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Words Of Wisdom by Prof B. M. Hegde
Our Primary Education
Education of the child begins in the mother’s womb. The environment in the house from the time of conception will have some effect on the child’s physical growth as also the mind. The parents are the first teachers, and the basic foundation should be laid there at home for future development. Having said that, we should also take stock of the early schooling which, will have, equal, if not more, responsibility in shaping the future citizens. I think it was Socrates who said " Let not my schooling come in the way of my education". This saying is pregnant with lots of meaning for our leaders in the field of primary education, as also higher education.
You are what you think you should be. The human personality development, which is the training one gets to deal with society, depends, to a very large extent, on the type of education one gets in the early part of one’s life, the latter being the most impressionable age. Should we not take a serious note of the state of affairs in that field and do something to see that things are set right, if they are not in the best interest of our future citizens? With the advent of the influence of the British education in our country, in the last three hyundred years, we seem to have lost sight of the basic tenets of our hoary educational system in the gurukulas.
I am sorry that we do not even take lessons from the thinkers even in the western system who seem to be in total agreement with our ancient thinking in this field. William Butler Yeats was of the firm opinion that " education is not filling the pail, but lighting the fire." Swami Vivekananda, respected in the West as Narendranath Dutta, a great Calcutta intellectual, who gets a place of honour with two pages space in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, was very definite as to what our education should aim at, when he said that it should bring out the best in man " Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man." That is exactly the meaning of the education in Latin. Defining education in 1644, Adam Smith said " Total education is that process which prepares a man ( women were not supposed to be educated then) to act justly, skilfully, and magnanimously under all circumstances in peace time and war".
Our educational system seems to have forgotten all those teachings. It is concentrating all efforts to to fill the pail only with information from all sources, most of it would have no bearing on the child’s future. " Where is the wisdom"? Asked T.S.Eliot, " we seem to have lost in knowledge, and Where is the knowledge that we seem to have lost in information?. It was the Bible which rightly said " Wisdom is the thing, Go get thy wisdom, But with all thy getting, Get Understanding." Education, at least in the intitial stages should concentrate on understanding. I am aware of the needs of the information age that we live in and those who get more information get ahead of others in this material world. I do not think that is education
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