Loveless knowledge brings forth nothing good but destruction.
(Chief Minister Pawan Chamling’s Speech on the occasion of Teachers’ Day at Chintan Bhavan on September 5, 2015)
Part I
Honorable Governor, teachers, ladies and gentlemen -Today Janma Asthami coincides with Teacher’s Day and on this occasion I would like to wish you all the very best. May the lord Krishna bless you all and liberate you from all the negative and inordinate affections and desires. He once said, “I want a follower who doesn’t have any inordinate desires”. Inordinate affection is at the heart of all absurdities. Srimad Bhagavat Gita is a collection of the lord Krishna’s immortalized words. He has said in Gita, “The one who can see an ant, dog and elephant with equal vision, he is a Brahman”. Brahman essentially means an excellent man. Teachers must be such Brahmans and must always maintain excellence. The mark of your excellence is your students. You,therefore, have a great responsibility. Only realization and awareness can liberate us from suffering. Teachers, therefore, have to first attain self-realization. It is only then that the world can be liberated from suffering.
Today, everybody has an undue affection for wealth. But the accumulation of wealth doesn’t reduce suffering – rather it multiplies it. The undue affection for work and power will also not reduce suffering. The pursuit of the transient things of the world will multiply suffering. Therefore, one has to be self-aware in order to be liberated from such things. Self-realization is liberation. I request all teachers to self-introspect and become self-aware.
It is a great day for us today. We live in the present and think and work accordingly. Since Plato, Aristotle and Confucius were not born in our Sikkim, teachers have a serious role to play as those great men did. In politics, Abraham Lincoln, Roosevelt and Lee Quan were not born in Sikkim – we have to play their role. I am a committed leader having a deep sense of responsibility. Ever since we came to power, I have been working hard, exploring every possibility to develop Sikkim on all fronts.
We opened schools in every village with a view to providing all children with an equal opportunity to study. We upgraded primary schools to junior secondary and secondary schools to senior secondary schools. Every senior secondary school has all the streams – namely – Humanities, Science and Commerce. Education has been made free right upto the college level. We are moving ahead with the top priority accorded to education. We started a small family scheme for girls. Without uplifting women, mankind cannot be uplifted in totality. If our world with seven billion people has to be developed, development of women is an absolute must. The world’s poorest, most backward and most uneducated are women. We have therefore given women priority in every field. These are programs started by the government and teachers have a role to play in bringing them to fruition. Students must be benefited from them.
Imparting and enhancing knowledge is not the sole duty of teachers. They have to develop students’ minds also. The development of mankind is possible only when knowledge and the mind develop correspondingly. Hitler, albeit a knowledgeable man, had an extremely narrow mind.He had such a narrow mind that he could only accommodate himself. He had absolutely no love and kindness towards his fellow mankind. Six crore people fell victim to his cruel, loveless knowledge. Sixty lakh Jews were killed in the gas chambers. He hunted for people in this world. Therefore loveless knowledge brings forth nothing good but destruction. Teachers must work with the objective of preparing such capable human resources that have both a human face and a human touch. Merely producing knowledgeable pupils is a futile exercise. Students must be both successful and decent human being. You have to make your profession purposeful and result-oriented.
Teachers must respect the students’ viewpoint. You must create an interactive atmosphere in the class so that your students can interact with you. A class has to have a collaborative environment where students can freely engage in group work. When students enter their classrooms, they should be made to feel a sense of belonging. A teacher is also a human being and he/she has problems in life. But the teacher has to enter the classroom, leaving those problems behind. A teacher must never take his anger, religious bigotry, caste, political views and pre-conceived notions into the classroom. He/she should never enter a classroom frustrated or drunk. Every time a teacher enters the classroom, he/she has to be free from any undue desires and problems. Teachers have to instil such confidence in all the students that they feel like a valued member of the class.
A teacher is a skilled leader. You have to honor your noble profession. Teachers should never take things at face value. You have to be a critical thinker with the ability to analyse things. You have to have creative thinking. Education consists, not only in reading, but also in information literacy. Teachers must lead an exemplary and imitable life.(To be continued)
“Imparting and enhancing knowledge is not the sole duty of teachers. They have to develop students’ minds also. The development of mankind is possible only when knowledge and the mind develop correspondingly. Hitler, albeit a knowledgeable man, had an extremely narrow mind. He had such a narrow mind that he could only accommodate himself. He had absolutely no love and kindness towards his fellow mankind. Six crore people fell victim to his cruel, loveless knowledge. Sixty lakh Jews were killed in the gas chambers. He hunted for people in this world. Therefore loveless knowledge brings forth nothing good but destruction. Teachers must work with the objective of preparing such capable human resources that have both a human face and a human touch. Merely producing knowledgeable pupils is a futile exercise. Students must be both successful and decent human being.”