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On the Context of
Educational Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore
Dr Bratin Chattopadhyay
Santiniketan
Introduction: Educational
Philosophy as a second remote statement on idealization of Man, and her
location in the society proposed a number of educational idea since post First
World War years. Among the pre-First World War educationists Rabindranath draws
attention with his conceptualization of Man in interface with the society while
proposing his educational ideas. Rabindranath Tagore was no ‘professional educationist’[1] in putting
up a scientized thesis coherent with vocabulary available with the academia of
education. On the other hand, early texts articulated by Rabindranath are
primarily observations on the prevalent system of education that as a general
statement effectively proposes a critique than proposing any educational thesis.
Such critique of educational philosophy of the time, read in the context of the
colonial history obviates an anti-colonial position of such assertion.[2] Here is an
attempt in reading the text removed from the historicity of the observations and
from the contemporary discourse in education. If the first attempt is to
contextualise the issue historically, the later and/or the present attempt is in
locating a contemporary context for those critiques and/or constructing a
distinct philosophy of education latent in the critique.
Poet
Tagore’s statements on education available with published works written in an
inimitable literary flourish invites possibility of being misled to appreciate
its literary quality than getting into the educational content of the text, that
asks for relating the ideas with the terminological discipline. More a literary
piece than a scientized statement the write-ups again arouse reader's mind with
the associations of the poet’s personal experiences. Reacting on these
biographical often provokes trailing through the life of the poet.[3]
Alex
Aronsan (1961), commenting on Rabindranath’s educational philosophy, observed
that “Tagore's educational ideals in the terminology of scientific publications
in the West would indeed be a contradiction in terms.”[4]
Aronsan’s observation did not encouraged making sense by quoting Tagore in the
same context with the educational theories of the last Century for he observed
“Tagore was first and foremost concerned with India. Much of what he said has
relevance only for Indian conditions.” Similar view was also expressed in Sarvapalli
Radhakrishnan’s (1961) review of the educational philosophy of Rabindranath: ‘distinctive
in the art and culture’ of India, Rabindranath’s educational ideas need a
distinct approach for understanding for Rabindranath “raises us to a
consciousness of our own great spiritual heritage” which is historical and essentially
an Eastern concept in general and Indian in particular.[5]
Later
reviews more or less elaborating on such observations generally attempted to identify
the distinctiveness of the educational philosophy in Indian cultural history as
reflected in Rabindranath’s ideation. As an agenda, this approach is an attempt
to understand Rabindranath’s educational thought as the culmination of eastern
or Indian traditions of educational philosophy. Such an agenda is susceptible
to construct an Eastern philosophy of education derived from Rabindranath’s
ideation. In doing so, such an agenda again tends to ignore or overlook the societal/anti-colonial
content of the thought, which is historically valid. In a colonised society,
cultural/social/religious identity, assumes a basis for resistance against
political/commercial hegemony of forces questioning that very basis. Such
identities forming the basis again of the system of educating its child
confront the colonizing forces with anti-colonial position. Such nuances
flowing down the history of the society, in the post colonised situation tend
to create dilemma in presenting the basis of its education, as observed.[6] Krishna Kumar (2005) emphasized on the colonial
context in proposing Rabindranath’s educational idea as a “critique of perception
of the oppressive role of education in children’s lives [that] flows from the
English education [of that time] as an exclusive system”.[7]
Educational
Philosophy as a Critique: Locating the context of
colonial history with obvious societal connect, as a project somewhere adds distinctive
value to the very idea of education which in contemporary understanding is a
function of temporal and spatial attributes. This allows option for reviewing
even pre First World War educational ideas again for the contemporary
purpose. Such a project of contemporary
understanding excited the discourse of Comparative education in studying the
educational ideas originated in geographical spaces and in times connecting the
logical basis of such ideas in the articulation of the problem of educating a
child in general. Studies in Comparative Education again reviewing ideas/philosophy
have observed that the content of the generalisation of such propositions in
actual terms are ‘critiques’ of the societal that sustains education. Indeed
the claim accepts education as a function of the society. And, such generalised
approach brings forth the idea of ‘education’ as a functional interactive between
man and the society. Educational philosophies in that sense as ‘critique’ to
the functional aspects of the society are interceptive in nature and
interventionist by action. In this approach, education always implied—
‘education influenced by the society’ as well as—‘education aiming at
participation in the society’. This implication offers recognizing Tagore’s
proposition articulated with spatially and temporally defined attributes, as
critique to the society. The present approach is to explore its content beyond
its contemporanity only and in the context of mutual reconciliation of individual
and society.[8]
Contemporary
analytical tradition of educational philosophy, concerned with the ‘individual’
component in the matrix was more a outcrop of study of psychology of child
since mid-nineteenth Century that provided tools to analyze the ‘learning’
component of education on which ‘teaching’ and ‘knowledge content’ is assigned.[9]
Proposing neural engagement by the same argument, as the basis of education however,
invites a distinct approach limiting the role of the societal and focuses more on
the genetic control of one’s capacity of being educated.[10]
Since modern Economic agendas took a defined order, it coincided with the
approach of explaining education within the structured linear relation between
‘stimuli’ and ‘response’ mechanism. This approach in turn releases tendencies
to predict the result of education in consult with the attempted predictiveness
of the society (market and its economy) in making out a ‘meaning of education’.
