78. CAN WE BE TAUGHT?

78. CAN WE BE TAUGHT?

www.connectthethoughts.net


EDUCATION- schooling, is big business in India. It is also good politics. Compulsory schooling, right to education are all political weapons. But the politicians always shoot, keeping the weapons on others' shoulders. 

Education: free and controlled

Education is acquisition of knowledge or information. It may include acquisition of skills required for a profession or career. It may involve cultivation of attitudes and values. It surely involves acquisition of ideas, opinions, beliefs and prejudices. In countries where real freedom is enjoyed, the community decides what to learn, and what to exclude. For instance,in the US, several communities do not agree with Darwin's theory of evolution and it is not taught to pupils before a certain age. In countries like India, where we are free on paper, but education is fully controlled by the govt, the govt decides what shall be taught. Since the govts are run by political parties, it is they who ultimately decide matters. They may form committees of 'experts' to gain respectability, but such committees only include those who are committed to their views.

2004-11-30 04:00:00 PDT Dover, Pa. -- The way they used to teach the origin of the species to high school students in this sleepy town of 1,800 people in southern Pennsylvania, said local school board member Angie Yingling disapprovingly, was that "we come from chimpanzees and apes."

Not anymore.

The school board has ordered that biology teachers at Dover Area High School make students "aware of gaps/problems" in the theory of evolution. Their ninth-grade curriculum now must include the theory of "intelligent design," which posits that life is so complex and elaborate that some greater wisdom has to be behind it.

from: www.sfgate.com
Can this happen in India?

The chief method of formal education is structured instruction, called or rather miscalled, teaching, following a rigidly laid down syllabus and prescribed text books. This is followed up by testing, culminating in the award of a certificate. Unless one goes through the school system, and submits to the  formality of so called teaching, as evidenced by a piece of paper at the end, one is not considered 'educated'. But the question is, can we be taught?

Teaching V learning

If we review our own experience, we find that what we know is not necessarily because we were 'taught' but because we learned. What we know now surely exceeds all that we were supposedly  taught .Those of us who are interested in advancing in knowledge keep learning on our own long after we left school or college. In the process, we realise how much of what we were taught as conventional wisdom is no more than the convenient consensus of the controllers of power. The vast majority study something because they have to pass an exam, and once they take up employment, they start learning the tricks of the trade, while what they studied at school or college fades away from mind and memory. But life is such that we  keep learning through our lives- except the real idiots. May be we learn the wrong or not so desirable things, but we do keep learning, even if it is through some commercial advertisement.The smart ones learn from their mistakes,too!

What we learn through formal schooling is only the foundation. We can stop with it or build on. 

Where we build on, it is often due to the influence of a teacher or mentor or some example, or some inner urge. The real teaching is not instruction in a subject, but the lighting of the spark hidden in each person. It may be academic learning or some other skill. Someone may provide us a meal and remove our hunger now, but it will return. If someone can teach us to cook, and also where and how to find the materials, this is a life long help.

Academic institutions indoctrinate

In the Indian school system, they used to lay emphasis  on learning the basics- reading, writing, grammar, pronunciation,simple arithmetic.. Job skills were learned on the job.In the last 40 years or so, I have seen drastic changes in the scheme. With the shift in focus to sciences, languages, humanities and social sciences are neglected. Language is entirely neglected .The use of English as medium of instruction from lower classes has relegated our rich languages to the rear, stifled self expression and original thinking, while even in English the expression is limited to stock phrases and tutored  ideas. What can poor students do if they won't get marks unless they reproduce what is in the book? To go beyond the book is to court academic disaster. This is especially the case at the high school level,which is perhaps the most formative period in the life of a student.

At least up to the high school level, we can say some basic , useful things are taught, though mixed with much useless stuff. But at the university, the courses are entirely coloured by the hidden agenda pursued by the faculty dons. In most universities today, the leftists ( misleadingly called 'liberals' in the US) have taken over the faculties. It is they who force their agenda on the students, both at course work and research themes and projects. They shout the loudest about freedom, but are the first to stifle and snuff it out once they come to power. It is the leftist view and interpretation of humanities , social sciences and even the hard sciences that hold the 'default' position. Most students cannot break through this wall. Later, such graduates and scholars come to occupy positions in the professions, media and  newspaper and make their view appear the standard. Since they control so much of the academies and the flow of information, the contrary or alternate views hardly get public space. And they get labelled in the leftist jargon. This we see even in India today. In this regard, see the following books:

1. Do As I Say (Not as I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy by Peter Schweizer. Doubleday, New York, 2005. 

