Sri Aurobindo and Value Education

by Ranjana Bhatia

Sri Aurobindo had suggested Indian Renaissance to deal with the problem of value erosion in the society. According to him, ‘the recovery of the old spiritual knowledge and experience in all its splendor, depth and fullness is its first most essential work. The flowing of this spirituality into new forms of philosophy, literature, art, science and critical knowledge is the second. An original dealing with modern problems in the light of Indian spirit and the endeavour to formulate a greater synthesis of a spiritualized society is the third and most difficult. Its success on these three lines will be the measure of its help to the future of humanity.’

Value theorists are still debating whether values are subjective, objective, relational, and absolute or relative etc., whether or not there is any primary value, and if there is, which value is primary and which is secondary. Unless these debates are settled, - and there does not seem to be a chance of their being settled in the near future, - we cannot prepare, they say, a scheme of value inculcation, or plead for inculcating this or that value, through an educational programme. This is a gross misunderstanding of the nature of philosophical theories of value and of philosophical disagreement.

The disagreeing theories do not question the importance of a value, or the importance of value inculcation. They present different, alternative, accounts, plans for comprehending, or analysis, of our discourse about values. To use disagreements among them as a ground for suspending all attempts to prepare a concrete plan for enabling our educational practice to perform its natural role of value inculcation is like using philosophical disagreements about the correct analysis of visual perception for suspending the activity of seeing anything until disagreeing epistemologists sort out their differences. Those who think this way, forget that a philosophical theory operates on a level different from the level on which an activity like inculcating a value, or perceiving a thing, does. An educational practice is naturally predisposed to inculcate some values, positive or negative. Therefore, we cannot afford to be indifferent to the way it is anytime conducted.
References:
• Value Education, a handbook for teachers, September 1997, Central Board of Secondary Education• Philosophy of Value Oriented Education: Theory and Practice, an article by Sunil Kumar, Director, Vivekananda Centre for Holistic Management• Value Education, an article by Mamota Das, University News, 42(16), April 19-25, 2004• Value Orientation in Teacher Education, a resource paper by A.N. Maheshwari, Chairperson, National Council for Teacher Education• Report of National Seminar-cum-Workshop on Value Education (September 7,8 and 9, 1995), Central Board of Secondary Education• Value in the context of Learning, chairman’s remarks at the Indian Council of Philosophical Research seminar on Value Education, New Delhi, January 18, 2002
This paper was presented in National Seminar organised by H.N.B garhwal University, Srinagar, Garhwal. This entry was posted on Thursday, October 19th, 2006 at 3:27 pm and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Developing Leadership Quality in Women TEACHER EDUCATION AND CHALLENGES OF CHANGE