Education is not a production line, it is an organic happening.

You cannot create an education system independent of the society in which we exist. Are we as a society willing to cultivate an ecosystem suitable for a child to grow up in the best possible way?

Read more:  Sadhguru: Inspiration must be at the heart of education

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This is a question all of us should ask ourselves because educating a child is the responsibility of the entire society.  

If we are interested in the future generations, the best people in the world must go into teaching. Instead of instruction, we need to empower teachers to inspire and transmit what really matters to them.

Then, a child would surely sit up and listen, and every school system could become a fruitful process.

An engrossing process of education

We run a residential school at the Isha Yoga Center in India, called Isha Home School. The teaching community here is absolutely committed to the development of the child.

Groups of 20 children are part of a household and are taken care of by teachers who are like dedicated parents for them.

We use a thematic mode of education that creates an enormous enthusiasm in learning because it is a very exploratory approach.

For example, during the two months of the monsoon in India, the pouring rain will soak you through and through.

We expose the children to the rain and use it as a fulcrum to explore many other subjects - the chemistry, biology, physics and economics of rain.

There are no marks and no branding of the child with grades of A, B, C, but among the teachers there is an evaluation method, and constantly the children are being nurtured. 

This type of system may not be easy to replicate on a large scale, but the important thing is that we focus more on upgrading those who deliver education.

If we do this, every education system will work well.

Upgrading the teacher

On one level, education means a teacher is telling someone, “your children will do better with me than with you”. This is a very grand step.

A teacher needs to live up to that.

Children don’t just listen to your words, they are looking at what you are doing. They are great observers, and they grasp things other than what you are saying.

How you keep yourself and what you make out of yourself will play a role in the making of the children.

So teachers must shape themselves. They need to look at the way they are, the way they speak and the way they keep themselves in every way.

When we say “education”, we are always thinking of children. But I think the most important thing is the evolution of the teacher.

Forever evolving

Teachers should continuously evolve. It is not that they are not willing to evolve, but most of them do not have access to tools for evolution.

I am sure everyone will agree that when they went to school, the teacher who was the most involved, enterprising and innovative was the one who made you unknowingly fall in love with that subject.

No subject is beautiful but a teacher can deliver it in a beautiful way.

For this, the evolution of the teacher, not only in teaching capabilities but as a human being, is essential. The inner development of the teacher must happen.

The science of yoga has many simple tools for transformation.

Educators, teachers and others involved in children’s education must be empowered with these tools, so that there is something that you can do with yourself which will leave you in a better place than you are right now.

The very purpose of bringing education into a child’s life is so they become the master of situations in which they live. They must not be a slave to the situation.

Teachers must be a living example of this for children every day.

Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, internationally renowned speaker and bestselling author. He regularly speaks at major global forums including the United Nations headquarters and the World Economic Forum.

He also founded Isha Vidhya, an education initiative that aims to transform the lives of rural children by providing affordable, high-quality English language-based, computer-aided education