My Experiments with Gandhian Model of Education: A First-Person Account Based on Two Decades of Working in Rural Education

(he) said that ...he did not know the meaning of the English word ‘education’. ...But he knew what it meant by the term Siksha. And Siksha in his tradition, according to him, meant to acquisition of the knowledge of Prajna, Sila and Samadhi. In rough translation, these terms mean right intellect, right conduct and right meditation. According to Sri Samdhong, knowledge of these three was education. The learning of various arts, crafts, and various physical techniques and sciences did not come under the term Siksha. ...Now, if this is the Indian definition of education, then it needs serious consideration. ...then we have to understand this form of education. We also need to find out how many amongst us are educated in this sense of education.”


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Journal of Rural Development, Vol. 38, No. 3, July -September : 2019 My Experiments with Gandhian Model of Education: A First-person Account-based ...

of a vocal Indian nationalism. Its exponents, besides prominent Indians of the late …have also
included may illustrious Englishmen…the second, the blasphemous view of them, was obvious held by those who were in the later period, in one capacity or another concerned with the administration of India; or those who felt impelled, sometimes because of their commitment to certain theoretical formulations on the development of societies, to treat all such impressions as unreal. 1 " This tendency if anything has become more amplified and exaggerated since.
Today, it is no longer a matter to be proved that India had far superior domains and modes of expertise in diverse areas. That the system of education was far superior to many other parts of the world and had evolved over long periods and had attracted scholars from far and near who visited, stayed in India, interacted with the scholars here and studied here. However, how far has this knowledge of history impacted our education system or method of education is another question altogether. If anything, we are even more enslaved in our minds on the educational priorities. Our real challenge seems to be our capacity to overcome the inequalities that are embedded in the access to knowledge in learning, teaching and practising the knowledge that is relevant to us in our daily life. What form of knowledge is it and how does not acquire the same?
Here is Gandhi explaining it in his own words -"Just as there are laboratories in schools, our kitchens should be our laboratories. For instance, germinated pulses are rich in vitamins, but when we cook them with spices all the vitamins are destroyed. How much heat and how much time will food require to cook so that it is easily digested and also preserves vitamins? How much food in calories will a child, a student, a grown-up man, a moneyed man, a worker or a common man require? How much ghee, oil, milk or grain should one consume? If all this is taught to the students while cooking, they would become experts in the science of nutrition.
There is similarly a science in the charkha as also in nursing the sick. Today, boys of twenty become graduates and can speak a foreign language as fluently as their mother tongue. Although history, geography, arithmetic, geometry, Sanskrit, etc., are taught through a foreign language they pass the examinations. This shows that our boys are not dull or incompetent. … But we must not be content with getting degrees in English. We must learn hygiene, chemistry, economics, etc.

And that not through books but through crafts. Students should diligently acquire knowledge.
When there is knowledge to be found in cooking, in disease, in recreations, what need is there to pore over books? If you take chillies in excess you will get dysentery. So from this, we can gain knowledge about the cause of dysentery. Thus, we can make experiments on ourselves and gain knowledge from our experiences. This knowledge is permanent.
Why need one cram the dates of Lord Curzon's birth and death? …Of course if one wants to study these dates because of interest in them, that is a different matter. But today we do not need such an education. If therefore the flame of freedom is to be lighted in India the very first need is a 484 Journal of Rural Development, Vol. 38, No. 3, July -September : 2019 Meenakshi Umesh revolution in education. After all, students are the real wealth of the country. Teachers, in so far as they mould the students, are the silent servants of the country. … Parents commit a grave sin when they address teachers disrespectfully. The teachers can impart no enlightenment to students till we learn to show towards them the same respect that we show to the priest in the temple or to our spiritual preceptor. …" - [From Gujarati] Dilhiman  Talk with Students and Teachers, Birla House, New Delhi, Dec 10th, 1947. Meenakshi is the founder head of Puvidham School in Dharmapuri in rural Tamil Nadu and it is one of the few really alternative schools that have adopted Gandhiji's idea of Nai Talim in its essence both content-wise and also in methodology. Leading

