Integral Education: A Contemplative, Transformative and Transpersonal Approach

Everyone has in him something divine, something his own, a chance of perfection and strength in however small a sphere which God offers him to take or refuse. The task is to find it, develop it and use it. The chief aim of education should be to help the growing soul to draw out that in itself which is best and make it perfect for a noble use. – Sri Aurobindo

Need for Integral Education

Critically speaking, the world seems to be in a state of crisis! The child is born in a society which is defined by complexities and conflicts in every sphere of life – kinfolks, politics, business, religion, caste & class, etc. From this disappointing stance, education seems to be a promising redeemer which asserts holistic development of the children through experiential learning. However, it is dismaying that the current scenario of the education system appears to emulate an industrial mindset. Knowingly or unknowingly, many educational institutions and educators perpetuate practices of conformity, orthodoxy, disempowerment, oppression, and life alienating thought forms. In order to empower and liberate the minds of the children and facilitate a democratic society, a prudent educational design based on the ideals of self-determination, open mindedness, equality, freedom, and justice is requisite.

What is Integral Education?

In the teachings on education by Sri Aurobindo and Mother, Integral Education or Free Progress System emerges out as a viable solution to the concerns of contemporary educational system. Sri Aurobindo focused on the transformation and divinization of the child in a manner where the ignorance and suffering of human beings are transformed into an infinite existence of mind, life and body that is inwardly united with Divine and outwardly expressed as a holistic self. Mother believed that complete education can never be achieved through academic excellence alone. It should encompass five fundamental aspects of human being - the physical, the vital, the mental, the psychic, and the spiritual.

Integral Education proliferates that each child is a soul in the journey of evolution and already has the knowledge. Moving away from mere information and skills acquisition, it emphasizes on the self-development of the child triggered from within and further nurtured by teachers and parents. The basic aim is to facilitate the child on becoming the ‘whole’ or ‘integrated’ being that he is meant to be by integrating surroundings, society, country and humanity with his true self.

Sri Aurobindo outlines the three principles of education that can preside over all true learning. The following three principles are assisted by 2 processes of nature which are, insatiable curiosity, and spontaneous imitation & hero worship. 

1.     Nothing can be taught: Since each child is a soul in evolution, the proper role of an educator is not to impart knowledge but to guide the students in acquiring knowledge for themselves. The true knowledge comes from within and can’t be obtained from acquiring outside information. However, the provision of external resources along with an enriching and stimulating environment helps to awaken the individual to his/her latent potentialities.

2.     Consult the mind in its growth: Every child has a unique dharma, a Divine given duty and talent, and it is the educator’s responsibility to help the students identify these innate abilities, predispositions and interests, and to further cultivate them. Educators must not impose any arbitrary set of ideas, knowledge, qualities or capacities determined by others as it deflects them from their natural developmental trajectory and estrange them from their souls leading them in wrong directions.

3.     From the near to the far: The child must be taught in a way where the knowledge grows from the senses to more abstract faculties. Individual must be guided from what is already known, accomplished and established to the outer extensions that are within the reach but are yet unrealized and undeveloped.

Progressive Pedagogical Principles

Though the possibilities for the enrichment of the educational process through the creative application of integral principles are endless, following are some progressive pedagogical guidelines which can enhance the teaching and learning process.

·  Acknowledge Multiple Intelligences: The internal source of reality is the Psychic Being whose external focal point is the idiosyncratic Intellect. Depending upon the diverse learning styles and varying strength of mental faculties, each student has their own path to learning. All intelligence must be acknowledged and nurtured as it is essentially one. Development of one intelligence possibly assist in the development of the other forms of intelligence.

·   Individuality and Human Potential: Each child is unique and has something different to offer to the classroom and the world. Treat and respect each one of them as unique individuals. Adopt a personalized approach tailored specifically according to their needs and talents. Encourage the child to progress at his/her pace without any comparison or competition. Educators can design some exercises which could take the form of extra challenges, special creative exercises, extra classes or programs that suit their needs.

