‘What is education? It is essentially
the art of learning, not only from books, but from the whole movement of life.’
J Krishnamurti
Recently, when we were taking care of our two
grandsons, the five year old decided to complain loudly about the fact he had
to go to school. My wife, Maggie, asked him:
“What’s the matter with school? Why don’t you want to
go?”
Through tears of protestation he said, “I don’t like
the learning.”
Here is a boy who is fascinated by almost everything.
He can spend hours with Lego; putting it together, taking it apart, and constructing
imaginary games with figures of all descriptions. During the time that we were
helping to look after our grandsons the weather was hot and the nights were
such that air barely seemed to move so Maggie bought a pedestal electric fan,
boxed and ready to put together; on his return from school this little boy was
immediately fascinated by what the box contained. He persuaded her to unpack it
then and there, and together they began to work out how to put it together; he
excitedly provided solutions to the construction and actively worked together
with his grandmother. He had never seen one of these fans before, so he was not
employing memory…
‘I don’t like the learning.’!
Schools, as they are now, are dead and their lifeless
forms are mouldering tumours in the belly of global society, filled with the
shiny cancerous cells of modern life: competition, coercion, and conformity;
creating a stratified, divided, contemptuous world, where the ultimate value is
purely economic.
In the conclusion to her new edition of ‘Alternative
Approaches to Education’, Fiona Carnie writes,
‘They [alternative schools and learning communities] are based on the
values of a healthy society – of democracy, community, fairness, trust,
tolerance, openness and support. Children who have experienced these values in
an active way as an integral part of their education are more likely to reflect
them in their own lives and work. Now more than ever we are aware of the need
to create a world which is based on such values… schooling has to be more than
a means of training children to contribute to economic growth regardless of the
social and environmental costs.’.
So, what happens now?
I would like to suggest that instead of looking at what might replace schools,
we investigate learning: our assumptions about learning, how learning is
organised and what learning really is. In a blog written by the psychologist,
Peter Gray, he states that:
‘Throughout
essentially all of human history, children educated themselves by exploring,
playing, watching and listening to others, and figuring out and pursuing their
own goals in life.’
Adding that:
‘Coercive schooling has been a blip in human history, designed to
serve temporary ends that arose with industrialization and the need to suppress
creativity and free
will. Coercive schooling is in the process now
of burning itself out, in a kind of final flaring up.’.
‘Coercive schooling’ reflects the dominant
authoritarian view of life, that learning is the delivering and assimilation of
a body of required knowledge in which the child will be tested/examined to
ensure that a certain standard is reached. The roles of the teacher and the
taught are clearly drawn up into one who knows and one who doesn’t, ensuring
the continuation of division in human society.
‘As an educator you have no status; you are a human being with all
the problems of life, like a student. The moment you speak from status, you are
actually destroying human relationship.’ J Krishnamurti
Imperialism, nationalism, age related
superiority, gender related superiority, race related superiority and species
related superiority, reside deeply in the consciousness of the modern mind; to
a great extent the organisation of learning continues to serve these world
views and the vast machinery of education either overtly or inadvertently
crystallises certain attitudes in its ‘learners’ (a term that appears to have
replaced children or students). A central aspect of this approach is that
learning is always towards an end, which begins at a certain pre-ordained point
and then progresses incrementally towards an agreed conclusion – a body of
knowledge consigned to memory; whoever is the learner in this process plays a
passive, receiving role.
‘If you observe the world about you, you see how insane it all is:
mothers sending their sons to war to kill or be killed; the divisions of
religion and governments with their conflict and their corruption; the talk of
peace while preparing for war; the endless breaking-up of human beings into
categories, temperaments, with their gurus and analysts. This insanity has its
own activity, which is contradictory. Imitative and divisive. Education as it
is now exists to conform to the pattern of insanity.’ J Krishnamurti
When we collect our grandson from school,
he runs and dances all the way to his house, delighting in the physical
freedom, flinging his arms and legs in all directions as if he had just escaped
from a straightjacket. He knows how to learn, he has interests he is developing
on his own; he listens, most of the time; and he observes and asks questions.
It is not that he wants to learn; it is that learning is in his very make up as
human being. The other side of the coin from the adult point of view, is that I
have had times as a teacher when I have felt frustrated and confined in the
classroom through the tedium of my own lesson; restricted by the expectation to
perform in an area which for me held little interest.
The ground from which all learning rises
is the individual, the person through whom all perception of reality flows, therefore
learning about life is inseparable from learning about oneself and this
learning has no conclusion. Our propensity to separate our learning into ‘good’
or ‘bad’, ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ severely limits our understanding of both the
inner and outer world; relying all too often on the judgement of others. And
learning about oneself is not a self-absorbing process as it is based upon the listening
and observation that connects outer with the inner; freedom to breathe the pure
air.
‘I don’t like the learning.’!
Quotations from:
The Whole Movement of Life is Learning: J Krishnamurti;
Krishnamurti Foundation Trust 2006
Alternative Approaches to Learning: Fiona Carnie; Second Edition;
Routledge; 2017
Differences Between Self-Directed and Progressive Education: Peter
Gray; Psychology Today(online); 2017
