HUMANITIES AND ARTS MUST IN LIFE - sudhanshu

GOOD DAY FROM THOUGHTFUL ME -

A VIEW POINT -

HUMANITIES AND ARTS MUST IN LIFE -

The humanities and arts play a central role in the historical evolution of human society, and yet today many parents dissuade their children to study literature or art. Literature and philosophy have changed the world, but parents all over the world are dying to put their children in financially focussed careers than if their training in the humanities is deficient. I remember reading somewhere that - Even at the University of Chicago’s Laboratory School—the school that gave birth to philosopher John Dewey’s path-breaking experiments in democratic education reform—many parents worry that their children are not being schooled enough for financial success.

In a IDEAL EDUCATION MODEL - FOR - THE MODERN DAY EDUCATION, I would like to alert you to a SILENT CRISIS in which nations discard skills as they thirst for national profit. As the arts and humanities are everywhere downsized, there is a serious erosion of the very qualities that are essential to society itself. I would like to remind you that great educators and nation-builders understood how the arts and humanities teach children the critical thinking that is necessary for independent action and for intelligent resistance to the power of blind tradition and authority. Students of art and literature also learn to imagine the situations of others, a capacity that is essential for a successful democracy, a necessary cultivation of of what I would like to call - our “inner eyes.”

My particular strength lies in the manner in which I use my capacious knowledge of philosophy and educational theory, both Western and non-Western. Drawing on Rabindranath Tagore and John Dewey, as well as on Jean Jacques Rousseau, Donald Winnicott, and Ralph Ellison, I create a “human development model” of education, arguing that it is indispensable for society at large and for cultivating a globally minded citizenry.

The humanities and arts contribute to the development of young children at play as well as that of university students. I often argue that even the play of young children is educational, showing children how they can get along with others without maintaining total control. IT CONNECTS EXPERIENCES OF VULNERABILITY AND SURPRISE TO CURIOSITY AND WONDER, RATHER THAN ANXIETY. THESE EXPERIENCES ARE THEN EXTENDED AND DEEPENED BY A WISE HUMANITIES CURRICULUM.

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[D]eficiencies in compassion, I would like to elaborate can hook up with the pernicious dynamic of disgust and shame … [and] shame is a universal response to human helplessness. Societies that inculcate the myth of total control rather than mutual need and interdependency only magnify this dynamic. I would like to suggests that we think like Rousseau, who knew that his Emile must learn to identify with common human predicaments. WE MUST SEE THE WORLD THROUGH THE LENS OF MANY TYPES OF VULNERABILITY, CULTIVATING A RICH IMAGINATION. Only then will we truly see people as real and equal. Only then can we be an equal among equals, understanding interdependency, as society, democracy and global citizenship both require. A democracy filled with citizens who lack empathy will inevitably breed more types of marginalization and stigmatization, thus exacerbating rather than solving its problems.

In modern day education I would undercut the idea that education is primarily a tool of economic growth. I argue that economic growth does not invariably generate better quality of life. Neglect and scorn for the arts and humanities puts the quality of all our lives, and the health of our democracies, at risk.

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I would offer a call to action in the form of a plan that replaces an educational model that undercuts democracy with one that promotes it. It builds a convincing, if at first counterintuitive, case that the very foundation of citizenship—not to mention national success—rests on the humanities and arts. We neglect them at our peril.One should realize the importance of learning to play well with others—and then how to think for ourselves.

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That’s what a good education is ….. !!!!

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MUCH LOVE

sudhanshu