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Transformative Education

What may be called transformative education entails a knowledge of the higher potentials of a human being, the higher and the lower natures, and the characteristics of these two natures.

In addition to our body, emotions and ordinary thinking mind, we also have an abstract thinking faculty (higher mind), intuitive consciousness, and the true Self within. The latter three can collectively be called our higher or inner nature. They manifest characteristics very different from the conditioned nature of the lower nature or personality (body, emotions and ordinary thinking).

Transformative education must involve the awakening of the higher nature of a person, and the aligning of the personality to such higher nature. This awakening is not through conditioning but rather insight.

Such education therefore differs from the ordinary approach to education in that it emphasizes intelligent thinking. How is this to be done? This highly depends upon the teacher and the teaching tools.

Awakening the higher nature involves rationality, values, sensitivity, compassion, abstract thinking, and awareness.

The teaching approach and tools therefore need to look into the nurturing of these capacities while teaching various subjects such as science, math, language, etc. In teaching language for example, the teacher must be ready with stories or illustrations that have the capacity for awakening the higher nature. In teaching mathematics, the teacher needs to stimulate the abstract thinking capacity by helping the students understand the underlying principles rather than memorize formulas.

This effort of awakening one’s higher mental nature will need repetitive attempts from various angles.

The training of teachers must involve familiarity with this deeper purpose of education. The teacher must first personally appreciate higher levels of abstraction in thinking, and discover ways to stimulate or awaken this in young people.

Some of the approaches that can nurture to the awakening of these higher faculties can include the study of the following:

• Rationality and abstract thinking
• Geometry
• Set theory

24    On Education

• Fallacious thinking
• Values and discussion of hierarchy of values
• Discussion of difficulty of practicing values
• Awareness of the role of values in scientific, economic and politic issues, such as health versus the profit motive
• Awareness of body, emotions and thoughts
• Sensitivity and compassion towards the feelings and situations of others
• Service-orientedness
• Meditation or inner silence
• Art appreciation
• Discussion of subjects such as the meaning and purpose of life, the reality of the afterlife, or spirituality versus beliefs.

In discussing values, the students are likely to encounter conflicts between the values of their families and of society, and those that are arrived at in their school discussion. The teacher should be able to address this issue also in the discussion, such as through role-playing. For example, if the father of a student asks the latter to tell a lie about something, what will the student do if he disagrees with the behavior? Role-play this difficult situation by learning assertiveness, and then explore different approaches in explaining it to the father.

At an early age, students should also learn how to enter into inward silence. The length of this silence will depend upon the age. The teachers must also observe whether some students are having difficulty in entering into voluntary silence due to fidgetiness or restlessness due to imbalance in the flow of ch’i or pranic energy.