Education and the Aim of human life

OUR NEW SYSTEM OF EDUCATION

( The Free Progress System )

A series of three lectures delivered by the means to the teachers Sri Aurobindo centre Of Education on September 24 and October 22, 1961.

I

How the Child Educates Himself

In Sri Aurobindo's The Human Cycle we find an explicit and luminous passage, already quoted but which we repeat here because it reveals the secret of true education. Apropos of the new trends evidenced by the experiments in education carried out in various countries, he says:

...the business of both parent and teacher is to enable and to help the child to educate himself, to develop his own intellectual, moral, aesthetic and practical capacities and to grow freely as an organic being., not to the kneaded and pressured into form like an inert plastic material.... The true secret, whether with child or man, is to help him to find his deeper self, the real psychic entity within. That if we ever give it a chance to come forward, and still more if we call it into the foreground as 'the leader of the march set in our front' , will itself take up most of the business of education out of our hands and develop the capacity of the psychological being towards a realisation of its potentialities of which our present mechanical view of life and man and external routine methods of dealing with them prevent us from having any experience or forming any conception. These new educational methods are on the straight way to this true dealing. The closer touch attempted with the physical entity behind the vital and physical mentality and an increasing reliance on its possibilities must lead to the ultimate discovery that man is inwardly a soul and a conscious power of the Divine and that the evocation of this real man within is the right object of education and indeed of all human life if it would find and live according to the hidden Truth and deepest law of its own being.¹

This passage throws considerable light on the forceful statement which Sri Aurobindo has given as the fundamental

principal of education.

The first principle of true teaching is that nothing can be taught... .2

It is quite clear that, according to Sri Aurobindo, the current idea that the teacher should impart his knowledge - what he knows about a subject - to the child is fundamental wrong. He must show the child how to learn that subject by himself, help him in devising his own methods of learning and of organizing the knowledge which he gathers or discover:

We can understand this better if we observe how a young child gains spontaneously the knowledge of his surroundings. He does it through a ceaseless activity which is natural to him whenever he finds interest in the objects at his disposal. He examines, touches, manipulates every object he can lay his hand upon, studies how he can use it for his own purposes (often very different from his parents' ends and views ). He explores every nook and corner of the room of the house, of the garden, sees how he can make use of them for his activities, his games (with little care for the purpose and the tranquility of the grown-ups). All this is done and pursued in conformity with the needs of his stage of growth. It is the learning by doing, as named by Dewey. When we say that a child is amusing himself or playing (alone or with playmates), it is almost always the purposeful activity (solitary or collective) of a growing being deeply engaged in the process of building up and perfecting his instruments of knowledge and action. We are indeed in presence of a genuine education, leading to discovery and invention - discovery of the world around and of its meaning (for the child's mentality). invention of the usage he can put it to (for the child's aims and interests) - and it is a self education as it does not require lectures or books. An adult's intervention is in most cases not sought for, nor is it effective, as the adult's understanding is too remote the child's mentality.

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But the adult has an important part to fulfil. When a child is idle, restless or mischievous, it is either that his natural activity has been hampered or distorted, or that he has exhausted the opportunities given to him by his surroundings and his activity has no outlet. It is for the adult - parent or teacher - to keep the environment supplied with elements of interest. These objects should act by their presence, not by their purpose. Their aim is to satisfy an immediate and actual need of the child, not a future need as anticipated by the parent or teacher (pass an exam, get a good job, raise a family). The purpose of a child is always immediate: the satisfaction of an actual need, which is one of the forms taken by the deep fundamental urge in him to grow physically, emotionally and mentally. He does not paint with the aim of becoming an artist (such an aim belongs to the adult mentality, but it is often unwisely and untimely instilled into the child's receptive mind), but for the satisfaction of the creative impulse in him. He does not try to solve a problem of mathematics to become a mathematician or a good engineer, or even to know geometry and algebra, but for the satisfaction of the discovery, the lightning that suddenly flashes into his mind when he "gets it", for the inner joy of having overcome a difficulty and succeeded. He does not play the mouth organ to have a large audience and be recognized as a musician (if he has these ambitions, he got them by the praises bestowed upon him by elders), but for the joy of self-expression and the pleasure he gives to his nearest mates and friends.