A construct of Man is derived out of such meaning and often supported by a
distinct Philosophy. The Philosophy of such education; the meaning it gives the
individual man is potent with ‘self mastery’ in the pursuit of individual
project which conforms ‘internally’ to the societal with the forces that “maintains
it [the individual] through the very exercise of his or her [own]
individuality.”[11]
Schools of philosophy of education inspired by post-Kantian ideal of liberal
educational tradition are in general critical to the linearity of the equation
celebrating the idea of ‘self-determination’ in the development of autonomy in analysing
forces that are societal in the first place and worldly in the second place.
The inspiration obviously brought Social Philosophical issues for analysing the
‘self limiting’ attribute of education. This
allowed, liberal educators to oppose the predictive attribute of education while
looking for its ‘meaning’ and located educated man as an agency to question and
analyse the demand of the society, and its reproductive attributes as equipped
with the faculty of ‘critical thinking’. Such an understanding has proposed the
idea of ‘critical rationality’ in education.[12]
However, epistemology of ‘rationality’ being the debating ground has never
crossed the limit that qualifies education as a predictive value. (After all,
adding ‘critical rationality’ for a desired result is an act of prediction
too.)
Conversation
with the Forest: Tagore, in the early years of the last
century in ‘the self conscious days of ‘psycho-analysis’[13]
in a statement could do away with the paradigm of the time inviting his poetic
self with a romantic overture to refuse institutional value of his educational
proposition and invoked Man’s instinctive quality that makes her a compulsive
learner.
“It seems that the
sub-conscious remembrance of some primeval dwelling-place where, in our
ancestor’s mind conscious minds were figured and voiced the mysteries of the
inarticulate rocks, the rushing water and the dark whispers of the forest, was
constantly stirring my blood with its call. Some shadow-haunted living
reminiscence in me seemed to ache for the pre-natal cradle and play-ground it
once shared with the primal life in the illimitable magic of land, water and
air. The thin, shrill cry of the high-flying kite in the blazing sun of a dazed
Indian midday sent to a solitary boy the signal of a dumb distant kin. […] I
cannot help believing that my Indian ancestry had left deep in my being the
legacy of its philosophy, the philosophy which speaks of fulfillment through
harmony with all things. For good or for evil it has the effect of arousing a
great desire in us for seeking our freedom, not in the man-made world but in
the depth of the universe, that makes us offer our reverence to the divinity
inherent in fire, water and trees, in everything moving and growing. The
founding of my school had its origin in the memory of that longing for freedom,
the memory which seems to go back beyond the sky-line of my birth.”[14]
Recalling the legacy of
Indian ancestry, Rabindranath obviously reconstructed the idea of Tapovan
re-contextualizing the ancient wisdom of learning. The recall tempts to find argument in reviving the past even at
the risk of continuance of the ‘undesired’ that is embedded in the system that
the society had perpetuated. The reviews of Rabindranath’s
Educational Philosophy, referred as the culmination of eastern or Indian
traditions of educational philosophy is again susceptible to create dilemma in constructing identities.
There is a statement on the identity of Man, re-constructed and
re-contextualized putting up his thesis for defining the nature/religion
of Man. Poet Rabindranath recalled the pre-historic past of Man and his evolution
through making sense of the world, the society through the employment of her
faculty of learning and in creating knowledge
as ‘surplus’ what is in ‘excess’ to his biological existence.[15]
Rabindranath’s thesis on ‘Religion of Man’ elaborating on this proposition locates
the same argument as in his educational thought. That is a distinct position so far as the
educational theories are concerned.
Such
articulation was resonated in Michael
Oakeshott’s assertion: “As civilized human beings, we are the inheritors,
neither of an inquiry about ourselves and the world, nor of an accumulating
body of information, but of a conversation begun in the primeval forest and
made more articulate in the course of centuries.” Nineteenth century English Philosopher
Oakeshott was considered “antique and irrelevant” for his “unusual conception
of a non-prescriptive philosophy” which cannot be assimilated into familiar
categories (liberal, conservative, communitarian) for Oakeshott human conduct
is neither a genetic; a psychological or a so called ‘social’ process that
could be “forecasted” by pseudo-scientific models.[16]
Since
middle of the last Century application of neuro-sensory experience in
educational learning has been explored by different educators reinforced by the
psychological basis of understanding of learning. Questioning the legitimacy of
such learning mechanism and evaluation of performance as a product of such
process has drawn considerable critical reaction within the domain of Philosophy
of Education; that on the other hand has relied rather more on critical
thinking/rationality suggesting a process of reconciliation or a ‘dialogue’
between the stimuli and response. Rabindranath has joined this reaction early.[17]
Nirman
(Acquisition) and Sangraha (Construction): Compulsive creation of
knowledge out of autonomous learning as ‘surplus’ in excess to one’s biological
existence in Tagore’s early writing has referred to a structural built up.
