Is the Educational System 'Unnatural'?

There is more or less a common educational system across the globe today, and it is generally based on the systems created by Anglo-Saxon cultures. The culture of a region heavily influences its education system of course, but since colonisation, many nations have discarded their indigenous systems to adopt Western forms.

This article attempts to?

• Analyse the origins and cultural roots of the system.
• Analyse how sensible this system is and if it is ‘natural’.
• Compare it with the ancient Indian system of education and evaluate the merits accordingly.

A legendary boxing match.

February 1978, Las Vegas, Nevada, challenger Leon Spinks took on the world champion Mohammed Ali and beat him in a 10 round thriller.

Now, what does boxing have to do with education, one might wonder. There is a critical element which will become apparent in the next section.

Note that Leon Spinks was 26 years old and Ali was 37 when the fight took place. Nothing worthy of?mention one might say. since in sports, age is not the defining criteria for one to be pitted against another.

We might thus say that ability is not necessarily a function of age. Bearing this in mind, let us look at the current education system.

An unnatural Education System?

To take an analytical look at our existing educational system, let us set up a hypothetical Kindergarten school.

1. We fix a certain curriculum for our Kindergarten.
2. We get three 5 year olds to join.

We now have three children, all aged 5 in our Kindergarten class. Let us call them A, B and C

Nature does not let everyone develop at the same pace.

Considering this fundamental reality, let us say that Child A’s intellectual development is commensurate with the curriculum we have set for him and he is able to study with relative ease and score well.

Let us say that Child B is struggling a bit, because her mental development will be commensurate with the curriculum a year later, when she is six years old - that is how nature works.

Child C is struggling a great deal because his mental development, to be at the level of the curriculum we have set, is going to happen in two years time when he is 7 years old.

A ‘Time and Plan’ based System

Essentially, regarding life as one big plan and completely disregarding nature, we have put three children of differing capabilities together simply because they are physically all of the same age, with no consideration to their state of natural mental development.

The possible consequences:

1. Child A could develop pride and a superiority complex.
2. Child B and C could develop inferiority complexes.
3. Children who find it hard to perform according to set expectations which their brains simply cannot match, will surely undergo stress.
4. Different subjects are thrust upon the children with absolutely no regard to aptitude, and this contributes to stress.

By grouping children of different mental capabilities by age, we could be creating a psychologically unhealthy, stressful environment, and breeding states of mind that could be emotionally damaging. The trend then could then continue all the way into higher education and beyond, into life itself.?

Every stage could become a contention and a competition, and the stress would carry on throughout life. Successes lead to elation and failures lead to depression. If we then add to it the expectations of being a winner all the time, the issue gets compounded. Not everyone has the same capabilities. Some people may simply have more grit and there is always an element of luck too.

The expectations of society are set with age and the time bound stress can reach levels that could impact mental and emotional health negatively. That is perhaps not unexpected when one goes against nature.?

Revisiting Ali and Spinks:

In sports and other competitive events like music, we find that there is no categorisation by age since there is an innate realisation that nature does not confer ability based on age.

However, in the educational system it is enforced and while certain Western countries have matured over time and relaxed age regulations, countries in Asia continue to follow the colonial systems.

Cultural Origins of the current educational system:

In many of my articles I mention the influence of climate/geography, history and beliefs as primary bases of influence of the cultural psychology of the people who reside there. In order for us to analyse how the education system developed and to compare it with the ancient traditional education system of India, it is once again necessary to take a look at the primary causes of cultural development.

Geography and Culture:

Cultural Psychology develops over large periods of time, and naturally, the longer it takes, the longer it lasts. Geography plays a crucial role in the development of a culture and its philosophies.

In order to understand this, let us travel back in time to the 5th century A.D, to Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands which were occupied by tribes such as the Saxons, Angles and Jutes.

The winters were long and bitter, and of course there was no technology of the sort that exists today. Life was mostly about surviving the coming winter. There was limited time, perhaps restricted to a few summer months, to build and repair shelters, hunt, gather and store food, and even fight wars. Time and material management were inherently crucial to survival.

Psychologically, there would be an aversion in these cultures to winter, since it is a killer. Winter however is cyclic, and the aversion could have caused an anti-cyclic mentality which then becomes conducive to linearity. The Anglo-Saxon culture, over time, shaped by events like the industrial revolution, became a highly linear minded culture and sought to conquer nature, which through its cyclic winters, appeared year after year that one had to survive.?

Nature is cyclic and any anti-cyclic mentality could then be considered to be anti-nature. Another way of looking at it is that nature is cyclic, not linear and a linear mentality could be anti-nature.

This is the premise on which Western Education Systems are based.

