17 Rabindranatha Tagore
Dr. Shanthi. G
Rabindranath’s poetic career culminated in his book Gitanjali, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Actually his fame as a poet has eclipsed his great contributions to education. Although Tagore’s literary versatility as a poet, dramatist, short-story writer, essayist, and novelist has received wide attention in his home country, his educational theory and practice have been neglected for the most part. Tagore did not have any academic degree in education, but he was a great educator of his time. He not only advocated changes in education but practiced them in his school at Shantiniketan. The school started in 1901, was later expanded and named Visva-Bharati, the International University. Visva-Bharati introduced the Department of Rural Welfare with the name Sriniketan. Sriniketan emerged as a centre of rural reconstruction and village education. Tagore is a pioneering educational thinker who could put into practice the principles of a holistic and realistic education. Today it is considered as a very revolutionary and progressive educational theory, even though not practiced by many. At present, when India is trying to find appropriate educational direction for its development, Tagore’s treatise on education needs to be revisited.
Philosophy of Education
Tagore, laid great stress and emphasis on the aesthetic development of the senses in his philosophy of education. He argued that development of the senses was as important as intellectual development. He therefore gave prominence to music, literature, art, dance, and drama in the daily life of the school. Tagore believed in an all round development of personality and in his institution education continues to address the all round development of the students.
Tagore’s theory of education is marked by naturalistic & aesthetic values. He had a belief that “The widest road leading to the solution of all our problems is education.” Education can develop a new pattern of life which culminates in the realisation of Universal man. Tagore’s system of education emphasises the intellectual, physical, social, moral economic and spiritual aspects of human life by which a man can develop an integrated personality (https://www.academia.edu/4659110/Rabindranath_Tagore_on_Education).
Tagore believed that along with education, economic upliftment is also necessary. Since economic life covers the whole width of the fundamental basis of society because its necessities are the simplest and the most universal, he suggested that educational institutions, in order to obtain their fullness of truth, must have close associations with this economic life. “Our university must not only instruct, but live; not only think, but produce” (https://archive.org/stream/tagorehiseducati00jala/tagorehiseducati00jala_djvu.txt).
(http://quotesgram.com/rabindranath-tagore-quotes-life/)
Aims of Education
Tagoer’s views on education and its aims are reflected in the goals of Shantiniketan an educational institution founded by him. The aims of education according to him are as follows:
Self Realisation
Spiritualism is the essence of humanism, this concept has been reflected in Tagore’s educational philosophy. Self-realisation is an important aim of education. Manifestation of personality depends upon the self-realisation and spiritual knowledge of an individual.
Intellectual Development
Tagore also greatly emphasised the intellectual development of the child. By intellectual development he means development of imagination, creative free thinking, constant curiosity and alertness of the mind. Children must be free to adopt their own ways of learning which would lead to all round development.
Physical Development
Tagore’s educational philosophy also aims at the physical development of the child. He gave much importance to a sound and healthy physique. There were different kinds of exercises, such as Yoga, games and sports prescribed in Shantiniketan as an integral part of the education system.
Love for Humanity
Tagore held that the entire universe is one family. Education can teach people to realize the oneness of the globe. Education for international understanding and universal brotherhood is another important aim of his educational philosophy. The feeling of oneness can be developed through concepts like fatherhood of God and brotherhood of human beings. In other words all beings are equal.
Establishment of Relationship between Man and God
Tagore noted that human beings possess different qualities and potentialities that are bestowed by God. These qualities are inborn and innate. Hence, the relationship between human beings and God is strong and permanent. However the dedication to spiritualism and sacredness will lead to a harmonious relationship between man, nature and God.
Freedom
Freedom according to Tagore is an integral aspect of human development. Education is a personality building process; it explores the innate power that exists within all human beings. It is not an imposition, but a liberal process that provides utmost freedom to individuals for their all round development. He says, “Education has learning only when it is imparted through the path of freedom”(https://archive.org/stream/ tagorehiseducati00jala/ tagorehiseducati00jala_djvu.txt).