Rabindranath proposed that the architectural pattern that mediates eventually
through engagement of sensibilities after all is an act of communication
through ‘sympathy’ with one’s ‘surroundings’.[18]
Where, the communion connects the ‘sympathizer’ with the ‘sympathized’ in forming
a community, and learning is autonomous and democratic. Learning community
being the space where education in Rabindranath’s ideation is to capacitate to
produce knowledge. Contextually, the very idea of knowledge produced, contributing
to the knowledge capital of the community locates Rabindranath’s Educational
Philosophy with a distinction. Articulating this idea, he used a Bengali word-‘Nirman’
which interpreted in Anglophone either refers to ‘construction’ or
‘constructing’.[19] Spelled
in the terminology of contemporary ‘educational science’ the proposition refers
to one of the learning theory-‘Constructivism’ that employs the same meaning of
the term as has been engaged by Rabindranath—Nirman. Analytically, the
concept of constructivism is in binary with ‘Acquisition’, what refers to
aggregation of information at random and without any reference to one’s
context.[20]
Referring to one’s ‘surroundings’ as her ‘context’, the idea of ‘aggregation’
and/or ‘acquisition’ as contrasting position, attracts criticism from
Constructivism. Tagore, proposing his educational philosophy actually critiqued
the very idea of ‘Sangraha’ [Acquisition/Aggregation] with the same
argument of removing the child from her ‘context’, the ‘surroundings’. His argument
is based on the societal perception of childhood of Man that is essentially manifestation
of the society’s conformity to ideas that are imposed upon it. Rabindranath’s
critique of the sense of conformity textually refers to the anti-colonial
content of the text.[21]
But, the same critique frees the learning of the child from imposition of any
precept, societal or institutional—separately or together even in a
post-colonial context.
As
a matter of fact, freeing the child from imposition of prescripts as a
philosophical discourse remained an active agenda in the philosophy of
education and visited regularly since Rousseau’s assertion.[22]
The visit could never be completed without reviewing/critiquing the society and
the prescripts it is imposing into the learning of a child even in the context
of de-colonised society.[23]
Tagore take off from Rousseau putting the child actively before the
institutional/societal precepts, while critiquing the adult’s society argues
for autonomous learning in the first case and democratic flow of knowledge as
the second case.[24] In
doing so Rabindranath considers the childhood of man distinct from adulthood
and again accepts a continuum between childhood and adulthood. Contexted in her
own description of the world an educated child is not only free from the
societal/institutional precepts but is enabled to critique the prevalent
institutional/societal prescripts as a member of the adult’s society/ institution
too.[25]
That in other word is an attempt in re-constructing the society than rejecting
it and in proposing the ‘learning community’. A learning community connected
organically with its past but constructing it through active criticism is a
major theme again in Rabindranath’s idealisation of social transformation.[26]
The
Dialogue: Biographically, Tagore is in exception to his
contemporaries had a distinct view of the West. Born and grown in a time and
culture, Europe was not unknown in young Rabindranath’s sensibility. At
seventeen, when he travelled to the city of London young Rabindranath penned a
series of prose in the form of letters. In none of such letter, young
Rabindranath reflected his experience— “Before coming to London, I heard
much about London [...] therefore only a few things were new for me, I did not
fumble while meeting with the people here. Darkness blinds initially for
sometime but after experiencing darkness for some time again makes everything
visible. I had no such problem as light was with me.”[27]
Soon a deficit was narrated; later letters expresses a discontent between what
was idolised and what has been experienced. It was a moment of ‘discovery’. The
deficit between the ‘light’ that he lived by and the ‘light’ to which he was
exposed caused the moment of discovery. That was a moment of ‘disaster’ in
Buberian term, discovering discontent between the identities he assumed in
constructing his self-“I” and the discovered-self. Illustrating such moment of
discovery of one’s self, Amartya Sen referred to the protagonist of Gora,
a novel written by Rabindranath. Gora, proud and confident of his Hindu Brahmin
identity at a point of time ‘discovers’ his Jewish identity. Sen provided a
list of choices open for Gora to choose from at that point. In his description,
Sen wrote-"Gora had to ask whether he should continue his championing of Hindu
conservatism or see himself as something else, and the choice that emerged in
his case [...] is, to some extent, a matter of reflected decision. Choice has to
be made even when discoveries occur." In a similar context Partha
Chatterji observed—“The significant note here is of re-birth. At the very moment of being
caught in limbo, of having nowhere to go, he [Gora] finds a new habitation
through a new baptism. At the same time as Hindu sentiments closed their doors
against him, the vast country with its diversity is thrown open before him for
a new quest, a new career, [and] a new victory possible."[28] This
is the moment what opens a space for ‘dialogue’ as Goutam Biswas has observed
that eventually assumes “moral philosophical’ position.[29]
Rabindranath, author of ‘Gora’ referred to his first intimate experience with
West in his biography—"I landed in England
and foreign workmanship began to play a part in the fashioning of my life. The
result is what is known in chemistry as a compound. [...] I went to England but
I did not become a barrister. I received no shock calculated to shutter
the original framework of my life rather East and West met in friendship in my
