The 9 Petalled Flower Of Peace: Petal 5 - Education

This is important – education should be an active dialectical relationship of trust between teacher and pupil, in which both put love of truth at the heart of their endeavours. Education is a tremendous privilege and the highest form of pleasure, arguably, that exists. Schole, the origin of the word "school" meant in Greek "leisure", and was regarded as the highest form of pleasurable activity. In 2013 23rd World Congress of Philosophy held in Athens Dr. Kostas Kalimtzis, Professor of philosophy at The Arcadia Center delivered a presentation on "Aristotle on Leisure (Schole) and Nous as a Way of Life. This was a brilliant tour de force in which the author made clear that to Aristotle, the intellectual activities that leisure (schole) makes possible constitute the search for happiness (eudemonia) and reason (Nous). But to often nowadays schools have degenerated into businesses that equip our children for a lifetime of wage slavery or debt, or unemployment, without equipping them with the capacity to think and reason for themselves, or to come up with new ideas and inspirations to remake the world as a place of peace and beauty and virtue. Our schooling systems therefore need rethinking as places of genuine knowledge advancement towards enlightenment

As a secondary school teacher in the UK for 10 years, serving as head of religious studies and philosophy in several schools, ranging across all classes and social and intellectual strata, I have been shocked by the sheer degree of mental and sometimes physical violence that goes on in our schooling systems. Pupils show shocking rudeness towards each other and towards teachers, and often engage in bullying activities. Even teachers are sometimes bullied by their "line-managers" with callous disregard for ethics. I was once myself personally bullied by a headmaster who told me "stop educating the pupils, just cram them full of the facts they need so they can pass their exams so we can go up the league tables". I was so shocked to be told as a teacher to stop educating students, that I resigned forthwith. I have witnessed pupils physically fighting each other till blood was drawn, and police being called into schools to catch children who have been committing acts of vandalism and physical violence against buildings, and trying to set light to the schools. These kinds of things create an atmosphere in which it is impossible to really learn or teach, and lessons become exercises in crowd control. What has gone wrong? How have we degenerated as a society to such an extent that schools have now become something like battlefields? One reason is the removal of all authority from the teaching profession. Burdened with government inspections and threats of monitoring, and highly prescriptive curricula, teachers have less and less room for intellectual freedom, or to take delight in what they do best, opening young minds to the wonder and beauty of knowledge in their own field of expertise, and instead, teachers have become a kind of species of robot in which exam performance has become the sole criteria to judge on pupils progress. As many philosopher of education have pointed out however, this "exam based schooling" is not at all the s same as education. It creates competitiveness fear of failure, egotism and intellectual rivalry. This is all hardly conducive to true spiritual wisdom, and would seem to generate a kind of deep down violence in both pupils and teachers. Something has to be done to bring non-violence and peaceful atmospheres back into the classrooms and schools of our world. In Pakistan, Malala was shot by the Taliban for wanting to study. In Thailand, Buddhist teachers are being shot by Muslim jihadists. When the Nazis invaded Norway they rounded up all the teachers who refused to use schools to promote National Socialist ideology, and sent them way up into the arctic to freeze in a concentration camp (as I learned from visiting he Norwegian Museum of National resistance in Oslo recently). When the Nazis conquered Poland, they killed thousands of teachers, and introduced a dumbed down curriculum in Poland in which pupils were not allowed to study anything beyond basic literacy and numeracy, since Himmler said he didn't want an educated Polish people "as they are more dangerous". Governments all over the world need to stop undermining the efforts of teachers and to get off their backs, allowing those of us who have spent years training as educators to share our vision and passion for peace and wisdom with the next generation of young minds.

Different people have different gifts and aptitudes. Some people are great at mechanics and have a mind for tinkering around with engines; some prefer classical scholarship and deciphering Papyrus texts in Ancient Egyptian or poring over ancient Sanskrit of Prakrit sutras. We need an education system which differentiates between different people's interests and capacities, and yet encourages each of us to excel in our chosen field of learning or skills acquisition. Gifted and talented provision at all levels of the educational curriculum, both in schools and in the University sector, should also be made available.

