A friend of this group has asked me recently to expand in greater detail on our home-education, "... the ways of learning together, the teaching of academic stuff, the program for one year ..." etc.

Ann Vandewege

To write on the curriculum and the daily organization is the easiest part. To write on the "process of self-knowledge" is more difficult. How to write on a process that is so complex and intangible and in a language that is not even my mother tongue? The freshness lies in tasting it, talking about it is talking about something that is no longer a living thing. However, it may still be worthwhile to write about it and to share it with others. I think it is our concern to bring about an education in which this process of self-knowledge is as important as the acquiring of knowledge and skills. How can this be done?

 

Education worldwide lays ever greater emphasis on the acquisition of knowledge. Knowledge is important, of course. But self-knowledge is even more important, as it is the human mind that has brought about this environment full of conflict. How are we going to find a balance between learning about the self and memorizing the necessary knowledge? And is it possible to integrate both parts? And is it even possible that there are no longer "both parts", but one living movement? That is a daily issue here in our education.

 

We see that it is necessary to have an official degree because society (at least here in Belgium) demands this paper for students who want to start higher education. As my daughter (almost 14) wants to become a teacher and my son (now 11) wants to explore alternative energy, they both think it necessary to get a degree. The amount of knowledge that they have to memorize in order to get the degree is "huge" (about 15 different subjects in the last year of secondary education). We have decided not to take exams every two years. We will prepare for the final examinations at the end of six years secondary education. That gives us more freedom to choose the subjects we like and enough time to prepare for the compulsory subjects. And, which is most important, it gives us the necessary time and opportunity to let this process of self-knowledge expand.

 

Next time I will write about the different subjects we study, the different teachers and our daily organisation. If there are others who would like to write about the ways in which they let this process of self-knowledge flower, I would be very happy to read it.

 

Ann

 

Dear Ann,

Thank you for your inspiring and interesting contributions directly from the places where life takes place. It is amazing to see what is possible when there is awareness that 'compartmentalisation' truly is a crutch only, helpful as it is, for learning about anything any time in and with whatever one does. I am very much looking forward to the next 'report from a place within actuality',

Thank you,

James

 

dear ann and all,

thank you for your letter about home education. it is very inspiring and true in  sense - it is happening, it lives.

i am  a teacher in an international school and meet the children in the classroom, but also in a house where 10 children are living with me and a 'hausmutter'. so its learning all the time, learning that brings equality between all of us, because in learning are we equal, are we companion, are we friends. it happened already a few times that a child came and sad his a lot of times very sad story, a destiny which touch me in the heart. and i see a truth - when the children trust you (and they probe you from all angles 1000 times), then they listen, they learn, they are flowering. they know very good about the things, which you in your life didn't understand, they have a six sense. that is why i see the self knowledge as a basis for a relationship between teacher and student and in this basis we are equal. the student is your teacher and ...  

dear ann, i found wery interesting the time, where you read newspapers and will do that in next time. And if i may - a question - I have a boy. his father is a policeman in a very poor country, mother didnt want to live in that dangeroues, she take the kid and came in europa. the child is a very nice person, but he explode as something didnt go as he thinks and in that situation 'is he not he', he take knife, he speak bad, insult with the lowest vocabulary, brings disorder where everybody suffer. i ask me (and you) what do you think. sometimes i come to idea he should go in psychiatrie, because he is dangerous for all of us und very agressiv. he was already there. but than i think - no, that is his end  - i dont want to see him on ritalin under chemie control.

with love,

 

matej

 

 

 

Dear Matej,

 

Thank you for your moving letter. I think the situation of the boy is a very complex one. If he is really physically dangerous for his environment I think action should be taken so that he cannot harm other children in a flash of 'not being himself'. On the other hand perhaps you can talk to the whole group whether the boy can really hurt on the

psychological level, using bad language etc. -whether we can be hurt at all on the psychological level, if we really understand what we are. Here we all have much to learn, both children and teachers. It may also be that the boy experiences enormous contradictions in his life. You may be open to the boy, observing him closely and seeing where these explosions come from. But you probably do not fully know what his situation is at home, where he may get different 'messages' of how to behave etc. The only, but enormous (!), thing we can do is to observe closely what moves the boy, the other children etc. and to take action where needed. Of course it would be most sad to make the boy even more insensitive by giving him ritalin. Unfortunately, as society is organized at this moment, the boy will probably not have the full chance to discover what is the real cause of his aggressiveness, as is the case with so many young people.

 

I am just learning together with you, Matej. I hope all this does not sound as good advice. In a milder form I sometimes see these explosions here too of course. It is always a great challenge at that moment how I am moved by it, what conditioned patterns come up here and how all this is observed. In a flash one sometimes discovers patterns which are very deep- rooted. To see them is the most important thing, to look them full in the face, as it were, without denying them, without running away from them - which includes giving these patterns a name. So revealing at times. So much learning, but really beautiful if we understand we can do this together.