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Programmes
The burdens of schooling in the present system are many and they are burdens that bring no delight or enlightenment. In the formation of the National Education Policy (NEP), one has to cater to two fundamental issues -the first is the conservation of humanity and the second is the conservation of resources.
The conservation of humanity will address and include the study of the self, the society and the environment through the activities provided in the school campus. The conservation of resources will address and include the change in the attitude of the school as an entity from being a propagator of consumerism and competition to an enhancer of understanding the unity of life and fostering compassion and care for the weaker participants in the web of life.
For this, the first step would be to approach learning through the eyes of the child. A lot of studies are available as to the fact that learning is an instinct and that all the five senses play a definitive role in the development of the brain. Yet, we end up focusing on the academic learning alone in schools! To emphatically revamp the attitude of the system to the child, one has to get rid of the subject studies in the early childhood learning.
The child of 5 to 11 years of age (from pre-KG up to the 6th) can be easily made to learn languages, scientific and social concepts and math through stories, songs and hands-on activities, thereby unifying the entire learning in to the five elements of life which can be experienced directly and will integrate the learning of resources with the study of the self, society and the environment.
At this age group, the only real learning outcomes can be the joy in learning and the continuous and comprehensive evaluation by the teachers. The reading and comprehension skills, illustrating skills and basic mathematical skills can be continuously assessed in the classroom.
The children from the 7 th to the 10 th level (11 to 16 years of age) would learn a great deal more through the process of making things. Activities of growing food, cooking it, growing and using herbs for healing, growing cotton, spinning and weaving it, natural dyes, traditional painting and pottery, mat making, basket weaving, carpentry, stone or wood carving, making herbal soaps, cosmetics and health drinks can be absorbing activities which include the whole realm of science, social science, math and language while understanding the history and processes and recording and expressing their own experiences and feelings. This will also take care of the vocational training and increasing violence in adolescence and youth giving them self-worth and providing a purpose and direction to their personality. At this age group, the learning outcomes can be evaluated through the product of their effort, their description of the experience and the costing and design work involved. Writing stories and Gandhiji saw that the traditional Indian way of life had been sustainable. He realised that the education system that we had before the British, had been very efficient in making all knowledge available to the common people. Each village had been an independent entity that could govern its own needs and create its own resources. He realised that the human being is the most crucial of all resources and could create or destroy. He wanted to create individuals that could bring back the traditional culture of sustainability without the division of caste and colour.

The education system that Mahatma
Gandhiji dreamed was far ahead of its time. Gandhiji realised almost 100 years ago that education is not just about literacy but it gives the child a way of life, a culture! He advocated the inclusion of work in education to give the child the opportunity to create something and while doing so learn critical thinking, deductive abilities, observation skills and finger dexterity without mundaneness! In his time, he foresaw the destructive path of the economy that was being fostered and thought out "An economy of permanence." Around hundred years ago, he realised that the way of life fostered by the West was unsustainable and he asked us to follow a way of life that demands less from nature and lead lives of zero waste and productivity since childhood and his mantra was NAI TALIM. It was supposed to imbibe in the children a love for nature, an understanding of the need for simple living and a vision of equality and justice to all. But sadly, we did not listen to him! Since then, there has been elaborate research on how children learn, how the human brain develops and how behaviour is learnt. All the studies point at allowing the child to use all his/her faculties at his/her will to create something using both his/her hands to develop both sides of the My Experiments with Gandhian Model of Education: A First-person Account-based ... It is our responsibility as guardians of our children to review, re-examine and re-design the educational system itself and not just the content.
We need an educational system that will help our children to become what they were meant to be for a society where cooperation, love and harmony will be fostered through care for the Earth and all forms of life. There is only one Earth and now is the time to care for it by redesigning our curriculum to inculcate caring.

