| |
the challenge to discover. You will not cling.
But this has not been the case up to now. The whole educational system of the world has not even touched your basic psychological problems. It is not concerned with giving you psychological freedom. The question is not even raised.
I have been in conferences of professors, vice-chancellors, educationists, discussing how to make the educational system work better. And I have told every conference, "All that you say is rubbish: you don't even touch the basic question. Somebody is saying that students are not obedient, that students are not disciplined, that they are not respectful -- so how to make them respectful, obedient?
"Your concerns are superficial and more concerned with yourself, your troubles, your problems, than with the vast world of the young generation. You never talk about their psychological freedom.
"And if you can begin a process -- which is possible -- so that every student becomes psychologically free of the fear of the unknown... Instead of having fear he becomes enchanted with the unknown, in love with the unknown, on a romantic adventure into the world beyond the small mind. If you can manage that, they will be respectful towards you. You have given them such a gift, they cannot be other than respectful. They will be obedient to you because they know you are not going to exploit them. You have been trying to make them psychologically free, how can you exploit them? They will trust you.
"These superficial problems that you go on discussing every year, in every conference... All the solutions are the same every year, and your solutions create more problems because all your solutions are so third-rate. And they are the same: be more strict, expel the students who are not obedient, punish those who are troublemakers. Your solutions make people more disobedient, more against you.
"The situation has come to a point that now students think that they are a class against the class of the teachers. It is a class struggle, just like the poor and the rich. They are making their unions fight, just like other unions, labor unions. Now there are students' unions whose
|
|
|