Why learn?

 

 

 

It may sound like an audacious question.

Why learn mean what? 

Since we have to live in this world, we need to learn the means of living! It is so simple! The means of living can only come after learning some skill that provides income, which helps to buy the essentials to live and the extra can be used for the luxuries of life! The skill may be any. It may be earned through rigorous studies, and the knowledge gained can be utilized as a valuable resource for society or for future generations, or by transforming something useless into a useful product and earning profits. This is too simple and an accepted purpose of education by the present society. But Jain philosophy has thought far beyond.

 

Presently, most of the students go to school, study for the sole purpose of getting degrees that could help earn a livelihood in the future.

 

But is it so?

 

Is the purpose of education limited to this narrow purpose?

 

Can earning a livelihood be the sole purpose of education?

 

Education is for shaping our minds to make us responsible, knowledgeable, and gentle people to make a coherent, harmonious, and progressive part of society.

 

There are a lot many things that are knowable in the world. Same time, we can find that there still remain infinite things yet unknown. The quest of the human being is to know the unknown. Explore the unexplored. That is a real urge that erupts in you, even if you are a child. You have a lot many questions and an immense curiosity to know.

 

You keep on asking your parents, teachers, and elders to seek answers. And when you grow up and find that the unanswered questions are unanswered because the attempts of the past generations have failed and you set yourself to find answers to them. You jump in the untiring quest. You may find answers or not, but you enjoy the process.

 

Education exactly is like this.

 

Morals and ethics are the foundation of Education.

 

Without them knowing knowledge and efforts to know the unknown is not possible. Knowledge without morals and ethics can prove dangerous to society.

 

Jain philosophers knew it well. They knew learning is the most important part of life, but they also knew how things should be learned. Every subject matter that is being learned is associated with inherent morals and ethics.

 

For example, when the student learns atomic science, he should also learn the disastrous effects associated with it. When a student learns languages, they should also learn the misuse of the languages made by the supremacist people. Also, he should learn how bad it is to misuse language to hurt or flatter someone. He also equally respects other languages without keeping a grudge against any. If they don’t, this would mean they have not understood the meaning of language. Learning any, even a mother tongue, will also become bad unless the meaning of the language is understood. Language is a medium of expressing thought, feelings, and knowledge, not hatred or enmity.

 

The knowledge is inert of any vice or good quality. Knowledge becomes good or bad depending on the morals of the user.

         

If the world is in chaos of the constant struggle between good and bad is only because of the misuse of knowledge. Some use the knowledge for good, some use the same knowledge for bad. This causes a clash between both. Hence, any knowledge can cause good or bad effect. The correction is only possible with the morals that go with every kind of knowledge. The teachers must keep in mind that while teaching any subject, teach the morals associated with that subject. Only then does the comprehending ability of the student go up so that not only does he become knowledgeable but also morally correct.

 

In Jain philosophy, the importance of woes is most important. Satya, truth, is the supreme woe that helps everyone in living a peaceful and harmonious life. In education, too, the approach towards the subjects to be learned must be associated with truth. In fact, the quest for knowledge is a quest for the truth. That’s indeed what everyone wants to know. May it be useful for livelihood or enhancing one’s spirituality. And to know the truth, students ultimately go to school. Truth has many facets. The great vow of satya applies to "speech, mind, and deed", and it also means discouraging and disapproving of others who perpetuate a falsehood.

 

If we see, the knowledge that is taught in schools and colleges possibly could be misleading or a mixture of truth and hypotheses. The students need to learn what is taught from the curriculum but they should be taught to apply their analytical mind to reach the truth with self-efforts. It is an essential part of morality that unless the truth of the subject matter is reached, the education will remain incomplete, no matter whether the student passes the examinations.

 

So, why learn?

 

One has to learn to know the truths of the subject matters given in the syllabus that he is interested in or taught. He has to know the truth “truthfully,” which makes him morally also correct, and true knowledge of the subject matter is attained. This will bring the aims of education and the aims of life together without causing any conflict.

 

If students are taught with the curriculum morals associated with them, the quality of education will be highly enhanced. And truth is one moral besides others, which we will deal with in forthcoming chapters.

 

Learning is not only about attaining material goals, but the goals of self-satisfaction and self-realization together. And this can be only achieved if morals are associated with the teaching! 