·   Involvement of Children: Educators must actively involve children as imperative contributors in their journey of self-development. More freedom, choice and power should be placed with the students in terms of what and how they want to learn. Educators must attempt to relinquish the role of “sages on the stage” to become “guides on the side”.

·  Friendly Atmosphere and Ethical Classroom: Holistic development of children can be exquisitely undertaken by nourishing them in a non-threatening, serene and natural environment. Classroom is the learning laboratory for life and hence must encourage compassion, sensitivity, care, respect, dialog, self-discipline. It should model community building and quality relationships. 

·   Self-evaluation as a Pathway for Lifelong Learning: Emphasize on cultivating introspection and self-reflection in students so that they become conscious and aware of their cognitive faculties, and understand values at a deeper level. This will initiate a lifelong learning process as skills like innovation, expertise, wisdom and leadership develop and deepen over adult years.

·  Meta-learning: Encourage children to “learn how to learn”, “think about thinking” (metacognition), and understand the nature and limits of knowing (epistemology). Education should fortify the learner’s ability to monitor, reflect and choose the appropriate problem solving strategies for paramount outcomes.

·   Awakening creativity: In today’s complex modern world, success requires creativity which includes considering multiple perspectives, hypotheses, or alternate solutions and not pledging rigidly and swiftly to any single way. Students must be encouraged to bracket their logical minds and open to other forms of intelligence as and when required.

·   Culturing of Emotional Wisdom: Mother emphasized on education of the ‘vital’ and suggested that it should commence at an early age. In addition to teaching children to observe their own impulses, reactions, desires and their causes; observing others, accurately interpreting others’ feelings and influencing others’ emotions through one’s own emotions are fundamental to one’s emotional wisdom. Educators must introduce their learners to the rich legacy of human emotions that are exhibited in poetry, music, art and literature.

·  Sensitize with Music: Music is not only one of the joys of life but can also be one of the joys of learning! With the effective use of music, educators can create a desired atmosphere and establish a positive learning state in order to accentuate learning activities. Music facilitates a multisensory learning experience that can enhance attention, memory, and imagination, develop rapport, align groups, and inspire students.

·  From ‘concrete’ to ‘abstract’: Till the age of around twelve, the child’s mind is hardly open to any abstract notions, ideas and concepts. Educators can still teach them using concrete images, symbols and fables. A narrative, story, enactment of situations, introspection, collective games etc. can be more impactful than any number of theoretical explanations.

·  Pedagogy for Authentic Learning: Most authentic learning happens in social contexts, and often through peer tutoring, apprenticeship or mentoring relationships, and collaborative learning. Encourage learning by doing, case based learning, situated learning, discovery learning and inquiry learning. Learning inspired from curiosity and personal engagement is far superior and in depth than rote memorization.

Educators following the integral pedagogy make a conscious effort to balance the inner realities (visions, feelings, values, motivations, relationships) and the outer realities (action, measurement, physical health, infrastructure etc.) of their learners. They give themselves as much freedom to develop as they give to their learners.

Conclusion

The integral approach to education addresses many aspects of being a human including spiritual growth, flowering of human potential and evolution of the meaning-making capacity. The thoughtful, introspective and transformative learning experiences tend to shape the learners into responsible and sensitive global citizens. 

This article is published in EducationMatters@ETMA, March 2015 issue.

Go to the link for the e magazine: www.etma-india.in.

Nirbhaya: India's Daughter

Since morning, an intensely fiery debate is going around on the social media over the much anticipated ban on the BBC documentary on Jyoti Singh a.k.a. Nirbhaya. After watching the documentary, I felt how most of us have trivialized the issue by focusing on the ban rather than contemplating the deeper concerns which the documentary entails. As women we all have gone through some or the other kind of molestation, be it physical, emotional or psychological. Every time we hear about a rape or an assault on a woman it stirs gut wrenching pain within us as it somehow evokes our own experience of pain, guilt, shame etc. There is a vicious cycle which induces emotions like guilt and shame, in order to pin us down to our own fears, so that we don’t pose as a threat to the convenient ways of living of the patriarchs.

