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Dear Editor,

I was happy to come across this website. It is good that there is critical thinking about education, especially from those on the receiving end of it. It is good not to accept, to be dissatisfied. Dissatisfaction is a flame to be nourished, it should never be stifled.

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However, I would like to ask: are you demanding that others bring about change for you? You can do that if you like, but do you expect it to bring about significant results? Your teachers, your administrators, your politicians, your parents – do they really want significant change? Are they concerned to bring about a different sort of society, a different sort of world? I am afraid if you wait for those people to bring about change, then you will become old men and women in the waiting. And then you will discover that you have become like them – fearful, concerned with your own petty security only, leading mediocre lives – and in conflict with all those around you.

 

I am afraid that the older generation is generally not concerned to bring about a different sort of human being. That would be far too threatening! They have wasted their own lives, lives ridden with fear, greedy for power and position. These things are corrupting, and as has been pointed out in many of the articles on this site, there is corruption everywhere, at all levels. Do you think that through campaigns and social action one can eliminate corruption in society? Or is corruption part of the human consciousness? If it seen as part of consciousness, then the question becomes, does it not, can I eliminate corruption in myself?

Society is sick, and there is no one outside you to help you except yourself. As long as you are looking to another to help you, then will you take responsibility for changing yourself?

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The article on this site: “A Cry For Revolution in the Indian Education System” delineates many of the problems in the educational system very accurately (not just in India but increasingly in the world). And quite rightly the author calls for a revolution. But the question of just how a revolution can come about is much harder than simply defining the problem. A revolution is not just modified continuity of the present system, with a few reforms, some new regulations – a revolution implies a complete break with the past.

How are you going to change the establishment, get it to bring about significant changes in education? The establishment wants you to conform to the system, to perpetuate the system. But the system is sick and it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. The establishment is just that – established, fixed, highly resistant to changing itself. We can discuss 'what should be', the ideal, endlessly, we can pile up words upon words – but words do not feed a hungry man. Are you actually demanding change, or just playing with ideas? If one really, deeply sees the necessity for change, then one can actually, seriously, go into it.

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There is far more involved in a proper education than your present educators can even dream of. You have to learn to meet all the enormous challenges the world will throw at you. You have to meet the questions of how to live in a decaying world, what is beauty, what is truth. You have to understand your relationship with people, with ideas, with material things. You have to learn about the meaning and significance of life itself. Your teachers do not understand these things at all. They only think in terms of authority. They are addicted to comparison, their only tools are reward and punishment. They are full of useless ideals.

First and foremost education is a matter of understanding yourself. If you do not understand yourself, how can you understand anything?

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At the present, as you are being educated you are not only absorbing technical knowledge, your minds are being conditioned. Without you being aware of it, you are conditioned to compare yourself with others, to compete, to conform, to supress yourself, to be ambitious, envious, to struggle, to take on certain conclusions, certain beliefs. You are conditioned to live almost entirely within the intellect, and so, I'm afraid, to become insensitive. And so much more.

So much conditioning is absorbed as 'collateral damage' to the mind. But your education doesn't help you to be aware of it, to understand it – so you are condemned to live with it for the rest of your life. One can see on this website, for example, how people have been conditioned to be nationalistic, no matter how destructive that is.

Your education does not help you to be a free human being, free of conditioning, free of all fear, so that no one can manipulate you.

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There was a man who was passionately concerned to bring about a fundamental change in education – a fundamental change in the whole world in fact. He was a real revolutionary, and devoted his whole life to that end. He established schools in various parts of the world. The intention of those schools was to awaken intelligence, and to bring about real freedom in an individual – not the sort of freedom that can be granted or taken away by the establishment, but a freedom that nothing, no circumstances, can sway. That man was J Krishnamurti. Here is something he said:

“The world is sick and there is no one outside you to help you except yourself. We have had leaders, specialists, every kind of external agency, including god -- they have had no effect; they have in no way influenced your psychological state. They cannot guide you. No statesman, no teacher, no guru, no one can make you strong inwardly, supremely healthy. As long as you are in disorder, as long as your house is not kept in a proper condition, a proper state, you will create the external prophet, and he will always be misleading you. Your house is in disorder and no one on this earth or in heaven can bring about order in your house. Unless you yourself understand the nature of disorder, the nature of conflict, the nature of division, your house, that is you, will always remain in disorder, at war.”

if you are interested to learn more about Krishnamurti's revolutionary perceptions on education, you can visit:

http://krishnamurti-and-education.org. There is a section especially for students, some opportunities for study, and an offer of some free CDs of him speaking with students.

I would also recommend his book “Education and the Significance of Life”. The opening paragraphs reveal an affinity with the basic theme of this web site:

When one travels around the world, one notices to what an extraordinary degree human nature is the same, whether in India or America, in Europe or Australia. This is especially true in colleges and universities. We are turning out, as if through a mould, a type of human being whose chief interest is to find security, to become somebody important, or to have a good time with as little thought as possible. Conventional education makes independent thinking extremely difficult. Conformity leads to mediocrity. To be different from the group or to resist environment is not easy and is often risky as long as we worship success. The urge to be successful, which is the pursuit of reward whether in the material or in the so-called spiritual sphere, the search for inward or outward security, the desire for comfort - this whole process smothers discontent, puts an end to spontaneity and breeds fear; and fear blocks the intelligent understanding of life. With increasing age, dullness of mind and heart sets in.

Clive Elwell

I am happy to enter into discussion about these matters – not as any authority, but as an individual sharing your concerns.

Email: clive.elwell[at]gmail.com.

 

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