Principles and Goals of Integral Education

VI

Problems in "Free Progress" System

If we adopt the system of "Free Progress" in imparting education to the students in our school, some basic problems arise and confront the teachers and the organisers, and they demand satisfactory solutions. Here, for example, is one of them which was placed before the Mother:

Question: "Mother, when we attempt to organise the children into categories based on their capacity for initiative, we see that there is a mixture of levels of achievement in various subjects. That makes the work very difficult for certain teachers who are in the habit of taking ordinary [conventional] classes in the old classical way. [How to solve this problem?]"

The Mother's Answer:

"We are here to do difficult things. If we repeat what others do, it is not worth the trouble; there are already many schools in the world.

Men have tried to cure the ignorance of the masses by adopting the easiest methods. But now we have passed that stage and humanity is ready to learn better and more fully. It is up to those who are in the lead to show the way so that others can follow." (CWM, Vol. 12, p. 373)

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Then a second question followed which was equally important:

"Mother, how do You conceive the organisation of our education, to enable the children to discover their capacities and then follow the path of their individual development?"

The Mother's Answer:

"That is what we are trying to do here. It depends on the teacher. I do not have a theory one could put down on paper....

But doing it well depends on the teacher, on the trouble he takes, and on his power of psychological understanding. He must be capable of recognising the character and possibilities of the student, so that he can adapt his teaching to the needs of each individual." (Ibid., pp. 373-74)

The Mother was more explicit about what she meant by "category of children". She said:

"The categories of character.

In assessing the possibilities of a child, ordinary moral notions are not of much use. Natures that are rebellious, undisciplined, obstinate, often conceal qualities that no one has known how to use. Indolent natures may also have a great potential for calm and patience.

It is a whole world to discover and easy solutions are not of much use. The teacher must be even more

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hardworking than the student in order to learn how to discern and make the best possible use of different characters." (Ibid., p. 375)

Here is another practical problem and the Mother's clinching reply to it:

Question: "In this method of work, the teacher must devote sufficient time to each one individually. But the teachers are few in number. How can we respect the needs of each one as fully as possible and at the same time satisfy all those who ask for help?"

The Mother's Answer:

"One cannot make a theory. It depends on each case, the possibilities and circumstances. It is an attitude which the teacher must have and apply as well as he can, and better and better if possible." (Ibid., pp. 377-78)

Now follow two significant questions, the second one being a ticklish one, and the Mother's answers to them are quite illuminating.

Question: "The education we are given here at present differs little from the education that is given elsewhere. This is precisely why we should try here to educate the latent and spiritual faculties of the student. But how can we do this in school?"

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The Mother's Answer:

"This cannot be done by any external method. It depends almost entirely on the teacher's attitude and consciousness. If he does not have the vision and the inner knowledge himself, how can he transmit them to his students?" (Ibid., pp. 174-75)

Then the Mother adds:

"To tell the truth, we rely mainly on the all-surrounding atmosphere charged with spiritual force, which has an effect even if it is not perceived or felt." (Ibid., p. 175)

Now the puzzling question of a particular teacher who wrote: " 'Free Progress' education being essentially an education governed and guided by the soul of the individual, I am, as a teacher in our school, confronted with a serious personal problem of apparent contradiction. I don't even know whether I have a soul, but as a teacher I am expected to help the students and 'insist on the growth of their soul'— some light, please."

The Mother's Answer:

"The contradiction comes from the fact that you want to 'mentalise' and this is impossible. It is an attitude, an inside attitude mostly but which governs the outside action as much as possible. It is something to be lived much more than to be taught." (Ibid., p. 176)

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One Specific Problem:

The Problem of the Multitude

If one adopts the "Free Progress" System in any Centre of Education, the organisers and those in charge of teaching are bound to encounter a serious problem, the problem of an inordinately large number. Normally, many, many students are apt to enrol in any particular school and even in any particular class. How to cater to the individual needs of this huge number and help them adequately and effectively in their particularised individual growth and development? Does it not seem well-nigh impossible?

Luckily the problem is not so intractable in practice as it seems at first. For the number of outstanding students deserving really free progress in a class or in the whole school is not actually very large. The preponderant majority of the normal run of students are not eager for self-determined individual progress nor are they capable of effectively working under their own discipline: they require the spur of imposed discipline coming from some outside authority like their teachers and guardians if they would at all utilise their available time and energies in the proper way.

So the totality of the students in a school or in a class will automatically get sorted out in two categories: the category of lethargic, psychologically "asleep", normal students and a second category of a relatively few "awakened" children who are meant by Nature to be children of the new future and who require special attention from their illumined teachers to bring out in full all their latent or hidden potentials and possibilities. As this second category of

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students is not unmanageably large, these students can be easily attended to. But adequate care should be taken to select specially qualified teachers for this purpose, equipped in every respect, intellectual, moral, psychological and even spiritual. Any and every individual merely competent in his academic subject or subjects will not be able to do the job at all; he or she would, on the contrary, damage the interests of the students and stunt their true development.