How Children Learn
Look at the child with wonder! Look to see that the child is not just your offspring or your student but an entity in itself! The child is born through us but the child is closer to the creator than us. According to folklore, the child may fall but does not hurt itself because the Mother Earth puts out her palms to break the fall of the child. The guiding hand of nature or what is called instinct and intuition, is in the grasp of the child. The body is the child's first tool for learning.
Its various attempts at learning to see, to hear, to feel, to talk, and to move are made without conscious emphasis on the learning.
Only through the body experiences does the mind learn to recognise its parents and loved ones and other good-natured people. It learns to classify and identify sounds and expressions. It learns to use its body to move in the desired direction. It learns to use its tongue to make the various sounds it hears.
It learns to recognise the sounds of various animals and humans in the vicinity. It learns to walk. It learns to talk.
After the child has made such an effort to learn the ways of the world and learnt to communicate with it -as soon as the child can speak well and walk well and eat his/her own meals -we decide that it is now time to teach the child something. So, the child must go to school. So far, the child has been learning as a response to the stimulus it has been receiving from its environment. Now, suddenly there is a break. Now, suddenly it must learn things that have no My Experiments with Gandhian Model of Education: A First-person Account-based ... connection with everyday living. It must learn to separate the learning from the living.
The very nature of learning is tampered with.
And artificiality begins! Instinct, innocence, creativity, thinking and intuition all get affected. All become maimed. All become servants to memory.
But memory is limited. Memory is short.
Memory is useless in the face of a new situation.
Memory is dependence. Memory is monotonous.
We have no use of memory if we cannot adapt from it to the real-life situations. And the adaptation will come only by doing and living.
Observation, intuition, innovation, sensitivity and sensibility are the building blocks of wisdom.
If the school is designed to give the body varied experiences, the mind learns without effort. In conventional schools, learning has become fragmented and removed from real life. It has been made as abstract as is possible.
Our intention is to integrate life, work and learning and help children to synthesise knowledge through observation and experience, made available to the child in the school environment or the real-life environment. We do not subscribe to segregation of learning into subjects, because real learning is a holistic experience.
Can education be designed so that we understand that our action towards positive changes in society begins with a change within us? Can it help us realise that if we cannot control our actions, it is futile to complain about or try to control those of others? The focus of change around us is ourselves. If we trust, we are more likely to be trusted. If we respect, we will be respected. If we are happy with whatever we have, no one can hold a stake in our happiness. If we understand that everyone is doing the best within his/her means with respect to his/her life experiences, then at least we can, in our interaction with others, give them better experiences to refer to in future.
To understand the world around us, we need to first learn about ourselves. We should be able to talk freely about our likes and dislikes, about our abilities and interests, our fears and inhibitions, our strengths and aptitude. We should recognise that others are our partners in our understanding and in our world.
The environment and the activities in a school must be such that they allow the children to explore for themselves without judgment and comparison. The activities need to be meaningful and constructive. Every inmate of the school should have the experience of freedom, and the initiative that comes with it. When we understand our role in maintaining harmony in our environment, we learn a lot about ourselves and learn to respect one another.
Education must make individuals sensitive to others and their own inner self. Sensitivity is the door to a wholesome philosophy in life and is the guiding hand for self-discovery. Sensitivity gives space for creativity, scientific discovery, contentment and happiness. We need a system of education that teaches care for the earth, non-violence, equality and autonomy. We need to redefine the basic needs from food, shelter and clothing to more basic things; clean air, clean water, healthy food, simple earthfriendly shelter and handmade clothes. Happiness is the fundamental condition for real learning: Essentially it turns out that the learning of the three R's is easy compared to learning of attitudes that will generate harmony in the self and in the environment. If the child is free to do what he/ she wants and is moving at will and sharing his/her thoughts and fears, likes and apprehensions with the adults in the environment, the child is happy and feels safe. Then the child learns automatically.
If we can make the attitudinal changes needed for learning and self-reliance in the environment of freedom and responsibility, our task as teachers is done. Other activities include carpentry, where the children make toys, puzzles, useful articles like key hangers and pen stands. They are involved in the maintenance of the library and they read a lot.
They also do construction activity. They cook their own snacks, bake bread and make pickles. They design and stitch their uniforms and make their own medicines too! They are connected with the surroundings through these experiences and their knowledge of physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, language and social science is evolved from these experiences. Drawing helps internalise the knowledge. Their knowledge is thus continually improvised.
Since the emphasis is on generating wonderful experiences which will help the children build a happy, loving, trustworthy and honest world inside their minds, we make sure that the children have enough opportunities to meet visitors and interact with them. They travel to other parts of the country. Travel opens up their horizons and they bloom with their experience, and that fragrance fills our lives. This approach has a two-fold objective:

