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Lama Yeshe giving a public talk at the Theosophical Society, Adyar Theatre, Sydney, Australia, 1975. Photo courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. Photo courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
“On Educating Children,” is a discourse given by Lama Yeshe at Kedron Park Teachers College, Brisbane, Australia, April 29, 1975. In this excerpt, Lama offers advice on how to best educate children on the fundamentals of living in the modern world, and also to foster their abilities and interests and develop them. He stressed that good teachers feel responsibility toward their students and really try to communicate well and understand them.
“The purpose of education is to benefit people. We all know this. However, different countries have their own ideas of what constitutes benefit according to their individual inclinations. What some countries consider to be bad education, other countries consider good. In other words, what makes education good or bad depends on how one interprets good and bad.
“These days, people live in so many different environments, societies and communities—rural, urban, industrial, intellectual and so forth—that education itself has become confused. For a start, no one person can learn every existent technology; that’s obviously impossible.
“Therefore, the decision as to what constitutes a good education depends very much upon personal interest, but ultimately, we have to decide whether what we’re learning benefits us and helps us benefit others. If we’re not clear about this from the beginning, we can embark on one course of study but finish up thinking, ‘Oh, this doesn’t help,’ and drop it. Then try something else but that doesn’t work either; then something else again . . . we go on so many educational trips but eventually finish up empty.
“I think everybody—especially people in the West—should at least receive a basic, general education in things such as writing, mathematics, cooking, gardening and housekeeping. Those things are essential. If we simply focus on theory and technical education and ignore the practicalities, we won’t even be able to make ourselves breakfast. That’s not realistic.
“Life in the modern world demands we know the fundamentals—how to prepare food and how things work. The benefit is security. What use is abstruse technology if we suddenly find ourselves alone? We could die of hunger. Don’t think it couldn’t happen; in this world we can never be sure. And don’t think it’s easy to survive because we have money. Money isn’t everything. Therefore, an education in the basics of human necessity is essential. Studying technology without knowing the fundamentals of survival can be very dangerous.”
“When it comes to teaching others, we have to take into account and foster our students’ abilities and interests and try to develop those qualities in the classroom; if we don’t, the students just get bored or upset. Especially at this time, it’s not wise to teach in an authoritarian, dogmatic way: ‘Sit there! Learn this!’ Children nowadays are very intellectually free and don’t respond well to coercion. So we have to arouse their interest. Skillful teachers know how to make their students interested in the subject being taught, whatever it is; that’s a uniquely human ability. Simply pushing students isn’t just unwise. It doesn’t work.” Read this entire teaching.
This talk has been published in the LYWA book Knowledge-Wisdom: The Peaceful Path the Liberation. All of the chapters are available to read online.
Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), is a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.