 

How very good that you take the time to learn together with these children!

 

Warm regards,

Ann

 

dear ann

thank you for your insight and the question - whether we can be psychological hurt wenn we understand ourselves? it is a very important question and helped me.

the boy had now a homeopathy and helps him very much. he is so considerate and by himself wie noch nie.

he has surely got the 'sun' also from you.

nice day

mat

 

 

 

 I am so happy for the boy! There is certainly much to be said about energetical healing methods. And deeply understanding ourselves brings us into close contact with healing energies.

Be well!

Ann

 

The education groups

 

Before continuing with the report of our home-education I would like to expand a little on the two education groups, one coming together at the place where I live and one in Ghent.

The coming three years we will be exploring the book This Matter of Culture (or Think on These Things, which is the same book), each first Friday and Sunday of the month. Each month we read a chapter at home and at the meeting we go into some questions that come up, directly related to the topic. Chapter four is dealing with Listening and in the introductory letter I have sent this month I quoted the following passages from the 4th chapter of the book. Krishnamurti talking to young people:

"Have you ever sat very quietly, not with attention fixed on anything, not making an effort to concentrate, but with the mind very quiet, really still? Then you hear everything, don't you? You hear the far-off noises as well as those that are nearer and those that are very close by, the immediate sounds - which means, really, that you are listening to everything. Your mind is not confined to one narrow little channel. If you can listen in this way, listen with ease, without strain, you will find an extraordinary change taking place within you, a change which comes without your volition, without your asking; and in that change there is great beauty."

"Just try it sometime, try it now. as you are listening to me, listen not only to me, but to everything about you. Listen to all those bells, the bells of the cows and the temples; listen to the distant train and the carts on the road; and if you then come nearer still and listen to me also, you will find there is a great depth to listening. But to do this you must have a very quiet mind. If you really want to listen, your mind is naturally quiet, is it not? You are not then distracted by something happening next to you; your mind is quiet because you are deeply listening to everything. If you can listen in this way with ease, with a certain felicity, you will find an astonishing transformation taking place in your heart, in your mind - a transformation which you have not thought of, or in any way produced."

"While you are young you must begin to find out what is this strange thing called happiness. That is an essential part of education. Happiness does not come when you are striving for it - that is the greatest secret, though it is very easily said. I can put it in a few simple words; but, by merely listening to me and repeating what you have heard, you are not going to be happy. Happiness is strange; it comes when you are not seeking it. When you are not making an effort to be happy, then, unexpectedly, mysteriously happiness is there, born of purity, of a loveliness of being. But that requires a great deal of understanding - not joining an organisation or trying to become somebody. Truth is not something to be achieved. Truth comes into being when your mind and heart are purged of all sense of striving and you are no longer trying to become somebody; it is there when the mind is very quiet, listening timelessly to everything that is happening. "

"That is why it is so important for you to be educated rightly while you are young. What we now call education is not education at all, because nobody talks to you about these things. Your teachers prepare you to pass examinations, but they do not talk to you about living, which is most important; because very few know how to live. If you are not being educated to live, then education has no meaning. You may learn to be very tidy, have good manners, and pass all your examinations; but, to give primary importance to these superficial things when the whole structure of society is crumbling, is like cleaning and polishing your fingernails while the house is burning down. You see, nobody talks to you about all this, nobody goes into it with you. As you spend day after day studying certain subjects - mathematics, history, geography - so also you should spend a great deal of time talking about these deeper matters, because this makes for richness of life."            (K)

 

Learning together

 

Learning is a movement with no acquisition. At school there is the traditional acquiring of knowledge and skills. But self-knowing is a movement of learning without retaining anything. This may sound strange. And yet, if self-knowing is a process of freeing the mind from its bondage, it cannot have anything to do with "acquiring" good behaviour, "acquiring" attention or "acquiring" silence. Attention, silence and self-knowing are one and the same process and it is a dying or, more "positively", an ever enfolding movement.

 

So, it is difficult to write about it. When one writes about it it may sound quite "common" because the perfume of the moment is lost in the description. In our home-education so many questions and thoughts and feelings have arisen. The thing is: how do I respond to these? Am I aware of what is happening, silently listening to the whole complex movement? Or am I reacting from my conditioned behaviour? That conditioned behaviour may also be the "idea" that as a teacher I should be patient, loving, giving good advice etc. Is my response mainly observing what is happening in the student and in me? Which is actually one movement. Or am I losing contact with the situation through immediately directing the question, the feeling, the reaction, the behaviour according to my ideas? And if so, am I aware of that?

 

Is this awareness the essence of our education? Or is it something "practised" like tolerance, non-violent behaviour, emotional self-control? If so, how can I ever intimately come to know the movement of all my conscious and unconscious reactions? This does not mean indulging in any feeling or reaction. But, to me, one can never really come close to any feeling if one either cuts it off or allows it to slip into "unawareness", which includes giving the feeling a name, justifying or condemning it.

