Educational Thought of Shri Aurobindo

Shri Aurobindo is well known Philosopher but he wants his philosophy relevant to human life and for that reason he thoughts a different type of education. On the other hand then education was not appropriate for the imprudent of nation. So he forwarded one National Educational Policy. All of his thoughts regarding education were presented in his two works, “National System of Education” and “On Education”.

Integral of Education

He believes that when human crosses realm of material and life, he is usually in the world of Mind. After having an actual birth he should be moved to state of Super Mind from which he gets Eternal Happiness to soul and from state of Psyche. If we want to him to progress on this road we have to kind of an education from which he can have the Knowledge of Material Life and even Animus, Truth and its further Truths, and knows how to progress onwards. According to him all this can be possible if we have give the men this kind of education. Education is the building of the power of the human mind and spirit. It is the evoking of knowledge, character and culture.

Objectives of Education

According to Shri Aurobindo, Education has two major functions. First to give men a clear way of his progress and its complete knowledge and second to give him the power to reach the ultimate Truth. He adheres education form this point only.

1. Objective of Physical Progress—Material is the first stage of this Universe and even if progress of men he wants to give the knowledge of this physical world which was built by Five Main Elements and own physical nature. And he even makes him physical strong by giving him training about his physical nature. According to him the universal Truth+ Psyche+ Happiness can also gained by healthy physical nature. That is why the prime goal of an education should be a physical progress. And At the end through we should give him some business training. It is also called as progress of trades. He also knew that human tried his physical life into society. That is why he also focused on Social progress.
2. Vital Life Progress—The second stage of human progress is vital life. Vital Life means the Energy that brings changes to every living thing. He stated that goal of any education should be focused on this vital Life force. And believes Life Force, it is important to give the direction to this energy. We have to make progress in terms of Ethical and character progress and boost his Wail power. This progress can be possible if trained men’s senses. Training of one’s senses is second goal of any education.
3. Mental Progress—Physic means men’s physical progress it is a third step of education. Psyche is the most restless of our senses. For that reason to develop human psyche through education. His disciple and even heir of Sri Mataji stated that Psyche education has five parts. The power of mind to be boost, Psyche’s comprehensiveness and its property and make all the things to be united. For this entire thing he attributes actions of Yoga, Human Imagination, Memories, Speculation, and Logic and to improve discussion making ability.
4. Goal of Inner Conscience Development—The fourth foundation of human developments is Supreme Mind means human’s inner mind. He describes the four stages of inner mind: Heart, Brain, Mind and self-recognisation. He realized that when we reached on this stage without use our senses we can experience and easily understands the things. Truth can be realized by an Inner Mind. Through the Education we can develop the Inner Mind and the end. And, for the development he said that Yoga Principles are important.
5. Objective of Spiritual Development—The last foundations of human development are Eternal happiness, Psyche, and the Truth. According to him eternal happiness happens only in the state when human can’t differentiate or feel between happiness and sadness. Psyche is such kind of Conscious power form that human can understand his world and the world of Truth. The final Truth is to have achieved God. And that the Truth is God and God Is final Truth. This three are Spiritual Stages. To reach this stage he argues Action and Meditation Yoga are tools and to follow these two paths the action (Yama, Rules, Sets, Pranyama, Prathara, Concept, Meditation, Trance.) are essential paths. According to him the main or final goal of education is this two tools and it’s Blue Ber.

Curriculum of Education

He pointed out five goals of education; Physical, Pranik, Mental, Inner Soul and Spiritual Development. According to him to achieve our goal we submitted ourselves into continuously trying and for that they give one vivid explanation. He believes Physical world would not be ignore, the Science and Technology of Foreign countries is needed for our development. That is why he put this into his daily practices. But his explanation about that the most important thing is it that our culture is Yoga Culture. In the absence of Yoga we can misuse the technology and the science of Western:

1. Physical Subject—Mothertounge and also important National Languages, History, Geography, Sociology, Economics, Maths, Science, Psychology, Health, Geology, Agriculture, Economic and Art.
2. Physical Actions—Playing Sports, Exercise, Production, Sculpture.
3. Spiritual Subject—Veda, Upanishads, Geeta, Theology, International Religion and Philosophy.
4. Spiritual Activates—Holy Songs, Kirtan, Meditation.