person."[30]
Interestingly, Rabindranath is employing a word borrowed from Chemistry to
connote the outcome of his experience with West—Compound. In scientific
terminological connotation, a compound is a product with properties completely
different from the reactants. Reactant, Rabindranath’s impact of experiences in
London in a way could be guessed through a comparison between the prose he
penned before and after he returned from London. Within six-months of his
departure for London he penned a remarkably good number of proses on European
tradition of literature and translation of Petrarch, Byron, Cae dmon
and Moore. Prose, he penned on return are on Music and importantly on social
issues and particularly arguing for social reform reflecting the conversation
of ‘friendship’. Historically, and apparently the audience was not convinced
with the result of the ‘chemistry’. The poet in dialogue with the society was in
an attempt to discover his self soon landed into a deep controversy. The
‘original framework’ of his life unaffected had him look inward into his
Eastern self, in conversation with ‘his’ society. Through time, the language of
this conversation found a personal syntax; that was observed by Sarvapalli
Radhakrishnan (1961).[31]
What the present reading observed is the regular mentions of need for education
in all these prose wrote generally in social context. Rabindranath returned
from London in 1880, he penned an article claimed as his first articulation on
education in 1892—Shikhsar Herfer [trs. Mismatch in Education]. Content wise,
this article rejecting educational system sponsored by the Colonial rule is
rich with pedagogical ideas proposed in course of criticism of the former. While,
such ideas were not related as such to any major educational idea prevalent
during the time, issues like accepting childhood as a distinct phase in the
life of Man might reflect Rousseau’s assertion. Pedagogically, issues like
construction of knowledge and role of language in such endeavour included in
the text are major points that are characteristic of Rabindranath’s
idealisation of education at the level of praxis. Critiquing the existing
theory of learning and proposing construction of knowledge, Rabindranath located
the learner organically connected with her society and its history. The connection,
he proposed is the celebration of the child’s ‘education’. The word ‘education’
however is connoted in his personal language-‘Shikshita-Vidya’, which
could be loosely translated as ‘culture of knowledge/educated knowledge’.[32]
Tagore
in exception to other educational philosophers is known to be biographically active
with two schools; one geographically located in Santiniketan and the other in
Sriniketan. Both the schools were distinct with their communities/societies in
which these schools were located. The society around sustained the schools with
their socio-cultural contexts and are not enclosed/limited within a structured space
that separates/identifies a school from the outside world. The schools functioned
in the available open space assuming attribute of a transparent ‘classroom’ (in
conventional vocabulary).[33]
More than ‘environment friendliness’ structurally the proposition critiqued the
institutional idea of a ‘school’—seat of educational exercises. Classically, the entire debate between the
school as institution of learning and the society has centered on the innocuous
question—‘what is happening inside the school?’ The question as societal critique
of the ‘school’ have always encouraged different educational philosophies;
Tagore addressed the debate by withdrawing from the debate itself proposing open
air classroom transparent to the observers and at the same time making the
world outside the classroom visible to the students providing a platform for
dialogue between the contesting bodies.
Allowing
dialogue between the child and the world outside the classroom recognizes the
child as observer and the world as the observed, outside the prescripts. For
Tagore, knowledge constructed out of such observation/experiences, the child as
a ‘being’ must “come directly to the intimacy of the world. [For] This is
the first great gift they have. They must accept it naked and simple and never
again lose their power of immediate communication with it. For our perfection
we have to be vitally savage and mentally civilized; we should have the gift to
be natural with the nature and human with the human society.”[34] In
Rabindranath’s ideation, considering ‘nature’ and ‘human society’ as distinct
spheres is an act of sympathizing than critiquing mediated through active
dialogue. Rabindranath’s suggestion of imbibing ‘natural’ness in ‘human’ness, is
an act of education that is active within a process of perpetual exploration
for realization of ‘truth’. ‘Truth’ as he proposed is a human experience as our
‘life’ which depends upon “[the] attitude which is formed by our habit of
dealing with it [the world] according to the special circumstances of our
surroundings and our temperaments. It guides our attempts to establish
relations with the universe either by conquest or by union, either through the
cultivation of power or through that of sympathy.”[35]
Sympathy: This
puts emphasis upon the principle of dualism or unity in the realization of
‘truth’ of existence. Considering the dual aspects of ‘human society’ and
‘nature’, ‘cultivation of power and sympathy’—poet Rabindranath illustrated the
dualism in realization in his inimical literary style referring to the sea
surfing person who rides on it as on a horse making it to render service for
him. The sea and the man in perpetual conflict proposed by force of the
antagonism of circumstance into obedience is to seek reconciliation between the
apparent ‘good’ and ‘evil’, either through victory or defeat. In difference to
this, putting his argument for ‘unity’ of experience Rabindranath referred to
the forest dwelling people for whom the antagonisms of circumstances in the
forest is in close relationship with their daily life, leisure and