 

If we are alert all through the day, like the little bird picking food and at the same time being very aware of any movement, we will realize how important it is that education

should include this process of self-knowing. If we really have this concern of learning together, telling the child that, as a teacher, we are as much learning about life as the child, then the child will naturally pick up this feeling of openness.

 

When we are touched by this way of education, can we find ways of actually introducing it wherever we are, in whatever places or organisations we are working now? It is a natural movement if we see the urgency of it.

 

Dear Ann,

Your posts are truly very meaningful and full of integrity. Here you described how teaching is in essence learning - actually that teaching and learning are simply two aspects of the same movement: understanding whatever is the subject at hand without focus, but undivided attention. There is no effort in this. There is no retaining anything, because understanding is not a process. True understanding is total and immediate, not habit forming.

Sorry, I can't continue right now, because my niece is demanding my attention.

Thanks for these wonderful contributions.

Greetings,

James

  

Thank you, James.

This morning the children and I talked about this self-knowing. As an introduction I read a short passage from Think on These Things:

"If you can look into the mirror of relationship exactly as you look into the ordinary mirror, then there is no end to self-knowledge. It is like entering a fathomless ocean which has no shore. Most of us want to reach an end, we want to be able to say, "I have arrived at self-knowledge and I am happy"; but it is not like that at all. If you can look at yourself without condemning what you see, without comparing yourself with somebody else, without wishing to be more beautiful or more virtuous; if you can just observe what you are and move with it, then you will find it possible to go infinitely far. Then there is no end to the journey, and that is the mystery, the beauty of it." (K.)

We talked about (and observed!) what this mirror of relationships actually is. A wonderful exploration!

 

Ann

 

Dear Ann,

Thank you for your recent correspondence, and to James and Matej. It is very very interesting indeed. I feel you are getting to the very heart of what education 'really means'. It seems without the self enquiry, all learning remains at the verbal level, and that appears to create mischief, to say the least.  

Why is that, one wonders? Is it that we do not see thought for what it is, a strictly limited  thing, something that has its uses certainly, but is dangerous when it is taken beyond those limits? That is, we mistake thought for reality, and there is nothing in conventional education that helps us to see that error.

Warm Regards

Clive

 

... Yes, it is important that more people would be 'connected' and learn together about a radically different kind of education. I would not call that education "Krishnamurti Education", as this concept has its own dangers. Any word has its dangers, therefore one would rather call it 'the education concerned with the total human being'. That is much more universal and K is certainly one of the persons who has so profoundly pointed towards such a kind of education.

 

With my contributions here on our home-education I hope I do not in the least have given the impression that I would have 'reached' something, that our education is progressing towards something. That is not the case. In an education that is concerned with the flowering of the total human being there is no 'reaching'. And that makes it fundamentally different from all other forms of education, whether conventional or so-called alternative education. It is not about 'reaching' but about 'seeing'. And in 'seeing' there is no progression. One either sees something or not. The 'seeing' is an instantaneous action, as one can easily find that out for oneself. When someone is seeing a marvellous bird sitting in a tree and that person points that out to us, you either see the bird or you don't. You are not 'progressively' seeing the bird. It's instantaneous. It is the same with education that is concerned with the total human being. K can point out to us, or somebody else, or the child, or the teacher. But actually seeing that which is pointed out is no movement from a conditioned brain.

 

I think it is difficult for all of us to see how 'radical' K's teachings are. There is no in-between .

"One has to have an extraordinary, subtle, quick brain to see where the 'me' is hiding. It requires great attention, watching, watching, watching. The self hides in many ways, under every stone. If one really wants to go into this very deeply, one has to watch like a hawk every movement of thought, every movement of reaction, so the brain can be free from its conditioning." (K)

How do we introduce that movement of self-knowing into education? Every movement in education is one of 'acquiring': academic knowledge, technical skills, social skills,

emotional control, tolerance, concentration and so-called attention. All these are seen as something that must be acquired. But any desire to acquire something is a movement of the 'me'. How can we ever be free of the 'me' by using the 'me'?

 

In education that is concerned with the flowering of the children ánd the teachers there is no projection of any 'results'. Intelligent behaviour is beyond the 'me', so the only thing one can 'do' is to see (the child and the teacher) where we hinder this flowering. And that is a tremendous task! Non-action is much more difficult than so-called action with a particular result. How easily we are back into that movement of acquiring, how easily the past slips into the present!

 

K clearly stated in his Letters to the Schools:

"What we are concerned with in education is to free the mind of the me. As we have said on several occasions in these letters, it is our function to bring about a new generation free from this limited energy which is called the me. It must be repeated again that these schools exist to bring this about."

What a challenge for all of us! May we be together in this learning!

 

Ann

 

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