My personal comments

I found the philosophy to be really very objective, scientific. It does not ask one to accept any belief system. It encourages one to use our own way of "Natural acceptance" and find out answers for ourselves. What it does offer is a framework, an outline for us to consider and follow.  I think, overall it makes a strong and valid foundation for educational reforms as well. However as they say, devil is in details, we have to see how it moves forward without becoming a system or a sect. Nevertheless, it is a joy to come across a solution oriented philosophy that's both easy and effective to implement.

More information and free ebooks can be found here.

A real documentary on Education : The forbidden education (La educación prohibida)

One of the few readers of this blog, Jurgen from Chile who is also a friend now suggested me to have a look at the documentary – La educación prohibida (The forbidden education). I finally saw and was pleasantly surprised and deeply moved. It is such a masterpiece, a lovely balanced view, a humbly presented realistic take on education. I loved it!

I’ve been planning to make a documentary on education (been working on script, bought a DSLR to shoot, talked to friends, mentors, teachers about it) from last 3 years. In last 3 years, I have been watching all available documentaries/movies on education so as to see whether we need one more documentary on education or is it adding to the digital garbage explosion?
I saw many documentaries but was never satisfied because most of them just focused on “issues” with education. Others were too biased. Some were relevant to only small part of the world. There was not one documentary that could make me say “Ah! That’s one documentary I couldn’t miss!”.
Until I saw “The forbidden education”! Why I like it so much? First because it talks about the problem very clearly and vividly, secondly it proposes solutions, thirdly the solutions proposed are very much applicable globally and are holistic and lastly it maintains a very humble tone not claiming to have found “save the world cure”. Ofcourse, add to it its lovely animations, good interviews, great one liners and flawless direction and technicals.
Thank god for this movie. I don’t have to make one now. Anyone for buying my DSLR?
Special thanks to Jurgen !

Understanding The Education Space and People Involved

As one keeps learning more about various prevalent theories, opinions and initiatives in Education domain, one realizes that there is no one correct answer. Just like the blind men and the elephant, we all believe in our own tiny piece of reality. All of have some part of picture, none of us has the entire picture. Thus, perhaps it'll help to try and understand different streams of thinkers and thoughts in Education Space.

1.) The complacent belief
Schools are good as they are. Children learn best when they are in school. They learn how we learnt in our schools. Ofcourse, there are some issues and problems but that's nothing new. Our kids must also survive them and they will just like how we did. Schools are important institutions. Education is very important to be successful and become intelligent. If everything stays the same, we would still be happy with the schools and state of education. Lets not create problems out of nothing. (Approximate e.g. - Lot of Parents, Traditional Schools especially Government Schools)

2.) The Naive Realist Belief
We believe that there is nothing too bad about schools and the crisis in education is overhyped. Schools have been doing fine in past and are doing fine today. Like any other system or institution, they have their own shortcomings but things are improving. Schools must stay while we must try to improve various aspects of school like infrastructure, teacher accountability, overall grades, reduce number of drop outs etc. ( A.e.g.  Politicians, Traditional Teachers)

3.) The Reformer Belief
Schools of today are outdated. They are based on Industrial age model and with end of industrial age, the schools of past must also be tranformed. Smaller changes like improving grades is not enough. We must re-examine entire curriculum, introduce critical, lateral and creative thinking. Schools require much deeper change to cope up with the world that's coming up. (A.e.g. Activists,  Educationalists like Ken Robinson, Howard Gardner)

4.) The Alternate Schoolers Belief

We can clearly see the flaw in conventional way of schooling. Hence, we must experiment and try out new things in education. These new things need not be scientific or proven ideas, we can only know if they work when we try them out. Although we seek inspirations from various educational theories, educational leaders of past but what goes on day to day basic is something we have to decide based on our collective wisdom. Our main method of schooling has failed so we must try something alternative. ( A.e.g Alternative schools like Waldorf)

