Education and the Significance of Life
J. Krishnamurti HarperCollins San Francisco 1953
The Materialist Way
Pg 9 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.
Pg 13 Our present education is geared to industrialization and war, its principle aim being to develop efficiency; and mutual destruction. If education leads to war, if it teaches us to destroy or be destroyed, has it not utterly failed?
Pg 19 The greatest need and most pressing problem for every individual is to have an integrated comprehension of life, which will enable him to meet its ever-increasing complexities.
Pg 23 Education in the true sense is helping the individual to be mature and free, to flower greatly in love and goodness.
Highest Function of Education
Pg 24 The highest function of education is to bring about an integrated individual who is capable of dealing with life as a whole. The idealist, like the specialist, is not concerned with the whole, but only with a part. There can be not integration as long as one is pursuing an ideal pattern of action; and most teachers who are idealist have put away love, they have dry minds and hard hearts. To study a child, one has to be alert, watchful, self-aware, and this demands far greater intelligence and affection than to encourage him to follow an ideal.
Importance of Self Knowledge
Pg 25 Education is intimately related to the present world crisis, and the educator who sees the cause of this universal chaos should ask himself how to awaken intelligence in the student, thus helping the coming generation not to bring about further conflict and disaster. He must give all his thought, all his care and affection to the creation of right environment and to the development of understanding, so that when the child grows into maturity he will be capable of dealing intelligently with the human problems that confront him. But in order to do this, the educator must understand himself instead of relying on ideologies, systems and beliefs.
Let us not think in terms of principles and ideals, but be concerned with things as they are; for it is the consideration of what is that wakens intelligence, and the intelligence of the educator is far more important than his knowledge of a new method of education.
Pg 28 Education as it is at present in no way encourages the understanding of the inherited tendencies and environmental influences which condition the mind and heart and sustain fear, and therefore it does not help us to break through these conditioning and bring about an integrated human being. Any for of education that concerns itself with a part and not with the whole of man inevitably leads to increasing conflict and suffering.
Pg 32 If the classes are small and the teacher can give his full attention to each child, observing and helping him, then compulsion or domination in any form is obviously unnecessary.
Pg 33 It is intelligence that brings order, not discipline. Conformity and obedience have no place in the right kind of education. Co-operation between teacher and student is impossible if there is no mutual affection, mutual respect.
Pg 40 Most children are curious, they want to know; but their eager inquiry is dulled by our pontifical assertions, our superior impatience and our casual brushing aside of their curiosity.
About Technique
Pg 47 The integrated human being will come to technique through experiencing, for the creative impulse makes its own technique – and that is the greatest art. When a child has the creative impulse to paint, he paints, he does not bother about technique. Likewise people who are experiencing, and therefore teaching, are the only real teachers, and they too will create their own technique.
If we are constantly judging the child according to our personal likes and dislikes, we are bound to create barriers and hindrances in our relationship with him and in his relationships with the world.
Pg 53 To understand ourselves, we must be ware of our relationship, not only with people, but also with property, with ideals and with nature.
Pg 57 This imitation of what we should be, breeds fear; and fear kills creative thinking. Fear dulls the mind and heart so that we are not alert to the whole significance of life; we become insensitive to our own sorrows, to the movement of birds, to the smiles and miseries of others.
Mass Instruction
Pg 85 Nothing of fundamental value can be accomplished through mass instruction, but only through the careful study and understanding of the difficulties, tendencies and capacities of each child; and those who are aware of this, and who earnestly desire to understand themselves and help the young, should come together and start a school that will have the vital significance in a the child’s life by helping him to be integrated and intelligent.
Pg 88 The center cannot be made up of the head-master alone. Enthusiasm or interest that depends on one person is sure to wane and die. Such interest is superficial, flighty and worthless, for it can be diverted and made subservient to the whims and fancies of another.
Pg 91 A direct and vital relationship between teacher and student is almost impossible when the teacher is weighed down by large and unmanageable numbers. This is still another reason why schools should be kept small. It is obviously important to have a very limited number of students in a class, so that the educators can give his full attention to each one. When the group is too large he cannot do this, and then punishment and reward become a convenient way of enforcing discipline.