The twenty seventh issue of the Journal of Krishnamurti Schools is in your hands. Handle it with care, read and glean what you will, and do share it with others!
Why do we say this?
If you look through the titles of the articles in the contents page— whether you are a teacher, a parent, a student, or a concerned citizen with questions about education—there is something for each one here.
As we were putting together this Journal, someone asked: Is there any theme running across these articles?
If you glance across many of the articles, you will find the recurrence, in one way or another, of a central notion—care. As editors, we had decided to write our own brief ruminations around this question: what is care? Unexpectedly, we found that many other articles too echoed the idea of ‘care’, at many levels, and in varied contexts.
In the very first article Vinuta Gopal, former student of a Krishnamurti school, reflects on her growing life concerns in the context of accelerating global climate change and its dire prognosis, a sphere in which she has been on the forefront of personal and political action. Her care for the environment also leads to serious self-reflection that now takes her into new forms of engagement. Against this backdrop, Nagini Prasad writes about the poignant challenges and dilemmas of teaching a course on ‘environmental management’ to young people today. Apart from sharing her approaches to teaching the much-needed knowledge of the myriad interconnected issues, she also wonders at what level a teacher can raise questions that evoke both a sense of ‘care’ as well as a deeper ‘self-inquiry’.
In an article titled ‘What is a healthy mind?’, Shailesh Shirali leads us on to a further question: are our very ways of living and educating responsible for mental health issues that are becoming increasingly rampant? He explores the causative factors, drawing on quotes from a host of writings (including ChatGPT!) as well as carefully chosen extracts from Krishnamurti, who urges schools and teachers to take seriously their responsibility (and care!) in seeing that students experience an atmosphere of ‘wholeness’ and ‘ourness’, which may be the only lasting antidote to the fragmentation and malaise in our human consciousness. Picking up on the concern for wholeness in relationship, Dr Suchitra—an educator and a counsellor—draws richly on the work of therapist Carl Rogers to evoke a sense of care at the intimate level of empathetic listening, a quality of listening that may promote selfunderstanding and healing.
Vaishnavi Narayanan—the first part of whose longer essay was published in Volume 26—continues in the second part with her gentle and leisurely exploration of what education in a Krishnamurti school has come to mean to her.
And this brings us to the section on ‘care’, highlighted within the grey pages of this Journal, in which the editors have put together brief fragments of their reflections on what ‘care’ might mean to each of us.
Two accounts of personal journeys follow each other. Vaishali Humnabadkar writes of a succession of movements and changes in her working life, first from a pharmaceutical lab to a school, and then within the structures of the school itself. Each of these moves has led her into many new kinds of learning. Dev Kumar, a former student at a Krishnamurti school, speaks—in an interview format—of his engagement with Krishnamurti’s teachings, the many challenges this has posed and the varied expressions that his care for ‘living the teachings’ has led him into.
Any eclectic journal of education must contain something on curriculum and pedagogy in subject areas, and here too we have articles related to art, history as well as sports and games. Jaai Deolalkar and Soumya Ravindranath collaborate to unfold the multiple ways in which a vibrant art programme permeates the curriculum at their school. Sanjay Mathur evokes the everydayness of a senior school history teacher’s work in school, even as he engages in a many-layered questioning of his purposes in teaching history. His answers may surprise some; but they remain highly relevant to the challenging times in which we live. Balaji’s article, ‘To Cooperate is a Challenge When There is an Urge to Win’ takes us through the aims and practices of ‘cooperative games’, which he has undertaken to promote in his school.
Two teachers pose their own individual questions about education and life and share with us their musings and learnings. Janani Venkat grapples with the ubiquity of change and uncertainty, and comes up with some insights and some pointers that might help to navigate these. Siddhartha Menon recalls how he had wondered as a young teacher about the purpose of KFI Gatherings in a school setting. He returns to this question more than two decades later, this time as a keynote speaker at one such recent Gathering on the theme of ‘self-knowledge’.
The article, on ‘teacher-student relatedness’, by G Gautama is a response to another article on ‘teacher-student relationship’, published in volume 26 of the Journal, that had raised several critical questions about the impact on students of a teacher’s passion and way of being. Gautama, striking a cautionary note, suggests that forming any kind of exclusive relationships with students around an individual’s passion has its in-built risks. Dangers in relationship is also the theme of the final piece, a review article by Kanti Phatak based on the book, The Self-esteem Trap: Raising Confident and Compassionate Kids in an Age of Self-Importance by Polly Young-Eisendrath. This book is aimed at parents but is equally relevant for teachers.
If you have scrolled down this far, you can now take your pick. What aspect of education, teaching and learning do you most care about? Which article would you like to begin with? May you take away many things of value that you can chew on. We wish you happy and thoughtful reading.
Alok Mathur