2.Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left by Roger Scruton. Bloomsbury, 2015.

In view of this, any one interested in the truth or a balanced view of things will have to look beyond the academies and media.

Stinking economics 

I was introduced to computers and Internet at 70. The first thing I did was to check up the subjects I left at college. Even though I have been in touch all along through books, the range and depth of material available on the subjects  on the Net is mind boggling. But one has to exercise judgement in accepting it.  

Through this I made a basic discovery. Every subject has advanced- except economics! Economists still swear by the shallow doctrines and empty slogans of defunct economists of a by gone age. Or invent pure fictional theories that do not touch our real problems. Our finance ministers and the bureaucrats who dutifully (mis)guide them cannot think beyond 18th century ideas on taxation. They cannot control inflation, except issue threats on traders and imaginary hoarding- which is a result of inflation and scarcity, not its cause. [All the while, thousands of tons of food grains are let to rot in govt godowns for which no one is held accountable. And all the while, govt's own PDS is the main culprit.- yet no minister hangs for it.]  No wonder, humanity continues to suffer from the age old problems: hunger, poverty, unemployment, while the ministers and bureaucrats flourish and prosper- whatever the form of govt.!

[ May be one caveat is in order. There is lot of excellent and original material even in economics, which questions its very basic assumptions and shows them to be not only absurd, but dangerous. But such insights are still not let into the mainstream. ]

Book learning V. manual work: bread labour

Gandhiji used to point out that our youngsters who went to school and learned English were unwilling to do manual work. They always preferred  clerical or other jobs which involved ordering others about, in however small a measure. Come admission time, even the watchman at the school gate asserts his authority. No one can enter or exit any govt dept without tipping the peons and clerks. Of course, no work can be got done without greasing palms. Now, most school children do not perform any  domestic chores at all. Gandhiji's  prescription against this tendency was "Bread labour"- following Tolstoy.

May not men earn their bread by intellectual labour? No. The needs of the body must be supplied by the body.

 Mere mental, that is intellectual labour is for the soul and is its own satisfaction. It should never demand payment. In the ideal state, doctors, lawyers and the like will work solely for the benefit of society, not for self. Obedience to the law of bread labour will bring about a silent revolution in the structure of society. Man's triumph will consist in substituting the struggle for existence by the struggle for mutual service. The law of the brute will be replaced by the law of man.

School: resort of the leisure class? Or privilege seekers?

But this is not surprising. As Peter Drucker points out, the very name 'school' is derived from a Greek word which means 'leisure'. The Greeks detested all manual work, including the arts and crafts; they were essential, but were reserved for the slaves. For themselves, it was the school- where it was all academic learning, devoid of any practical work. It was meant to train them as citizens.

painting of a scene in Plato's Academy. In the centre are Plato (left) and Aristotle.

This was the model which spread in the West. In the beginning only the well-to do classes went to 'school' and their numbers were limited. But in the 20th century, schooling has become the fashion and the passion. People are coming out of the academic stream in ever greater numbers, all seeking work which won't soil their hands! Work such as manufacturing is assigned to the Third World- where they not only soil their hands,but pollute their air, land and water!

This is the model which the British introduced in India. But still, till about the 60s, we did all our manual household work and also attended school and college. Since then, with the spread of English medium education, our educated youngsters seek non-manual work, in an urban environment. Computers and IT have facilitated that.

 But can this trend provide jobs for all? Any knowledge industry can absorb only the top, which will be few, and the vast majority will have to slog in less significant and often personally meaningless occupations. It is reported that in India over 50% of the graduates are unemployable. Bureaucracy with its security and retirement benefits- and power with absence of accountability is still  a big attraction. It  is the ideal paradise on earth for unproductive idlers.But its compensation structure unrelated to productivity is a burden on  tax payers. How long will the system bear it?

