Parents are worried about their children’s studies, or complain about the quality of schools. We also read in the papers about 70% of engineers being unemployable.Insufficient and ineffective teacher training and the humongous stress that children go through. The education system is not at all in good shape today.It goes without saying that a majority of parents are worried about their children’s studies. Or complain about the quality of schools, the high cost of education, the fear of rebellious children and above all, the marks they get in their exams. We also read in the papers about 70% of engineers being unemployable, increasing use of drugs and alcohol by students, insufficient and ineffective teacher training in the country and the humongous stress that children go through. We need to see the writing on the wall — that the education system is not at all in good shape today. Clearly many things have changed in the world and education and life is not what it used to be, say 4 or 5 decades ago, when the crises were not evident. Today, children need confidence, not just marks; they need to face unexpected situations, not just the ‘expected questions’ from the syllabus; they will need a stronger philosophical and spiritual grounding since they will face greater complexities and stresses of everyday life; they will need to learn to co-create communities and conserve nature since environment and communities, the two great fosterers of wellbeing are being decimated everywhere. To deal with the new situations in life, we certainly need new perspectives and action in education. Around the world today, amongst the cracks in the concrete, we have alternatives sprouting and one trend is that of holistic education. Vertical Divider
A broader take Students, who have passed out of school, and their parents largely aspire for the Science stream to get seats in Engineering and Medical colleges. while ignoring Humanities, Arts and Crafts and vocational training. Yet today, it is well known that these streams do add to the happiness of an individual. Education tends to address the child ‘neck up’ and leaves out the rest of the child, resulting in an overdose of textbooks and a neglect of experiential learning. This fragmentation erodes not only the wellbeing of the youngsters but of society as a whole as well. This is nothing new — many renowned Indians like Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, Sri Aurobindo, Jiddu Krishnamurti and others have talked of the importance of addressing the ‘whole child’. The world today celebrates the conveniences and luxuries brought in by science and technology — the cars and planes, the gadgets and gizmos, not to forget the cosmetics, fast foods and more. We have now woken up to the fact that our consumerism and lifestyle are directly connected to global warming and climate change. But do we realise that they are also connected to the kind of science that our modern civilisation has believed in? Thinkers on sustainability now acknowledge that reductionist science is the major cause of multiple crises the world faces today. A science that studies and supports the use of the part and does not see or care about its effect on the whole. During the Renaissance in Europe, Rene Descartes is credited with his very powerful statements that led to a great split — between matters of the spirit which were to be dealt with by religion and physical matter to be dealt with by science. So, today we have ‘value free’ science, which can usher in chemicals that cause cancer, weapons that can cause mass destruction and a socio-economic system that fosters growth at the cost of our very survival. The foundations of our education system seems to be the reductionist science and technology that has dragged in major environmental and spiritual crises. Isn’t it time to begin thinking about holistic science and holistic education? New responses — how?
So where does one start? How do we bring in new responses to our current situation? There are no easy answers to be sure. But what is certain is that solutions may not come from the huge centralised education systems we have. Bottom-up solutions are tough since the education we have been subjected to has minimised our ability for critical thinking, to see the real, whole picture and the pioneering zeal to revamp the system. Top-down solutions are difficult since the powerful will not give up their power that will get eroded if the centralised systems are dismantled. So, around the world today we have a range of small schools and colleges that are sprouting up like lilies after the rain. Some are formal institutions, some are smaller centres and there are many online learning opportunities as well. Around the country, many civil society organisations and intentional communities are creating their own learning and unlearning spaces. The efforts of the few do seem miniscule compared with the huge impact of mainstream education. But let us remember Gandhiji’s words, “If we are going to bring about peace in the world, we have to start with the children.” We can substitute peace with ‘wholeness’.
