J Krishnamurti and the new book (Pic: Krishnamurti Foundation India)
J Krishnamurti is a name that has forever been imprinted in the minds of educationists. Tell us what makes his legacy so endearing.
Many educationists have the wrong notion that Krishnamurti is offering a new pedagogical system, on the lines of Montessori or Tagore, whereby they will become more efficient teachers. They fail to notice, or even ignore, his basic questions:
“Are you a human being or a teacher, first? Are you a human being or a professional, first? Does education mean only greater proficiency in science or arts? On what do you lay emphasis — academic excellence or human excellence?”
Do tell us about at least one of the conversations from the book.
The first chapter, which is a discussion with teachers of Rajghat Besant School, he lays the ground for his vision of education as well as of life.
This is how Krishnamurti begins his discussion with the teachers and sets the tone for the entire book — an in-depth exploration of the human condition.
I think the greatest profession — if one can use that word — is to be a teacher because the teachers are preparing for a new generation, for a future people who are not caught in the routine of life, but are something much more. When I say that the profession, the undertaking, of an educator is really the greatest activity of a human being, it means not only teaching academic subjects, such as mathematics, geography, and history, but also something much more. We seem to spend a great deal of time on academic subjects, probably most of our time, but there is also the other side of the human being — the whole inward, subjective, psychological area which, I am afraid, we neglect completely. We give our days and years to the study of physics, science, chemistry, architecture, and so on. If you observe your life as a teacher, you spend a great deal of time on these subjects and very little time on the student’s behaviour, his way of life, on whether he is a mediocre human being or not — the whole subjective, inward life of human beings. May I go on with this kind of stuff? As teachers, are you interested in, concerned with, both the academic and the psychological side; that is, with the cultivation of the whole human being, not just one side of it?
Do tell us what you think are the highlights from the book.
The unrelenting emphasis on the teacher understanding his own inner life — his thoughts and emotions, his relationships, his conflicts and anxieties — as the basis of right education. The focus of education is as much the flowering of children as it is of teachers.
Tell us, in your opinion, what would J Krishnamurti say about the state of education today? Online education, the advent of AI and more.
For Krishnamurti, the words ancient and modern did not exist, whether he talked about education or society. Education, with its emphasis on knowledge and skills, has always been lopsided. Online education and AI education would only help to make teachers, parents and students more and more subject-oriented and thereby, dehumanise education.
At the same time K was very tuned to the latest happenings. As early as 1958 he talked about ‘electronic machines’. He says, “It is being discovered, and will be perfected in a decade or two, that what a human mind can do, the machine can do also and quite efficiently. It will probably compose, write poems, translate books, and so on.”
In 1985 he talks about it to teachers at the Rajghat Besant School, “The computer can think backwards and forwards, which is called architecture. And the fifth or sixth generation computer is so quick, so extraordinarily capable, that it can invent, it can produce, it can change. So, what is going to happen to our brains? The computer can do almost anything, except of course having sex or looking at the new moon. It can do almost anything that human beings can. This is not some theory: it is happening now. So, what is going to happen to you? What is going to happen to us as human beings?”
How else do you wish to keep his legacy strong?
K rejected the popular way of continuing one’s legacy — by creating a new religion or ideology through propaganda and mass appeal. His emphasis was on the serious-minded people who may understand.
At the same time, the schools of KFI conduct an online Teacher Education Program (TEP) for aspiring teachers as well as those who want to explore teaching differently from how it is practiced now. This online TEP is held twice a year with an average of 70 participants in each of these programs. The focus of the TEP is K’s vision of education. In addition to this, every two months, a free webinar is held on topics that are linked to how the KFI schools put K’s vision into practice.
What, according to him, were his principles of education?
K refused to lay down the principles of education. In the introduction to the book, he says “I cannot personally lay down the principles of education. I am not going to do it. Because, that naturally follows from the principles of what I have been saying in all my talks. If that is understood, that can be applied socially, educationally, politically — I think, for everything in life, anything with which human life is connected. And if you are interested in teaching, and also in what I am saying, then you will find out the method of teaching . . . . You want me to lay down the principles; I cannot do it. But you will find out for yourself how to work, how to draw the principles out of what I have been saying, if you are interested as teachers.”
