The Goal Of Education – Seers in the past advocated of an education that helps one to attain freedom from nescience. In fact, a gifted individual with no morals is a threat to the society. Of late, the primary objectives have been to impart skills that will help our kids to make a career. We teach history to enable students to understand human behavior. Science is taught to understand the physical world. Mathematics is taught to quantify the world around us. We use the language to describe the world. Human creativity is nurtured through arts and culture. In spite of all our endeavors, we have failed to create people of character. This article will critically look at the model of education as imparted worldwide today.
Table of Contents
Plan for the Future
The school going kids today will be retiring around 2080AD. The school going kids of 1940s who are now retired from their active professional life didn’t anticipate many emerging issues such as global warming, complex health issues, a global population explosion and other environmental and social issues. It is very difficult to predict the state of the world in the next 10 years, what to speak of the world in 2080? In this sense any education curriculum will not be able to take into account of all situations for which an individual can be trained.
The kids today have become iKids due to the information explosion. Although they have access to information of the whole world through the fancy gadgets like i-phones and tablets, they have little experience of the real-world. Recently, a teacher of the school where my daughter studies informed that most kids answered that milk is available in shops when asked who gives us milk. It is a systemic failure that has lead to our kids adapting to more of self-centric views.
The success of science and the corresponding technological advancement has mostly influenced the present pattern of education in schools and Universities. It is worthwhile to go back to the history of modern science & technology that has dictated the present schooling system.
Impact of Technology
| 1st | The Industrial Revolution (Britain) | 1770-1800 |
| 2nd | The Age of Steam and Railways (Britain, spreading to Europe and the USA) | 1830-1850 |
| 3rd | The Age of Steel, Electricity and Heavy Engineering (Germany and USA overtake Britain) | 1860-1900 |
| 4th | The Age of Oil, Synthetics and Mass Production (USA, spreading to Europe) | 1930-1970 |
| 5th | The Age of Information and Telecommunications (USA, spreading to Europe and Asia) | 1980 onwards |
As Perez [1] has enumerated five major technological transformations as shown in Table 1, the focus of education has been primarily to sustain city life. As a result out-flux from villages into cities have increased in a proportion that city population worldwide has overtaken village population in 2007 according to IBM research. Since the time of the industrial revolution in 18th century, many people have been displaced from their land and are forced to work in crowded city factories. Thus the population shifted from villages to the cities. Strong family ties, self sufficiency and the right to occupy land are replaced with uncertain tenancy of land, dependency on trade and a weakening of the family unit.
The family unit is even more vulnerable today with soaring divorce rates. The rate of teenage suicides has increased manifold. Most people of the society are either heavily mortgaged to banks or paying high rents. Not many years ago, Indian villages used to be self-sufficient. No one can be self-sufficient in a world governed by free trade as few capitalists own most of the resources.
Advances in technology are not equitably shared within society. People with money have more opportunity to acquire technology, which enables them to acquire even more wealth. For example, John D. Rockefeller, the richest ever businessman in American history, owned a significant part of the country’s GDP, because of his monopoly over the oil industry. In India also a major portion of GDP is owned by a few business groups like the Ambanis and Birlas. Power and wealth are intrinsically tied together. Moreover war has been and will continue to be the driving force for technology and innovation.
It seems thus the entire education set-up worldwide is sacrificing our children to serve a few capitalists and factories dedicated to produce defense products.
Genetically Modified Seeds and Animals
A great threat to the world is imposed by a few individuals who want to control all the world’s food and textiles through genetically modified (GM) seeds and animals. Genetically modified crops that are dependent on pesticides contaminate organic and heritage seeds that have sustained people for thousands of years. GM is a tax on everyone because a patent will be on every seed and seeds are made to be sterile the following year. The greedy corporations and individuals that want control over our food, water and land, do not care about the irreversible damage to the environment. These modern developments are not highlighted in school curriculum. Rather, in a camouflage manner, kids are trained in genetics such that they can be used by such unscrupulous individuals at a later date.
Where Lies the Problem?
The 17th century scientific revolution shifted science from a focus on understanding nature, or wisdom, to a focus on manipulating nature, i.e. power. Science’s emphasis on manipulating nature leads it inevitably to manipulate people.
