A time is coming where acquiring knowledge will be of no value.
Projecting good memory as intelligence is going to go away; The keenness of
your perception, the sharpness of your intelligence will be more important for the future in the world.
SUPER: 1. Move Learning From Memory to Perception
We are at a time that when it comes to education, we are in a cusp where our fundamental thinking about
what is education needs to go through not a change, but a complete transformation. A time is coming where
acquiring knowledge will be of no value. A time is coming where projecting data accumulation as
intelligence is going to be a thing of the past.
Projecting good memory as intelligence is going to go away; which is the very foundations of the education
systems of the day – whoever has good memory is rated as the most intelligent person.
Well today you know, your cell phone has better memory than you..
Some of our phones are six hundred GB, believe me, you don't have that kind of memory (Laughs).
The keenness of your perception, the sharpness of your intelligence will be more important
than the volume of memory you carry in your head.
These are good times, real good times for human beings to unfold because this cargo
of so-called knowledge is killing human beings – just ramping up information into a child's
head in many ways killing the fundamental genius that every human being carries within themselves.
Human intelligence is of a different nature. We should never misunderstand memory as intelligence.
Every human being has a certain element of genius in them.
It is only a question of will we be able to provide the right kind of ambience for that particular genius to unfold?
This is the challenge.
This is a time that all of you as educationists, you are at a point where the sooner we transform
our education system, the better edge our children will have for the future in the world
SUPER: 2. Create Education for Different Needs. See we must understand this.
Though India is one nation, there are at least four to five nations within India.
Not everybody is in the same level of needs.
There is a most affluent class in the country, there is a segment which is upper middle class
whose aspirations are very different, there is middle class where it’s always about
how will our children get jobs and stuff, and there is rural and other dimensions which you are referring to where
it’s only about somehow getting out of that social and economic pit in which they are.
We cannot address all these categories as one.
It is wrong to do that.
In the name of uniform education, we are trying to do this.
I understand the thought behind it, but it's not practical.
It's because of this, over twenty-four billion dollars’ worth of education in India is
going out to outside universities. It’s very important that we're able to provide for every segment of society.
If we do not provide this, we will not create variety of human beings that we need for this nation's well-being.
We need leaders, we need scientists, we need teachers, we need engineers, we need farmers,
we need craftsmen – we need variety of people to make a nation happen
See, there was a time in 60s and 70s, we were thinking of literacy in this country, because
when the British left, our literacy was somewhere around seven percent of the population.
Rest were illiterate.
So our whole focus was how somebody can put his name on the paper. This was our focus.
We must understand that our very education was crafted for that.. to produce clerks. They found Indians make
very good clerks around the world. Because they were planning to conquer the whole world.
This is (Laughs) this is the education designed by Her Majesty’s service.
We have made some changes, but we need more drastic changes.
I'm saying this may sound extreme to you, but what I'm saying is except the language,
everything that the British left in the education has to go (Applause).
Language is a passport to the world.
We must keep the language, everything else need to go because that was designed for a
specific purpose - where obedience is higher than intelligence – that's not the way to bring up our children.
That is the way to bring up occupied population.
But now a time has come that we should start turning it around.
We can't flip it around tomorrow morning – then it may break.
We have to start turning it around, start working towards that adarsh or the ideal condition that we are thinking
of. Sport, art, music, theater – every dimension of life is a wealth for this nation, isn't it?
To educate millions of people to one level is different.
To come out with specialized focus towards children who are capable of that is different. If we don't do that..
We will not have great scientists, We will not have great mathematicians, We will not have anything significant in
the country. This is how this culture has always been nourished.
We produce some of the greatest mathematicians, greatest musicians, greatest dancers in this
country, simply because those who went into those gharanas to learn music, did only music and music.
If we don't do this, we will not produce any kind of excellence in any field.
Everybody will know a bit of everything but they will not be good at anything.
SUPER: 3.
