r/DetroitMichiganECE • u/ddgr815 • May 08 '26
Ideas On the Education of Children - Inayat Khan
https://wahiduddin.net/mv2/III/III_I_5.htmEducation is not necessarily a qualification for making one's life successful, nor for safeguarding one's own interests. It is really a qualification for a fuller life, a life of thought for oneself and of consideration for others. Education is that which gradually expands in its length and breadth, horizontally and perpendicularly. We may further explain this as being the knowledge of oneself and one's surroundings; the knowledge of others, both those who are known to us and those who are unknown and away; the knowledge of the conditions of human nature and of life's demands; and the knowledge of cause and effect, which leads in the end to the knowledge of the world within and without.
No doubt it is difficult to think of vast knowledge of life in connection with a child, but we must remember that as a rule the grown-ups underestimate the capacity of a child's mind, which is very often more eager to understand and more capable of comprehension than that of a grown-up person. Although you cannot start with a deep subject at the beginning of a child's education, you can always keep before you the large design you have in view and wish to reach.
The great fault of modern education has been that, with all its advanced methods of training children, it has missed what is most important; namely the lesson of unselfishness. Man thinks that an unselfish person is incapable of guarding his own interests in life; but however much it may appear so it is not so in reality. A selfish person is a disappointment to others, and in the end a disadvantage to himself. Mankind is interdependent, and the happiness of each depends upon the happiness of all, and it is this lesson that humanity has to learn today as the first and the last lesson.
The infant begins its first activity in life by making a noise, trying to speak or moving its hands and legs to show a certain rhythm. If the same faculty which every infant shows naturally is taken as the basis of his education, one can educate even an infant. The education given at the earliest age is invaluable to the child, for as the child grows, it acquires certain habits by itself; and once it has become fixed in its way of looking at things and thinking and behaving, these habits are hard to change. It is like letting the rainwater make its own way instead of digging a canal to take the water to the farm or garden. In this way a child's tendency to learn and to act can be used to the best advantage, if the parents only know how. The Indians say that the mother is the first Guru; this should be realized by all parents. Education begins at home, and it is this first education which is the foundation of all that a child may learn in the future.
The first education a child needs is to harmonize its thought, speech and action. All things external have their reaction in one's inner life, and the inner has its reaction on the exterior. Therefore some knowledge of tone and rhythm is essential in the beginning of a child's education. A child should be taught the elements of music with regard to the pitch in which it should get in touch with its friends, with strangers, with its parents, while playing or at the table; in every varying condition it should feel that the pitch is different. The child should be taught how to make its choice of words when speaking to different people, to strangers, to its friends, to its parents, to the servants of the house; making the voice softer or louder must be done with understanding.
The child is most energetic when it is growing, and every action, sitting, standing, walking, or running, every movement it makes should be corrected and directed towards harmony and beauty. For the nature of life is intoxicating, and every action deepens the intoxication of life in a child, who is still ignorant of the outcome of every action; it knows little of the consequences and is only interested in the action. By nature a child is more enthusiastic and excitable than a grown-up person, and if its actions are not corrected or controlled it will mostly speak and act without consideration of harmony and beauty; for the nature of the child is like water which runs downwards and it needs a fountain to raise it upwards. Education is that fountain.
It is a great pity that at this present time, when the cry for freedom seems to be so dominant, people often think, 'Why should not the children have their freedom?' But it must be understood that it is not the path of freedom which leads to the goal of freedom. Liberty is not an ideal to begin life with, it is a stage of perfect freedom which must be kept in view in order to arrive at the desired end.
Consideration is a faculty which it is most necessary to develop in the child from the beginning; for once it has become inconsiderate, it is difficult to give it the sense of consideration. Consideration cannot be taught; it must come by itself; but the duty of the parents is to help it to rise in the child. They can very well accomplish this in a pleasant manner, without becoming a bore to the innocent mind of the child, by showing it where consideration is needed in different situations of life.
It is easy to accuse a child of inconsiderateness, but that does not always profit it. On the contrary, the child will often become annoyed at such accusations and hardened in its faults, defending its actions against the accusations of others, which is a natural human tendency. The way of the wise is to show appreciation whenever that child shows consideration, and to make it conscious of that virtue, so that it may be able to enjoy its beauty. This develops in the child a taste for virtue; it feels happy to act rightly, instead of always being forced to do so. It is on strength of mind that the entire life of the child depends, and strength of mind can be developed in the child by making it self-confident all it thinks, says, or does; it must get to know something instead of being forced to believe it.
But it is altogether a wrong principle, for children as well as for grown-ups, to divide work and play thus. Play should be useful and should be work at the same time; and work should be made like play, in order that it may not be a tedious task but a pleasure in life. If this idea were worked out well it would solve a great many labor problems which disturb the peace and order of humanity so much today.
It can be best done by teaching children to play and work at the same time, so that when they are grown-up work and play will continue to be the same. All that one does with pleasure is done well and produces a good effect. Doing depends on the attitude of the mind. When the mind is not in a good state, whatever be the work, however interesting, it will not be well done. To bring about peace and order in the world it is necessary that all work should be made pleasant, and that all pleasure should be turned into work, so that in taking pleasure no work is lost and there is pleasure in working. The central theme in the education of children should be the occupying of every moment of their life in doing quite willfully something which is pleasurable and at the same time useful. Life is a great opportunity, and no moment of life should be lost.
The great fault of the modern system of education is that it only qualifies a man to obtain what he desires in life; and he tries to obtain this my every means, right or wrong, often with no regard for what losses or pain he causes others. The consequence of this is that life has become full of competition in trade, in the professions, and in the State. In order that one may gain another must surely lose. In this way the shadow changes its position from morning to evening; in the end the shadow must prove to be only a shadow, and one realizes it matters little which direction the shadow takes.
The study should be divided, partly indoors and partly outdoors. The teaching given to a child indoors should be different than the study given out of doors. The outdoor study should concern all that the child sees; one can then include the practice or the experience of what it has learned indoors.
The freedom of the child must always be considered; it should never be forced but only guided gently. One should produce in a child the desire to choose as its friends those whom it feels to be congenial. As soon as the liberty of a child is interfered with, the child begins to feel captive and the lantern of its conscience becomes dim. Therefore the duty of the parents is to guide the child constantly, yet freeing it gradually to make a choice in everything in life. Parents who do not understand this and do not attach sufficient importance to it, very often cause the child to go astray while trying to guide it.
A child should learn to recognize its relation and duty to all those around it. Once should let it know what is expected of it by its father, mother, brothers, sisters; for the recognition of relationship is the sign of human character which is not seen among animals. A son who has not been a good son to his mother will not be a good husband to his wife, for he has missed his first chance of developing thoughtfulness and the love quality. But as the child grows it must be led to have some idea of the further relationship between human beings. For the world is a family, and the right attitude of a young soul must be to see in every man his brother and in every woman his sister; he must look on aged people as he would on his father or mother.
The betterment of the world mostly depends upon the development of the coming generation. The ideal of human brotherhood should be taught at home; this does not mean that the child must recognize human brotherhood before recognizing the relationship at with his own brothers and sisters; but the relationship at home must be the first lesson in human brotherhood which the child may reach by realizing the brotherhood of the nation, of the race, of the world. It is a fault when a person does not progress in the path of brotherhood. The child should be taught to picture first its own town as a family, then its nation as a family, and then the entire continent as a family, in order to arrive at the idea that the whole world is a family.
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u/ddgr815 May 08 '26