Need for Humanization of Education

Human beings have an innate desire and motivation to live in happiness and prosperity in continuity. Since ancient times, human beings have put forth considerable effort to achieve these goals. However, regardless of their level of material wealth, rich and poor alike are still searching to be in state of happiness and prosperity. There is a significant gap between human beings’ inherent desires and the ability to actualize them. Currently we live in a rapidly changing world characterized by modernity, new developments, advanced technology and physical comfort. Modern education has given rise to various social, economic, scientific and technological achievements. On the other hand, our world is witnessing rapidly increasing feelings of insecurity, self-centeredness and insensitivity towards others. Conflict and various forms of violence are becoming more prevalent, from the personal to the global level. The entire world is facing numerous and increasingly complex problems e.g. terrorism, exploitation, struggle, war, poverty, broken families, disharmony in relationships, resource depletion, environmental degradation, vanishing species and global warming etc. Our children are growing up with these complex challenges. Today we are all faced with numerous questions, such as:

• Are we feeling financially secure even after earning lots of money?
• Are we not feeling alone as our body ages? Perhaps we are unable to live in harmony in our relationships as we had hoped.
• Do most of our achievements and successes stem from comparing and competing with others? Is the confidence we achieve via comparison and competition, stable and permanent? Do we want stable, permanent confidence or fleeting confidence?
• After providing our children with very advanced, expensive or higher education, are we able to say with assurance that our relationships with them will remain harmonious and happy in the future?
• Are we able to live a happy and healthy life and ensure harmonious relationships after being educated?
• Are human beings feeling an increased or decreased sense of trust in political, economic, religious, educational and health institutions?
• How can we enhance the current education and development process to ensure future generations will lead happy, healthy, prosperous and fulfilling lives?

The current education system has an important role to play in addressing the current concerns. We require an education that will bring clarity to resolve the inner conflict, which is the very essence of all forms of visible and non-visible violence from the micro to the macro level. How can we equip students with the means to understand themselves and their relationships in family, society and with nature? How can we ensure that by graduation, students not only possess skills related to subject matter but that they possess the understanding and ability to live in harmony with everyone? Without this understanding and ability, what kind of a world will we continue to perpetuate?

It is essential that our educational institutions provide an atmosphere where students can develop in a holistic manner, ask questions and seek to understand themselves and their relationships within the context of the world in which they live. Educational institutions must also be places where students can develop true confidence in who they are and in their ability to make wise choices for themselves and for the world at large.

All of these issues and questions need to be addressed in an effective and efficient manner. There is a need for an academic structure (curricular, extra-curricular), which can help students resolve their inner conflicts as well as address all of the problems, conflicts and questions related to family, society and nature.

In light of the above issues and questions, it is important to create an education system by which human beings can fulfill all their needs holistically, and which ensures that we can all live with continuity of happiness and prosperity. In order to fulfill all of our human needs as well as address the various concerns and issues facing everyone, there is a need to enhance the current education system. The first step can be to implement a program by which students can explore themselves, values and character. The term ‘value’ is often perceived in many ways, thus it is important to clarify its meaning and context. The ‘value’ of any entity is defined as its intrinsic-ness and its role in the larger order. It is important to have a program that encourages the exploration of “what is valuable”? and “what is the value of human beings?” Without doing so, our education system will only continue to provide skills that are aimless and directionless, which therefore can be utilized either constructively or destructively.

NOTE: The curriculum for humanized education for students (grade 1-12) and teachers as well as study materials are available. If you are interested in receiving a copy of the curriculum, please inform us. We facilitate a dialogue-based workshops as an introduction for teachers, administrators and parents etc.