For me, Nirbhaya represents the battle of courage v/s fear. Over centuries patriarchy has become so deeply enrooted within our psyches that it gets exceedingly inconvenient for most of the men and even, women to move towards the stance of equality. Women have to face tremendous resistance and pressure of various kinds in order to step out from their domestic inner space into the male dominant outer space. When women like Nirbhaya dare to overcome such fears to stand independent in society and express their freedom, men like these culprits feel extremely threatened. Their entire patriarchally driven cognitive schema of subjugating women and having a hold on them is challenged. Little do they realize that patriarchy suppresses not only women but men as well!

The shackles of patriarchy affect men in such unconscious and emotionally stirring ways that their immediate defense reaction is to curtail the freedom of women and ‘teach them a lesson’ as even mentioned by one of the rapists. Since childhood men are conditioned to avoid exercising their basic right to express, especially their emotions, in the name of being stronger and tougher than women. They have been taught that their sisters and mothers are weak and hence need their ‘protection’, so much so, that when grown up they end up assuming the role of ‘superiors’ or ‘moral police’ for women in their families as well as other women in the name of family/society/cultural honor. The emotions that were once suppressed as a great symbol of patriarchy, now turn into underlying fears, anxieties, rage etc. which when triggered along with other environmental and social circumstances manifest into extreme violence on others, mainly women.  

The situation has become so disastrous that our so called ‘Great Indian Society’ conveys this message loud and clear that, under certain influences, men in our culture have the potential as well as 'approval' to be brutally worse than monsters. They can behave heinously under the influences of alcohol, any substance use or provocation by women through her 'perceived' overt or covert behavior. As a logical human (and not a woman!) it seems totally irrational to buy the point that men rape because they are provoked by what clothes women wear, what time women are out, with whom they are out, where do they work etc.

This is to all men who are so blinded by their false sense of pride and ego of being a male, that they have lost all senses to reason: “Are you men so primitive that you have no control over your urges and drives? Are the so called patriarchs so gullible that they can’t take responsibility of their own actions? Do you need women to save you from committing crimes on them by staying at homes and wearing what you think will be non- provocative for you? Do you even realize how dumb that sounds? Let us say, we provoke you to rape us. What sort of provocation do infants, girl children, women with mental disorders and old women instigate? You still rape them! You know why? Because it has trickled down deep in your mentality to rape. It doesn’t matter to you what age we are, what clothes we wear, what time we are out, with whom we are out. The only thing that matters is that we are women with no rights over our bodies, actions, and ourselves and the only one having right over us is YOU! In your delusion of superiority, you have become inferior to animals because even animals don’t simply exist on pleasure principle, they dutifully adhere to the social norms of their kinfolks in a better way than you!”

Acknowledging all the efforts that have been done for protecting women and their rights, it is unfortunate that the collective mindset remains unchanged. As an educator, I feel extremely despondent to say that probably even education is not a solution to the stale mentality that the men of our society proudly herald. The so called ‘Educated’ lawyers of our country have shamelessly objectified women in their press statements by using metaphors like flowers, diamonds and gems for women that need to be kept in ‘proper’ place or else they will be taken away/spoilt/damaged. Another defense lawyer proclaimed that he will set alight his own sister/daughter in case she brings ‘disgrace’ to the family’s honor. Apart from that, I came across many educated men (and, even women) who still advocated that the consequences Nirbhaya faced were due to her ‘adventurous’ behavior of being out at 8 p.m. with her male friend. This makes me really cynical about how well education will/can bring a change in thinking at mass level.

The poignant question still remains: Is there any hope for rationality and sensitivity to prevail? Here, the indispensable understanding should be that this decayed mentality did not nurture in isolation, it is a by-product of our own shared mindsets that have been garnered within our homes and society at large. Hence, we need to acknowledge that the perpetrators of not only Nirbhaya, but each and every rape survivor, are one of us. 

As a psychologist, I strongly believe that apart from education, informed socialization of children, especially boys, is a pivotal aspect to create sensitivity towards other gender. Letting them acknowledge and express their own pain and emotions will shape them into sensitive and sensible men who are not controlled by outdated patriarchal mindsets but are positively driven by thoughtfulness and compassion.

Be a human, before being a man or a woman!