History:

During the 5th and 6th century, these tribes (Angles, Saxons and Jutes) migrate to Britain and conquer the Celts. Some Historians say that they migrated due to harsh winters and wars and others say they were invited by a British warlord called Vortigen to fight for him. In any case the tribes settled in Britain and came to be known as the Anglo-Saxons.?

Beliefs & One grand plan:

After migrating to Britain, these tribes slowly gave up their pagan beliefs and began to embrace Christianity. They accepted the one life concept of Christianity.?

There could have been a peculiar psychological phenomenon at play here. We have seen that due to harsh winters and limited time for productivity for survival, these tribes would have developed time and resource management attitudes and skills by default.

One there is an acceptance of a single life, such an attitude can be extrapolated to the entire life where life becomes one grand plan. At the very least, their psychology could become conducive to it for future events such as technological and scientific events and the industrial revolution.?

We thus see that Anglo-Saxon base nationals have bucket-lists - a list of things to do before one dies. Life becomes one grand plan based on age and things one must do to live a life of fulfilment. Education of course, comes in first and we have the system of Nurseries and Kindergarten beginning at ages 4 and 5 respectively.

Technically the Western form of education could be said to be adharmic, from the traditional Indian perspective and we will take a deeper look at what this means.

The Traditional Indian Educational System (Gurukul) :

The word ‘Dharma’ is, along with ‘Karma, what defines the soul of India. Dharma can be defined holistically as ‘Righteous conduct in accordance with nature’ The term ‘nature’ is extremely important here since it encompasses not merely external nature such as wildlife, the land and seas etc but our very internal nature - since we are all regarded as parts of nature.

Conduct has to be such that we find within ourselves, the equilibrium and balance that maintains this universe. The word Dharma stems from the Sanskrit root ‘Dhr’ which means ‘to maintain’.

Thus anything that goes against nature could be construed as ‘Adharmic’ or against Dharma.

The Indian education system was not based on age. It was simply based on capability judged by the Guru or the teacher. When a potential student was taken to the Gurukul (School) for admission, the student would first be evaluated and if found capable, would be granted admission. If not, the parents could be asked to come back after a certain duration decided by the teacher. This could range from months to a year or more. The aspirant would then be evaluated again for admission.

There was no categorising by age, and it was normal for students with age variances to be grouped together to study. In the epics, Lord Krishna and Sudama were class fellows in the gurukul of guru Sandeepani. Sudama was much older than Krishna.

This was a nature based system following the system of dharma or accordance with nature. We see this form in fields such as music, dance and sports all over the world. We do not see reality shows that choose singers based on age, or sportspersons competing only on the basis of the same age. However, it stands in academics, and there seems to be no reflection about the issues it causes.

Geography and Cultural Roots:

India has always been predominantly agrarian due to the climate and geography. The monsoon was always looked forward to and it is a natural and cyclic event. Indians this developed a pro-nature and pro-cyclic mentality which reflects in the dominant philosophies and beliefs of the land and in many aspects of life including of course, education.

The Nature of Education:

A verse in the Vishnu Purana, an ancient Indian scripture, states

‘Tat karma ya na bandhaya, Sa vidya ya vimuktaye.

Aayasayaaparam karma, vidya anye shilpanepunam.’

This translates to:

That is karma (action) which does not bind. That is knowledge, which liberates.?

The action done in the course of one’s profession is not ultimate.?

The knowledge gained to run one’s profession, is secondary.?

In the India of yore, there was a clear distinction between the two forms of knowledge - that for enlightenment with the development of character, and that for a profession. There was of course emphasis on the higher form of knowledge and dharma was all pervasive and predominant.?

In essence, the focus was on creating humans with character, honour and integrity through dharma.?

The way of Vishnu is that of the individual who lives within society, performs all their human duties and then strives for liberation. The mark of Vishnu, worn by his devotees on the forehead is significant. It is called the namam, and consists of a white crucible within which there is a red vertical line.

Red signifies nature (blood), and the material world, and the vertical direction of the central line, signifies growth. The U or V shaped white crucible represents the spirit and Dharma. Hence any material activities that lead to growth, must be conducted within the boundaries of Dharma. It essentially means that any material gain must be done with integrity and with adherence to the laws of Dharma.

In Western systems on the other hand, education is limited to the knowledge of a profession or a skill. The aspects of human character, integrity and responsibility are rarely considered.

Of course, there are several other issues with the education system such as too many subjects with no regard to aptitude. One of the most contradictory aspects is, when you have one teacher per subject, how do you expect a student to be bombarded with several subjects?

A good deal of thought must go into the system since it is the arena from which future generations and intellect arises.

Reference: 'The Indian Mind At Work' by Hemant Rangan.