Issue 17 - January 2013

Question: What kind of education should my child have, in order to face this chaotic world?

Krishnamurti questioned the schools constantly about why they were producing mice instead of lions and gazelles.

We are probably all familiar with Krishnamurti’s statement, ‘The first step is the last step’, but what preoccupies teachers on a daily basis is how they will approach a particular student; how they will make their teaching ‘not boring’; and whether they have the tools for the job, both in terms of knowledge and psychological readiness.

'Academics' is a top priority in all educational institutions, for obvious reasons.

Young children experience conflict every day, generated by differences in age, size, physical abilities, language, race, ethnicity and culture, religion, family structure, socioeconomic class and gender: 'No girls allowed!' Children wish to be treated fairly and they have problems with perceived unfairness.

The junior school children, aged around eight, are in class for a geometry module.

Ethic - a set of moral principles, esp. ones relating to or affirming a specified group, field or form of conduct: the puritan ethic was being replaced by the hedonist ethic.

The schools in India that derive their inspiration from the philosophy of Krishnamurti are different from the mainstream schools in many aspects.

The love of beauty may express itself in a song, in a smile, or in silence; but most of us have no inclination to be silent.

This article is the result of a study, by teachers and parents at Shibumi, of a letter from the book The Whole Movement of Life is Learning.

Recently, on a blackboard in a very public corridor used by students for good-natured but generally anonymous graffiti, something like the following had been neatly printed: SMILE WHEN YOU USE COMPUTERS IN THE COMPS LAB – YOU'RE UNDER CCTV.

We are academicians-cum-practitioners, one from the environmental sciences and the other from the social sciences, coming together as teachers with the aim of re-envisioning an approach to environmental studies.

The right kind of education begins with the educator, who must understand himself and be free from established patterns of thought; for what he is, that he imparts.

I am the mother all right, but I worry when my child assumes that I am the parent!’ As parents and teachers we had come together at the annual theme meeting at The School (KFI) to discuss our role in a child’s life and a child’s role in ours.

In late 2011 Oak Grove School facilitated a series of one-hour dialogues focused on an exploration of punishment and reward in educational practice.

This article is a rumination on what happens in us teachers when we 'teach' another.

If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.

No one remembers why they called it the 'Concert'.

I did not know J Krishnamurti personally and had only one occasion to see and hear him, but this talk is very vivid in my memory.

I don't want to be a tree; I want to be its meaning.

For some time now, I have been fascinated by what children are thinking about as they read.

It was on a crisp winter morning, when the entire teacher body of Rajghat Besant School sat in the eastern verandah of our magnificent assembly hall that it was announced that articles were invited for the Journal of Krishnamurti Schools.

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view ...

School is an institution for drilling children [and teachers] in cultural orientations.

Underneath the obvious critical situation of the economy and the environment, isn't the world today actually suffering from a crisis in knowing and thinking?