Therefore the foremost need of a child is that his environment should be well supplied with all kinds of objects suited to his stage of development. The child will move freely among these objects and spontaneously display an activity through which, by observation and experiments, he will grow to the knowledge of the environment. The child judges, foresees, compares and reasons for himself in all that concerns him. The knowledge thus gained has already all the characteristics of a scientific knowledge and, what is

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more, it is acquired spontaneously in a scientific way, trial and experiment, although (the adult will say) with much fumbling.

Child psychologists have distinguished in the child activities various stages in relation with his surroundings. There is the stage of manipulation, the stage of construction, the stage of observation (truly all are parts of a sir process of discovery). The child comes often across objects the understanding of which is beyond his powers. This is particularly the case of man-made instruments and machines from the time-piece, the sewing-machine and the gramophone, to the motor car and the radio and television set observation alone gives access only to a small part of the secrets. The child will therefore look for help from an elder parent or teacher. Later the age comes when the child begins to open and react to stimuli from objects of a different nature; they are no more material objects, they are objects only in the philosophical sense: we may call the intellectual objects. Such are mathematics, history, geography, foreign languages, sciences, philosophy, in their various branches and aspects. At this time the help of teacher becomes indispensable and assumes a more complex form, which we shall study presently as it is the true support of mental education.

It is certain that this spontaneous activity leading to a knowledge of the surroundings and to their right use and mastery is the most natural and efficient form of education What we have to find are the ways and means to extend form of education to the gradual discovery and knowledge not only of the whole outside world, but also of the inner worlds, the world of emotions and feelings, the world of thought. Above all, our education should induce the child look quietly and persistently for the inner guidance, so that the soul may reveal its presence, assume the leadership and prepare the proper use and true mastery of both the outer and inner worlds. This will be fully in accordance with the injunctions of Sri Aurobindo and it is the aim we place before us.

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We can already see that, at every stage of the child's development, the first task of the educator- parent or teacher - will be to keep the environment of the child adequately furnished with all that is capable of arousing the stimuli which the child needs at this stage for a natural and continuous growth.

In what he calls "the second principle" of true teaching 3 Sri Aurobindo has stated that the mind of the child has to be consulted in its own growth.

Therefore the work proposed to a child must be suited to his mental age and outlook, and he must be allowed to do it according to his own capacity and speed. A child who is given a work corresponding to his needs as a growing being, accepts it readily and does it with attention and joy.

From this it follows, that the child must be given individual attention and be allowed to proceed independently. It is the child, and not the teacher that sets the pace.

Up to now we have only elaborated the fundamental principles of education as stated by Sri Aurobindo and we have found that they form an explicit rationale of the natural and spontaneous ways through which the young child educates himself and comes to the knowledge and use of his surroundings. This discovery suggests that these principles form also the rationale of a natural, consistent and self-sufficient system of education. At the same time it gives us a hint of how this system can be realized.

To proceed further and derive the practical methods of our system, we shall seek help in the modern findings of child psychology. A considerable amount of study has been done since the beginning of the century, leading to a better understanding of the child's behaviour, his mentality, his needs, his reactions.

Of course, I shall interpret three findings in the light of Sri Aurobindo's teaching. Most of them are simple facts of observation, well-known to many vigilant and attentive parents, but they are frequently lost sight of and neglected as irrelevant to school education. As they are substantiated

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nowadays by careful study and comparison, they appear almost as rules which one should try to follow; to observe them creates good growing conditions for the child, to neglect them is harmful to a natural and healthy development. In this sense they can be viewed as forming psychological hygiene. We shall study them under the head "The needs of the child".

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