Philosophy of Education
Philosophy of Education
Mr. Adesh Kumar is a Hindi teacher at Shanti Asiatic School, Ahmedabad. With around eight years of teaching experience, Mr. Adesh delineates on how education is a way of life, its importance and the mention of education in ancient scriptures.
Education is a natural, harmonious and progressive development of man’s innate powers or, to be more appropriate, it is liberation, sa vidya ya vimuktaya or tamaso ma jyotirgamaya.
This process is never ending and in fact, the very process of being educated is a way of life. Each experience of one's life is called Education and to put it in a nutshell, EDUCATION IS LIFE & LIFE IS EDUCATION.
Education is the consciously controlled progress whereby changes in behaviour are produced in the person and through the person within the group.
The term Education is derived from the word EDUCATE which is learning and which in itself is the overall development of the well-being of human beings. Every individual being on the planet is doing by learning but that has to be differentiated between what’s right and wrong or what can be accepted and what cannot.
In Mahabharata too, it is very aptly mentioned that Education is paramount to one’s well-being in life. In this learning process our first teachers are our parents, but in a nascent stage. Without undermining the importance of the same in the limited area of their respective family atmosphere, they give their children the basic knowledge of education and culture.
Acharaya Bhartrihari in his book Nitishatak also states that those parents who do not train their children to become better human beings in-fact taste their own medicines in a manner which does not go down well in the society. In fact, education is a way of LIFE.
In the area of education, a teacher’s role is multifaceted and multidimensional performing various roles/act which can be as varied as a parent, mentor, friend, philosopher, and more important a very apt role model who has and leaves a huge impact on one’s life by giving proper direction and shapes to their thoughts for the simple reason that children when in raw state during their early stages can be effectively moulded provided they are taught the basic fact and nuances of life just like a mould of clay in a potter’s wheel where in the potter with his care and loving hands gives shapes to the clay.
In this learning process with new methodologies being introduced like CCE, it is making a huge impact on the teaching-learning process wherein the students are given new insights and new direction thereby sowing the seeds of innovation and originality. Take for example; if we talk about Hindi language, it develops four basic skills such as listening, speaking, reading, writing through this method which develops the language skills with fair degree of practice.
According to me on a personal level, I must reiterate that we have to ensure that education as a process be more creative and application based with emphasis on RLA (real life application) and do away with the rote system of learning and make the teaching-learning process a system without undermining the evaluation process which is equally paramount to the growth of an individual.
At the end I would like to draw your attention to the field of education and vis-a vis the role of a teacher who is not only a role model but also an individual with unique idealistic character trying to build bridges of connect and growth.
Photograph courtesy Pixabay.com