A modern school in Europe. At the rate computer is used, our children will forget even writing and simple arithmetic. They may even forget their names and remember only the password!
frm: educationstarcorp.com

Continuous, life-long learning

The IT sector clearly demonstrates the point that people cannot be taught, beyond a point. Many newer topics and developments in the field are not taught in the colleges: the faculty is clearly unable to deal with them. [This I know personally.] Everyone has to learn many things on the job, and keep learning. This is one sector where length of service does not count, unless it is accompanied by continuous learning.

Even in the traditional bureaucracy, one's academic learning has only a limited value. How much economics does the finance secretary know? And how much of it does he  apply? How much CAN he apply? And what does that economics teach him, any way? 

As Lord Keynes , the greatest economist of the last century pointed out: 

The theory of economics does not furnish  a body of settled conclusions immediately applicable to policy. It is a method rather than a doctrine, an apparatus of the mind , a technique of thinking which helps its possessor to draw correct conclusions. 

 Where the ministers and their minions lack a mind, what can that apparatus do?

For the lawyer or a physician, every new case is a fresh learning opportunity. But he  usually tries to fit the case to a known formula- which means people in general are not eager to learn. So the calls for refresher courses for the medical profession. 

Information: stuffing V. absorption

The modern idea of education is stuffing the mind with information. The subjects are many, the syllabus is heavy. The semester system makes pupils learn too many things, too fast. And they forget equally fast, past the examination. The result is information overload, not at all digested. This also leaves little time for reflection. 

There is much madness and stupidity in this arrangement of syllabus and subjects. Reading, writing, arithmetic- these are skills universally needed, and mastered up to some level. Beyond this, science (physics, chemistry, biology) and higher mathematics ( algebra,geometry, calculus, trigonometry etc) are neither universally necessary nor universally appealing. But our system is such that these subjects are given undue importance over the essentials. And one who cannot do well in these is adjudged to be backward or dull. 

intelligence expresses in different ways

Anyone who has lived with siblings, cousins etc and parents with several children know by experience that different children are differently endowed and there are really not many dull children.  A true teacher should recognise what the child is good at and encourage that- not harp on what she cannot do, or do well.  Why should a boy be forced to mug up some chemical formula, when he likes to read a poem or story, or paint and draw? It is the distorted scale of the adults' sense of values that is forced on the children. The adults are being idiotic, but the poor children are blamed!

If one is not interested in so called higher maths,is one dull? What nonsense! Have all the mathematicians made the world a better place?
from: theguardian.com 6 November,2009.

There are great teachers who can identify what a student is good at. But for every  one such teacher, we have scores who only blame the children. A friend took his two boys to a teacher of classical music. After some routines, the teacher loudly announced that one of the boys had no voice at all! What great voice do you expect in a boy of 8 or 10? Do you not know that voice breaks around 14 or so? Did the boy want to learn music or become a performing artist? And take some of our great artists- like Madurai Mani Iyer, Madurai Somu. Even today, the voice of some of our top artists does not sound the same on different days, or even with different mics! What  great voice did they have? But did they not become great performers? And even if the boy could not sing, he could learn an instrument later- as many people have done? And even if he did not have a voice, it could have been conveyed in a less offending manner? The boy, till then interested in music, lost all interest. Fortunately, after 5 years, in another place they found a teacher who taught him violin and he learned it well!

Learning from horses? Why not?
Remember Hayagriva?

Monty Roberts, "the man who listens to horses"- who revolutionised the method of training horses, substituting love and understanding for brute force, reveals a moving incident.

In the last year at high  school, the teacher asked the boys to write an essay on their life's ambition- what they wanted to achieve. Monty who had loved and lived with horses from age 2, wrote about his dream to become a big horse trainer, with a huge facility! The teacher considered the ambition unrealistic and awarded an F to the paper, and asked him to resubmit the essay, scaling down his ambition to realistic level. Fortunately, the boy's distress was found out by his mother. She read the paper, and asked him to resubmit it as it was. And Monty added as a note what his mother had said:

  A teacher does not have the right to put a cap on the aspiration of his students, no matter how unreal those aspirations might seem.

