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 goal behind its founding. Now, it is quite clear that the full and successful realisation of this noble goal demands the concurrence of three components: the teachers, the students and the proper method of teaching. The teachers should be well aware of the real nature of their task; the students on their part should well understand why they have come to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram to pursue their studies in its school; and the proper method of teaching should be adopted here which will help in the flowering of the young boys and girls to the maximum extent possible.

If even one of the three components is deficient in functioning, the attempt before the "Centre" is bound to fail and in course of time it cannot but degenerate into one amongst a million conventional institutions of learning. In the present

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paper we propose to concentrate our attention on the third component, the method of teaching, and clearly indicate what the Mother wanted it to be and what pitfalls she wanted her "Centre" to avoid if it would be of service to her in the fulfilment of her goal. For that the best course would be to meditate on some of the passages from the Mother's writings touching upon this aspect of the problem.

(1)"There is one thing that I must emphasise. Don't try to follow what is done in the universities outside. Don't try to pump into the students mere data and information. Don't give them so much work that they may not get time for anything else. You are not in a great hurry to catch a train. Let the students understand what they learn. Let them assimilate it. Finishing the course should not be your goal. You should make the programme in such a way that the students may get time to attend the subjects they want to learn. They should have sufficient time for their physical exercises. I don't want them to be very good students, yet pale, thin and anaemic... [The students'] progress will not be just in one direction at the cost of everything else. It will be an all-round progress in all directions." (CWM, Vol. 12, p. 170)

(2)On general education and specialisation:

A proposal was made by some teachers that the students should give up some subjects in order to concentrate on those they wished to learn. Here is the Mother's comment on this proposal of specialisation:

"That depends. It cannot be made the general rale; for

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many of them [the students] it would not be much use. They have not reached a stage where they would be able to concentrate more on certain subjects if they have fewer subjects to study. The only result would be to encourage them to slacken — the very opposite of concentration! — and it would lead to a waste of time.

The solution does not lie there. What you should do is to teach the children to take interest in what they are doing — that is not the same thing as interesting the students! You must arouse in them the desire for knowledge, for progress. One can take an interest in anything — in sweeping a room, for example — if one does it with concentration, in order to gain an experience, to make a progress, to become more conscious." (Ibid., p. 171)

(3) "Most teachers want to have good students: students who are studious and attentive, who understand and know many things, who can answer well.... This spoils everything. The students begin to consult books, to study, to learn. Then they rely only on books, on what others say or write, and they lose contact with the super-conscient part which receives knowledge by intuition. This contact often exists in a small child but it is lost in the course of his education.

For the students to be able to progress in the right direction, it is obvious that the teachers should have understood this and changed their old way of seeing and teaching. Without that, my work is at a standstill." (Ibid.)

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4)"It is not so much the details of organisation as the attitude that must change.

It seems that unless the teachers themselves get above the usual intellectual level, it will be difficult for them to fulfil their duty and accomplish their task." (Ibid., p. 172)

(5)Question: "R was absent today... and I found, after the class, that he has Your permission to stop coming to my class and take woodwork instead."

The Mother's Answer:

"He told me he liked much better to do manual work instead of studies. I thought he was right in his instinct and his choice was the best for his nature. So I gave him the permission required." (Ibid., p. 186)

(6)Question: "Should we put the children of each category together?"

The Mother's Answer:

"That has both advantages and disadvantages. The grouping of students should be made according to the resources at our disposal and the facilities we have. The arrangement should be flexible so that it can be improved upon if necessary." (Ibid., p. 372)

(7)"All studies, or in any case the greater part of studies consists in learning about the past, in the hope that it will give you a better understanding of the present. But

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if you want to avoid the danger that the students may cling to the past and refuse to look to the future, you must take great care to explain to them that the purpose of everything that happened in the past was to prepare what is taking place now, and that everything that is taking place now is nothing but a preparation for the road towards the future, which is truly the most important thing for which we must prepare." (Ibid., p. 169)

(8)"It is by cultivating intuition that one prepares to live for the future." (Ibid.)

(9)"Think rather of the future than of the past." (Ibid.)

(10)"You must be very careful to see that there is no overlapping in the lessons that you teach. Your subjects are related to each other. If two teachers begin to speak on the same point, naturally there will be some difference in their points of view. The same thing seen from different angles looks different. This will bring confusion in the young minds of the students and they will start comparison amongst the teachers, which is not very desirable. So each one should try to take up his own subject without wandering about in other subjects." (Ibid., p. 186)

(11)"It is not through uniformity that you obtain unity. It is not through uniformity of programmes and methods that you will obtain the unity of education.

Unity is obtained through a constant reference,

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silent or expressed, as the case demands, to the central ideal, the central force or light, the purpose and the goal of our education.

The true, the supreme Unity expresses itself in diversity. It is mental logic that demands sameness. In practice, each one must find and apply his own method, that which he understands and feels. It is only in this way that education can be effective." (Ibid., p. 172)

(12) Question: "If we are to have a new system [of education], what exactly will this system be?"

The Mother's Answer:

"It will be put into practice in the best way possible, according to the capacity of each teacher." (Ibid., p. 176)

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