Principal's Desk
Dear Readers,
Education is the key element of everyone's life today. The holistic approach of education aims at the training of 3H's: Heart, Head and Hand. Heart stands for the attainment of right values, Head stands for the acquisition of knowledge and the Hand stands for the gaining of skills to achieve economic and material gain..
But the concern of most of the schools and parents seems to be Head (intellectual growth) and Hand (economic concern) rather than the Heart (Enlightenment). Age old Aristotelian thought “Educating the mind without educating the heart is not education at all” seems to be fading in recent years.
It is seen that on-line classes have their own demerit in educating the hearts. At the same time, due to the growing aspect of artificial intelligence, it has been predicted that robots will begin to replace teachers in the classroom within 10 or 20 years, as part of a revolution in one-to-one learning that can be adapted to each individual child. This system of robotic education will drastically massacre the education of the heart.
It is aptly said that the 'Heart of education is the education of the Heart'. Unless you train the children to empower their Hearts, it is useless to galvanize their Heads and Hands. The primary reason for the fraud, corruption, insincerity and suicide in today's world is due to lack of education of the heart. The knowledge and technical skills taught to the students will be transitory, but it is the values that educators instill in their students that will have a lasting impact.
Dalai Lama insisted on the education of the heart saying, “It is vital that when educating our children's brains, we do not neglect to educate their hearts by nurturing their compassionate nature”.
The word 'Education' is the noun form of 'Educe'. To educe means to bring out. The sole purpose of the education is not to fill the students with knowledge and skills, but to bring out new thinking from their own mind. This kind of education will trigger their creativity and imagination to create a job, and not just to seek a job. It will enable them to pave a new path and to become the master of their own destiny.
This new concept of education has to be introduced in our education system. Bhutan's (though one of the smallest countries,) educational motto “Importance not to the GNP (Gross National Product), but to the GNH (Gross National Happiness)” stands ideal to the educational system. In other words, it is not teaching our children how to gain economic and material products, but to live happily on this planet earth with love, peace, justice and harmony. An education doesn't just mean getting good grades, it means preparing them to be good people," says Dukpa. "This next generation is going to face a very scary world as their environment changes and social pressures increase. We need to prepare them for this."
We as educators, parents, guardians need to teach our children to use not only their heads and hands, but primarily their hearts. This will help them to relate to each other with the attitude of brotherhood and to look at nature with amazement.
Perhaps the time has come now in our education system to pay more attention to the need to teach kindness, empathy and love rather than facts.
Sr. Lavina MSA
Principal