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We are continuously being bombarded with different messages and ideas on food and health, which have contributed to our being so confused about taking charge of our health and wellness At home I serve the kind of food I know the story behind. Michael Pollan Most newspapers regularly carry conflicting or confusing news items on food and health: one day, a snippet announces, ‘Green & Red Veggies great for your heart!” while the next day –“New Drug for Heart disease”. Sometimes, reports say coffee has antioxidants that will boost your cell growth, another time there is research that shows that caffeine promotes anxiety and sleeplessness. Foods wrapped in bright packaging claim ‘fortified with vitamins’, the ingredients listed in small print with numbers like E-251. Sensuous TV ads leap from our screens, while grandma’s wisdom (and dozens of opinions all around) often clash with each other. Put them all together and try to make sense of food and health – you can truly and fully, get all mixed-up. No wonder we fall back on what we find tasty and what is available easily when it comes to food and depend on experts to maintain our health. More Developed & More Sick In his book ‘In Defence of Food’, Michael Pollan reports an experiment in which ten Australian aborigines participated. Kerin O’Dea, a nutrition researcher, designed the experiment for these aborigines, who were middleaged, over-weight and diabetic, living on a typical western diet in a settlement. During the course of the experiment, they had to return to their traditional homeland, an isolated region quite distant from the nearest town, without any access to city- style food and beverages. They stayed in the bush, surviving on plant foods, fish, birds, bush honey, the larvae of a local insect and other traditional aborigine fare. After seven weeks in the bush, O ‘Dea found they had lost weight - an average of about 18 pounds (about 8.2 kgs), their blood pressure had dropped, and all the metabolic abnormalities of Type 2 Diabetes had improved or normalized. The value of the experiment, says Pollan, lies in the fact that O’Dea avoided ‘the scientific labyrinth of nutritionism’ i.e. instead of picking out some aspect of their diet for the experiment, O’Dea looked at a whole ‘food system’. The scientific reductionism in studying effects of one nutrient or the other, has obviously led to a great amount of confusion even amongst scientists and Government Policy makers, not only the general public. What this story tells us, quite powerfully, is that food and health of a ‘developed’ country can be much poorer than that of the so-called less developed ‘natives’. How did this happen? How has modernity brought in more sickness? Has our species become too smart for its own good? Human beings seem to have a natural vulnerability to go in for quick fixes and conveniences, and sweet, fatty, tasty foods. So, there is a surfeit of such things in supermarkets, restaurants and others shops today. Add to this the compulsions for power and war or for grandeur through possessing more – including more market share of products, all of which are involved in global trade – we have a recipe for confusion about our whole food system. While merely understanding the genesis of a problem might not help resolve our doubts, it could be a starting point of a journey in search of better clarity, better science and more wellness. Let us look at some of the ideas that came along with modern development, which have contributed to our being so confused about taking charge of our health and wellness:
Foundations: Cell Health & Germ Theory Louis Pasteur, the famous 18th century French scientist, is credited with the theory that germs cause diseases – the predominant modern medical system today has been built on this foundation. Claude Bernard, another contemporary of Pasteur, claimed that bacteria and viruses thrive only in an acidic condition and that keeping the body alkaline is key to preventing infectious diseases. Hence, the most important requirement to avoid disease and maintain wellness is to eat more alkalizing micronutrients (contained in fresh fruits, vegetables), exercise etc., that help us avoid ‘acidosis’. (Claude Bernard built on the work of another scientist, Antoine Béchamp, who maintained that bacteria essentially change form and are not the cause of, but the result of disease arising from tissues rather than from a germ of constant form.) This has also been called the cellular disease theory; but the role of cell health in disease did not have mass audience appeal like that of Pasteur’s germ theory of disease. More importantly, Pasteur is said to have had friends in high places who could also see the potential in the business of making and selling drugs – and so the ball of medical destiny was set rolling - and there was no stopping it. Today, the Germ Theory seems indisputable at one level, since we have plenty of examples of antibiotics killing bacteria and curing people of various diseases like cholera, typhoid, etc. Yet, the fact is that not everyone exposed to bacteria actually gets the disease. For example, most Indians are said to have the tuberculosis bacteria, but only some fall prey to the disease. Similarly, all people exposed to the flu virus may not get the flu. The Germ theory is also questioned on the grounds that it has bought about a culture of killing. Antibiotics are used indiscriminately – for instance they are prescribed for flu patients although they are ineffective against the flu