As it happened, Monty became a famous and successful trainer, developing his unique method of training based on understanding the language of horses (non-verbal communication) ! He did develop his own big training facility, and shot to world fame after Queen Elizabeth learned about his work and called him to demonstrate his method which the entire Royal family witnessed! 

Front cover of the 1997 edition by Random House.
shown here for purely educational purposes.

Forty years after the school incident, the old teacher himself learned about Monty and visited his horse farm, with a bus load of his Church social group and openly confessed how wrong he had been! He said Monty had been his teacher! But we can see that it is his mother who was the real teacher! How can we say in which form the teacher will come, and what we will learn, and where! A great teacher is one who inspires others to greatness. 

As Mark Twain said: 

Keep away from people who belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you too can somehow be great.

Such are the real teachers. But it depends entirely on our capacity to learn, and live up to it! Did not Dattatreya claim in the Bhagavata that he had 24 teachers- 21 other than humans? And none of them taught  through words!

51. ADVENTURES IN SCHOOL

51. ADVENTURES IN SCHOOL

Front cover of Wordsworth Classics edition, 1993. Shown here for purely educational purposes.

OUR schooldays in the 40s and 50s were quite joyful. We learned through our mother tongue, which was taught quite naturally. The syllabus was not heavy, the lessons were simple, the teachers were very good, there was no system of weekly or monthly tests and ranking. So, we were rather carefree. We had to pass the annual test, that most of us did any way! I remember only one boy- one Mir Mehboob Hussain- who could not pass the I Form (6th standard) for more than 5 years!  ( Churchill had failed in a class three years!) His father had been in the Army during  the I World War and  was highly respected. Those days, schooling was not rigorous,we could bunk as and when we liked, teachers were basically kind and humane, and no one thought of asking the boy to discontinue! Compared to those days, the system is heartless today( and brainless). Our schools are indeed prisons.

There are many stories in English about school life and generally about the life of youngsters. None is of course more universally popular than Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. 

We might not measure up to Tom or Huck, but we did have our share of misadventures and escapades. 

1876 illustration of Tom Sawyer







Owl Natesan!

The year was 1952-53. We were in the first form. Many boys used to come to school from nearby villages, walking up to 5 miles each day. In January, there had been a cyclone and very heavy rains. The teachers were very generous and did not mark attendance. Many boys from the villages could not attend, so formal classes were suspended.. We spent the days singing and telling stories. That is, till one day, this boy Natesan appeared in the class.

He used to walk from his village 3 miles away, crossing 2 lakes and fields on the way, with only a track for walking. The area was full of mango, tamarind, banyan and other big trees. There had been heavy rain in the night with thunder, lightning, and high winds. Some trees had fallen, and  many branches broken. It was still drizzling, and the boy was drenched and shivering. The class teacher gave the long towel on his shoulder [அங்க வஸ்திரம்] to the boy to dry himself. And he enquired of us as to whose house was close by and whether he could run home and bring the boy a pair of shorts ( called 'drawer' in our language) and a shirt so that the boy could  change into dry clothes. One of us stood up and started to go. By then, Natesan had toweled his head and bushy hair, had removed the shirt and was drying his chest with the towel. It was then that the teacher noticed it!

By Athene_noctua(portrait)jpg.Trebol-a derivative work Steminitis. Wikimedia commons.

Those days our drawers were very loose and generous with huge pockets. Even so, Natesan's drawer pocket was bulging! The teacher enquired what it was and Natesan  mumbled something ! Finally, he put his hand into the pocket, and took out a fully grown  owl! The boys shrieked in glee! He explained that as he was walking by a fallen tree, he found the bird   under a heavy branch and he took it out and kept in his pocket! We had not seen a live owl till then, and there were many beliefs about its sound and sight as an omen,   good or bad! Many of us were even afraid of looking at it and touching it, thinking it might peck us with its sharp beak!

Spotted eagle owl. public domain.

[ There is really a story of the famous  bird photographer Eric Hosking losing his eye when a tawny owl attacked him while he was trying to photograph it - this I learned much later when reading books on photography.

This is Sir Eric Hosking in 1948. It is so difficult to get a picture of this great man. This is from www.edp24.co.uk. Copyright position not known. Used here for purely educational purpose.]