In the name of science, a lot of misconceptions are being propagated to mislead people in general and youth in particular. One can refer Science’s First Mistake [2] for many illusions in the name of science. It is not that scientific methodologies were non-existent during the pre-modern era. Rather science was embedded into living styles in ancient India to make people follow the path of simple living and high thinking. For example, the Indian broom is so designed that it can clean the floor while not killing the ants and other insects. The modern day vacuum cleaner cleans the floor but also kills ants and other insects by sucking them in.
Scientific Concepts in Veda
In the Vedas there are many amazing scientific propositions. For example Lord Brahma’s life span is declared to be 311 trillion 40 billion years – a very large number even in the modern astronomical time scale. The diameter of the universe in Srimad Bhagavatam is stated to be 4 billion miles and unit of time is calculated as a measure of atomic vibration (Maitreya’s teaching to Vidura). Vedic cosmology provides models that can be used to predict lunar and solar eclipses as well as planetary positions.
There is a historical narration in Srimad Bhagavatam in which Kardama Muni travelled in a space-ship across the universe with his wife Devahuti. Kardama’s spacemansion had a lake in which the artificial swans were so real that real swans hugged them. Nuclear weapons were used in Mahabharata battle. There is a wonderful narration in Vishnu Purana where Markendeya Rsi contemplates on infinity: if ONLY one jiva is delivered to the spiritual world over one kalpa (one kalpa is 4.3 million years), even then infinite jivas must have returned back to Godhead. How is it that this material creation still has infinite jivas?
It will be prudent to present such scientific concepts in our education curriculum – not in a dogmatic style – rather to help our kids to challenge their scientific creativity. This will help our kids in two ways. Since Vedic literature like Srimad Bhagavatm emphasizes on Absolute devotion to Krishna, the Personality of Godhead, students will imbibe top-most characters. When these students are blessed to encode the scientific concepts given in these literatures, then such a science will bring in synergy among all aspects of creation – from all forms of living entities to natural creations such as hills, forests and rivers. It is possible that such a science will inspire people to adopt a life of minimal needs while contemplating on the goal of life such as nature of spirit and matter.
The Need of the Hour
Science includes science of spirit and science of matter [3]. Science of matter should be pursued as a sub-goal of the science of spirit. All living beings have a symbiotic relationship with each other and there is a science to lead a life in harmony and synergy. All forms of knowledge spring from the Absolute Person. Thus in all ages, the society adopted a science based on the level of spiritual values.
The animal and plant kingdom need to be preserved and expanded so also water resources such as rivers, lakes and ponds. Instead of pushing everybody to urban-centric life, villages have to be protected through sustainable cow protection, organic farming, natural water harvesting, and energy management. Knowledge generation is a key component to achieve these objectives.
These days all goshalas run in charity and are not economically viable. Science of cow-protection should develop a complementary use of cow-products in terms of dairy items, medicine and energy while allowing cows to have enough grazing lands. Given present scenario of environmental crisis, scientific methodologies should be developed to make organic farming economically sustainable. Health care system needs to be developed primarily based on reforming the life-styles.
An Important Verse from Srimad Bhagavatam
Learned circles have positively concluded that the infallible purpose of the advancement of knowledge, namely austerities, study of the Vedas, sacrifice, chanting of hymns and charity, culminates in the transcendental descriptions of the Lord, who is defined in choice poetry. [SB 1.5.22]
Srila Prabhupada writes in the purport – Human intellect is developed for advancement of learning in art, science, philosophy, physics, chemistry, psychology, economics, politics, etc. By culture of such knowledge the human society can attain perfection of life. This perfection of life culminates in the realization of the Supreme Being, Krishna.
Conclusion
Thus it is important to recognize that all forms of education must enlighten an individual in some aspect of the Absolute Truth. To this end, educational skills such as science, language and art must be developed to keep a healthy balance of city and village life while maintaining a synergy with nature and environment. However, the emphasis must remain in building theistic characters of our kids. Thus it is a challenge for educationists to develop such a model so that the world can embrace this concept one day. This implies that our kids when graduated from such schoolings will accept social, scientific and global responsibilities with a mission – to create a conducive environment for all sections to accept Bhagavata principles.
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References
- Carlota Perez, The Advance of Technology and Major Bubble Collapses: Historical Regularities and Lessons for Today, in Engelsberg Seminar on “The future of capitalism Ax:son Foundation, Sweden, June 2010, http://www.carlotaperez.org
- Ian O Angell and DS Demetis, Science’s First Mistake, Bloomsbury, USA, 2010