virus, as a precautionary measure in case it leads to bacterial infection. The bigger problem of antibiotics is that antibiotics are routinely fed to farm animals – which accounts for 90% of antibiotics produced in the world. Meat eaters are ingesting antibiotic residues regularly, leading to antibiotic residues building up in their bodies, leading to the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria. This foundational theory that germs are primarily responsible for disease and not cell health has led to major illusions related to food and health. When doctors and scientists think in terms of the germ theory of disease, they fight disease with antibiotics, vaccination and pasteurization. All of these come with very serious problems that are only now beginning to be understood. The average citizen today has developed dependence on external medication rather than on learning self-regulation, being in touch with the intelligence of the body and making wise choices of food and lifestyle. No doubt, medical science has been miraculous in the way it has fought epidemics and other communicative diseases. But the ‘germ theory’ of diseases and a paradigm of linear thinking as a foundation of our medical system is certainly responsible for us getting mixed up. It has led to a situation where medical colleges do not focus at all on prevention or on cell health. Amongst the public and the Governments, this reality is largely ignored: that to avoid ill health, we need to understand the importance of eating and living right, and that a modern medical establishment is not the only answer. Focussing exclusively on the germ theory of diseases and ignoring the cellular disease theory has led to a situation where medical colleges do not focus at all on fostering cell health or prevention of ill health. Macro & Micro nutrients Another source of our confusion is the way a partial truth - of the importance of macronutrients - has become a superstructure of our social, economic and political priorities. Justus von Leibig, a German chemist, claimed that there were three major chemicals that plants needed for their growth – Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium (NPK). Soon, he was considered the father of the chemical fertilizer industry. Leibig also claimed that there were only three major nutrients that humans needed to consume – Proteins, Carbohydrates and Fats. Ever since, these became the big three in the food and nutrition industry – and these are the main foods available in the supermarkets today. While the importance of micronutrients for the soil and human body is now well known, the Governments have not gotten over their exclusive focus on macronutrients. The focus in Government policies is almost entirely on cereals, pulses and oils as far as food goes, while in agriculture, the focus is on chemical fertilisers with NPK leading the way. Foods with macro nutrients can be stored and power exerted through its supply and pricing, since cereals and pulses are essential for survival. It is a fact that our bodies need from fifty to hundred different chemical compounds to maintain health and Nature meant us to get these micronutrients from a variety of leaves, fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts. Today, governments offer no subsidies or support for organic produce such as vegetables and fruits which have higher levels of micronutrients; only fertilizer and pesticide-doused vegetables, cereals, pulses etc., are available. Marion Nestle in her book ‘Food Politics’, shows how the US governments has for decades offered subsidies only for corn, meat and soya etc., (ie. Macronutrients) and ignored the fresh fruit and vegetable (micronutrient) growers, because they had no powerful lobbies. This led to a situation where an excess of macronutrients and insufficient micronutrients were supplied to the country. (The US eats 93% processed foods and less than 7% fresh foods). She indicts the policy makers for the large scale incidence of obesity, heart disease and diabetes in the US. The situation is no different in India. C. Gopalakrishnan of the Nutrition Foundation of India pointed out that, in India, the similar skewed policy of subsidies for macronutrients only, would lead to malnourishment. When people get habituated to eating largely macro-nutrient based foods, they tend to eat less of the micro-nutrients. Children go in for dosas, burgers and cakes and even rice with dal more than vegetable sabzis, salads and fruits. Most doctors would advice vitamin pills (which often do not work) rather than plant foods for micronutrients – which are much more complex than isolated vitamins. Processed foods are cheaper and are made tasty with additives, while the media blitz of food ads lure us and especially our children. A recent survey of school children in Gujarat found that about 40% of children aged 10 to 15 showed early signs of heart disease: junk food and sedentary habits through excessive TV viewing and electronic games were held responsible. It is important to remember: Macronutrients are tasty and fill our stomachs but in the long run, deprivation of micronutrients can make us obese and sick. Capitalism and Modern ‘Development’ Today, at least among most city dwellers and the educated elite, capitalism and globalization are celebrated with unabashed enthusiasm. In fact, no alternative or modification of these manmade systems are seen as possible – they would be perceived as setting the clock back. Yet, an increasing number of political and economic analysts consider that neoliberal