And finally, the last on my list: humility. We cannot
be effective as teachers if we think that we are supposed to know everything
that there is to know. When a student corrects us for a mistake or asks a
question that we don’t know the answer to, if we get angry, we create barriers,
we fear we are going to expose our ignorance, and then what flows is cut off
into pieces. We cannot flow as a teacher; we cannot carry them with us. And where
does the strange idea that a teacher must know everything comes from? It’s a
remnant of the British, when they created this aura of superiority. They were a
special race and we were failures; they knew everything and we had to follow
blindly, continuing the slave mentality. So, the day we got into the position
of the Babus, we wanted to pretend we were like them. Do you know that until
Abdul Kalam became president of India, every other president of India had his
shoes put on his feet by a servant? What a disgusting idea created by the
British. The tradition was sustained because we got into their place; we had to
be like them. How silly, and Abdul Kalam said: “Why? I can put my shoes on.”
And he began to walk around everywhere, meeting the gardener, for example, which
nobody had done before him.
The need to pretend is part of the hypocrisy of what
we call the industrial mindset of education. Dissolve it all; we are all here
learning together and I meet you with the same humility. We are all the same.
There are things I don’t know, and you also teach me. You find it so much more
fun when you teach with this attitude. So, it is humility in the face of the
vastness of the knowledge. All that I know is a drop – this is the first
movement of humility. The second, is the infinity of viewpoints. We can present
whatever we know in so many ways, and each one in my class will have his own
viewpoint. The third is the recognition of one’s own limitations. Be conscious
of this and be with the children; we are learning together. Well, I consider
these to be some important facets and you can check out which ones are more
developed, and which you need to work on. Use those that are stronger to
develop the others that are weaker.
(Excerpt from Chapter
‘Preparing ourselves as teachers, Introduction to Integral Education’ by
Sraddhalu Ranade)
No comments:
Post a Comment