Co-relation of Objects
Tagore noted that there exists a co-relation between God, man and nature. A peaceful world is only possible only when this co-relation is established between man and nature. Mother tongue as the Medium of Instruction
Tagore very strongly believed that the language is the true vehicle of self-expression. People can freely express their thoughts in their mother-tongues. Tagore has emphasised that mother tongue must serve as medium of instruction for a child’s education.
Moral and Spiritual Development
Tagore emphasised moral and spiritual training in his educational thought. Moral and spiritual education is more important than bookish knowledge for an integral development of human personality. There must be an adequate provision for the development of selfless activities, co-operation and love, fellow feeling and sharing among the students in educational institutions.
Social Development
According to Tagore, “Brahma” the supreme soul manifests himself through human beings and other creatures. Since ‘He’ is the source of all human-beings and creatures, all are equal. Rabindranath Tagore therefore said, “service to man is service to god”. Every human being must develop social relationship and fellow-feeling from the beginnings of one’s life. Education aims at developing the individual personality as well as social characters which enables them to live as worthy beings (https://www. academia.edu/ 4659110/Rabindranath _Tagore_ on_ Education).
It emerges from an understanding of the goals of education as enunciated by Tagore that he stressed on the emancipation of the soul more than the ‘body’ or ‘mind’. “For us to maintain our self- respect which we owe to ourselves and to our Creator, we must make the purpose of our education. . .the fullest growth and freedom of soul”. For the attainment of this aim, he emphasized on intellectual, physical, moral and social development of an individual (http://www.redbrickseducation.org/Pdf/Bo-Tree/people/People_ Vol.03_P03_ 2012_web.pdf ; Mondal et al, 2014.)
Ideal Education
In many works of Tagore, he has discussed what according to him ideal education is. He references to ideal education as one that covers an ideal atmosphere, institution, teacher, and method. While discussing Tagore’s educational ideals, Alex Aronson (1978) noted that the perfect education given to a child should, therefore, be like the perfect poem: self contained, unified, and controlled by the ever-recurring rhythm of natural growth from childhood to adulthood.
To Tagore it was not the formal method of teaching, which was the most important part of an ideal education, but it was the environment which surrounded the educational pattern. He believed that it is absolutely necessary to cater to the mental health and overall growth of children rather than merely teaching within four walls. Tagore noted that what is more important is a world whose guiding spirit is personal love. It must be an ashram where men have gathered for the highest end of life, in the peace of nature, where life is not merely meditative, but fully awake in its activities. It is due to this that any description of such a school would be inadequate. It is not some place which can be described in terms of fixed rules and regulations or curriculum. Here children live in an atmosphere of culture, and do not feel that the school is an imposition. Education is no longer instruction, but it is a process of inspiration and a joyous but slow absorption (Tagore. 1929).
Similarly, an ideal institution, in Tagore’s view, should provide children with the first important lesson of “improvisation” and with “constant occasions to explore one’s capacity through surprises of achievement.” There is no place for constant imposition of ready-made ideas and knowledge. Tagore advocated a creative middle path between work and asceticism. This middle path is the path of self-realization or Sadhana and this part has been emphasised most in Tagore’s ideal institution (https://www. academia.edu/ 4659110/Rabindranath_Tagore_on_Education, Tagore.1929,https://archive.org/stream/tagor ehiseducati00jala/tagorehiseducati00jala_djvu.txt).
Tagore noted that ‘Ideal education can be imparted only by ideal teachers’. According to Tagore the greater part of our learning in schools has been wasted because, for most of our teachers, their subjects are like dead specimens of once-living things with which they have a learned acquaintance, but no communication of life and love. The teacher who merely repeats bookish knowledge mechanically can never teach anything and can never inspire, and without proper inspiration independent creative faculties can never develop (Tagore. 1929).
