Custodians
of the noble sector, educators from around the globe, pilgrims all in search of
happiness, welcome to the Jewel of the Himalayas otherwise called Bhutan. It is
our wish that you are able to enjoy the twilight of our Spring as it merges
with the sights and the sounds and the smells of Summer and carry home some
delightful memories of your visit to our country.
We
are deeply heartened that the International Society for Teacher Education
decided to hold its 32nd Annual Seminar in Bhutan. This is by far
the largest congregation of educators from across six continents, from Pole to
Pole, from sea to mountain, galvanized by an idea we all share in common across
time and space. You bring to my country the precious gifts of many cultures and
civilizations in diverse fields of human endeavor articulated through the
varied disciplines that you have inherited and advanced in the course of your
work as educators.
Brave
men and women from many lands, I offer my tributes to each one of you for
electing to do the most difficult and yet the most important job in the world –
teach. Thank you for the lives that you have touched and the light that you
have brought. You have made the world a different place, a better place right
from the moment somebody learnt a new sound, recognized a sign, or distinguished
a symbol thanks to you. Our world became that much more beautiful the moment
the first one hundred of you reached out to your first one hundred pupils in
one hundred different locations across the globe. Yes, this is what you do on a
daily basis – radiate your light and illumine the world around. Yes, teachers
do it.
And
what time could be more appropriate than the centenary year of education in
Bhutan to hold this seminar! Distinguished members of my audience would know
that our first wave of monastic education issued forth as early as the 7th
century AD and continues to this day. But the seeds of modern, secular
education were sown in the early years of the last century. In 2012, therefore,
we come full circle. It is a time to pay our tributes to our visionary leaders
and policy-makers who had the wisdom and courage to recognize and engage the
power of education in the transformation of our society.
It
is a moment too to pay our tributes to generations of our teachers who have
educated and prepared the present generation of leaders to man the diverse
needs of a dynamic, forward-looking, progressive nation-state. As we celebrate
Sherig Century, we celebrate the march of Bhutan over the past one hundred
years since modern education began in the country. This is, therefore, a most
propitious time to assemble by the bank of Pachhu and celebrate the success of
the sector noble.
Do
take a look at the theme of the seminar again! Teaching and learning can be
influenced by diverse motives and varied justifications – from the most
pedestrian and mercenary to the most ideal and the sublime. But what would be
more rewarding and fulfilling than Educating for Gross National Happiness as
the theme of this seminar proposes to do! And what greater opportunity for the
noble sector to try and reclaim its nobility!
Initiated
in the beginning of the 2010 academic session, the programme of Educating for
Gross National Happiness is a call to rediscover and reassert the true function
of education at a time when the normative power of education is rapidly giving
way to the aggressive, utilitarian inducements of the market with little regard
for the integrity of learning and the sanctity of the learner.
Educating
for GNH is a powerful beam of the light that shone forth from the golden throne
when His Majesty Jigme Singye Wangchuck declared that Gross National Happiness
is more important than Gross Domestic Product some three and a half decades ago.
This revolutionary alternative measure of a country’s progress has since become
Bhutan’s unique path to holistic development.
Supported
by the four pillars of equitable and balanced socio-economic development,
environmental conservation, cultural preservation and promotion of good
governance, the GNH architecture aims to achieve a balance between the needs of
the body and the yearnings of the heart. GNH as a development goal is founded
on the premise that:
·
the ultimate desire of all human beings,
irrespective of time and place, is to achieve happiness;
·
the profound needs of human beings are
not necessarily physical or material, but that there are other dimensions –
social, environmental, cultural, spiritual, psychological, artistic, moral,
that give meaning and purpose to life and that they need to be cultivated and
nurtured;
·
there is no direct relationship between
the level of material possession and the experience of personal well-being –
they could in fact be antithetical to each other;
·
the conventional yardstick used to
measure progress, called GDP or GNP, is too limited, reductive, and therefore
not entirely reliable, as it leaves out many other important non-economic
dimensions. We, therefore, need a more holistic and comprehensive instrument to
assess the multiple levels of well-being of people and of societies.
A
thirsty world seems to yearn for a breath of fresh air to sustain our life and
the life of our planet earth against the backdrop of unlimited human wants and sorely
limited resources. This longing for an alternative way forward became manifest
when in July 2011, the entire member-countries of the United Nations
unanimously endorsed Bhutan’s proposal to make pursuit of happiness a goal of
the UN family of nations. We have since moved on.
It
is such a goal that education has the singular privilege of embracing and
advancing – to help make our world a better place for our generation and for
generations who will follow us.
When
the International Society for Teacher Education convenes in a seminar like the
one we are opening today, it falls upon us educators to examine afresh the
meaning and purpose of education itself. On pain of sounding irreverent, I
venture to submit that a lot that goes on in the world in the name of education
has very little to do with education. This could largely explain why with all
the progress the world has recorded in diverse fields, we are not free from
‘the tooth that nibbles at the soul’ as Emily Dickinson would say. When the
demands of the competitive labour market take over the call for building faith
and character, seats of learning are inevitably pressured into graduating scholars
who become ‘personnel’ who will be defined by the language of corporations and
classified by market metaphors.