 

-Sanjay Sonawani

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Morality in Education

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, a famous educationist of the 19^th century had said, “The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means to an education.” 

From ancient times it has been considered that education without a solid base of morals is meaningless. Our present education system is marred by the present evaluation system instead of the pupil's understanding of the subject. This system does not stress upon the amelioration of the curiosity so that the student will earn expertise in the field of his liking and will explore further to add to the branch of knowledge he is in. Indeed we can see that the curiosity of the student is suppressed forcing him to be bound to the curriculum. Freeing the students from the yoke of the orthodox education system is indeed needed in our country and let us hope that soon the necessary reforms will take place.

Moral education forms an important part of the education to make the student pro-society in which he lives in with a positive and constructive mindset. The morals preached by the thinkers and philosophers differ or contradict many times and there always is debate among philosophers as to what is moral and what is not. The acts thought moral at some places can be treated as immoral elsewhere or the immoral of the past may prove to be moral on the grounds of present standards. Some say that discussing morals is immoral for they are not permanent.

And still, we need morals for a better, more civilized society. Morals that bring every individual together to form a homogeneous, cohesive society for a better future and prosperity in both economic and intellectual senses are always preferable. And this is what should be taught to the children when their minds are shaping. Jain philosophy believes in the principle of “live and let live. No harm should be caused to not only humans but also any living being.” This is the highest principle, which may not be practicable to its fullest extent, but the feelings behind this principle are very novel and humanitarian of a high degree. In the education system, besides educating the pupils in a variety of branches of knowledge, the prime concern should be to make them better members of society, and that is not possible without moral education. Jain principles are very helpful in this effort.

Our education system hardly provides the moral education that can help him become a responsible citizen. A citizen is not only a political living entity but an individual who inspires or gets inspired for the betterment of the self and society. Though today's moral education is taking root in the education system, it seems that it is failing in creating a positive humanistic attitude and faith in the overall social goals of the students. This is happening because though we teach the necessary morals those educationalists feel necessary; they have failed in teaching the fundamental philosophy behind the morals that are being taught. This is why moral education just has become customary without reaching the hearts of the students.

This necessitates the definition of moral education and choosing the proper philosophy to strengthen it. We find many values defined in Jain philosophy (Not religion) that can help the students in not becoming a better citizen but a person who is exploiting his all inner powers with immense curiosity and quest of raising and solving the questions to make the world even better so that the social values and the values of life are aligned together.

Jain philosophy is secular. It does not believe in any creator or wish-fulfilling god. It believes every living soul is a god, but because of the ignorance has fallen in the crevasse of the emotive world that engulfs it in the chaotic dark. With good deeds, he can raise himself and can help to rise up the ladder of human upgradation. However, the present moral education is so far limited to teaching civic rules without getting to the bottom of morals.

In moral education, the following points are important to teach-

1.     Why and how to learn?

2.     What values should determine the relationship between the student and the teacher?

3.     What is the utility of the subjects the student learns to himself and society?

4.     What is the ultimate eventuality of the subject that the student is taught?

5.     Should education mean study for study or to quench the curiosity of the student, making him able enough to add his own to the field of his interest?

The moral values have a necessary social aspect as well, which may include-

a. Which moral values are preferred and why for the cohesive society?

b. On which fundamentals can the relationship between a person and society become healthy and stronger?

c. What are the pros and cons of individualism and totalitarianism, and which is preferable?

d. How can principles like non-violence, truth, and non-attachment be used, and to can the principle of many-sided reality be used to solve the socio-moral issues?

e. How to take a universal approach in the subjects taught in the schools?

f. How to cope with the multi-cultural environment?

Then we come to the values, those are very personal, those every student should know and understand, and that is-

1.     Every individual has an innate ability to become enlightened in any field of his choice.

2.     The universal values like truth, non-violence, and non-attachment, which have no barriers of caste, creed, nation, or religion.

3.     Positive mindset through meditation, diet, and physical exercise.

4.     Learning to compete with self, not the world to attain associative behavior for social and individual happiness.

5.     Having a good memory is okay, but the deep understanding of the subject is far better.

We will discuss in detail the essence of the Jain moral system that can help modern educationalists to modify their approach towards moral education.

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