Education Without Competition

Education Without Competition
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Question: How do we prepare our children to withstand the competition and pressure that are part of today’s society?

Sadhguru: The pressure happens only because you are putting two absolutely unique beings in comparison. Is there another person exactly like you on this planet? No. Each being is an absolutely unique being. The same applies to your child. Pressure arises when you put them all in the same compartment, then compare them and make them feel better or worse about it.

It is parents who have brought in competition and comparison. For too many of them, the purpose of education is lost. Their interest is that their children be above everyone else; better than other children. A large part of their investment in education is to ensure their child gets to sit on top of the pile. Everyone wants to sit on top of the pile, but only a few can be there. The others will naturally end up at the bottom and get suffocated under the pile. In the current system, this is bound to happen.

The orientation of education has to change. This effort is not be about molding children the way you think they should be. Education is about organizing the child’s natural longing to know and explore.

It is very convenient to blame schools for the current situation, but schools are only catering to your attitudes. If your attitudes change, the schools will change. They want to run the business the way it works. If all you want is that your children should get good grades, no matter what it costs them, then schools will cater to that because you are paying them. They are only trying to fulfill their job. And we are ruining a whole generation with this kind of competitive system of schooling we are providing.

True human genius will not flower in the current system. The full extent of human capabilities will not find expression in competition. When you are in a race with someone, you only think of being one step ahead of him or her. You will not aim towards your ultimate potential.

Genius will find expression only in absolute relaxation. Your mind and body will work best and find fullest expression only when you are joyful, peaceful and still within yourself.

Read more from Sadhguru at the Isha Blog: Isha.Sadhguru.org/blog/

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