I
believe that education is built on the principle of hope and of possibility –
that despite the limitations of prevailing circumstances, things can be and
will be better, indeed, they ought to be better. We need to rehabilitate
education to its essentially creative, humanizing and progressive function so
that it produces individuals who are at once useful and graceful. Beyond
equipping young men and women with knowledge and skills to carve out a career
for themselves, education ought to make them wise, sensitive and cooperating
members of the society.
This
is a tall order, but what use is education if it does not invoke the higher
order impulses of young men and women and gives them a true sense of their
place in the general scheme of things? We need a new ethic for education to
restore the harmony of life that we seem to be losing.
Here
in Bhutan, we hope to realize this goal by nurturing green schools encompassing
the natural, intellectual, academic, social, cultural, spiritual, aesthetic, and
moral dimensions of greenery within the overall ambit of Educating for GNH. The
hope is that children and youth brought up in an environment characterized by
these multiple green elements will imbibe and build the intended positive
energy and release it to the larger society when they graduate and join it as
its contributing members.
And
who is more equipped and better positioned than the teacher to invest education
with the honour and dignity that truly belongs to the noble sector! Dear
fellow-educators from around the globe, you hold the key to the success and
integrity of any educational programme. We may have sound policies, powerful
programmes, state-of-the-art facilities and motivated students, but you occupy
the centre-stage and bring alive the process and experience of learning.
In
the course of my labour of love, I have discovered that deciding to be a
teacher entails internalizing what I call the three sides of the Triangle Noble
– an abiding love of children or pupils, a deep passion of learning, and a conviction
about the importance of education as a powerful instrument to change lives,
improve societies, and transform nations. Anybody who gets into teaching for
any other reason will go so far but no further. Disillusionment and frustration
will soon set in and one finds oneself in strange territory. Therefore, the
moment of truth is essential: why do I want to be a teacher, in the first place?
Teaching
involves a compelling need for mutual illumination between the teacher and the
discipline. Just as the teacher needs a subject to express his or her life and
learning, the subject too needs a medium to communicate the power and the
promise that lie at its heart. The more passionate and engaged the teacher, the
better are the chances for the subject to find its utterance. Maintaining this tension is the secret of
success.
What
is more? The teacher not only teaches a subject or the curriculum; the teacher
is the field, the subject, the curriculum. Indeed, the
teacher not only works in an institution; the teacher is the institution.
Where the teacher is, that is the school, the college, the university. It is a monumental
job – to be a teacher. It is at the same time the most beautiful and rewarding
job in the world. You build nations as you build people.
Our
field is knowledge, but knowledge itself is changing rapidly in the wake of relentless
technological revolution. The wisdom of succeeding generations questions facts,
discards ideas and demolishes theories. The traditional place of honour that
the teacher enjoyed is under pressure as knowledge becomes available from
diverse sources unlike in the past when the teacher was the sole purveyor of
knowledge in the community. And then there are memory banks, e-learning and
internet facilities that open up novel ways of acquiring knowledge and
information.
There
is then this layer of complexity in the work of a teacher – we teach what we
know, but more importantly, we teach who we are! What we know is in the book,
in the syllabus, on the net. Often, students can access these on their own and
learn from them. Who we are is not in the book. It is us – our entire being,
our public self as well as our private self, our values, beliefs, philosophy,
convictions, behavior, outlook, attitude, what we consider to be important –
everything in us and about us that makes us who we are. These we do not teach,
but show in obvious ways as well as in ways subtle. But this is where we pass
powerful and long-lasting messages to our pupils. Every move matters. That is
the reason why teaching becomes so stressful and demanding. One has to measure
up!
This
is Educating for Gross National Happiness. Here, the role of the teacher must
meet the soul of education. In the true sense of the term, Educating for GNH is
a return to the core purpose of education. It is not an order to do a different
or difficult job. It is an invitation to look into the heart of our own role as
educators. It is in effect a call to discover the soul behind our role.
My
dear fellow-educators, you straddle many continents and countries as members of
the International Society for Teacher Education. You have the power and
privilege to turn the tide – by harmonizing the integrity of the sector noble
with the needs of the society. Somebody has to take up this difficult mission
of educating the world and you have had the courage to do this heroic job. You
have to take it to the finish.
A
day will come when we all be called upon to give an account of our own work as
educators in much the same way as Everyman in the old morality play. It may not
be in God’s tribunal then, but certainly in the tribunal of our own conscience!
It might well be asked “What have you been educating for?” If you can recall your moment of truth and say
“I have dedicated my entire professional life to Educating for GNH”, you will
be admitted to the kingdom of happiness!
I wish you success with your life and your
work as you light the world!
Tashi
Delek!
__________________________________________________________________
Thakur
S Powdyel.
Notes
for an address:
32nd
Annual Seminar of the International Society for Teacher Education
Paro
College of Education
May
20, 3012.
Compiled by
Dawa
Paro College of
Education