contemplations. “They could not think of other surroundings as separate or
inimical. So the view of the truth, which these men found, did not make [or] manifest
the difference, but rather [seek] the unity of all things.” In contextualising
the very realization that reconciles nature with the human society as unity of
experience Rabindranath quoted from Upanshad-“Yadidam kincha sarvam prana
ejati nithsratam (Trans: All that vibrates with life, having come out from
life).”[36]
The dialogue and
Education: The very proposition of unity of experience constructed in the reconciliation
with the world, in his view is not to ‘create knowledge’ only as a passive
observer but to ‘act upon’ actively engaged in dialogue between the ‘observed’
and the ‘observer’. This assertion puts him as predecessor to post-first world
war educational ideologue as Dewey and also post-second world ideologues like
Ivan Ilich, Paulo Freirie and Adorno
among others in their consensus on ‘critical learning’. The final assertion of
Adorno—“Auswitchz never again” after all was a reaction to the experience of
the Second-World War and a call for changing the world order.[37]
Rabindranath’s first articulation of critique on education was published in
1892. Historically Rabindranath may be located as a pre-First-World War
educational ideologue. [In his later assertion, his poetic sensibility was
anxious of the developments in the contemporary world political order and in a
kind of premonition he gave a visual description of the horror of the First
World War as early as in 1901.[38]] Convinced by the
role of history of human civilization as he elaborated in Hubert Lecture in 1930
Rabindranath’s argument contexted Indian view of consciousness of the world
that is “merely sum total of things that exist, and as governed by law is
imperfect. But it is perfect when our consciousness realises all things as
spiritually one with it, and therefore capable of giving us joy.”[39]
Actualizing the world with what is being realised through experience; making
sense of/or making the world perfect through the action of dialogue/reconciliation
justifies one’s education, which is personal and impersonal again at the
societal level. Rabindranath observed that such actualization of realization
has to be joyful for that unites with what one longs spiritually, her world. It
is the world where one celebrates her ‘joy’. Rabindranath observed education as
wandering for from where/what one is being banished [Biraha].[40] And,
that returns to considering educating one’s mind in discovering the mystery of the
unknown as Man’s ancient instinct and that cannot be imposed by any description
of the world pre-scripted by society/institution.
Autonomous
Instinct: This constructs Rabindranath’s educational
philosophy in educating a child within the ideation of “autonomous
instincts" [the expression is borrowed from Buber]. The ideation in first place
helps the child to be in ‘dialogue’ with ‘self’ or “I” [again borrowing
expressions from Buber] and the other to be in ‘dialogue’ with her world, the
societal. In the second place the dialogues prepares her to actualize the realized
as an act of negotiating with the critical issues through ‘observation’
of the world. Buber (1947) has observed such “an
education based only on the training of the instinct of origination would
prepare a new human solitariness [...]".[41]
The solitariness as an educational experience at second remote is to cause a
state that Paulo Freirie has observed as an “authentically
critical position, which a person must make his own by intervention in and
integration with his own context. Conscioentizacao represents the
development of the awakening of critical awareness. It will not appear as a
natural by product of even major economic changes, but must grow out of a
critical educational effort based on favourable historical conditions."[42]
Paulo Freirie as post Second-World War educationist had observed such an
‘integrated’ person—“As men amplify their power to
perceive and respond to suggestions and questions arising in their context, and
increase their capacity to enter into dialogue not only with other men but with
their world, they become 'transitive'. Their interests and concerns now extend
beyond the simple vital sphere. Transitivity of consciousness makes man
'permeable'. It leads him to replace his disengagement from existence with
almost total engagement. Existence is a dynamic concept, implying eternal
dialogue between man and man, between man and the world, between man and the
Creator. It is this dialogue which makes of man an historical being.”[43] Rabindranath
observed the dialogue as personal which strangles the person within his ‘self’,
the ‘I’ and again liberates her from the same in locating his ‘self’.[44]
Paulo Freire’s assertion was contexted in the contemporary world and the
society. Rabindranath while contexting his assertion sailed through historicity
of human sensibility quoting from ancient literature as Upanishad, removed from
its historical context and engaged to argue contemporary context. It is in
dialogue with the tradition and modernity. The evolution from Shikshar
Herpher [trs: Mismatch in Education] written in late eighteenth Century and
‘A Poet’s School’ articulated in the first half of nineteenth century are again
ideated by the poet’s experience of dialogue with the West (separated by space
and its history), represented by his sensibility in the Nirman of his
personal language in reflecting upon the tradition of ‘religion’ of education; a
harvest of dialogue horizontally with his ‘surroundings’, and his society that participated
actively in discovering a socio-historical context of education, vertically.
This spreads the depth and width of Rabindranath’s educational philosophy’s
root.[45]
Acknowledgement: The author wishes to thank all his friends who
initiated him in the trade of Philosophy with a lingering curiosity, since we
were graduate students. My economist friend Pranab Kumar Basu made educated me on
Michael Oakeshott’s writings.
