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Teacher and the Taught
Communicating the culture of the country to the children; and
inculcating spiritual valuesin them does not merely depend on the
lofty buildings, beautiful environment or thedynamic people running
it; it depends entirely on the ardent sincerity, faith, and
nobleideals that spring from the teachers themselves.
Now is the greatest need for dedicated service on the part of
teachers, in the upbringingof the future generations of the
country.The children are at the disposal of the teachers. The
entire school will depend upon them.It is not the money that they
work for. No Acharya in this country ever worked for thespread of
knowledge and culture, in return for the money or the gurudakshina
that hegot.The responsibility of the teachers is very great. Theirs
must be an inspired work. Thechildren and parents could find
fulfillment only in the blossoming of the children andthat was
their fulfillment also.Carving out little children correctly and
putting them into the path of life, is the mostsubtle and delicate
of all operations in this world. So the Chinmaya Mission had taken
solong to enter this world of dedicated service.The stay of the
children for two or three years in the school is only an
upanayanaceremony in the strict sense of the term. The children are
being brought close to theteachers and to the right path of life.
It is a very delicate period and thy have to be verycareful.The
importance of environment has to be viewed in its proper
perspective. Environmentis certainly an important factor because
proper environment will create better conditionsfor study. But
environments by themselves can never work wonders. The children in
thevillages of the Himalayan valleys were all born in beautiful
surroundings, lived
permanently in beauty and died in beauty. And yet they were all
blind to it. Mere
environment is not sufficient. Something more must be instilled
into them to make themeducated and cultured, and to enable them to
appreciate the beauty of the surroundings.The stress on environment
comes from the fact that the child will learn more through theeyes
than through the mouth. This fundamental aspect of education is
unfortunatelyforgotten by the parents of the present day by elders,
the politicians, administrators, andeven by the teachers. They
think that all wisdom can be poured through the ears.Unfortunately
it can never be done.The transmutation of personality can come only
when we see what we hear. Therefore, inthe Upanishads, the word
pasyathi has been used very often seeing, having
darshan,visualizing or experiencing the reality. The sages mention
that darshan seeing aloneconvinces.
The teacher must remember that his behaviour must be in line
with what he is teachingand what he is emphasizing in schools.
Remember, this is not merely for the duration of three or four
hours of school timings. He cannot feel that he is a teacher only
in theschool or college, and for the rest of the time he can do
what he likes.If you become a teacher, you are a teacher for 24
hours and 365 days in a year, andthroughout you have to behave
properly. Even in the seclusion o your room, you cannotrelax
because some one will be peeping in, watching. Nothing is private
for teachers. Thestudents are watching you all the time. You may be
in the market place, or in the bus
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stand. Remember, your behaviour is watched by the tiny tots.
Your every behaviour isvery much magnified in their tiny vision.
Just as when an ant looks at your toe, it feelsthat your toe is a
mountain, similarly these tiny tots when they look at the elders,
they seethem majestic and great. A tiny error on your part means,
they look at you as Ravana.Your behaviour all the 24 hours round
the year must be so beautiful that they become
ideal for the children.The teacher should not try to make the
children memorize. On the other hand, theyshould allow ideas to
soak into their minds. The children will be observing the
entireatmosphere. From the beauty around, from love they get
instructions are imparted.Present ideals in the form of stories.
Put suggestions into them.If today you look at yourself, you will
find that all that you express is an expression of what you have
seen and what others have told you in your childhood days. If you
havegot a national spirit, love for music, painting or reading any
such creative urge in youtoday which has become part and parcel of
your existence, you will find that all the traitsin it were
absorbed by you from what you have been advised and from what
wasobserved by you from the behaviour of your parents and others.
Your heart is moulded by
such inspirations. When you read all the great biographies, you
will find in every one of them, the biographer himself confessing
that ideas came to him from an uncle or cousinor parents. They
might not have said anything. They never advised you, but you
stillobserved certain things and these observed ideas manifest now.
We must give chance tothe children to imbibe. They cannot imbibe
unless you present it properly.That is why in the great Rishi
ashrama of yore, there were thousands of students and oneRishi and
Rishi mother; and yet all of them came out as eminent men with
culture and
beauty. There they absorbed the life lived by the father and
mother. They absorbed their culture. They observed more from the
example before them than from the precepts thatwere given. This
does not mean that modern methods of teachings could not be used.
Usethe modern methods but never forget their limitations.