globalization, industrialization, climate change, imperialism, war, racism, poverty, mindless consumerism and the destruction of community are the by-products of capitalism. With its promotion of endless growth, capitalism has spawned a huge competition in the manufacturing and marketing of processed foods. These processed foods only contain cereals, fats and proteins with chemicals for preserving them and making them tasty and attractive. The media promotes them as nutritious – tetrapacked fruit juices are called ‘real’, even if that is impossible since fruits lose most of their nutrients within an hour of cutting them. Breakfast cereals say they have ‘added vitamins’, while many vitamins need a complex of other micronutrients to be absorbed. Even otherwise discerning adults can get fooled into believing that processed foods are harmless. Children get addicted to them and end up disliking healthy foods like fruits and vegetables. Instead of making efforts to change our daily habits, we end up reducing our immunity and falling prey to lifestyle diseases because of lack of micronutrients. At a macro level, development today requires constant increase in GDP, and only industrialized foods and the medical system help increase the GDP. Global trade in foods add to the GDP but also to carbon emissions. In the rural areas, monocultures, high cost of seeds and the use of chemicals needed for crops grown with these seeds have confused priorities –leading to impoverishment of the farmer and a situation where 40% of farmers want to opt out of farming. The habit of eating polished grains and insufficient micronutrients has invaded rural areas as well, amongst those who can afford food. A system that does not focus on equitable distribution has led to millions suffering from hunger. To understand food, health and wellness today, we need to consider the paradigm of development today and the myths it has generated. Education
While we cannot conveniently blame any one person for our getting deluded through education, Descartes is considered the one who made a fuss of the split between mind and matter. He asserted that matters of the mind should be the domain of the religious leadership and matters of, well, matter, should be the work of scientists. This was a convenient split to ensure that religious bigotry did not harass scientists as was the case in Galileo’s time. This has created a legacy of various kinds of splits, including in education, where the focus is on mental learning – while the physical, emotional and spiritual worlds are not considered important. This split also made the field of science value-free in order to be “true”. Science without values led to over 90% of scientists working on war weapons during World War II and very likely a very huge number of scientists today working on chemicals for food and drugs and several dangerous projects. Again, reductionist science has been fostered by our education system. An example of such ‘bad’ science is the assumption of nutritionists that food is the sum of its nutrient parts rather than a whole complex system – leading to a complicated set of ideas, which on the whole has been unable to deal with noncommunicable diseases and made health worse, not better, during the last few decades. Ten to fifteen years spent in schools and colleges, holding the Experts and Western Science in high regard – and disowning one’s own experience and culture – means that we tend to discard Grandma’s wisdom of say, drinking kashaya as well as various other systems of indigenous knowledge. Education without importance given to feelings and ethics has also made us follow the pied piper of development without discrimination. So what is the silver lining? Mythlogy is replete with Rakshasas and dragons of varying hues tormenting the people, when the hero is called upon to vanquish them and bring peace, security and prosperity to the land. When every great mountain had been climbed and most things you dreamt of have been invented or discovered – it seemed as if there is little work for new age heroes. But we now have a huge range of demons, often insidious - and young (and old) heroes and leaders are needed to embark into new adventures to deal with them. Along with ecological sanity, we can begin re-designing our political system (the process has begun in many parts of the Middle-Eastern world), as well as our economic, medical and education systems; and yes, we can look forward to new ways of finding fulfillment and joy – perhaps through growing food, a simpler low-stress lifestyle and community togetherness. This article was first published in Eternal Bhoomi Magazine, VOLUME 2, ISSUE - 3, JUL - SEP, 2011 Educational Planners design content for various courses - but do we take into account the power of what children learn unconsciously? While we human beings think, plan and act, we end up facing a host of unintended consequences. The rise and fall of civilizations is largely the story of the human propensity to get carried away by short-term success and suffer long term failure; the consequences of some aspects of the world-view and living processes of these civilizations were not foreseen. As Toynbee famously said, as far as civilizations go, "nothing fails like success”. There are dangers in reinforcing what seems to be success but is actually a recipe for collapse; in systems theory this process is called a positive feedback loop; positive feedback, when a system is away from equilibrium, can lead to a spiraling and ultimately destructive effect – for example, the increasing