GHANDI - TEACHER? Mahatma Ghandi, when he gave up his post as President of the Indian National Congress in 1933, he set forth some of his ideas about how his nation should go about educating the class people then known as "The Untouchables".
The very name sets for us a broad, distorted and deceptive picture for us concerning where these unfortunate people stood in the social structured of Old India in Ghandi's time. He suggested that the first step should be a change of that name. He urged the use of a single word: "Harijans" which means "God's People." It is only in his speech for that day, and comments upon his views, that we have ever seen or heard the term used again in that context.
In the rest of the 1930's era, Ghandi's ideas were set forth and praised lauding hims as being the predecessor of the,then popularity of growing "progressive" learning here in the United States. Listen to some of the Mahatma's suggestions which I wrote down in a notebook in l934to be remembered, I suppose, to be remembered remembered at times such as this. We have, generally, paid very little attention to experts in the educational field when advised changes were in order.
"I should use" Ghandi said,"no books probably for the whole of the first year. I should talk with them about things with which they are familiar and, so correct their pronunciation and grammar and teach them new words. I should note all the new words they learn from day to day as to enable me to use them frequently till the have them fixed in their minds regularly."
Ghandi saw teaching methods changing radically.
"The teacher will not give discourses but adopt the conversational method. Through conversations he will give his pupils progressive instruction in history,geography and arithmetic. History will begin with our own times, then, too,of events and person nearest us, and geography will begin with that of the neighborhood nearest the school."
The teacher will be concerned with his students entire life.
"It is criminal to stunt the mental growth of a child by letting him know only as much as he can get through a book he can incoherently read in a year. We do not realize that if a child was cut off from the home life and merely doomed to the school, he would be a perfect dunce for several years. He picks up information and language unconsciously through his home but not in the school room.
Hence do we experience the immense difference between pupils belonging to cultured homes and those belonging to uncouth homes, which are no homes in reality."
End of quotes...thank goodness!
It seems plain that the near worship accorded such false figures of fame has been and will continue be one of Mankind's greatest cares. Think of the many people who say they model their lives on the "peaceful" patterns set by Ghandi!
Andrew McCaskey Sr amccsr@comcast.net 1-27-07 [c502wds]