 But Natesan became quite cheerful, forgot his shivering in his high spirits,and was stroking the bird. The teacher asked each boy to come near and touch and stroke the bird! That day we lost the fear of the owl. We also realised that it was not ugly or ungainly as we had thought! The teacher asked Natesan why he had put such a big bird in his pocket, and whether it would not hurt it. He simply said: "What to do sir ! If I carried it in hand the village dogs would chase me ! My pocket is big and so  there was no problem!"

By that time, his spare dry dress had come. Natesan became known as Aandhai (Owl) Natesan in the whole school and he became our hero! After all, he could touch, handle and fondle the owl! The biology teacher from the higher classes came, the bird was taken to a retired veterinary doctor, a relative of one of the boys, and after attending to the injury to its wings, Natesan was asked to take it back to the area where he had found it and release it! Some of us went with him. 

Lakshmi with the owl which is Her vehicle!
By Biswarup Ganguly (Own work) CC BY-SA 3.0 Wikimedia Commons. At least those fond of wealth ought not to fear the owl or despise it!

Quail story

My next encounter was with the bird known in Tamil as காடை"kaadai"- a sort of quail (coturnix coromandelica). This is not to be confused with the quail as such, or with its Japanese variety which is now commercially farmed for its meat and money!

This is the common quail, but I doubt this was the one we had bought! The picture of the Indian variety is difficult to get.

Those days, the native variety was found in certain hilly/forest regions surrounding our place. The native hunters would catch them and bring it in huge baskets to the village shandy (market) every Sunday. Each would be sold for 2 annas.

Our English teacher , Kreeda Rama Raju ( very great man and teacher-God Bless his soul ) was very fond of grammar. He felt that there was not enough provision  for it in the syllabus, nor time in the class! He used to tell us that a man not knowing grammar was blind. So he would conduct special classes for grammar every Sunday for three hours in the morning, though it was a regular holiday. The headmaster had permitted him and the use of the black board, but  not the regular class rooms! So we would sit under the shady shelter of the huge tamarind tree in the compound. I had difficulty in reading from the blackboard in the shade, so I would sit in the front row. (Later, it was found to be myopia). Next to me would sit a boy T.Ramaswamy, who lived near us. He lived with his uncle, who was a "sarack master" in a hotel. [சரக்கு மாஸ்டர்]

Sarakku Master!

Do you know what it is? Idly and Dosa are the staple items of snack for Tamilians sold in the hotels/eating houses. They are made of a mixture of rice and urad bean , soaked overnight in water and ground into a batter. Those days, there were no electric grinders, and this was done manually on huge grind stones, with pestle and mortar.

 It was the sarack master who did the grinding, and it was his expert hand and eye that could tell the correct form and consistency of the batter, which would determine the quality of the final product ! He was thus a "master" - expert in his trade, though his job involved miserable physical labour throughout the day, and he was paid low. Politicians today talk as if all Brahmins had been always prosperous, yet this is how people struggled to educate their wards with meager income.

The weekly shandy convened near our school. One day this Ramaswamy got it into his head to buy a Kaadai bird and rear it in a cage. We did not know anything about birds, and had not touched a bird, though I knew something about mynahs. Our parents were orthodox and would not let us keep a bird in a cage at home. And we would not know how to feed it. But Ramaswamy said he would keep the bird in his house, but since he had only one anna, he wanted me to give the other anna so that he could buy the bird. We did not know where to get the cage, so I decided to make one with the materials available. So. on our way to school, we went to the shandy and got the bird. We were actually afraid, thinking the bird might hurt us with its beak, but the hunter told us that the bird was very docile and would not hurt us if we did not trouble it. He told us what to feed it. 

Indian jungle bush quail. But our bird was not like this,either!