Bring a Sense of Inquiry Into Education. You must understand this, this is a nation
where nobody could give us a commandment.
Tch.
Even when the so-called divine entities came (Laughs), they could not give us a commandment,
we only asked them questions.
Adiyogi came, he opened his mouth to speak to his beloved wife, she freaks him with a
million questions (Few Laugh).
Krishna tries to speak to his closest friend Arjuna, that too at the edge of the battlefield,
that guy asked hundreds of questions (Few Laugh).
He can't shut up and listen, because that's not Indian (Few Laugh).
Anywhere else if anybody who claimed to be god, or god’s agent, or god’s son, or
whatever, they would say “This is god's will, shut up and listen!”
And everybody listened.
Not in this country, because we have a very ingrained scientific temperament in us.
Not the kind of scientific temperament of disregarding everything, as it's become today.
We have a different kind of scientific temperament – we question everything, but with reverence.
We bow down to him and say, “You are my god, but we have questions.”
Hello?
Hasn't this been our way (Laughs)?
So we are not religious people.
We have a very scientific temperament – always asking questions and questions and questions.
You should not kill that in the schools, they must ask questions.
What is written in the textbook is not absolute.
Hello?
Participants: Yes.
More questioning should happen than ever before because if you don't raise questions, then
human intelligence will slowly sleep
SUPER: 4.
Set the Standard for Children
you must be… become that kind of a person, you don't have to say a thing, you become
that kind of a person, everybody wants to be like you.
All the kids want to be like you.
So, that's a lot of exercise for you.
You must learn to dance like them, you must like to sing like them, you learn to speak
like them, then they say “Wow, this is how I want to be.”
So you must make them fall in love with you, not demand something, you must make them fall in love
with you. If somebody has to fall in love with you, what you… what you should do?
You must shine a bit.
Hello? Yes or no?
You must shine a little bit.
How to shine I won't tell you, because in different atmospheres you have to shine differently
(Laughs).
SUPER: 5.
Establish Humanity as the Only Value
For me personally, my integrity is not because of my morality.
My integrity is because of my humanity (Applause).
This is the only value we must have – that we are human.
Rest of the values are all made up by us, isn’t it?
The important thing is our humanity is not compromised at any time.
Because many, many times our morality, our values, our ethics are against our own humanity.
So-called moral people are doing inhuman things to each other, isn't it?
Hello?
In the name of religion, in the name of morality, in the name of ethics and values, people have
done terrible things to each other, isn't it so?
So what does humanity mean?
See, every other creature on this planet goes by its instinct.
It has no ethic, it has no value, it has no philosophy, it has no religion.
They go by their instincts –they instinctively react to everything.
This is why we call tiger, a tiger.
A grasshopper, a grasshopper.
An elephant, an elephant.
Only you…Only you we call you a human being.
This means you are supposed to know how to be. Tch.
How far away from that are we (Laughs)?
If you knew how to be, would you be wonderful or nasty, I'm asking?
Participants: Wonderful.
So what being human means is, see you see all the animals?
It's happening everywhere...
You might not have seen the wild animals doing it.
But at least you see the dogs on the street peeing all over the place.
You think he has a urinary tract problem?
No, he is building a pee kingdom.
He is setting his boundaries all the time.
So the fundamental thing about being human is, we can live here without any sense of boundary within myself.
All other creatures go by what is mine and what is not mine –this is my territory, that is your territory.
But human being has the capacity to go beyond that.
If you do not exercise that, well, we will have to say you are a human creature, not a human being.
Human being means you are able to wipe out the boundaries.
If this one thing if we do, if this we inculcate in our children, we don't have to worry about
their morality as long as they are wonderful human beings, We must stir up the humanity
in such a way that our humanity is the first…is the face of who we are.
Everything else is behind it.
My likes and dislikes, my moral, my values, my belief systems, my gods, my angels, my
heavens – all should follow our humanity.
Humanity should be the face of who you are.
This is what you need to bring in our children (Applause).