5.) The Deschooler's Belief
Schools have been primary cause of the world's state as it is today. Our education system is severely flawed. Schools must disappear as an institute because it has gone too deep into troubled waters. No amount of reforms can actually save a sinking ship. We must invent newer avenues of learning. ( A.e.g. Thinkers like Ilich, Holt)

6.) The Homo-techy's Belief
We are living in information age. Just like how industrial revolution had its schools based on industrial model, information age must redefine schools on information highway model. Technology, internet, social networking must be at the centre of any learning model. Just like how industrial age demanded literacy for sucess in life, information age demands digital literacy. (A.e.g Business fraternity, technology experts)

7.) The Humanist Belief
Our education system has produced many succesful people but very few good human beings. This is why we have made a mess of our planet and lives. Education must realign and priotize human values over skills or subject knowledge. We must include environment, relationships, love, compassion and introspection as a part of education. (A.e.g Religious, spiritual movements like Buddhist thinkers on education, J Krishnamurti)

8.) The Environmentalist Belief

We are trashing the planet. Our current lifestyles are completely unsustainable and unfriendly to our environment. The schools (and materialistic educations at large) are to be blamed for most part of it. Our planet needs an urgent attention and action. Schools and education must act accordingly. We must ensure our children pass out with the values and care for nature and awareness of environmental issues. Schools must be centred  around or at least make environment as the key agenda of learning.

9.) The Indifferent
Schools and education is a tiny part of a huge world. Why is there so much fuss about it ? There is lot more in life than banging our heads against schools or educationals dilemmas. World is moving fine, it will continue to do so, things might or might not improve but will definately change on its own. Just chill and grab your cup of beverage. ( A.e.g Common man busy in his own survival and race)

Of course, this is not a comprehensive list by any means. Further, we cannot compartmentalize people, we will find people with more than one of these beliefs. Please feel free to add / comment / critique. 

A simple schooling dilemma

If I were to explain in simple term why schooling system is a failure, it'll be this -

"Students learn what they don't want to learn and teachers teach what they don't want to teach."

It is a double failure systems. A teacher in school most often is forced to teach things which s/he herself sees no meaning in. Teachers most often teach things they detest. While on the surface when asked, what subject would you prefer teaching they would tell you my favorite is ___________ . However the problem is that they choose from already a limited list, they weigh it against pay, job security and market demands. Their choices are not really free choices. So a maths teacher might not really enjoy teaching maths but chooses to due to the system that we are in. Ofcourse, we keep hearing a lot about "passionate" teachers. I am sorry to say, I've haven't found many. What they usually turn out to be are pretending to be passionate, not really passionate. Worst, most often the teachers themselves don't realize that they are fooling themselves.

I met a teacher, when I asked her what you love teaching. She said, language and mathematics. I repeatedly ask teachers - "teach only what you enjoy and love to teach.", she kept saying mathematics and language.  When I see her classes, I don't really feel that's true.. Then few days later, the teacher bought me some food cooked at home. It was delicious. I said, it is heavenly. So, over next 3 weeks she'd bring something or else for me once in a while. I learnt, that she was perhaps the best cook I know around me! She enjoys cooking, she loves to experiment, mix and match, try new things and she gets pleasure when she offers it to others. She would share all recipes with me with such joy. I thought if there is anything she must be teaching, it should be cooking, food, health and taste ! But where is place for such things in our schools ? No wonder she disguises herself as a "passionate" mathematics teacher.

That's one side of the problem -teachers don't teach what they'd really want to teach.

The other side is, students are not allowed to learn what they'd love to learn. How often do we ask our children what would they like to learn ? We impose our decision on them. We ensure we teach whatever is the curriculum to each one of them. A child was very interested in insects, he seems to have a natural flair to interact with insects and learn about them through observation. I wonder if our schools allow space to allow that child his learning journey. Instead, he is forced to sit in a class to learn about all the things that doesn't interest him at this point of life. No wonder, we have kids who are unhappy, not excited about learning and thus are often distracted.

That's the other side of problem - kids are not allowed to learn what they'd love to learn. 