We got the bird, but how to carry it? Our drawers again were very big and generous with huge pockets. Ramaswamy put the bird in the pocket. We went to the class quietly and sat as usual. But soon trouble started. We were sitting on the bare floor and the bird must have felt uncomfortable.It started moving in his pocket and to explore with its beak! It would peck at his thigh with its beak, and he would squirm. He would lean to me and hiss something in my ears!  The teacher soon noticed this and asked us to stand up. He enquired what the matter was, why we were disturbing the class. He was a highly respected teacher and I did not want to incur his displeasure. So, I told him about the bird! The whole class broke into  tumultuous laughter- two Brahmin boys bringing a bird to the class, hidden in the pocket!  The master asked Ramaswamy to take out the bird. He took it out of the pocket, but his hands were shivering! Immediately another village boy used to handling birds came  forward and took it from  Ramaswamy , handling it naturally. The boys were all taken up with the bird and the class could not continue! The teacher asked us to go home and release the bird.

Cage for a quail!

We went home, but Ramaswamy was not willing to let the bird go, so I had to build a cage!  I had an idea and thought it was easy. We had at home some tin sheets of the size 18x24". I thought I would put holes along the edges on all sides, insert coconut stems  through the wholes from the coconut broomstick and tie it up at the top, at about a foot! But when I started putting holes with a nail and hammer., I realised how tough it was!  I spent over three hours but it was not a good job. Somehow we put the bird inside and took it to his home. The coconut stems were not strong , the gap between them was not close, and the bird was trying to escape! We covered the cage with a towel and reached his place. As soon as we opened the door, his uncle was standing there. Coming to know that it was a bird, he flew into a rage, and just slapped Ramaswamy with the back of his huge left hand! How did we think of putting a free bird in a cage? Was it not a sin for Brahmins?  Would this flimsy cage stand? How would we protect the bird from cats at night?  Or somebody might steal it for the meat! We rascals should be severely beaten for this!  So saying, he  took the so called cage and putting his strong hands inside, tore the coconut stems apart and released the bird. It was not the age for us to know. Even now I feel so sad. For this bird could live only  in specific environment and I would not know how much it had to fly to get to its place, and whether it could. And this bird was known to fly only short distances.

Something more awaited us in school on Monday. Kreeda Rama Raju was also our class teacher. He moved the period for "moral class" forward from Wednesday to that Monday. In the first hour on that day, he taught us about how as Hindus we should not confine free birds and animals in cages. If we were born as hunters we might do it till we knew better; otherwise, it was a sin for others to confine free birds in a cage. In this connection he told us the story of Bhadrachala Ramdas. He had confined a parrot in a cage for 14 days in his previous birth; so in this birth, he had to spend 14 years in jail! Never again did I think of keeping a bird!

Will teachers give such lessons or relate such stories now- in the secular regime? Rather, they would extol the virtues of the eggs of the bird and its meat! And how much income one may get from raising the birds in a commercial farm!

Mynahs and Manickam

Before this, I had  had an encounter with another bird- mynah. We had many village boys in the class. They were bold, fearless and adventurous. There were two brothers - Singaram and his younger brother Thangavelu in the class. Their father was a mason whom they assisted on holidays. One day, they mentioned that their father was then engaged in work in a new housing colony where many buildings were in various stages of completion. Lot of mynas lived on them. (For the scaffolding, they would leave small gaps in the wall which would be closed only on completion. The mynahs would come and occupy them. They did not build nests.) They said it was so easy to catch them! 

from: www.sciencenews.org

 I had one friend near my house- one Manickam, whose father ran a firewood depot. He was interested in mynahs. So on a holiday the Singaram brothers, Manickam and I  went to that housing colony which was a new area developing beyond our town. Manickam climbed the wall holding on to the gaps in the wall  and put his hand into one of the top gaps, and came out with a mynah! He got another from the next one!  Today, I shudder to think about it. We now know that birds think of nesting only when they are about to lay eggs!  I really do not know whether there were any eggs inside! This disturbs me even today!

By Vimal Ram S (Own Work) CC BY-SA 3.0 Wikimedia commons,

He caught the mynahs but how to feed them? We were told that they lived on grasshoppers,called in Tamil 'budathai' புடத்தை 

So, our next job was to go to the fields beyond in search of grasshoppers! Manickam had an empty match box into which the grasshoppers were  caught and put! I liked the mynah, but did not like catching the grasshopper!  So I did not accompany him on his field visit the next time. After two or three days, he told me that the mynahs had flown away!

Mynah on a flowering tree- Woodblock print by Isoda Koryusai c1775 Public Domain.