Notes, References and Quotes:
2
Chattopadhyay, B., Re-reading Shikshar
Herpher: Beyond Anti-colonial and Post-colonial Context, Seminar on
Creative mind of Rabindranath, Dept of History, Visva-Bharati & Institute
of Historical Studies, Kolkata, 2006
[3] Note: Referring to biography was
explained by Rabindranath while introducing the text of Huber lecture-“In the
present volume I offer the evidence of my personal life brought into definite
focus. To some of my readers this will supply matter of psychological interest;
but for others I hope it will carry with its own ideal value important for such
a subject as religion.”-Tagore Rabindranath, Introduction: The Religion of
Man, Visva-Bharati, 2008
[4] Aronsan, Alex, 1961, op
cit
[5] Quote:
“Tagore said that the Indian culture has something of this universality about
it. He is the representative of a general process of our history [...].” -Radhakrishnan,
Sarvapali, Presidential
Address, Rabindranath Tagore Birth Centenary Celebration, Proceedings of
Conferences, Vol. 1, Visva-Bharati, 1961
[6] Mukherjee Gangeya, Tagore:
Transcending Post Colonial Attitudes, Studies in Humanities and Social
Sciences, T R Sharma (ed), Ind. Inst of Adv Studies, Shimla, Vol XII, No 2,
Winter 2005
[7] Quote: “Tagore’s concern for
education revolved around the narrow social space within which English
education had operated. His sense of pain for the oppressed child, his advocacy
of the use of the mother tongue for education and his pedagogical strategy are
all offshoots of his main anguish which pertained to the diffusion of
education. It is easy to bracket his advocacy of Bengali as a medium of
instruction with the dominant current of linguistic nationalism. Equally easy
is it to associate Tagore’s experiments in pedagogy with his modernism and
orientation towards industrial progress. Such interpretations are lopsided and
unfair because they do not take into account the starting point of his critique
of colonial education. […] Tagore’s critique of the oppressive role of
education in children’s lives flows from this perception of English education
as an exclusive system. He saw the callousness of the well-off Indian, his
illiteracy in culture and his enslavement to modes of thought and behavior as
aspects of the problem created by the absence of a common system of education
system.” Kumar Krishna, Political Agenda of Education, 2nd
Ed. Sage, New Delhi, 2005
[8] Quote:
“For true creation is realization of truth through the translation of it into
our own symbols. For man, the best opportunity for such a realization has been
in men’s Society. It is a collective creation of his, through which his social
being tries to find itself in its truth and beauty. Had the Society merely
manifested its usefulness, it would be inarticulate like a dark star. But,
unless it degenerates, it ever suggests in its concerted movements a living
truth as its soul, which has personality. In this large life of social
communion man feels the mystery of Unity, as he does in music. From the sense of
that Unity, men came to the sense of their God. And, therefore every religion
began with its tribal God.” Tagore Rabindranath, The Poet’s Religion,
Creative Unity, Rupa, New Delhi, 2002
[9] Strike A Keneth & Kireran
Egan, Ethics and Educational Policy, International Library of the
Philosophy of Education, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978
[10] Peter Gordon (Ed), The
Study of Curriculum, Batsford Studies in Education, London, 1981
[11] Masschelein Jan, How to
conceive of critical educational theory today? In: Conformism and Critique in Liberal Society, Heyting, Frieda and
Christopher Winch (ed), Blackwell Publishing, UK, 2005
[12] Heyting, Frieda and Christopher Winch (ed), Conformism and Critique
in Liberal Society, Blackwell Publishing, UK, 2005
[13] Quote:
“In these self-conscious days of psycho-analysis clever minds have discovered
the secret spring of poetry in some obscure stratum of repressed freedom, in
some constant fretfulness of thwarted self-realization. Evidently in this case
they were right. The phantom of my long-ago boyhood did come to haunt the
ruined opportunities of its early beginning; it sought to live in the lives of
other boys, to build up its missing paradise, as only children can do with
ingredients which may not have any orthodox material, prescribed measure, or
standard value.” Tagore Rabindranath, A Poet’s School, Boundless Sky,
Visva-Bharati, 1964
[14] Tagore Rabindranath, A Poet’s School,
1964, op cit.
[15] Quote: “[…] above the din of the clamour and
scramble rises the voice of the Angel of Surplus, of leisure, of detachment
from the compelling claim of physical need, saying to men, ‘Rejoice’. From his
original serfdom as a creature Man takes his right seat as a creator. […] As an
animal, he is still dependent upon Nature; as aMan, he is a sovereign who builds
his world and rules it.” –Tagore Rabindranath, Creative Spirit: The Religion
of Man, 2008, op cit.
[16] Corey Elizabeth, The
World of Michael Oakeshott, Modern Age, Summer 2006
[17] Note:
Even Rabindranath have joined this debate as early as 1910, the idea of
evaluating student’s performance based on the testing of efficiency came under
serious academic scrutiny since 1930’s, chiefly through the study of R. W.
