Yourself?

Education.

Question: It is the universally accepted conclusion of modern intellectuals that educators have failed. What is, then, the task of those whose function it is to teach the young?


Krishnamurti: There are several problems involved in this, and to understand them, one must go very carefully into them. First of all, why do you have children? Is it mere accident, an unwanted event? Do you have children to carry on your name, title or estate? Or do you love, and therefore you have children? Which is it? If you have children merely as toys, something to play with, or if you are lonely and a child helps you to cover up that loneliness - then children become important because they are your own self-projection. But if children are not a mere means of amusement or a result of accidents, if you really love them in the profound sense of that word - and to love somebody means to be in complete communion with them - , then education has quite a different significance. If as a parent you really love your children, you will see that they have the right kind of education. In other words, children must be helped to be intelligent, sensitive, to have a mind and heart that are pliable, able to deal with any situation. Surely, if you really love your child, you as a parent will not be a nationalist, you will not belong to any country, you will not belong to any organized religion; because, obviously, if you are a nationalist, if you worship the State, then you inevitably destroy your son, because you are creating war. If you really love your son, you will find out what is your right relationship with property; because it is the possessive instinct which has given property such enormous significance, and which is destroying the world. Again, if you really love your children, you will not belong to any particular religion, because belief creates antagonism between man and man. It you love your children, you will do all these things. So, that is one aspect.

Then the other aspect is that the educator needs educating. What are you educating the children for? To become clerks or glorified clerks, governors, engineers, technicians? Is that all life us, merely a matter of glorified clerks, technicians, mechanics, human beings made into cannon fodder? What is the purpose and intention of education? Is it to turn cut soldiers, lawyers and policemen? Surely, the occupations of soldier, lawyer, and policeman, are not right professions for decent human beings. (Laughter.) Don't laugh it off. By laughing it off, you are pushing it aside.You can see that these professions do not contribute to the total well-being of man, though they may be necessary in a society that has already become corrupt. Therefore, first of all, you have to find out why it is that you have children, and what it is that you are educating them for. If you are merely educating them to be technicians, naturally you will find the best technician to educate your child, and he will be made into a machine, he will discipline himself to conform to a pattern. Is that all there is to our existence, our struggle and our happiness - merely to become mechanics, tank or airplane experts, scientists, physicists inventing new ways of destruction? Therefore, education is your responsibility, is it not? What is it you want your children to be, or not to be? What is the purpose of existence? If it is merely to adjust to a system, to efface oneself for a party, then it is very simple; then all that you have to do is to conform and fit in. But if life is meant to be lived rightly, fully, joyously, sensitively, then there must be quite a different process of education in which there is the cultivation of sensitivity, of intelligence, and not mere technique - though technique is necessary.

posted by Downhere. @ 2:45 am