"Systems do not make for intelligence"
It is difficult in modern civilization to bring about, by means of education, an integrated individual. We have divided life into so many departments and our lives are so unintegrated, that education has very little meaning except merely when learning a particular technique, a particular profession.
Throughout the world, education has obviously failed - as the first function of education is to create a human being who is intelligent. To attempt to solve the problems of existence merely at their respective levels, separated into different departments, indicates an utter lack of intelligence. Our problem, then, is how to create an individual who is integrated through intelligence, so that he would be able to grapple with life from moment to moment, to face life as it comes with its complexities, with its conflicts, with its miseries, with its inequalities; an individual who can meet life, not according to a particular system either of the left or of the right, but intelligently, without seeking an answer or a pattern of action.
Since education has not produced such an individual, and since there have been successive wars one after the other, each more devastating and destructive, bringing greater sorrow and misery to man, obviously the educational systems throughout the world have completely failed. So, there is something radically wrong with the way we bring up our children. We all acknowledge that there is something wrong, we are all aware of it, but we do not know how to tackle that problem.
The problem is not the child, but the parent and the teacher; and what is necessary is to educate the educator. Without educating the educator, merely to stuff the child with a lot of information, making him pass examinations, is the most unintelligent form of education. The really important thing is to educate the educator, and that is one of the most difficult undertakings. The educator is already crystallized in a system of thought or a pattern of action; he is already a nationalist, he has already given himself over to a particular ideology, to a particular religion, to a particular standard of thought.
So the difficulty is, is it not?, that modern education teaches the child what to think, and not how to think. Surely, it is only when one has the capacity to think intelligently that one can meet life. Life cannot be made to conform to a system or be fitted into a framework; and the mentality that has merely been trained in factual knowledge is incapable of meeting life with its variety, its complexities, its subtleties, its depths and great heights. So, when our children are trained in a particular system of thought, according to a particular discipline, obviously they are incapable of meeting life as a whole; because they are taught to think in terms of departments, they are not integrated.
For the teacher who is interested, the question is how to bring out an integrated individual. To do that, obviously the teacher himself must also be integrated. One cannot bring up a child to be an integrated individual if one does not understand integration in oneself. That is, what you are in yourself is much more important than the traditional question of what to teach the child. The important thing is not what you think, but how you think, whether thought is merely an unintegrated process, or a complete, total process. Thought as an integrated process can be understood only when there is self-knowledge - and into this we will go during the later talks and discussions.
As there are numerous questions, I will try to answer briefly, quickly and definitely as many of the representative ones as possible. You may ask innumerable questions, but please bear in mind that to find the right answer you must have the capacity to listen, otherwise you will merely be carried away by words without much content. The art of listening is extremely arduous, because it consists in being interested and giving your full attention; but most of us are not interested in this question of education. We send our children to school, and that is the end of it; we consider that it is good riddance, and that it is the function of the teacher to educate them. Since most of us are not interested, it is extremely difficult to listen carefully and to understand. One may use the wrong word, the wrong phrase, an incorrect term; but the person who is very attentive goes through the inaccuracies of terminology and gets the gist of the meaning. So, I hope you will be able to follow swiftly and wisely.
Question: Do you approve of the Montessori and other systems of education? Have you any to recommend?
Krishnamurti: What is implied in a system of education? A framework into which you are fitting the child; and the questioner wants to know which framework will best help the child. Will any system of education really help to bring about integration? Or must there be, not a particular system, but intelligence on the part of the teacher to understand the child, to see what kind of child he is? There must be very few children for each teacher.
It is very easy to have a system for a large number of people - that is why systems are popular. You can force a great number of boys and girls into a particular system, and then you, the teacher, need not spend your thought on them. You practice your system on the poor children. Whereas, when you have no system, you must study each child, and that requires a great deal of intelligence, alertness and affection on the part of the teacher, does it not? It means classes limited to five or six.
Such a school would be extraordinarily expensive, therefore we resort to a system. Systems obviously do not bring about an integrated individual. System may help you to understand the child; but surely the primary necessity is that you, who are the teacher, should have the intelligence to use a system when necessary, and to drop it when it is not necessary. But when we turn to a system in place of affection, understanding and intelligence, then the teacher becomes merely a machine, and therefore the child grows up an unintegrated individual. Systems have a use only in the hands of an intelligent teacher: your own intelligence is the factor that will help. But most of us who are teachers have very little intelligence, therefore we turn to systems. It is so much easier to learn a system and to apply it, whether Montessori or any other, for then the teacher can sit back and watch. Surely, that is not education. Mere dependence on a particular system, however worthy, has very little significance. If the teacher himself is not really intelligent, when we adopt systems we are hindering intelligence.
Systems do not make for intelligence. Intelligence comes only through integration, a complete understanding of the total process of oneself and of the child. Therefore, it is necessary for a teacher to study the child directly and not merely to follow a particular system, either of the left or of the right, either Montessori or any other. To study the child implies a swift mind, a quick response, and that can take place only when there is affection. But in a class of sixty children, how can you have such affection? Modern society demands that boys and girls should learn certain professions, and for that there must be efficiency in education. When your object is to produce, not intelligent, alert human beings, but efficient machines, obviously you must have a system. Such a system cannot produce whole, integrated individuals who understand the importance of life, but only machines with certain responses; and that is why the present civilization is destroying itself.
| J. Krishnamurti Pune, India 5th Public Talk 26th September, 1948 |