destructive need for alcohol in an alcoholic. Natural systems rely on negative or 'corrective' feedback to bring systems back to equilibrium when the deviations are small. The signs of ‘success’ of our civilization, such as literacy rates, military power, GDP growth and rates of consumption seem to be on a spiral of positive feedback, needing correction. To most of us, Education has been some kind of holy cow. But we now need to question how it is contributing to a civilization showing signs of decline. The positive side is that perhaps ours is the only civilization capable of a remarkable understanding and wide communication of these emergent realities. Therefore, hopefully, we can also search for ways in which Education can stem the tide. Many educational thinkers believe this is needed and possible, since it is not education itself which is the problem, but the ends it is used for. As the industrial age unfolded, the education system began to be increasingly focused on ‘shaping’ students to meet industrial needs; by and large everyone began to cooperate – not just for the needs of the industry and the economic system but because the prevalent notions of success and a good life required such education in places where the long and multiple arms of development reached. Among the consequences is our ecological crisis. In this scenario, what are children learning? What signifiers of success are being reinforced and rewarded and what meanings do children make of the world they live in? Our world-view and self-concept are rarely deliberated on, if ever, in school or college. Yet an entire foundation of the way we live is laid through the kind of attitudes we develop towards the world and the way we hold our own role in it. This foundation of our world-view is mostly unintended, unconscious learning. Many educators teach with the best of intentions, but the underlying paradigms of living and learning have a more powerful impact on individuals and our civilization, and a flawed paradigm is thus perpetuated. Most students – and most of us - hold some or all these notions and beliefs subconsciously as a kind of template for the way we live life:
These are a few of the meta frameworks for our living today - there must be more - and they have their "inner" and "outer" ecological consequences. Taken together they can keep us deadlocked in illusions and conditioning that makes it easy for us to go into denial or withdraw into ‘business as usual’ when confronted with huge and complex crises like climate change. Perhaps understanding them will help us awaken to the importance of adding new dimensions to education – especially of fostering the ecological self within and engaging in ecologically wise ways without.
A narrow definition of success For ten to fifteen years in school and college, life revolves around tests, exams and marks. Marks determine success in school and money determines success in later life. This narrow definition of success is an essential part of the prevalent development paradigm – but it has led to an impoverishment in many other spheres: those of artistic sensibility, holistic thinking and spiritual search. It has effectively blinded us to the potential long-term failure of our civilization. Most importantly, following the Western model determined by Macaulay, Descartes, Newton and Bacon, this narrow definition of success has made us completely undervalue the ecological wisdom of our culture, which could have provided a model not only for education but also for sustainability. Selfishness is legitimate Throughout the years of formal education, a student is used to bothering mostly about his books, his assignments, his tests, etc. Never before in any age have children and youth been so thoroughly groomed to be consumeristic and immersed in self-interest. Without opportunities to ‘learn’ co-operation, since it is not required for school tasks – children get the implicit message that selfishness is fine as a way of life. As Einstein said, “This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism - our whole educational system suffers from this evil: an exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.” Means are not as important as ends Parents and teachers encourage rote-learning and tuitions as the means to score high marks in exams without understanding of, or interest in, what is learnt: a student may opt for a medical seat if she can’t get into engineering without worrying about whether she is interested in healing or caring for other’s health; the lucrative career – the end – is all that matters. An extension of valuing ends above means is that ethical means can be sacrificed for ‘progress’. Thousands can die of cancer while Thorium is mined for Nuclear energy -- it does not matter as long as I get my electricity; two lakh farmers may commit suicide because of a draconian agricultural system – it does not matter as long as I get my food. Innumerable examples exist of unethical behaviour; they may have co-evolved with our factories, governments and malls, but aren’t they fostered by education? A good life is a life of high consumption and minimum physical work At school, children spend almost all their time on book-related learning. In mainstream schools, doing physical work as a part of learning is unheard of. Very little time is allocated for experiential learning or even for games and sports. Children in many homes in cities today are rarely required to do any physical work in the house – either because domestic help is available or because parents want the child to