The teacher or the teaching- Guru deconstructed.

The word Guru (which in Sanskrit means he, she or that which removes the darkness, presumably of ignorance) needs some additional explanation if it has to be understood at its widest and most multidimensional. The overriding paradigm is that this has to be an individual person who transmits specific knowledge to his students, which purportedly the learners would not be able to access otherwise. Herein lies a catch or a misplaced emphasis, in my opinion. Are we focusing on the fisherman or the plentitude of fish in his basket? The teaching is much less changeable, recipient-neutral, can be documented and studied using ancient shruti-smruti (hear and memorize) protocols or modern knowledge taxonomical approaches. This is really the substance of the transmission to the student. Compare this with the teacher who is essentially human and hence essentially idiosyncratic, is obviously a perishable entity and thus is outlived by the content, the teaching that he/she transmits. The Guru would hence mean the teaching more than the teacher. This aspect seems to have been well understood by the last living Guru of the Sikhs- Guru Gobind Singhji when, realizing the primacy of the teachings and the crucial need to preserve their pristine purity, he proclaimed that the Granth Sahib, the Sikh religious book, will be the Guru that time onwards. Since then, it is the Guru Granth Sahib, which continues to provide spiritual teachings to the community.

The substance of the teaching as automatically ‘understood’ is content, that something which feeds the cognitive apparatus, as it were, of the human learner. But that it need not necessarily be. Indeed some stories or anecdotes of Zen Buddhism have the Zen Master or the teacher whacking the head of the pupil that would be ‘the’ impulse required for the student to attain enlightenment. It would appear that a transmission of a kind would have happened in such cases, which might not necessarily be a linear conventional cause-effect phenomenon but rather a arise and awake phenomenon transcending time-dependent causality.. In the same Japanese Mahayana tradition of Zen Buddhism, befuddlement of the learner by an innocuous but rather nonsensical question, the so-called ‘Koan’, by the teacher or master has sometimes succeeded in ‘opening’ of the mind of the learner. This learning would impact in this case, the mind or emotions of the learner.   This would also do justice to the Sanskrit conception of the word- Guru, as outlined in the opening sentence.

How could we synthesize these two views of teaching and the essence of what a Guru does? The solution lies in the golden construct- freedom, probably the only English word after love with which humanity experiences an instant and intense connect. That which frees people from the confines and limitations of their own knowledge, physicality, mind and all associated tendencies/impressions and their own background noise J could be termed knowledge or the essence of the guru-tattwa or the teaching. If a whack in the back or a pat on the head can do what 500 hours of classroom time could not achieve, so be it.

Learning inside the comfort zone- A tough challenge

I was speaking to a group of students inside a classroom and checking on what they had learned in the previous semester. I wasn't able to glean much from them except sickly compromised smiles which were more like an entreaty that I should stop the uncomfortable probing. 

Comfort and learning do not seem to like each other and fail to thrive in each others' presence. Learning by essence would mean an urgent desire to break through the limited understanding of the self and seek knowledge or insight  beyond what is already known. It is an energy intensive activity which counters the 'natural' entropy of the human condition. It would necessitate active questioning by the learner, within and without, and genuine attempts to grapple with problem-solving, be they case studies or science numerical questions or complex mathematical derivations or any other which need comprehending and analytical skills.

A comfort zone for the students is any physical or mental condition which creates a 'false' sense of security for the learner's mind. This can either create a faulty self-impression of adequate competence in the domain sought to be learned or worse still, a kind of temporary deadening of interest and a sort of drift mindset wherein the learner glides, as it were, from one lesson to the other feeling good about it but actually achieving very little. It is the latter types which I often encounter in my classroom sojourns to talk to students. These have to yanked out of their inertial frame of self-reference ( Einstein Sir, my apologies!) and made to see reality as it is. 

The reality would be the scores in tests and assessments, formative and summative. Looking hard at reality in an emotionally detached analytical way needs serious courage in what can be an essentially very uncomfortable process. The truth is that emotional detachment is a myth and all kinds of guilt scripts, not being good enough and negativistic thoughts will be unleashed when a learner starts confronting the reality of what he is, indeed, learning or not learning.

'Assessment drives learning' remains the fundamental dictum. The challenge is to be able to facilitate and deliver assessment outcomes to learners with ruthless compassion, the kind which make good educators into great ones and great educators into teaching legends.