EDUCATION
Teachers as Critically Reflexive Practitioners
Buddhism offers one of the most profound educational systems. Integrating Buddhist teachings into education is a powerful way to cultivate human wisdom.
Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.
Education is not just about going to school and getting a degree. It's about widening your knowledge and absorbing the truth about life.
Education should not be about cramming into our heads a collection of things we must believe, memorize, and follow. True education—if it exists—is helping us learn how to think, not what to think. It is like teaching someone how to walk on their own instead of telling them where to go. Because once they know how to walk, they will find their own path. When you know how to think, you are no longer swept away by the crowd, nor afraid of being different. You begin to question, to observe, and to see clearly. And you are free—not because someone grants you freedom, but because you yourself have seen clearly all the things that bind you. Think about it: after all those years of schooling, has anyone ever taught you how to think? Or have they only taught you to think like them? Collected
Should you follow Western education?
Western education essentially delves into student psychology so that educators can become supporters, instructors, and inspirers to facilitate the best conditions for students to develop according to their wishes, interests, and talents. In lieu of teachers being almost completely dominant and students just passively listening, Western education highlights student-centered and active learning, aiming to attract student participation through various classroom activities. Therefore, when Asians study Western education. It is like learning about educational psychology, not merely investigating education.
If possible, educators should engage in the Western education program to have the opportunity to be exposed to purely fresh educational knowledge is like a breath of fresh air blowing into the understanding that has been built up since childhood. Then, instructors can integrate the outstanding education of the West with the traditional Asian approach to generate the best version of secular and/or Buddhist education.
Sayalay Vijjāñāṇī