But we can study all this subjects and it’s training in one day. In Shri Aurovindo Ashram this things are formulated as under:

1. First Stage—Mother Tounge, English, French, General Knowledge, Mathematical, Social Studies, Drawing, Sports, Execrise, Horticulture, Hymens and Devotional Songs.
2. Middle Stage—Mother Tounge, English, French, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Zoology, Botany, Geology, Social Studies, Drawing, Physical Education, Exercise, Horticulture, Agriculture, Sculpture Hymes, Yoga and Meditation.
3. Higher Stage—English Literature, French Literature, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, History of Science, History of Culture, Life Science, Sociology, Psychology, Indian and Western Philosophy, International Affairs, and Integration of Universe, Agriculture other Sculptures, Hymens, Devotional Songs, Meditation, and Yoga.

Teaching Methods

Shree Aurobindo believed in principles of development. According to him, there are seven stages/steps to Vikas (development)—physical matter life/spirit → the psyche → the supramental /consciousness → happiness → the mind → Truth. Of these, man stays at the 3rd step, and to climb to the top, he needs to walk over the remaining four steps, viz. The supramental → happiness → the mind → Truth. That is why he gave a lot of importance to healthy body, clean, clutter-free mind and a peaceful living. In order to move ahead in this direction, one need to possess knowledge of the 3 stairs of life which man can usually walk over in his life, as well as gain common sense with respect to normal, everyday situations in life. But, with respect to teaching techniques, Shree Aurobindo doesn’t have clear, well defined views. On one hand, he advocates the use of the old teaching techniques, such as complete study of one or two subjects at the beginning, and then following it up with one or two other subjects; while on the other hand, he stresses on complete education of the child, not only in academics, but also in the realms of the physical, the mental and the spiritual. In this manner, he juggles between supporting the typical intellect-based education of a child and the importance of Yoga in the growth and development of the child. But one thing is for certain - he wanted to make the teachings, the learning of the past, more contemporary, more relevant to today’s times. He supported the conventional techniques of study as long as the child was not forced to rote- learn anything ;albeit it would be a better option for the child to learn from his mistakes, from his experiences - that way, he would imbibe the learning for life; this was his only condition. This is possible only when the subject of study is interesting. And this is why at the primary level, he advocated the use of story-telling to convey important values of life. Though he was a supporter of the conventional book-based method of imparting knowledge, he opinion was that children should be trained to look out, to seek knowledge and then they should be made to read books. In that case, children will not need to rote learn the content of the book; rather, they would use it as a guide of sorts to put their knowledge to practical use. He advised to keep these factors in mind even when practicing the concept of self-education. According to him, the best way to learn, to educate oneself was to practise Yoga; but even here, for him, thought and reasoning were important. Upon analysing his teaching techniques, we get to know the following facts:

1. While learning, kids should keep in mind their mental and physical capabilities.
2. Stress should be laid on learning and understanding rather than simple rote learning.
3. More opportunities should be provided for kids to indulge in physical activities and they must be encouraged to learn from their experiences in this regard.
4. Kids should be trained to improve their minds, to improve their thinking and perception of the world around them.
5. We must be sympathetic towards kids, understand their quirks and inquisitiveness, and most importantly, give them a lot of love. They must have independence to do whatever they like to do.
6. The language, the medium of imparting education must be the mother tongue.
7. At every stage, we must involve kids and move ahead in life.

Discipline

From Shree Aurobindo’s point of view, discipline is nothing but the ability to execute responsibilities on one’s own free will. According to him, even in the field of education, discipline has a big role to play. How to achieve discipline in life, Shree Aurobindo has a few thoughts on this. He associated discipline with the soul, the spirit and spirit with morality, righteousness. According to him, it is the duty of every teacher to instil a sense of right and wrong in kids, to inspire them to do good deeds in life, to uphold what’s right and to be focused in their studies. According to him, teachers should be sympathetic towards children and should love them. One cannot impart a sense of discipline by being harsh and rude. For him, punishing was inhumane.

One more noteworthy aspect in this is that Shree Aurobindo believed in impressionistic discipline. According to him, teachers should present an idealised version of themselves in front of their students so that the kids could imitate them in their lives too. In his view, actual discipline was internal.

Teacher

Shree Aurobindo believed in the fact that teachers should serve as the torchbearers and the supporters of children. They should show them the right way forward. According to him, the teacher neither gives them any knowledge nor does he improve any knowledge of the students from within, albeit he helps them in gaining knowledge on their own. This can only be done by a teacher who has a complete knowledge and understanding of the student and them subject matter. This was Shree Aurobindo’s vision of an ideal teacher. He himself was a Yogi and he wanted to see the teacher as one.