focus on studies and ‘spare’ the child such distractions. The hangover of our caste system perhaps plays a part as well in looking down on physical work. The TV and movies show celebrities promoting a high-consumption life style, subtly encouraging everyone of us to consume as much as we can. Children pick up dreams of ‘a good life’ which makes it difficult for them to comprehend the need to think in fresh and natural ways, to critique the system and create new visions for sustainability. Think within a boundary – not of the whole Wear blinkers. Follow instructions. Do not question. Be a good soldier – don’t think for yourself. See connections only selectively – do not see long-term connections or connections that are many links away. These are the messages that children pick up unconsciously in school when they have to focus without a choice on the given syllabus and lessons for the day, day after day, for anywhere between 10 and 18 years of their life. Schools and colleges have designed syllabi, which are content heavy. The unintended consequence is that there is no focus on critical thinking and taking initiative for a larger cause even if a few try to see the larger picture; most of us have forgotten to respond to real lifeissues all around us. Wearing blinkers also means that we do not think for the whole school, the whole community or the whole earth – often not even for the whole family. Put up with a split inner world The school system and parents want all children to learn the same subjects in the same way without considering the child’s interests and innate talents. From years of tolerating work which we do not value or like, we learn to live with an unresolved lack of alignment in our thought, feeling and action. This split spills over into many things in life. I may have no interest or enthusiasm for my work, but will persist in it without looking for alternatives. I may understand my child's love for music, but may push her into more science tuition instead and deny her music classes. This ‘ability’ to live with a split inner world – the pathology within - is reflected in the world outside that we have created. Unquestioning acceptance of authority The class seating system seems designed to hand over power to the authority figure and to make children submit to the system. When the school system is almost universally accepted, its fundamentals are not questioned. Why should rural schools and city schools have the same syllabus? Why should agriculture not be included as a subject for farmers’ children? Why not more practical classes on basics like food, water and health or simple skills? Our centralized authoritarian system may possibly wish good education for all, but it simply kills initiative and the ability to question – and hence we look for top-down solutions to all problems. It is widely understood today that all things are connected. The climate crisis, poverty, pollution, the aspirations, wants and needs of people, the economic, education, and political systems are all connected – just as all things are connected in Nature. Fritjof Capra talks of the importance of eco-literacy, which includes a deep understanding of the principles of ecology – such as inter-dependence, cooperation, partnership, diversity, cyclical flow of energy/resources and flexibility. All these are patterns of organization, which help the eco-system maximize sustainability, survive disturbances and adapt to changing conditions. To move away from the grip of unintended consequences and nurture a sustainable way of life, education too, needs to move closer to nature, in structure and process. Here are some lessons from nature that need to be applied to schools: To move beyond a self-seeking outlook, can we have more school work that requires more cooperation than competition, as is the norm in nature? Can schools emphasize Nature’s principle that resources / energy flow in a cyclical way rather than in the linear flow of a consumeristic ‘good life’? Not just as a piece of knowledge but experientially, by working on a zero-waste school, by connecting with the surrounding communities, with sources of food and other resources used by the school and by fostering the ability to share and empathise? Can we foster ecological consciousness that we are a strand in the web of life, that success for the whole is necessary for individual success in the long run? Schools today are excessively focused on book-based learning suited for careers in a flawed development-paradigm. Can we move to more experiential, holistic learning, which would include more physical, artistic, ecological and other activities that foster many connections? The education system, most importantly, needs to recognize diversity among children, various geographical regions, communities and livelihood options. This would require more decentralized management, more humanscale systems which would help in building a more ethical outlook, and the freedom to design for the whole school or whole community and reduce the inner splits that are a result of choicelessness. The 86 million tonnes of carbon released everyday are almost entirely the work of educated people. Hence, along with the politicians, economists and industrialists, isn’t the world of education also contributing to endangering the survival of our civilization? The world of education needs to engage in soul-searching to answer this question. This article was first published in Eternal Bhoomi Magazine, VOLUME 1, ISSUE - 4, OCT - DEC, 2010 |
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