Thus, true education, he asserts, develops the power of self-reliance, the ability to do without materials and the machine. The ideal of the Ashram education, which he advocated was education for life at its fullest. His idea was to train young men and women in freedom and strength, in courage and service. According to Tagore, books make the mind lazy. The child should be exposed to an atmosphere of creativity and learning, to a world of experiences. For the first twelve years we must educate the child’s mind along the line of its own natural tendencies and instincts and only then, at twelve years old, introduce the books” (Tagore. 1929). He never believed in compulsion, but tried to give the best side of human nature a chance to show itself. Everything in the school he left to the initiative of the pupils, though they were always in close touch with their elders. The primary object of an institution should not be merely to educate one’s limbs and mind to be in efficient readiness for all emergencies (Tagore. 1929).
Tagore’s Experiments with Educational Theory and Practice
Tagore’s educational theory was found practical expressions in his school at Shantiniketan. In December 1901, an experimental school known as Brahmacharyashram was started by Rabindranath with only five students on roll. The founding of the school was part of the education in fullness. Beginning with his own unhappy memory of school, which he described as a blend of hospital and gaol, he concentrated on children and emphasized creativity, the need for atmosphere and natural surroundings. The aim was neither ascetic nor revivalistic but integrative. Tagore notes that his initial efforts drew comments such as “an outcome of his poetic fancy”, “something outrageously new being the product of daring experience” (Tagore, 1917q, p. 137). Nevertheless, he succeeded in gathering around him a band of selfless workers and the management of the school was carried on along simple democratic lines through a committee almost entirely elected by the staff. Education was entirely free. The curriculum included English, Bengali, Sanskrit, Arithmetic, History, Geography, and Science. All work like housekeeping, gardening, except cooking, had to be done by the pupils themselves. Life was simple, regular and austere and was inspired by the ideals of hospitality, self-help and respect for the elders (https://archive.org/stream/tagore hiseducati00jala/tagorehiseducati00jala_djvu.txt). Life in the midst of nature he believed, equips each pupil to imbibe the values of appreciation of the nature its sustenance, co-living and respect for multi-cultural components of human society. The learning was based on self experiencing of the universe around us and drawing intensely from it. In the play hours in the evenings in his schooling method, each student has to spend in story-telling, watching the stars, singing, and performing plays. These songs and plays most of the time were encouraged to be written by students themselves. Learning was made fun and the choice of the child. This approach to learning helped many students to come to his experimental school rather than discontinue. A school which began with less than 10 students had 150 on rolls in a short span of time. This increase in student population necessitated immediate extension of school buildings and expansion of grounds and facilities. In 1908 the girls’ section was added. Although according to the syllabus prescribed textbooks had to be studied in the matriculation classes, stereotyped textbooks were discarded and general reading was encouraged. Thorough attention was paid to the health of the students. Games and gardening were compulsory. Though the school unfairly enough enjoyed the unenviable reputation of being an exile for problem children, corporal punishment was prohibited on principle and very seldom actually resorted to.
From 1919, arrangements were made for providing courses of higher studies in Buddhist literature, Vedic and Classical Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit and later on Tibetan, Chinese, Jain, Zoroastrian and Islamic studies. Tagore had already introduced the teaching of art and music, and now, Kala Bhavan (School of Art and Music) was established at Visva- Bharati (https://archive.org/stream/tagorehiseducati00jala/tagorehiseducati00jala_djvu.txt, https://www. academia.edu/ 4659110/Rabindranath_Tagore_ on_ Education). Viswa-Bharati
The idea of establishing a center of learning where not only the East but the whole world would meet in cultural communion took a more definite shape during his tour of foreign countries immediately after World War I. The name Visva-Bharati came into existence in 1921. Since then Shantiniketan has been the seat of Visva-Bharati – an international university, seeking to develop a basis on which the cultures of the East and the West may meet in common fellowship with a motto “Yatra Visvam Bhavatyekanidam”, ie., “where the world makes its home in a single nest”. Visva-Bharati as a whole, aimed at establishing a living relationship between the East and the West, promoting inter-racial amity and inter-cultural understanding and fulfilling the highest mission of the present age – the unification of mankind.
