Children today appear very different from what we were at their age. I once happened to see a video of J Krishnamurti addressing a group of young children. The children were neatly dressed, polite, paid keen attention to Krishnaji’s talk and were respectful towards him. A section of them actively participated in the discussion with him.
This made me wonder about the bygone era when (as I recollect) we listened, imbibed, reflected, learned and shaped ourselves. We were perhaps less under pressure from our peers. The students we encounter today seem unlike us. Torn between conflicting worlds of home and school, distracted and dependent on gadgets, I wonder if they are slowly becoming unmindful, oblivious of what is going on around them? How do we get them to be mindful of their behaviour, feelings, emotions, their environment and of their attitude towards thinking and learning? How do we help them to make sense of the complex world we live in?
This article explores some ways that we as teachers might help students find Krishnamurti’s teachings to be meaningful and enable them to reflect on challenges they will face in their lives. More specifically, I will consider how his teachings may be embedded in the disciplines we teach, and especially in my subject which is Business Studies and Economics.
Critical thinking as a goal ‘Critical thinking’ is a buzzword in education. According to Robert Ennis, critical thinking means, “reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do.” The goals that educational systems across the world draw up are encapsulated in Bloom’s revised taxonomy, which brings focus on higher order thinking skills—analysis, evaluation, and creation—that go beyond remembering, understanding, and applying. Among the aims of Economics and Business studies is that of inculcating critical thinking abilities such as: identifying the key focus or underlying questions in an issue; analyzing arguments; and asking questions to clarify and/or challenge conclusions.
Krishnamurti and critical thinking
The process of questioning helps to build these critical thinking skills. This is something that we notice when we listen to or read Krishnamurti. It manifests itself in every one of his talks, commentaries, and dialogues, in which he emphasizes the art of questioning. He asks, “Can we find out the right way of questioning so that intelligence can arise?” (Krishnamurti, ‘The Art of Questioning’, Seminar at Brockwood Park, 12 September 1978)
I believe that students can be helped to develop these skills by closely watching Krishnamurti’s videos or reading a selected text as a precursor to introducing some key topics in my subject. Some topics that require a deeper understanding of issues include ‘market failure’ (in economics) as well as ‘ethics’ (in business studies). For example, chapter 54 from the book, The Whole Movement of Life is Learning, titled ‘If You Hurt Nature, You Are Hurting Yourself’, provides an apt backdrop for introducing topics such as ‘negative externality in the form of pollution’ or ‘sustainable development’.
Krishnamurti’s writing may also be used to enable students to discern some specific abilities in his approach to various human issues. For instance, to get a nuanced sense of ethics in the context of social work, students of business studies can be asked to read Chapter 7 from Commentaries on Living—Series 3, titled ‘Won’t you join our animal welfare society?’. Krishnamurti describes a person who comes to him with a request to join their animal welfare society. As the conversation moves on, he identifies key terms that are pertinent to the situation, like ‘ambition’, ‘cooperation’ and ‘love’, and raises some critical questions. He asks, “which is the true beginning of any action: is it love, or the capacity to organize?” He questions whether ‘ambition’ can be the source of true action and cooperation, and states at one point that ‘co-operation comes naturally and easily when we love what we are doing; and then cooperation is a delight.’ Through this exchange we discern Krishnamurti’s keen observation of people, how he defines terms, analyses loosely used ethical vocabulary and deals with equivocations by raising uncomfortable questions that bring hidden motivations to the surface.
Critical thinking in action
As a teacher of these disciplines, I have tried to draw on Krishnamurti’s approach and get the students to realise that the first step of critical thinking is asking the right questions in order to understand the complexity of socio-economic issues. My class often begins with students reading the current economics or business news. Then each student comes up with a question pertaining to the news article. In the first few weeks, the students struggle to frame good questions; then they gradually move to more open-ended questions, which eventually lead to rich discussions amongst themselves. Sometimes questions are left unanswered, and students are encouraged to probe into these on their own.
One such class dealt with the slow but steady rise in demand for electric vehicles (EVs). We asked: is this as beneficial as it is projected to be? Initially, the discussion began with profits earned by MNCs producing EVs and how eventually petrol and diesel driven vehicles would lose their markets. Then they identified the stakeholders who would benefit and those who would lose. The discussion moved to identifying the monopolistic market structure that the automobile sector increasingly reflects. We also delved into further questions: who could own EVs, why were EVs expensive, and to what extent EVs reduced pollution compared to petrol/diesel cars. One of the students shared his knowledge about the manufacturing of batteries for EVs—how the composition of the battery, and the extraction and manipulation of its components also contribute to carbon emission, and how the production process of these batteries is not cost effective. This was followed by a discussion on asymmetrical information in the market, leading to uninformed choices by the stakeholders.
I believe this session helped my students to understand how global issues in economics are complex, and that these are better comprehended through group discussions, in which we raise questions, share relevant information, and begin to understand the many interconnected dimensions of the issue. Through this, the art of questioning deepens and widens the students’ outlook and they also learn to feel for underprivileged members of society.
Communication skills
Krishnamurti was a communicator par excellence, and communication is a vital topic in Business Studies. Students pursuing Business Studies need to learn to be effective communicators. Krishnamurti has posed the challenge of listening as follows: “How do you listen? Do you listen with your projections, through your ambitions, desires, fears, anxieties, through hearing only what you want to hear, only what will be satisfactory…? If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires.” —The Book of Life, J. Krishnamurti
Listening intently leads to probing for deeper understanding of an area of discussion. Clarifying assumptions by asking questions leads to determining the specifics of the issue being discussed and reduces judgement bias. Through the way discussions are conducted, we could get the students to appreciate that communication is never a one-sided affair. Whenever this takes place, each one’s learning is extended and deepened. As Krishnamurti says: “Communication is not only the exchange of words, however articulate and clear they may be; it is much deeper than that. Communication is learning from each other, understanding each other.” —The Whole Movement of Life is Learning, J. Krishnamurti
Questioning the premise of economics
The premise on which the subject of economics is structured is: ‘Man, as a rational being, makes choices to solve the problem of scarcity.’ Numerous theories based on a range of assumptions, mathematical models, and graphs are used to focus on and solve global economic problems. The reality is that the premise itself has flaws. Krishnamurti’s commentaries gently point out that complex global problems of inequality, of war, of assuring a decent livelihood for different groups of people, have dragged on over centuries. The reason being that fragmented minds, which are ever in conflict, only find fragmented, divisive solutions.
One of the ways of making students aware of this could be by using role plays. For instance, the impact of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war can be explored in this way. Getting students to role-play different stakeholders of the warring nations, and their supporters and detractors, would bring out the irrational, divisive side of human beings. They can thus be made to ponder on the premise of economics: are human beings really rational? Is scarcity a delusional concept? After all, rational beings can help pool all the resources and meet everyone’s need. As Gandhi had affirmed, “The Earth has enough for everyone’s need; but not enough for everyone’s greed”.
Integrating Krishnamurti’s teachings with our subjects
I have found that this experimental approach—of weaving Krishnamurti’s teachings in with the topics I teach—is a slow process, and its outcomes are uncertain. It has worked well with some batches, with some batches less so. But nevertheless, it has been quite a learning experience for me as a teacher. Each subject can be a vehicle for bringing in aspects of these teachings. However, it requires that the mind of the teacher is also not caught in a narrowly conditioned view of her subject, and she strives to uncover aspects of his teaching that can be applied to themes, topics, and questions within the subject. It would then mean that the teacher too is learning along with her students.