Tyler. Smith E. R., & R. W. Tyler, Appraising and Recording Student
Progress, Harper, New York, 1942, cf. The International Encyclopaedia of
Educational Evaluation, Ed. Herbert J. Walberg & Geneva
D. Haertel, Pergamon Press, UK 1990
[18] Quote:
“Children with the freshness of their senses come directly to the intimacy of
this world. This is the first great gift they have. They must accept it naked
and simple and must never again lose power of immediate communication with it.”
Tagore Rabindranath, A Poet’s School, op cit
[19] “This
makes us only to read and exclude internalizing with the application of our
thoughts. That in other words, we are gathering heaps. We gather only
and don’t construct knowledge.Busy with gathering
sand and mortars in building our knowledge we are often asked by the University
to build a roof atop the heap. We follow the order obediently and start beating
and ramming on the top of the heap to give it a shape of a flat roof. But that
is no mansion to live within. There is just no space inside. There is no
opening for free air or window for light to pass. Such a solid block, cannot shelter
a man to live his life contained by. This cannot protect us from the scorching
sun of outer world. That cannot be decorated with the required symmetry of beauty
and order of architecture.” (Trs) Tagore
Rabindranath, Shikshar Herpher, Rabindra Rachanaboli, Vol 12,
Visva-Bharati, 1975
[20] Note: In the contemporary view of
Acquisition ‘Education depicted as a process
of controlling the contingencies in the person’s environment to achieve
socially desirable learning goals’. To achieve that, central educational
technique remained direct and systematic instruction followed by supervised
practice. In this pattern of teacher-directed and teacher-led instruction,
students function as passive recipient, for the absorption of knowledge and
information. Below this pattern, the authoritative structure of the school
should not be missed. In which students, by and large, are inducted into
compliant and rule-following behaviour particularly in the non-industrialized
and postcolonial societies. Tagore in Shikshar Herpher came down
scathingly on this mode with uncharacteristic impatience. The Constructivist model [Nirman]
however, is conceived as an organ whose primary function is not only
acquisition alone but creation of knowledge also. Learning is the process that
takes place when the mind applies an existing structure, or set of categories,
to a new experience, in order to understand it. Development under such
theorization is seen as long-term process through change in the cognitive
structures that allows the mind to construct ever-broader meaning. That lets
Intelligence, rather than a limiting and unevenly distributed trait, seen as a
many- faceted, adaptive capacity to change cognitive structures, which is
possessed by all human beings, and which changes over time. That again argues
in favour of ‘life-long-learning’, a trait Shikshar Herpher has harped
on repeatedly. Education as such is proposed as—‘a learner centred process that
involves the provision of an environment that will stimulate the construction
of knowledge’. That was the latent basis of the educational idea that matured
with Rabindranath in later years and eventually practiced in the institution he
incepted. Interestingly, Constructivism is the mantra of School
education in almost all the ‘developed’ and/or Industrially Developed countries.
Case. R., Changing Views of Knowledge and Their Impact on Educational Theory
and Practice, in. D. Olsen and N.
Torrance Ed. The Handbook of Education and Human Development London:
Blackwell, 1997, and R. G. Caine, Brain-Based Learning, ASCD, I994
[21] Chattopadhyay, B., 2006 op
cit
[22] Rusk, R. R., The Doctrine
of the Great Educator, Macmillan, 1969
[23] Note: To do away from the
colonial impositions, the Indian National Curricular
Framework 2005, proposed a learning theory that confirms the idea of Sangraha/Constructivism.
“[…] the child as a natural learner, and knowledge as
the outcome of the child’s own activity. In our everyday lives outside the
school, we enjoy the curiosity, inventiveness and constant querying of children.
They actively engage with the world around them, exploring, responding,
inventing and working things out, and making meaning. Childhood is a period of
growth and change, involving developing one’s physical and mental capacities to
the fullest. It involves being socialised into adult society, into acquiring
and creating knowledge of the world and oneself in relation to others in order
to understand, to act, and to transform. Each new generation inherits the
storehouse of culture and knowledge in society by integrating it into one’s own
web of activities and understanding, and realising its ‘fruitfulness’ in
creating afresh.”National Curriculum
Framework, NCERT, 2005
[24] Chattopadhyay, B. 2006, op
cit
[25] Quote:
“A child has its own perfection as a child, it would be ugly if it
appears as an unfinished man.” The Poet’s Religion, Creative Unity.
Rupa, New Delhi, 2002
[26] Tagore Rabindranath, Palliprakiriti,
Rabindra Rachanaboli, Vol-27, Visva-Bharati, 1975
[27] Thakur Rabindranath, Europe-probashir
Patra [Beng], Visva-Bharati, 1961
[28] Chatterji, P.; Incognito
and Secret Sharers, cf, Ashis Nandy, The Illegitamacy of Nationalism,
Oxford University Press, 2000
[29] Biswas Goutam, Dwiralaper
Darshan [Beng], Dwiralap, Silchar, 2003
[30] Tagore Rabindranath, My
Boyhood Days, Childhood Days, Visva-Bharati, 1968
[31] Radhakrishnan, Sarvapali, 1961, op cit.
