September 8:

“The teacher of Nai Talim will be a craftsman educationist, not merely one for the sake of his pay.”

–Gandhi (Harijan, November 9, 1947)

What about teaching in one of Gandhi’s ideal schools? What would one need to know or do? It almost goes without saying that we can be sure of the following: teachers should be role-models for the students; they should set about solving their own problems nonviolently.  As a part of the struggle for independence they would wear home-spun cloth on the campuses and spin with the students. They would refrain from smoking and drinking and any other practice that would encourage the young people who look up to them to do the same. And most of all, they should be willing to work in the patriotic spirit; not for money, not for dividing up the last sums of the school’s funds between themselves, but for the sake of a higher purpose: to serve village India. Gandhi knew that when you appeal to the youth of a country, you appeal not to their pockets but to their idealism. And he maintained that if his Nai Talim had any merit, it would attract such idealists, searching for purpose over profit, to be the teachers and students. “I have no doubt,” he said, “that if the scheme is worked with all its implications and becomes popular throughout India, a silent revolution will have taken place and Swaraj will be a certainty.”

Experiment in Nonviolence:

What do you look for in those who teach? Do you work to embody the same qualities? What is one quality you would like to develop further?