Children have everything to learn. This should be their main preoccupation in order to prepare themselves for a useful and productive life.
Education means three things, to teach how to observe and know rightly the facts on which they have to form a judgement; secondly , to train the children to think fruitfully and soundly; thirdly, to fit the children to use their knowledge and their thought effectively for their own and the common good. Capacity of observation and knowledge, capacity of intelligence and judgement, capacity of action and high character are required for the citizenship of a rational order of society; a general deficiency in any of these is sure source of failure.
As the children grow up, they must discover in themselves the thing of things which interest them most and which they are capable of doing well. There are latent faculties to be developed. There are also faculties to be discovered.
Children must be taught to like to overcome difficulties, and also that this gives a special value to life; when one knows how to do it, it destroys boredom forever and gives an altogether new interest to life. We are on earth to progress and we have everything to learn.
What you should do is to teach the children to take interest in what they are doing. 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.
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 important part which receives knowledge by intuition. This contact often exists in a small child but it is lost in the course of his education.
The growth of the understanding should be stressed much more than that of memory. One knows well only what one has understood. Things learnt by heart mechanically, fade away little by little and finally disappear; what is understood is never forgotten. Moreover, you must never refuse to explain to a child the how and the why of things. If you cannot do it yourself, you must direct the child to those who are qualified to answer or point out to him some books that deal with the question. In this way you will progressively awaken in the child the taste for true study and the habit of making a persistent effort to know.
We have been laying great stress on the stories of the historical past. The past must must be a spring-board towards the future, not a chain preventing from advancing.
One must have a lot of patience with young children, and repeat the same thing to them several times, explaining it to them in various ways. It is only gradually that it enters their mind.
Of all the domains of human consciousness, the physical is the one most completely governed by method, order, discipline, process. The lack of plasticity and receptivity in matter has to be replaced by a detailed organization. All education of the body, if it is to be effective, must be rigorous and detailed, for sighted and methodical. Physical culture is the process of infusing consciousness into the cells of the body.
The children must be happy to go school, happy to learn, and the teacher must be their best friend who gives them the example of the qualities they must acquire. And all that depends exclusively on the teacher. What he does and how he behaves.
Upto the age of seven/eight, children should enjoy themselves. School should all be a game, and they learn as they play. As they play they develop a taste for learning, knowing and understanding life. The system is not very important. It is the attitude of the teacher that matters.
At school disciplinary measures may be taken if necessary, but in complete calm and not because of a personal reaction. Never forget that the children know much more than they can express.
The school should be an opportunity for progress for the student. Each should have the freedom to develop freely.
Education means three things, to teach how to observe and know rightly the facts on which they have to form a judgement; secondly , to train the children to think fruitfully and soundly; thirdly, to fit the children to use their knowledge and their thought effectively for their own and the common good. Capacity of observation and knowledge, capacity of intelligence and judgement, capacity of action and high character are required for the citizenship of a rational order of society; a general deficiency in any of these is sure source of failure.
As the children grow up, they must discover in themselves the thing of things which interest them most and which they are capable of doing well. There are latent faculties to be developed. There are also faculties to be discovered.
Children must be taught to like to overcome difficulties, and also that this gives a special value to life; when one knows how to do it, it destroys boredom forever and gives an altogether new interest to life. We are on earth to progress and we have everything to learn.
What you should do is to teach the children to take interest in what they are doing. 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.
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 important part which receives knowledge by intuition. This contact often exists in a small child but it is lost in the course of his education.
The growth of the understanding should be stressed much more than that of memory. One knows well only what one has understood. Things learnt by heart mechanically, fade away little by little and finally disappear; what is understood is never forgotten. Moreover, you must never refuse to explain to a child the how and the why of things. If you cannot do it yourself, you must direct the child to those who are qualified to answer or point out to him some books that deal with the question. In this way you will progressively awaken in the child the taste for true study and the habit of making a persistent effort to know.
We have been laying great stress on the stories of the historical past. The past must must be a spring-board towards the future, not a chain preventing from advancing.
One must have a lot of patience with young children, and repeat the same thing to them several times, explaining it to them in various ways. It is only gradually that it enters their mind.
Of all the domains of human consciousness, the physical is the one most completely governed by method, order, discipline, process. The lack of plasticity and receptivity in matter has to be replaced by a detailed organization. All education of the body, if it is to be effective, must be rigorous and detailed, for sighted and methodical. Physical culture is the process of infusing consciousness into the cells of the body.
The children must be happy to go school, happy to learn, and the teacher must be their best friend who gives them the example of the qualities they must acquire. And all that depends exclusively on the teacher. What he does and how he behaves.
Upto the age of seven/eight, children should enjoy themselves. School should all be a game, and they learn as they play. As they play they develop a taste for learning, knowing and understanding life. The system is not very important. It is the attitude of the teacher that matters.
At school disciplinary measures may be taken if necessary, but in complete calm and not because of a personal reaction. Never forget that the children know much more than they can express.
The school should be an opportunity for progress for the student. Each should have the freedom to develop freely.
Comments