[32] Thakur Rabindranath, Shikshar
Herpher [Beng], 1975, op cit
[33] Chattopadhyay, B., On Education and Rabindranath, Subarnarekha, Kolkata, 2000
[34] Tagore Rabindranath, A
Poet’s School, 1964 Op cit
[35] Tagore Rabindranath, Religion
of the Forests, Creative Unity, Rupa, New Delhi, 2002
[36] Tagore Rabindranath, Religion of the Forest, 2002, Ibid
[37] Heyting, Frieda and Christopher Winch, Conformism and Critique in
Liberal Society, op cit, 2005
[38] Tagore Rabindranath, Naibedya (Beng),
Rabindra Rachanabali, Vol. 8, 1975
[39] Quote:
“The one abiding ideal in the religious life of India has been mukti, the
deliverance of men’s soul from the grip of self, its communion with the
Infinite Soul through its union in ananda with the universe. This
religion of spirituality is not a theological doctrine to be taught, as a
subject in the class, for half an hour each day. It is the spiritual truth and
beauty of our attitude towards our surroundings, our conscious relationship
with the Infinite, and the lasting power of the Eternal in the passing moments
of our life. Such religious ideal can only be made possible by making provision
for students to live in intimate touch with nature, daily to grow in an
atmosphere of service offered to all creatures, tending trees, feeding birds
and animals, learning to feel the immense mystery of the soil and matter and
air. Along with this there should be some common sharing of life with the
tillers of the soil and the humble worker in the neighbouring villages;
studying their crafts, inviting them to the feasts, joining them in works of
co-operation for communal welfare; and in our intercourse we should be guided,
not by moral maxims or the condescension of social superiority, but by natural
sympathy of life for life, and by the sheer necessity of love’s sacrifice for
its own sake. In such atmosphere students would learn to understand that
humanity is a divine harp of many strings, waiting for its one grand music.
Those who realises this unity are made ready for the pilgrimage through the
night of suffering, and along the path of sacrifice, to the great meeting of
Man in the future, for which the call comes to us across the darkness.” Tagore
Rabindranath, An Eastern University, Creative Unity, Rupa, New Delhi,
2002
[40] Quote:
“This brings to my mind the name of another poet of ancient India, Kalidasa,
the story of whose life has not been written, but can easily be guessed. [...]
I remember having read somewhere that he was born in beautiful Kashmir. [...]
psycho-analysis need not be disappointed, for he was banished from there to a
city in plain—and his whole poem of Meghaduta reverberates with the
music of sorrow that had its crown of suffering “in remembering happier
things”. Is it not significant that in the poem, the lover’s errant fancy, in
its quest of the beloved who dwelt in the paradise of eternal beauty, lingered
with a deliberate delay of enjoyment round every hill, stream, or forest over
which it passed; watched the grateful dark eyes of peasant girls welcoming the
rain-laden clouds of June; [...] in his imaginary journey, followed him from
hill to hill, waited at every turn of the path which bore the finger-posts of
heaven for separated lovers banished on the earth? It is not a physical
home-sickness from which the poet suffered, it was more fundamental—the
home-sickness of the soul. [...] The poet in the royal court lived in
banishment—banishment from immediate presence of the eternal. He knew, it was
not merely his own banishment, but that the whole age to which to which he was
born, the age that had gathered its wealth and missed its well-being, built its
storehouse of things and lost its background of the great universe.” Tagore
Rabindranath, A Poet’s School, op cit, 1964
[41] Martin Buber, Between man
and man, Kegan Paul. Trans. R. G. Smith, London, 1947
[42] Freire, Paulo, Education
for Critical Consciousness, Continuum, London, 2005.
[43] Freirie Paulo, Education for Critical
Consciousness, Ibid, 2005
[44] Quote: Tagore Rabindranath, Religion of Man,
0p cit, 2008
[45] Quote: “[…] I think of some institution where
the first great lesson in the perfect union of Man and Nature, not only through
love, but through active communication and intelligent ways, can be had
unobstructed. We have to keep in mind the fact that love and action are the
only intermediaries through which perfect knowledge can be obtained; for the
object of knowledge is not pedantry but wisdom. The primary object of an
institution should not be to educate one’s limbs and mind to be in efficient
readiness for all emergencies, but to be in perfect tune in the symphony of
response between life and world, to find the balance of their harmony which is
wisdom. The first important lesson for children in such a place would be that
of improvisation, the constant imposition of the ready-made having been
banished from here. It is to give occasions to explore one’s capacity through
surprises of achievement. I must make it plain that this means a lesson not in
simple life, but in creative life. For life may grow complex, and yet if there
is a living personality in its centre, it will carry its own weight in perfect
grace, and will not be a mere addition to the number of facts that only goes to
swell a crowd.”- Tagore, Rabindranath, The Teacher: The Religion of Man,
op cit, 2008
