Monday, 14 March 2016

Education, Intelligence and Intellect.

Education, Intelligence and intellect.
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If we go by etymology, try to find out the origin of the word ‘education’, understanding about other such words may give us some hint.
Edit, edict, and educate are obviously words from the same origin.
If we compare the Sanskrit word, we see :
इ > एति > ईयते (कर्मवाच्य)
अधि-इ > अधीते > अधीयते (कर्मवाच्य)      
i > eti > īyate (karmavācya)
adhi-i > adhīte > adhīyate (karmavācya)
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The prefix [प्रविष्ट / praviṣṭa] अधि / adhi takes the form ad / ed
We could perhaps consider the possibility that ‘edit’ has origin in अधीते >  adhīte.
We may also take a glance at
दिश् / दिक् / diś / dik > Direction, to give direction / to direct / अव-दिश् > av-diś > edict >edit.
We could discover the rules that govern etymology and be convinced how the ‘word’ is an expression of ‘meaning’. But that would amount a drift from the present topic.
Here I mentioned this just by way of reference.
Education thus comprises of learning, discovering and not kind of imitation or getting trained in performing something by repeating only.
A child ‘learns’ understands by own intelligence that the teacher / parent is trying to elicit a definite response from the child. So either by luring the child the teacher attempts evoking the same in various ways, or coerces, forces, cajoles the child directly or indirectly to do this. In the process, though the child learns the habit of repeating a word or even a sentence, this virtually kills the simple delicate tender normal intelligence that was there in the child from the very beginning. The child becomes a repeating mechanism only. He could memorize a lot of ‘words’ and verbal garbage but the light of intelligence gets crushed under this acquisition of ‘information’ and ‘knowledge’. The 'words' are mutually related in a framework of thought but have lose the 'meaning' / 'sense' the word is an expression of.
This framework of ‘information’ is apparently a key to success in the daily life of the child and though he may be enthusiastic about it, he nevertheless becomes a stereotype only.
If the teacher understands how he could let the flame of intelligence in the child / student keep burning and let not smothered, learning a new word does not hinder or block the spontaneous intelligence.
Unfortunately almost every-one of us has to go through this ordeal, trauma. And we instill more and more words and knowledge in the simple delicate tender minds of the coming generations.
We teach them through play and games, through ways of entertainment. That puts off even the least possibility of awakening of their natural spontaneous intelligence.
We teach them imitation, - not the discovery.
In teaching, teacher and student both learn. And there is no such thing as authority in teaching / learning, though there may be a formal one because teacher could help the child / student with affection and attention. This attention is the only real teacher.
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