-004_Sri Aurobindo^s Seven Principles of Education.htm I Sri Aurobindo's Seven Principles of Education The world knows Sri Aurobindo as a Mahayogi, a great philosopher, a renowned poet and an accomplished literary critic. But not many people know that he has been a great educationist as well. Even those who are aware of the fact that Sri Aurobindo was a very successful teacher, — first at the Baroda College during the years 1899 and 1906, then in the Bengal National College, Calcutta, in the years 1906 and 1907, — have not much cared to study his educational thoughts and insights or may not even be cognisant of the other fact that the great propounder of Integral Yoga kept up a life-long

VII Training in the Use of the "Free Progress" System (A few practical words to the students) The Mother favoured the "Free Progress" System of education for the outstanding students for the full flowering of all their potential and for the development of their true swadharma, self-nature. But it is not very easy on the part of an untrained average student to utilise the methodology of free progress in the right way. For example, in the Higher Course of SAICE, where the free progress system is in full operation since 1968, it is found that many students fumble in practice in making the proper choice. For, there, an indi

XII Two Potent Sources of Dilution More than sixty years have passed since the Mother established the Ashram School with a very high goal in view — the goal of building up a new type of humanity and preparing the children for a glorious future. At first, she herself held the reins. The students and the teachers, the parents and the guardians, all understood sufficiently well the aims and the mission of this unique Centre of Education. But after the Mother's physical withdrawal from the scene, a distinct change has come in on all fronts, slowly and imperceptibly at first but markedly and quite fast in recent years. Let us try to understand how this

XI On Discipline A student who has been properly trained in the art of employing in the right way the principle of "Free Progress" cannot but be automatically disciplined. And what is pleasing is that this discipline will come from within himself, a happy and highly beneficial self-discipline, and not something imposed upon him from outside by an alien authority, be he a teacher, a parent or a guardian. This imposed discipline cannot but stunt the free growth of a child and hamper the spontaneous flowering of his inborn personality. Especially, if a particular student is trained to appreciate genuine beauty, — and by beauty we do not mean at all conventional

IV The Mother on the Method of Teaching It is by now well known to most educationists and even to the general public that Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education established in Pondicherry by the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram is a unique institute of learning distinguished in many significant ways from most other normal schools and colleges. The Mother wanted it to function with very great aims and purposes behind it. It is not merely a highly efficient academic training which is in view here. Above everything else, how to help the students to grow into consciously aspiring men and women of the future, well, this was the central

-005_The Mother^s Eleven Goals of Education.htm II The Mother's Eleven Goals of Education It is by now well known that the Mother has given the world a well-structured integral philosophy of education. This philosophical vision is unique in many respects — both in its objectives and in its method of implementation. Thus, a centre of learning established anywhere in the world but drawing its inspiration from the Mother's educational teachings cannot but be basically different from most other schools and colleges found elsewhere. For the aim of true education should be, in the Mother's view, to give the students a chance to distinguish between the ordinary life and the life of truth — to s

VI Problems in "Free Progress" System If we adopt the system of "Free Progress" in imparting education to the students in our school, some basic problems arise and confront the teachers and the organisers, and they demand satisfactory solutions. Here, for example, is one of them which was placed before the Mother: Question: "Mother, when we attempt to organise the children into categories based on their capacity for initiative, we see that there is a mixture of levels of achievement in various subjects. That makes the work very difficult for certain teachers who are in the habit of taking ordinary [conventional] classes in the old classica

Why Is This Book Being Written? Why is this book being written? There are several reasons for that. The very first reason is that it is by now well recognised that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were not only Mahayogis, masters of spirituality, they were at the same time great educationists as well. Both of them, in their diverse writings, formulated fundamental principles of education with an altogether new non-conventional goal in view. The Mother established a school in Pondicherry in 1943 in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram to put into practice these principles of education. She gave this school a wider and higher scope with far-reaching consequences for the futu

IX SAICE: Courses of Study It is well understood by most educationists that in Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education there cannot be any fixed syllabus for all the students of the same academic level, for "Free Progress" is the favoured norm there and in the free progress of the students it is inconceivable that different students, studying under the guidance of teachers of their choice and pursuing the lines of their own development, will have to be bound by the same fixed quantum of syllabus. But what about the nature of the Courses themselves? Is there any bias there in favour of some particular genre of studies? Is there any negative feeling,

V "Free Progress" in Education "Free Progress" is a key concept of immense import in the educational vision of the Mother. But what does she mean by this free progress of an individual student at SAICE? She was once specifically asked this question. One of her children asked her: "Mother, would you please define in a few words what you mean essentially by 'free progress'?" The Mother answered: "A progress guided by the soul and not subjected to habits, conventions or preconceived ideas." (CWM, Vol. 12, p. 172) The first part of the Mother's answer makes everything absolutely clear. But, in practice, the problem becomes acutely difficult f