The school went through innumerable experimental changes and finally emerged in two parts namely, Vidya Bhavan, which concentrated mainly on research work and studies of different eastern cultures, and Siksha-Bhavan, which imparted collegiate education up to the graduation level. The music and art sections were separated in 1934 and the music section became the Sangeet Bhavana, while the art section retained its old name, Kala Bhavana. In the late thirties, two more departments, Cheena-Bhavana and Hindi Bhavana were established with endowments for Chinese and Hindi studies. After Rabindranath Tagore’s death in 1941, Rabindra- Bhavana was established in July 1942, as a Research Academy and Memorial Museum. In 1948, another department, Vinaya-Bhavana, was established under the basic education training scheme. In May 1951, four years after independence of India, Visva-Bharati was declared to be an institution of national importance and was incorporated as a unitary teaching and residential university by Act XXIX of 1951 of the Indian Parliament (https://archive.org/stream/tagorehiseducati00jala/tagorehiseducati00jala_djvu.txt, https:// www.academia.edu/4659110/Rabindranath_Tagore_on_Education).
Sriniketan
Any description of Visva-Bharati is incomplete without Sriniketan. Tagore believed that an important part of the work of a university should be to gather accurate knowledge about rural conditions, their practices related to various aspects of life in general and agriculture and economy and social issues in particular and also their tribulations related to the life situations. He wanted the knowledge acquired by the students and research groups be used to solve the issues and problems faced by rural communities. To Tagore, the word “Sri” in Sriniketan stood for prosperity. The name Sriniketan therefore reveals Tagore’s hope to make it a center where rural development related knowledge would be developed based on the inputs at grass-roots level and also to bring more authentic scientific knowledge to rural communities so that the lives of these people could be more meaningful, thus leading to prosperity and welfare of villages.
Sriniketan was started with two main objectives. First, to understand the economic and social needs of the cultivators and second, to extend the scientific knowledge available in areas like health, education, agricultural practices, animal husbandry and craft. Accordingly, the activities of Sriniketan were organized under four departments: (1) Agriculture, including Animal Husbandry, (2) Industries, (3) Village Welfare, and (4) Education, and the unified program was given the name of Institute of Rural Reconstruction “Palli Samgathan Vibhaga” (https://www. academia.edu/ 4659110/Rabindranath _Tagore_ on_ Education, Tagore.1929, https://archive.org/stream/ tagorehiseducati00jala/ tagorehiseducati00jala _djvu .txt).
Siksha-Satra
Tagore’s philosophy further translated into action when he established a high school, Siksha-Satra, mainly for rural children in Sriniketan. This is apart the educational activities of the Village Welfare Department. The school is organised as a miniature community and students do everything that a village householder is expected to do, on a small scale but with greater efficiency and understanding. The literary education is not ignored but more attention is given to building up of the complete human being. The extra-curricular activities of the Siksha-Satra included: (1) Industry (weaving, carpentry, book-binding and leather works), (2) Gardening, (3) Health and sanitation, (4) Housecraft and general management, (5) Sports, games and Brati-Balaka activities, (6) Educational trips to places of interest, (7) Literary society, (8) A monthly manuscript magazine – Chesta (Effort). Siksha-Charcha Bhavana – Educational activities at Sriniketan also included a training school for teachers of village primary school which is known as Siksha-Charcha. It provides instruction in both theory and practice for teachers. Practical training in one village craft is considered essential.