The figures are shocking: the annual global aggregated expenditure on militarism is 2 trillion dollars (US) which is 2,000,000,000,000 dollars. Half of this figure is spent by the USA alone. These figures cover basic running costs for the military, including the spending on defence related intelligence, but does not cover all the actual costs of wars fought. For example, economists have calculated the U.S. wars on Iraq and Afghanistan have cost, not just the $2 trillion spent by the U.S. government, but a total of $6 trillion when indirect expenses are considered, including future care of veterans, interest on debt, impact on fuel costs, medical treatment etc. Nor does that figure of two trillion including what other countries, such as the UK have spent, nor does it cover the losses to the Iraqi people and to the Afghan nation etc. In short, war is terribly bad for the global economy as a whole although it may be good for a few rich elites and the military industrial corporate shareholders and tycoons! John Maynard Keynes (1883 – 1946) and Lionel Robbins (1898 – 1984) both pointed out that peace is better all round in economic terms, and Lionel Robbins famously defined the discipline itself as: "Economics is the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses". In this case, the material we spend on war and war preparation, including manpower, resources, energy etc. could all be spent more usefully on peaceful activities, including education. In 2012, the total global expenditure on education was estimated (by the UK Government) to be US$4.5tr. which is fact double the amount estimated to be spent on the military (bear in mind these statistics are in effect educated guesses, since it would be methodologically impossible to set an accurate figure on all educational activities worldwide, which proves in fact the non-exactitude of economics as a subject more than anything else, for all its assumed airs of scientism. What is certain however is that if the military budgets of the world were scaled down and the education sectors all received a boost it would have a hugely liberating and enabling effect on global society. This is the reasoning behind IIPSGP's own Education Aid proposals. (For details see International Education – Global Growth and Prosperity: An Accompanying Analytical Narrative, 2013, British Institute of Statistics)

This is important to do whenever one has the influence; I have sat on the Commission at the United Nations for the International Association of University Presidents on encouraging peace studies and arms control in Universities worldwide, and likewise encouraged peace education as part of wider Citizenship Education in the UK, both as a teacher and as a head of department; I worked at the University of London from 1989-1994 to help bring a new Institute of Peace Studies into being, as part of that august institution, and authored a feasibility study showing it was indeed a viable suggestion, and would be good for London's profile as one of the greatest concentration of higher education resources in a single city on the planet. I still hope to see such an institution come into being in due course. Many other universities already have such peace studies departments. But there are none for example in the Middle East, apart from one or two in Israel and Turkey, and this is a region that would benefit from Peace studies work. My vision is that every university worldwide would have a peace studies department. The Jain University at Ladnun does do some work on nonviolence education, as do other universities in India, but more could be done.

This is a big ask, but without asking, we aren't going to get anywhere. Christ said, Ask, and it shall be given unto you. So, we're asking... all we are saying is – that our schools and universities should also be places for inculcating basic human virtues, which all great philosophers, seers and sages have always agreed are the primary purpose of real education anyway. Visionary thinkers have always been thinking up new curricula: Robert Muller (1923-2010), who worked at the United Nations, developed a World Core Curriculum with this in mind. Ever teacher and curriculum developer in education worldwide can try to bring into their scope these basic values, and ensure that the ethical and moral, and indeed spiritual, dimensions of their work are not left out. It is ironic that for all the plethora of specialist academic and scientific journals on every subject under the sun, there is only one on the nature of love, edited by the current author!

Arts education is becoming more and more neglected as the world shifts towards technological and scientific and business education – but we should not neglect the arts as they balance the other areas of our lives, and bring meaning and purpose to existence. A great painting or piece of music, or play, can make the soul soar in a way that no amount of manuals on computer software coding cannot. Jung argued that modern psychology which loses sight of the soul is a pointless exercise, and he expressed these thoughts deeply in his recently published private meditations which he kept from 1913-1930, see Jung, C. G. The Red Book, Liber Novus edited by Sonu Shamdasani, (Philemon Foundation and Norton, 2009). Acharya Tulsi expressed the same thought: "Jainism is a philosophy which has the soul as the central point. The soul is a formless existence. It can only be experienced through transcendental knowledge. Deep sadhana is the requirement both for transcendental knowledge and awareness about the soul" – see Acharya Tulsi The Quest for the Royal Road (India, 2000) p. v. Sadly, if our educational systems around the world banish the very idea or experience of soul from our classrooms, and seek to banish all religious or philosophical teachings from our schools, then we should certainly remember the wise words of Christ: "What does it profit a man if he should gain the whole world but lose his own soul. Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matthews Gospel, 16.26). Goethe's Faust explores the paradox of a man of great wisdom who nevertheless nearly loses his soul – a pointless and futile exercise – an is only saved by the angels in the nick of time – see Goethe, J.W., Selected Works, (Everyman's Library) 1999, p. 1047 The war against the arts in education is part of this soul-destroying mind -numbing reductionism off schooling which Rudolf Steiner predicted when he said that Ahriman would seek to reduce mankind to being the servants of robots... It is against this ridiculous enterprise that our Jaipur Declaration is issued as a rallying cry for all those who have not fallen under the spell of soullessness!