The Purpose of Education
The purpose of education in the present scenario should be to support the child to understand his/her role in the society, undertake positive action to improve the resources, allow the development of a humane society where the differences between people are ironed out, empower children to analyse the problems of the present world and find ways to combat them, understand his/her place in the web of life and learn to live in harmony with all the other species and last of all we need to provide for oneself and one's community. The world is fast changing and the information that is in the textbooks is growing obsolete even before the books tear! In this kind of a situation, the only real empowerment for a child would be to learn on his/her own and apply that knowledge in their day-to-day life challenges.
We want our children to be able to discern the right from the wrong, the valuable from the superfluous and evolve a way of life for themselves doing whatever they choose to do without bias for any profession. We need no examinations to validate this method of learning. The children give their best. If we can allow the children to learn without the stress of competition and allow them to make things with their hands at least to the eighth grade, we can hope to save their childhood. This way of learning is the right of every child!

There is a lot to learn from a bad design!
At present, the purpose of education is limited to individual prosperity. It fosters competition, academic achievement, jealousy, greed, dishonesty and injustice.
• We need a system which fosters cooperation, social equality, honesty, justice and contentment. -Nai Talim • The present system is designed to feed the big factories, multinational companies, educational, social and State institutions. It is meant to propagate the consumer mentality and globalisation.
• We need a system to nurture small entrepreneurship, self-employment trades for small-scale manufacturers, farming communities, and environmentally safe arts and crafts. We need to put the emphasis on local economic activity and understand the banes of consumerism both for the earth and for the individual. -Nai Talim • The present system is designed to make the individual feel insecure, inept and dependent • We need a system to make the individual feel secure, accomplished and independent of any outside control, to be able to lead a meaningful life simply and with dignity. -Nai Talim • The present system does not address the psychological and philosophical needs of the child, except when they feel the child does not 'fit in the box' , and remedial counselling is essential.
• We need a system where the psychological needs of the child are understood and philosophical 497 Journal of Rural Development, Vol. 38, No. 3, July -September : 2019 My Experiments with Gandhian Model of Education: A First-person Account-based ...

1.
Beautiful Tree, Dharampal, Introduction, pg. 19 questions are discussed and explained to help the child to understand his/her self and make decisions about his/her inclinations. -Nai Talim • The present system provides space for the academic understanding of environmental, social, political and justice problems but there is no sensitivity developed.
• We need a system where the child becomes sensitive to the processes around him/her and can initiate corrective action in his/her personal and social interactions. -Nai Talim • The evaluation system in the prevailing system of education instils fear in the children while giving them a skewed sense of success.
• We need a system where evaluation is not necessary. At all times, the child or the adult is on a self-evaluation mode. Evaluation, be it ranking or grading, is unhealthy. Learning should be a natural process as it is in the first years of the child's life.
Without evaluation, the child learns to speak, talk and walk. So surely, he or she can learn all else without the need for evaluation. Evaluation is not for the benefit of the child. It seems to be for the benefit of the parents and other institutions. Real success is the sense of achievement when we do something which we ourselves feel is a challenge for us. -Nai

Talim
We all need to come together for a common goal -to help the child to live and the Earth to heal.