The upshot of all this preliminary discussion is that every centre of education should provide for two types of classes, the classical, conventional, fixed system for the majority of the students, and the "Free Progress" classes for the limited few who show by their nature and behaviour that they are the shining lights of the future. The teachers should possess a keen and clairvoyant discerning power to judge rightly which of his students belong to which category and send them to the class suited to them. There should not be any fixity or permanence in this matter: there should be adequate and fool-proof arrangement for periodic transfer of any particular student from one type of class to the other. Everyone should be given adequate opportunity to reveal his real capacity and worth and migrate to the educational milieu which will help him in his flowering.

With all the extraneous constraints under which it has to function, a normal educational centre that is under outside management may not find it feasible to adopt this dual system of classes suggested here. Be that as it may, we at SAICE should have no hesitation in this matter and venture to introduce it among our students who are residing in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and basking in the invisible but effective

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spiritual ambience of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.

For the clear understanding of the readers, we append below a few relevant passages from the Mother's writings on education which will throw a helpful light on all the aspects of the problem and on how to deal with them.

The Mother Speaks:

(1)"The classes as a whole may be reorganised so as to fulfil the needs of the majority, that is to say, of those who, in the absence of any outside pressure or imposed discipline, work badly and make no progress.

But it is essential that the present system of education in the new ["Free Progress"] classes should be maintained, in order to allow outstanding individuals to show themselves and develop freely. That is our true aim. It should be known—we should not hesitate to proclaim it—that the whole purpose of our school is to discover and encourage those in whom the need for progress has become conscious enough to direct their lives. It ought to be a privilege to be admitted to these Free Progress classes.

At regular intervals (every month, for example) a selection should be made and those who cannot take advantage of this special education should be sent back into the normal stream." (Ibid., p. 173)

(2)"The criticisms made in the report apply to the teachers as much as to the students. For students of high capacity, one teacher well versed in his subject is enough

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—even a good textbook, together with encyclopaedias and dictionaries would be enough. But as one goes down the scale and the capacity of the student becomes lower, the teacher must have higher and higher capacities: discipline, self-control, consecration, psychological understanding, infectious enthusiasm, to awaken in the student the part which is asleep: the will to know, the need for progress, self-control, etc." (Ibid., pp. 173-74)

(3) "Just as we organise the school in such a way as to be able to discover and help outstanding students, in the same way, the responsibility for classes [in the "Free Progress" System] should be given to outstanding teachers.

So I ask each teacher to consider his work in the school as the best and quickest way of doing his Yoga. Moreover, every difficulty and every difficult student should be an opportunity for him to find a divine solution to the problem." (Ibid., p. 174)

At times, if the circumstances so demand, a teacher may adopt the two systems simultaneously for one of his classes. Here is a question from a teacher placed before the Mother concerning his dual psychological tendencies and the novel solution suggested by Her.

(4) Question: "I have observed two contradictory kinds of ideas in myself: one kind in favour of individual work, another in favour of group work."

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The Mother's Answer:

"Isn't it possible to divide the class time into two parts (equal or unequal according to the need) and to try out both systems? This would give diversity to the teaching and provide a wider field for observation of the students and their capacities." (Ibid., p. 183)

Once a suggestion was made that the two systems might preferably be combined for all the students irrespective of their individual character variations and the classes fused. The Mother answered in detail:

(5) "All of them [teachers of contrary opinions] are both right and wrong at the same time.

First of all it seems that after the age of seven, those who have a living soul are so awake that they are ready to find it, if they are helped. Below seven this is exceptional.

There are great differences among our children. First there are those who have a living soul. For them there is no question. We must help them to find it.

But there are others, the ones who are like little animals. If they are children from the outside, whose parents expect them to be taught—for them the ["fixed"] classes are suitable. It is of no importance.

The problem is not whether to have classes and programmes or not. The problem is to choose the children.

Up to the age of seven, children should enjoy themselves. School should all be a game, and they learn as they play. As they play they develop a taste for learning,

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knowing and understanding life. The system is not very important. It is the attitude of the teacher that matters. The teacher should not be something that one endures under constraint. He should always be the friend whom you love because he helps and amuses you.

Above the age of seven, the new system [of "Free Progress" classes] can be applied to those who are ready, provided that there is a class where the others can work in the ordinary way. And for that class the teacher should be convinced that what he is doing is the right method. He should not feel that he is relegated to an inferior task." (Ibid., p. 184)

The Mother explains elsewhere why there should be provision for both types of classes. Here is the passage:

(6) "There are some things that we cannot do [here in our Centre of Education]. For example, if we wanted to bring up all the children by the new method, we would have to take them all on trial for one or two months, find out those who can follow, and send the others back to their families....

