Once there was a king who had three sons – all dullards (like me!). His despair was to find a way to educate his sons and make them smart. Based on the references the king received, he summoned a guy called Vishnu Sharma and gave him just 6 months to make his sons wiser. (Gosh! Looks like bosses have never been realistic and rational about setting timelines!.)
But to his utter disbelief the king started to see the miracle unfolding in front of his eyes. Mr. Sharma blended myth with reality in a series of stories that were weaved with one another and used simple animal characters to reinforce aspects like morality, value, judgment, decision making, pragmatism, cunningness, situation analysis, friendship, enmity, thinking on the feet, and lateral thinking. After this the princes became wiser enough to manage the kingdom and went on to become good kings. The king rewarded Mr. Sharma handsomely (this does not seem to happen in our corporate world!)
If you are interested Mr. Sharma used just five following topics to narrate his stories. Just 5!
- Rift between friends (Mitrabhed)
- Friends and acquiring good friends (Mitrasamprapti)
- Pragmatism – Worldly wisdom (Kakolukiyum)
- The slip between cup and lip (Labdhapranasha) – stressing that which is acquired unjustly is bound to be lost.
- New efforts – (Aparikshitakaraka) – Limitations of theoretical knowledge and importance of practical thinking.
Life is a progressive discovery of our ignorance!. What if we are ignorant about the education and education systems itself? We all have read these stories (atleast who have been born and brought up in India), without realizing the significance or even remembering what it all means – a typical way that is reflective of how we live our lives.
This story line is atleast 2000 years old and is called as “Panchatantra – Five treatises” and is generally available as cartoon stories with just animal characters. I am sure some of us can recollect some of the stories the 4 bulls and a lion (Mitrabhed), pigeons who are caught in a net flying off with the net (Mitrasamprapti), thirsty elephants and the rabbits story (Kakolukiyam), crocodile and the monkey (labdhapranasha), 4 friends after learning a new mantra bring back a dead lion to life (Aparikshitakaraka).
What I have admired about these stories is its ability to teach us some thing or the other when ever you read them. It’s actually a wrong notion to consider that these stories are for just children. On the contrary these stories are for those people who are not sharp and lack worldly wisdom irrespective of the age and hence this is highly applicable to me!, and I end up understating something new every time I read this. For the ones who are rightly tuned there are a lot of leadership secrets in these stories.
But the point I was trying to make was slightly different from the above. Not so long ago our education system was probably lot different from what it is now. There was a subject called “Moral sciences” some 30 years back which probably has been dropped out of syllabus. In the earlier days of “Gurukul” type of education where the student spends almost 12 years with his master away from his family (like the boarding schools of the present days) achieved 2 significant objectives.
- The student lived away from his parents and under the protection of his teacher and hence has to live off him by serving him which inculcated a lot of discipline and humility in him. The ultimate object of education has been realization and this stage cannot be reached without humility. Hence this type of education imparted “Humility ingrained education”. In fact humility and learning are opposite poles!
- Since the teacher knew the pupil so well, based on the pupil’s strengths and weaknesses his education was filtered. Access to higher levels of secrets and techniques were restricted by default and offered only if the teacher is convinced that the pupil would use these wisely.
Now from this stage we moved on to a situation where we taught everything including “Moral sciences” and now to a situation that morality as a topic is completely misunderstood, considered as a form of philosophy and hence need to understand post retirement and conveniently overlooked. As a Buddhist proverb goes “A master appears when you are ready for learning”. But only when we are ready!.
In earlier days moral values were blended in our education system and this need not be taken as a separate subject like it is now - thanks to the Macaulay’s system of education! that has deprived us and our kids of the education system we had. Our moral fabric was so strong that the worst punishment one could receive for mistakes committed few hundred years back is actually “Social ostracism”. Our society today has largely lost this fabric and in many quarters “the notion of guilt” does not exist which is worrisome.
Today education is one of the few things we are ready to pay for and not receive. Post education we seems to be moving from “thinking uncertainty” to “ignorantly certain”.
Just like “A for Apple”, Tamil (this is my mother tongue and I can talk about this!) is taught with lots of moral values like Prefer (do) Charity, Control Anger etc (“Auvaiyaar’s aathichudi”). We have choices.
- Should we live in past extoling practices that are non-existent today or should we make an attempt to transform ourselves trying to adapt them to todays situation?
- Should we ignore what we had (which was actually superior) under the compulsions of what we have now? Is there a way out of this rut now?!
I too don’t know …But how about a crude attempt as below to trigger the thinking in these lines for our educationists …
A - Ask Why?, Await sunrise!, Ahimsa always
B - Be positive, Brush your brains, Burn your lust
C - Committed to charity, Contagiously +ve
D - Dare to dream, Driven by passion
E - Enjoy your challenges, Exercise for health, Exercise restraint
F - Fight for your rights, Friends are for life!
G - Good thoughts, Good words, Good deeds, Gratitude always, Graciousness always
H - Humility always
I - Ignore gossips, Ignite thinking, Imagination is helpful
J - Journey is the destination, Jealousy is harmful
K - Kindness always
L - Learn from Mistakes, Laugh heartily
M - Moderation in everything, Modesty always
N - No to drugs!, Never give up
O - Optimism always, Obsession is harmful
P - Preserve environment, Proudly traditional, Passion driven always, Protect the weak, Play to win
Q - Quest for learning, Question to learn
R - Reined by reason, Respect others
S - Simplicity always, Smile when you speak, Success is subjective, Shun superstitions
T - Thank from the heart, Tread after thinking, Trust judiciously
U - Unity in diversity, Unlearning is also learning
V - Voluntarily repentant, Violence is harmful
W - Wear your attitude, Watch your thoughts
X - X-ray vision (Look below the surface)
Y - “Yes-man” attitude is harmful; Yearn for peace, You are unique, Yesterday is past, Yoga daily, Yoghurt always (personal dispositions do find a place ;))
Z - Zealous living is good, Zodiacs don’t matter
Indian education system imparted through Indian languages would always be strong in moral values and the thousands of stories and history about our past are rich and brushes all of us in the right way!. It’s our ability to recognize this and pass on to the next generation would ensure continuity for we are obligated to handover what we have inherited and we don’t have the right to bury what we have inherited!
Let us not allow Education and the process to be notoriously known as “The inculcation of the irrelevant into the ignorant by the incompetent”. I wish:
Our good Living is in loving
Our good living is in Sharing
Our good Living is in learning
Our good living is in sharing the learning
Our good living is in unlearning
For me, Unlearning is also learning!
Thats been the thought behind "To Live, To Love, To Learn :)".
Happy reading!
excellent blog!!
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