Hermann Hesse Magister Ludi Introduction In Hermann Hesse's novel Magister Ludi, set in Europe in an unspecified future, we encounter an imaginary elite educational institution called Castalia, a community devoted to the mind, whose carefully selected members are given a unique opportunity to develop their diverse creative and intellectual capacities. Every facility imaginable is placed at the disposal of the budding Castalians, who are protected from all worldly pressures and assured a basic allotment of food, clothing, and shelter. In return for this they sacrifice all desire for material rewards and fame. In Castalia there are no titles or

Paulo Freire, courtesy Paulo Freire Institute Critique of the Teacher- Student Relationship in the "Banking" Concept of Education Introduction At the very least, education implies change. At its highest, education implies rapid evolution, revolution or transmutation. The greater the perception of present inadequacies and imperfections, the greater the spur for radical change or transmutation. The stage through which we are passing in human history is marked by crises in which the perception of human inadequacies becomes increasingly acute. We are dissatisfied with ourselves, both individually and co

The Mother To Parents Teachers and Pupils Introduction The Mother was born in Paris on February 21, 1878, in a very materialistic, upper middle class family. She completed a thorough education of music, painting and higher mathematics. A student of the French painter Gustave Moreau, she befriended the great Impressionist artists of the time. She later became acquainted Page-510 with Max Theon, an enigmatic character with extraordinary occult powers who, for the first time, gave her a coherent explanation of the spontaneous experiences' occurring since her childhood, and who taught her occultism during two long visits

-19_The Parrot^s Training.htm Rabindranath Tagore. Drawing by Satyajjt Roy The Parrot's Training Introduction This unusual story drives home its message by a kind of literary reductio ad absurdum. It is a satire, full of wit and sarcasm, and can be regarded as a preface to a revolution in education. Rabindranath Tagore dreamed of creating a garden of learning where children would command the centre of attention. During his own school days he had experienced the deadening effects of the formal system of education, and his soul had rebelled against its imprisonment within school walls. He ultimately rejected the school and educated himself, and he discovered a teach

A Story of Initiation Introduction India has a great tradition of initiation. Initiation means a beginning, but in the context of education it means a marked beginning, and in the context of spiritual realization (which is also an educational process) it means a rebirth, a departure from the past and an entry into a series of austerities and liberations. The following story relates to spiritual initiation, but its message is relevant to our search for the qualities characteristic of the good teacher and the good pupil. The story speaks of a certain teacher, Mahatma Junun, who was celebrated for his spiritual attainments. Its origin is not

Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Piercing the Veils of Darkness Introduction The story of Helen Keller's formative years is a wonderful example of the peculiar alchemy wrought by the coming together of perfectly matched teacher and pupil, each fulfilling the other. Anne Mansfield Sullivan was a young, aspiring teacher when she met and started working with the little blind and deaf girl who, under her awakening touch, was transmuted into one of the greatest persons of her time. Born in 1880 in Tuscumbia, a little town in northern Alabama, USA, Helen Keller was a perfectly normal child until the age of two, when an illness per

Pestalozzi (Schöner) 1808 A Lover of Children Introduction ...a very ugly man with bristly hair, a face lined with smallpox scars and covered with freckles, an irregular and prickly beard, with no neckerchief; a man whose badly buttoned trousers drooped over his socks as these did over his rough shoes; a man with a panting, jerky walk, with eyes which at one moment sparkled, wide open, and at another closed in inward contemplation, with features which sometimes reflected a deep sorrow and then sometimes the purest joy, with a voice which was now hesitating and now impetuous, now soft and harmonious, and now storming like thunder. ..We

Learning is Recollection Introduction What is learning? How do we learn? These and allied questions are central in determining the roles of the teacher and the pupil. There is a view that learning is effected by a stimulus-response process, and that learning manifests in modified behaviour. According to this view, the rudimentary power of responding to a stimulus is an innate reflex in the pupil which can be conditioned by various series of stimuli, either natural or designed. This view is intimately associated with the theory that the mind in its original state is a tabula rasa, a blank slate, over which sensati

Jean Jacques Rousseau, Painting by Quentin de La Tour Holding the Hand of the Pupil Introduction How did it come about that a man born poor, losing his mother at birth and soon deserted by his father, afflicted with a painful and humiliating disease, left to wander for twelve years among alien cities and conflicting faiths, repudiated by society and civilization, repudiating Voltaire, Diderot, the Encyclopedic, and the Age of Reason, driven from place to place as a dangerous rebel, suspected of crime and insanity, and seeing, in his last months, the apotheosis of his greatest enemy — how did it come about that this man, after

Bertrand Russell at the age of nine What the Educator Needs and What His Pupils Should Acquire Introduction Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) has been acknowledged as one of the leading mathematicians of our times. His philosophical writings have made a great impact on contemporary philosophical thought. His writings on social reconstruction have stimulated radical thinking about some of society's important institutions. In the field of education, although his contributions were not as massive as in mathematics and philosophy, he was considered an ardent leader of those who held that education ought to e