Student

Students were the centre of knowledge, according to Aurobindo. For him, every student has some normal and some special skills. the variations in this field are immense. Shree Aurobindo believed that a student should keep in mind his skills when imbibing education, should utilise his skills to the maximum possible extent. According to him, a child’s biggest strength is his Soul. Shree Aurobindo believed that Atma (the soul) is self fulfilling, and that all knowledge is essentially within us. We realize this knowledge, we become conscious of it only when we go through the ‘Brahmancharya’ phase of life, and be focused in his life, meditate as and when he can. This is what Shree Aurobindo expected of a student. According to him, every student must pass the ‘Brahmancharya’phase of life and should always be on the look-out for Truth. Along with this, Shree Aurobindo recognised and accepted the importance of surroundings on the upbringing of a student. He wanted to create the ideal surroundings for a student which would help him to develop his strengths, his senses and always be ready to find out Truth.

School

According to Shree Aurobindo every school must help students and focus on the overall development of the child, including mental and spiritual. For the development of the mental faculties of a child, he must be exposed to the best languages, best cultures and civilizations as well as conventional fields of study like mathematics, science etc. For the spiritual development of the child, Shree Aurobindo laid stress on the making the student realise the virtues of doing his work, executing his responsibilities, serving humanity, etc. According to Shree Aurobindo, schools should be the centres of mind development, as well as spiritual and physical development via Yoga.

Shri Aurbindo International Education Center is one of the co-educational Boarding schools. In this education center there are many facilities such as Primary, Higher and also Research education, but there are some faculties are similar like:

1. Kinder Garden: The age of students generally is 3–5 years. Duration of education is 3 years.
2. Future (Lesson, First Stage): The age of students is between 6–8 years. Duration is 3 Years.
3. Progress (Higher First Stage): General Age between 9–11 years. Duration is 3 years.
4. Completeness (Annaba foot Faksio hate LA, Medial stage): Age between 12–17 years, Duration is 6 Years.
5. Highest (Higher Courses, Highest Stage of Education) Age between 18–20, Duration 3 years.

Specialty

1. The primary goal of this education center is to achieve sublime physic, for this reason for all the stages of education it is necessary to have Physical Education, Exercise, and even to participate in different kinds of sport is compulsory. But the student’s have a freedom of choice to choose a particular sport which a best suit for there’s potentially.
2. The final goal of this education is to achieve the highest point of Eternal Energy, and for that it is necessary to have a Meditation Yoga for all the stages of education.
3. At this stage of education the first medium of language is French. And at the end of last two stages French and English Language are used.
4. Free Education Metholodige is used in here. Here there this no restrictions for any stages of students. Each student has a freedom of choice to decide to learn any subjects and also they have choice to participate in any kind of Sports according their ability to learn the things. There is no external burden on the shoulders of student. In this center by creating a healthy environment for them, this helps student to have a command on their inner power so they can choose their own destiny. And this is called a True Free Educational Methodology.
5. No Exams at any kind of stages are held here. Students are promoted for further education only by the Teachers’ evaluation. After the completion of the courses any kind of certificates are not given to them.

Other Wings of Education

1. Moral and Religious Education—Shree Aurobindo was a saint and well known Yogi, He had a strong faith on Moral and Religion. And for this reason he wants education on the pillars of Morality and Religion. His thoughts on religion is that whichever and whatever kind of Religion might be, it teaches mankind to live for himself, for other, and the same time for God also. To hate someone’s religion is not a proper sign of a true Religion, but it shows the religious meanness. Sectarian develops because of this kind of meanness. In his eyes every single religion of the world is same. And he wants the education of one country on basis of a Religion. In the absence of Dharma (Religion) mankind failed to realize the true nature of his Spiritual knowledge.
2. National Education—He was very sad because the slavery of his nation. And he was unsatisfied because the nations’ educational system. He forcefully pointed out on the subject the Freedom of India. And education should be in our own nature. According to him the National Education means the system of education must be controlled by national people for the national people. And this is the strong reason which why he believes education must given in Indian Languages, and he wants to built it on the pillars of Complete Celibacy(Brahmacharya) and Spiritual Life. Education can be accessible to layman when it taught in his own mother tongue. Complete Celibacy and Spiritual Life are the Soul of our culture of nation. If these two things would be a pillar or core part of an education then this Spirit (National Spirit) would become spirit of nation. Here we have to understand that his vision of Nation was not narrowed one. Shree Aurobindo was a Humanist person and that is why his vision was wide open. His vision is International can easily exemplified from the Ashram where national and international languages and cultures were held tighter.