We must therefore produce the solution within. There are children who don't like the new method — responsibility worries them. I have received intimation of this in letters from children. We can only leave them as they are." (Ibid., p. 185)

One last point. To bring up a particular individual through proper education to the fullest flowering of all his potentialities

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in every field of his total being and nature is not at all an easy or simple task. And there is not a single rigidly fixed method for that which has to be mechanically applied to produce the required result. Therefore patience and plasticity and creative, adaptive and innovative skill are greatly needed on the part of every single teacher put in charge of the upbringing of the children. He should not be dogmatic in his approach to education and look askance at other fellow teachers for their own separate ways of teaching. We conclude the discussion of this very important point by quoting here some relevant passages from the Mother's writings.

(7)"Everyone, without exception, without exception, should know that he is not someone who knows and applies what he knows. Everyone is learning to be what he should be and to do what he should do." (Ibid., p. 185)

(8)"I have read with satisfaction what you say about your work and I approve of it for your own work.

But you must understand that other teachers can conceive their own work differently and be equally right." (Ibid.)

(9)"When people do not agree, it is their pettiness, their narrowness which prevents them from doing so. They may be right in their idea... but they may not be doing the right thing, if they don't have the necessary opening." (Ibid., p. 184)

(10) "I take this opportunity to assure you that spiritual

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progress and the service of Truth are based on harmony and not on division and criticism." (Ibid., p. 185)

(11)"Progress lies in widening, not in restriction.

There must be a bringing together of all points of view by putting each one in its true place, not an insistence on some to the exclusion of others." (Ibid.)

(12)"True progress lies in the widening of the spirit and the abolition of all limits." (Ibid., p. 186)

Now a few more extracts from the Mother's writings which will offer to all the teachers of SAICE much food for deep contemplation:

(13)"To the teachers and students [of SAICE]:

The ["Free Progress" System] classes are in accord with the teaching of Sri Aurobindo.

They lead towards the realisation of the Truth.

Those who do not understand that are turning their backs on the future." (Ibid., p. 175)

(14)"The old method of teaching is obviously outdated and will be gradually abandoned throughout the whole world.

But to tell the truth, each teacher, drawing his inspiration from modem ideas, should discover the method which he finds best and most suited to his nature." (Ibid., p. 182)

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(15)"Ordinary classes belong to the past and will gradually disappear. As for the choice between working alone or joining the ["Free Progress"] classes, that depends on you. Because to teach and to conduct a class one must move away from theory and intellectual speculations to a very concrete application which has to be worked out in all its details." (Ibid., p. 182)

(16)"Learning to teach while taking a class is certainly very good for the would-be teacher, but certainly less useful for the students." (Ibid., p. 183)

All that has gone before concerns equally the method of teaching: in the old conventional "fixed class" method or the system of "Free Progress" based on the fullest scope given to the realisation of the talents, swadharmas and the potentialities of individual students. But one thing should be made absolutely clear. A student of SAICE, to whichever stream of classes he may belong, must not forget even for a moment that he is studying in a Centre of Education built by the Mother and bearing the hallowed name of Sri Aurobindo. It is not just another school, maybe more efficient in its academic teaching, and having for its sole goal the building up of good and well-qualified citizens of the country. No, surely that is not its purpose. The two first essays of this present book ("Sri Aurobindo's Seven Principles of Education" and "The Mother's Eleven Goals of Education") have made it unambiguously clear what the Mother and Sri Aurobindo basically expect from every student of their Centre of Education established in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry,

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irrespective of the system under which he or she is trained. These fundamental goals should always be kept in view and these should guide and animate all his efforts here at all times, whatever may be the academic subjects he has been studying in the Centre. If a particular student radically strays away from this indicated Path, he will find himself a misfit here and bring trouble both to himself and to other students in SAICE. But what to do with such wayward children? Let these words of the Mother remove our doubts and misgivings.

(17) Question: "Should those who are much attracted by the pleasures of ordinary life,... come to study in our school? For, as a rule, one feels that this is why most of our students go out during the holidays, and every time they come back they need quite a long time to readjust themselves here."

The Mother's Answer:

"Those who are strongly attached to ordinary life and its agitation should not come here, for they are out of their element and create disorder.

But it is difficult to know this before they come, for most of them are very young, and their character is not yet well formed.

But as soon as they are caught in the frenzy of the world, it would be better, for themselves and for others, that they return to their parents and their habits." (Ibid., p. 361)

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(18) "We want here only children that can be considered as an elite. The organisation must be made for them. Those who cannot fit in, they have only to go after a one year trial." (Ibid., p. 181)

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