All learning doesn't have to be a drab monotone experience. Great spiritual teachers have always used humour, wit, allegories, parables, and paradoxes. Rabbi Nahman of Bratislav told stories to make his metaphysical points. Christ told parables. Aristotle used to teach walking about, so he could point things out along the way. Buddha and Mahavira did the same. We should as educators get across to children and students that learning is great fun, it is an adventure of ideas, searching out he hidden secrets of our own natures and the universe – it is a journey towards ever deepening love and responsibility. What could be more exciting?

Education isn't only about what you learn; it's also about how you learn. Learning to care for others, to help slower learners, or those with learning disabilities, learning patience and compassion as you go along, all these are part of the learning experience. Schools and universities can all encourage their students to go out and do community volunteer work as part of their learning experience, since learning to help others can only bring benefits to one's own educational goals.

The Jain community has long been struggling with the question of how moral education can be best included as part of the educational curriculum, in their case in the context of the Indian educational system. In an excellent book about these questions by Muni Nathmal (i.e. the younger Mahapragya) Moral and Spiritual Values, New Delhi, 1976, Dr S.L. Gandhi, who translated the work as well as writing the foreword, stated accurately that: "We have accepted secularism as our ideal. But it appears that the word "secularism" is being interpreted wrongly. It only means that morality and education should not be based on religion. Late Dr Radhakrishnan, the former President of India, who had examined the issue when he headed the Education Commission after independence, suggested at one stage that the word "secularism" be replaced by "non-sectarianism". His suggestion embodies his deep wisdom and prudence. If the Government of Indian had incorporated it in the constitution, it would have been easy for the educationists to arrive at a consensus regarding the questions of the inclusion of moral instruction in school curriculum as its integral part" Of course Radhakrishnan was right, and so was Dr S.L. Gandhi, but what he doesn't explain is that Radhakrishnan was a philosopher, and politicians very rarely listen to philosophers!

This cannot be overemphasised, that learning about techne (skill, expertise) is not the only side of education – there is also spiritual learning, acquiring emotional intelligence and intellectual vision and spiritual wisdom – some attention to these deeper aspects of the human experience should be included in all educational experiences, at whatever level of achievement, since we human beings are endowed with inalienable spiritual rights as beings-in-incarnation. To successfully navigate our life experiences as human beings, to learn how to acquire beneficent karma and not negative karmic debts, to learn how to achieve enlightenment one day, or at least to be reminded there is such a deeper metaphysical goal underlying existence, to be given the tools of squiring spiritual knowledge, through learning about the great religious and scriptural traditions of mankind, learning about the nature of prayer the scientifically demonstrable healing effects its practice can bring to difficult medical or psychological conditions, to learn about the calming effects of meditation, and the great varieties of its practitioners throughout history; all of this is part of the rich spiritual and intellectual heritage we have inherited as human beings. Our schools and universities should be making this knowledge available to students in an objective and comprehensive and holistic way. The periodic table of the world's religious and Philosophical traditions is one way this can be done, presenting the full range and breadth o the great philosophical and spiritual systems of mankind, in a way that chemists present the full Table of the Chemical elements

Objective knowledge should not be confused with value-free knowledge. To go into something in great depth, objectively and scientifically, should make one even more committed to seeing the values and purpose underlying the thing one studies. Epoche (suspensions of judgment) does not mean moral relativism; on the contrary, it means an ever deepening moral commitment to truth, which matters so much, that one has to examine in minute detail all the ins and outs of it, before one can begin to say "I know this thing". This is the real secret of all higher education, and it is also the secret of the Jain philosophical principle of Anekantvada; since absolute certainty in ultimate philosophical matters is difficult here on this plane of being, it is wiser to suspend judgment on such matters, practice epoche, which also leads to greater amity and fellowship with all. See Bhikku Nanajivako, The Indian Origins of Pyrrho's Philosophy of Epoche (Indian Philosophical Quarterly, Vol X11, No. 4, 1985.