After Tagore’s death a new department was added in Sriniketan. This was the Palli Siksha Sadana, a College of Agriculture. It was designed primarily to equip rural youth with the knowledge of modern methods of farming. Besides, instruction in basic sciences like Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Botany and Zoology, it also provides specialised courses in Agronomy, Goat Keeping, Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Chemistry, Horticulture, Entomology, Agricultural Engineering, Plant Pathology, Genetics, Plant Breeding and Farm Management. Practical training in agriculture and dairy farms and field work are integral elements of the course (https://archive.org/stream/tagorehiseducati00jala/tagorehis educat i00jala_djvu.txt, https://www.academia.edu/4659110/Rabindranath _Tagore_ on_Education). Educational Contributions of Tagore
To understand Tagore’s contributions to education one must glean through his various writings and educational experiments at Santiniketan. This is mainly due to the fact that Tagore did not write an educational treatise. We understand his thoughts on education evolved gradually with many experiments and his exposure to different schooling methods across the globe. He envisioned an education that was deeply rooted in one’s immediate surroundings but connected to the cultures of the wider world, predicated upon pleasurable learning, individualised to the personality of the child. He felt that a curriculum should revolve organically around nature with classes held in the open air under the trees to provide for a spontaneous appreciation of the fluidity of the plant and animal kingdoms, and seasonal changes. Children sat on hand-woven mats beneath the trees, which they were allowed to climb and run beneath between classes. Nature walks and excursions were a part of the curriculum and students were encouraged to follow the life cycles of insects, birds and plants. Class schedules were made flexible to allow for shifts in the weather or special attention to natural phenomena, and seasonal festivals were created for the children by Tagore (https://archive.org/stream/ tagorehiseducati00jala/ tagorehiseducati00jala _djvu.txt).
Tagore’s philosophy of education placed equal importance on the aesthetic development of the senses along with the intellectual. To him music, literature, art, dance and drama were very important aspects of daily school life. Without music and the fine arts, he wrote, a nation lacks its highest means of national self-expression and the people remain inarticulate. Tagore was one of the first to support and bring together different forms of Indian dance. He helped revive folk dances and introduced dance forms from other parts of India, such as Manipuri, Kathak and Kathakali. He also supported modern dance.
In keeping with his theory of subconscious learning, Tagore engaged the students in whatever he was writing or composing. The students were allowed access to the room where he read his new writings to teachers and critics, and they were encouraged to read out their own writings in special literary evenings. In teaching also he believed in presenting difficult levels of literature, which the students might not fully grasp, but which would stimulate them. The students at Shantiniketan were encouraged to create their own publications and put out several illustrated magazines. The children were encouraged to follow their ideas in painting and drawing and to draw inspiration from the many visiting artists and writers (https://www. academia.edu/ 4659110/Rabindranath _Tagore_ on_ Education).
The melting point of cultures, as Tagore had envisioned it at Visva-Bharati, a learning centre where conflicting interests are minimized , where individuals work together in a common pursuit of truth and realise ‘that artists in all parts of the world have created forms of beauty, scientists discovered secrets of the universe, philosophers solved the problems of existence, saints made the truth of the spiritual world organic in their own lives, not merely for some particular race to which they belonged, but for all mankind.’
To encourage mutuality, Tagore invited artists and scholars from other parts of India and the world to live together at Shantiniketan on a daily basis to share their cultures with Visva-Bharati. The Constitution designated Visva-Bharati as an Indian, Eastern and Global cultural centre whose goals were to:
- Study the mind of Man in its realisation of different aspects of truth from diverse points of view.
- Bring into more intimate relation with one another through patient study and research, the different cultures of the East on the basis of their underlying unity.
- Approach the West from the standpoint of such a unity of the life and thought of Asia.
- Seek to realise in a common fellowship of study the meeting of East and West and thus ultimately strengthen the fundamental conditions of world peace through the free communication of ideas between the two hemispheres.
