Teacher and the Taught

Communicating the culture of the country to the children; and inculcating spiritual values in them does not merely depend on the lofty buildings, beautiful environment or the dynamic people running it; it depends entirely on the ardent sincerity, faith, and noble ideals that spring from the teachers themselves. Now is the greatest need for dedicated service on the part of teachers, in the upbringing of the future generations of the country. The children are at the disposal of the teachers. The entire school will depend upon them. It is not the money that they work for. No Acharya in this country ever worked for the spread of knowledge and culture, in return for the money or the gurudakshina that he got. The responsibility of the teachers is very great. Theirs must be an inspired work. The children and parents could find fulfillment only in the blossoming of the children and that was their fulfillment also. Carving out little children correctly and putting them into the path of life, is the most subtle and delicate of all operations in this world. So the Chinmaya Mission had taken so long to enter this world of dedicated service. The stay of the children for two or three years in the school is only an upanayana ceremony in the strict sense of the term. The children are being brought close to the teachers and to the right path of life. It is a very delicate period and thy have to be very careful. The importance of environment has to be viewed in its proper perspective. Environment is certainly an important factor because proper environment will create better conditions for study. But environments by themselves can never work wonders. The children in the villages of the Himalayan valleys were all born in beautiful surroundings, lived permanently in beauty and died in beauty. And yet they were all blind to it. Mere environment is not sufficient. Something more must be instilled into them to make them educated and cultured, and to enable them to appreciate the beauty of the surroundings. The stress on environment comes from the fact that the child will learn more through the eyes than through the mouth. This fundamental aspect of education is unfortunately forgotten by the parents of the present day by elders, the politicians, administrators, and even by the teachers. They think that all wisdom can be poured through the ears. Unfortunately it can never be done. The transmutation of personality can come only when we see what we hear. Therefore, in the Upanishads, the word pasyathi has been used very often seeing, having darshan, visualizing or experiencing the reality. The sages mention that darshan seeing alone convinces. The teacher must remember that his behaviour must be in line with what he is teaching and what he is emphasizing in schools. Remember, this is not merely for the duration of three or four hours of school timings. He cannot feel that he is a teacher only in the school or college, and for the rest of the time he can do what he likes. If you become a teacher, you are a teacher for 24 hours and 365 days in a year, and throughout you have to behave properly. Even in the seclusion o your room, you cannot relax because some one will be peeping in, watching. Nothing is private for teachers. The students are watching you all the time. You may be in the market place, or in the bus

stand. Remember, your behaviour is watched by the tiny tots. Your every behaviour is very much magnified in their tiny vision. Just as when an ant looks at your toe, it feels that your toe is a mountain, similarly these tiny tots when they look at the elders, they see them majestic and great. A tiny error on your part means, they look at you as Ravana. Your behaviour all the 24 hours round the year must be so beautiful that they become ideal for the children. The teacher should not try to make the children memorize. On the other hand, they should allow ideas to soak into their minds. The children will be observing the entire atmosphere. From the beauty around, from love they get instructions are imparted. Present ideals in the form of stories. Put suggestions into them. If today you look at yourself, you will find that all that you express is an expression of what you have seen and what others have told you in your childhood days. If you have got a national spirit, love for music, painting or reading any such creative urge in you today which has become part and parcel of your existence, you will find that all the traits in it were absorbed by you from what you have been advised and from what was observed by you from the behaviour of your parents and others. Your heart is moulded by such inspirations. When you read all the great biographies, you will find in every one of them, the biographer himself confessing that ideas came to him from an uncle or cousin or parents. They might not have said anything. They never advised you, but you still observed certain things and these observed ideas manifest now. We must give chance to the children to imbibe. They cannot imbibe unless you present it properly. That is why in the great Rishi ashrama of yore, there were thousands of students and one Rishi and Rishi mother; and yet all of them came out as eminent men with culture and beauty. There they absorbed the life lived by the father and mother. They absorbed their culture. They observed more from the example before them than from the precepts that were given. This does not mean that modern methods of teachings could not be used. Use the modern methods but never forget their limitations.