The result is a hideous place called school full of unhappy, uncreative and unloving people getting worse with every year that passes by. Imagine, a school where kids learnt what they want to learn and teachers taught only what they love to teach, oh ! what a sight that'll be.

Systems thinking in Education : Mumpsimus Exposed

In one of the previous article we discussed little bit about about Systemic thinking in Education. This article will continue the discussion based on an article available on ASCD on How Systemic thinking applies to education. (Click here to read).

Why do we need systemic change ?

We have seen that reforms are just not working out. We keep coming up with newer solutions which are only as new as the older ones ! We are unable to break free from the notorious "schooling" process. Inspite of many good teachers willing to learn and change, many alternative schools daring to walk the new road - we still see only marginal changes in world education.

Systems thinking proposes a paradigm shift not an incremental change. It provides an approach that is not only more practical and effective but also more scientific and modern.

The shift from one to many  model

One of the most urgent change we need to accept that our kids have more avenues to learn than ever before. Thus, we need to abolish the ancient method of one to many teaching. (one expert, many students). We must realize that a more real model is many to one and many to many. This will call for a change in the very structure of our schooling system.

Schools as learning communities

Systems thinking proposes looking at schools as open and organic system where there are lot of subsystems and elements with a relationships web. Thus a school must :-

• Constantly change and adapt with time


• Have a clear purpose


• Work on improving relationships to co-exist and reduce conflicts


• Consider impact of various systems and subsystems.


• Develop capacity for self regulation, self correction and self renewal


• Value both diversification and integration

A systemic approach in education will have more of following components -

• broad statements of purpose;


• assessment based on performance compared to benchmarks, not to other students (feedback);


• self-assessment;


• triangulation (use of multiple forms of assessment by multiple assessors to increase the validity and reliability of feedback);


• immediate intervention;


• generative learning ;


• reflective practice ;


• varied learning structures (self-directed, one-to-one, small groups, lecture, field study, apprenticeships, mentoring);


• assignment to learning groups based on individual performance, rather than age-grade distinctions;


• intact teams working over an extended period of time (more than one year) to achieve a common goal;


• increased access to information;


• multilingual resources;


• hierarchy of small, six-to-eight person, self-sufficient, semiautonomous teams (sub-systems).


• Constructivism


• Thematic and project based learning


• Considerations for Multiple intelligences


• Holistic development


• Eradication of outdated and dead subsystems

Another relevant article can be found here.

Systemic thinking makes for one of the strongest case in transforming our education system and this blog will try to continue the discussion to spread the awareness and generate more ideas.

UES Model : Understanding the child at school and home

Education discussed without keeping the child in mind will be of limited use. The child is at the centre of educational process and thus s/he should be the centre of discussion when talking about educational reforms too. However, quite often we will find lot of educationalists, teachers, reformists talking a great deal about education without really focusing much on the child. They will change curriculum, improve processes, reduce fee, increase schools and do all sort of things (often with very good intentions) but ignore the child. While all this is going to affect the child and it can be argued that all these things are “for the child”, but “for the child” is quite different from “of the child” and “with the child”.

In this post, I am proposing my understanding of the child as a model. Now, I am not an expert on the subject or a child psychologist. What this model contains is my observations and my experience. I’ll keep my description short and if you’ve any questions or criticism – do write to me.

UES Model

U stands for Understanding, E for emotions and S for Stimulus and it tries to understand the actions of a child at home or at school. Once we have a good understanding of “why the child is doing something”, we are in better position to intervene in order to help the child.

[caption id="attachment_438" align="aligncenter" width="502"] UES Model - Understanding the Child[/caption]

A word of caution, like majority of the work on child behaviour – this should not be used “control” the child inspite of our temptations. It should rather be seen as a tool to understand child better in order to improve our responses to her/him. Here is a brief explanation of the model as shown in the diagram above :-

• A child’s (perhaps event adult’s) actions are influenced by 3 key components – her current understanding, his present emotional state and available stimulus in the environment.


• In order to effect the actions of child, we can intervene at any of the 3 points.


• Understanding has a lot of influence of past, requires more time to change.