- And with such Ideals in view to provide at Shantiniketan a centre of culture where research into the study of the religion, literature, history, science and art of Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Zoroastrian, Islamic, Sikh, Christian and other civilisations may be pursued along with the culture of the West, with that simplicity of externals which is necessary for true spiritual realisation, in amity, good-fellowship and co-operation between the thinkers and scholars of both Eastern and Western countries, free from all antagonisms of race, nationality, creed or caste and in the name of the One Supreme Being who is Shantam, Shivam, Advaitam (O’Connell, K. M. (2003).
In terms of curriculum, Tagore advocated a different methodology of teaching. Rather than studying national cultures for the wars won and cultural dominance imposed, he advocated a teaching system that analysed history and culture for the progress that had been made in breaking down social and religious barriers. Rabindranath Tagore is acknowledged as a living icon of the type of mutuality and creative exchange that he advocated.
Tagore’s educational efforts were ground-breaking in many areas. He was one of the first in India to argue for a humane educational system that was in touch with the environment and aimed at overall development of the personality. Shantiniketan became a model for vernacular instruction and the development of Bengali textbooks; as well, it offered one of the earliest coeducational programs in South Asia. The establishment of Visva-Bharati and Sriniketan led to pioneering efforts in many directions, including models for distinctively Indian higher education and mass education, as well as pan-Asian and global cultural exchange.
One characteristic that sets Rabindranath Tagore’s educational theory apart is his approach to education as a poet. At Shantiniketan, he stated, his goal was to create a poem ‘in a medium other than words.’ It was this poetic vision that enabled him to fashion a scheme of education which was all inclusive, and to devise a unique program for education in nature and creative self-expression in a learning climate congenial to global cultural exchange.
Summing Up
Rabindranath Tagore, stands with the pioneering educators, like, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Montessori and Dewey Malcolm Knowles, who have striven to create non-authoritarian learning systems appropriate to the surroundings(O’Connell, K. M. (2003). Tagore’s ideas of non-authoritarian learning and goals for international education is best understood through his poem he writes:
“Where the mind is without fear
and the head is held high,
where knowledge is free.
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls.
Where words come out from the depth of truth,
where tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection. Where the clear stream of reason has not lost it’s way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit.
Where the mind is led forward by thee
into ever widening thought and action.
In to that heaven of freedom, my father,
LET MY COUNTRY AWAKE!”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali: Song Offerings
“The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence.”
“he who has the knowledge has the responsibility to impart it to the students.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali
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REFERENCE
- Alex Aronson. Rabindranath Through Western Eyes. 1978. Rddhi-India; 2nd edition
- Mondal et al, 2014. Foundations and Development of Education, Rita Publications, Kolkata
- O’Connell, K. M. (2003). ‘Rabindranath Tagore on education’, the encyclopaedia of informal education.[http://infed.org/mobi/rabindranath-tagore-on-education/. Retrieved:24.03.2016].
- Pushpanathan. T. 2013. Rabindranath Tagore s philosophy of education and its influence on Indian education. International Journal of Current Research and Academic Review 2013;1(4):42-45
- Tagore, Rabindranath. 1917. My Reminiscences. New York: The Macmillan Company.
- Tagore, Rabindranath. 1917 Personality. London: Macmillan & Co.
- Tagore Rabindranath. 1922. Creative Unity. London: Macmillan & Co.
- Tagore, Rabindranath. 1929. “Ideals of Education”, The Visva-Bharati Quarterly (April-July), 73-4.
- Tagore, Rabindranath (1961) Towards Universal Man. New York: Asia Publishing House.
- (https://archive.org/stream/tagorehiseducati00jala/tagorehiseducati00jala_djvu.txt)
- (https://www.academia.edu/4659110/Rabindranath_Tagore_on_Education http://quotesgram.com/rabindranath-tagore-quotes-life/
- http://www.redbrickseducation.org/Pdf/Bo-Tree/people/People_ Vol.03_P03_ 2012_web.pdf http://infed.org/mobi/rabindranath-tagore-on-education/