• Change in stimulus can show change in actions immediately but this change is usually temporary


• Emotions will fall between two. They take longer time to intervene than stimulus but less than changing understanding


• As a teacher or parent, we must understand which intervention will be best suited for any particular time, with the child’s welfare in mind


• Changing understanding is usually the most effective and helpful way for the child, but it requires time and planning

Example

Lets take an example. A child is disturbing other children by hitting them or teasing them in a classroom and a teacher wishes to alter this action in order to continue the class.  

Ancient punishment or reward method is detrimental in most cases. Thus, the teacher must try to understand all three sides of the action and find answers to following questions by talking to the child, other teachers, classmates or parents :-

1.)  U - What is his understanding of hitting others? Does he believe that it is fun, it is allowed to do so; is it a display of power, a way to get pleasure? Does he watch lot of action movies?

2.)  E -What is the emotional situation of the child? How does he live at home? Does he see his parents fighting? Does he himself gets beaten up?

3.)   S – What are the stimuli in the classroom? Do other children tease him or reject him from the group? Does he have any interest in the subject and they way it is being taught? Did he get beaten up by someone recently? Do his friends also beat and tease others?

Applying the model

Once we have looked at 3 key sides of the actions, we will have a deeper understanding of the child and his actions. For e.g. if we can have answers to all the questions above, we can decide what needs to be done to alter his actions. Thus, we will better positioned to intervene in order to help the child. This model requires probing but goes a long way and is very effective. As parents and teachers we must put energy and time in order to understand the child better. We must be very careful of our prejudices and biases. Personally, my efforts in understanding the child has not only help me improve my interactions and relationships with my students but has also made me better human being.

Education in a nutshell : Abraham Lincoln's Letter to a Teacher

I think the famous letter Abraham Lincoln wrote to his son's teacher is worth a mention here. It summarizes very articulately, simply and almost comprehensively what we expect from good or real education.

 

LETTER FROM ABRAHAM LINCOLN TO HIS SON’S TEACHER

“My son starts school today. It is all going to be strange and new to him for a while and I wish you would treat him gently. It is an adventure that might take him across continents. All adventures that probably include wars, tragedy and sorrow. To live this life will require faith, love and courage.

So dear Teacher, will you please take him by his hand and teach him things he will have to know, teaching him - but gently, if you can. Teach him that for every enemy, there is a friend. He will have to know that all men are not just, that all men are not true. But teach him also that for every scoundrel there is a hero, that for every crooked politician, there is a dedicated leader.

Teach him if you can that 10 cents earned is of far more value than a dollar found. In school, teacher, it is far more honorable to fail than to cheat. Teach him to learn how to gracefully lose, and enjoy winning when he does win.

Teach him to be gentle with people, tough with tough people. Steer him away from envy if you can and teach him the secret of quiet laughter. Teach him if you can - how to laugh when he is sad, teach him there is no shame in tears. Teach him there can be glory in failure and despair in success. Teach him to scoff at cynics.

Teach him if you can the wonders of books, but also give time to ponder the extreme mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun and flowers on a green hill. Teach him to have faith in his own ideas, even if every one tell him they are wrong.

Try to give my son the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone else is doing it. Teach him to listen to every one, but teach him also to filters all that he hears on a screen of truth and take only the good that comes through.

Teach him to sell his talents and brains to the highest bidder but never to put a price tag on his heart and soul. Let him have the courage to be impatient, let him have the patient to be brave. Teach him to have sublime faith in himself, because then he will always have sublime faith in mankind, in God.

This is a big order; but see what you can do. He is such a fine little fellow, my son.

 

Now the question to consider is what and how much of this is happening in our current education system, how of it is at least being tried out ? How many of these qualities and values we still want our children to have and what are we ready to do to get it ? I believe this document should be read time and again by parents, teachers, students -once in a while. It is very good reminder to stay on track. Ofcourse, we can add - remove -argue on certain aspects of the letter but in a nutshell, I've not found a better document that describes the meaning of education so clearly and beautifully.