ACADEMIC WORK BY SACAR STUDENTS

Editor’s Note: In the next few pages we present for our readers a small selection of the student work recently submitted by some of our students enrolled in various programmes offered at SACAR. These assignments reflect a variety of learning opportunities our students have to demonstrate their comprehension of the study material and also express in their own way what they are learning. At the end of some of the assignments we have also included some evaluative comments given by the course facilitator.
As a prelude to the student assignments, the present write-up summarizes for our readers the educational philosophy and principles that guide our course design, syllabus planning and teaching approaches.
We thank Margaret Phanes from the U.S.,a facilitator for SACAR for her help with selection of student submissions for this issue.

EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY AND PRACTICE AT SACAR
Beloo Mehra

At SACAR we are guided by the ideal that education is the means for facilitating individual transformation to prepare the humankind, one individual at a time, for a collective transformation. We hope to become a centre of ‘higher’ education and a dynamic ideal for the society through the very nature of our work in facilitating individual and collective evolution of consciousness.

1. OUR IDEAL

As an institution of integral higher education we pursue an aim and ideal of helping learners develop the psychological and intellectual faculties and skills required for them to know clearly, and to manifest, their highest ideals. We focus on the thought and vision of Sri Aurobindo, which comprise the best of Eastern and Western intellectual and spiritual traditions and philosophy. This grand synthesis, we believe, is extremely relevant to the modern world as it struggles to find its future and its new form and spirit.

With this central focus and starting point we aim to provide learners with what we consider to be a clear and comprehensive exposition of the spiritual bases of the new creation that is emerging, and of the role, destiny, and proper function of the human being in this process.

Our courses help learners acquire and develop abilities, potentials, ideas and ideals that help them envision a new future for themselves and the world. We encourage our learners to study widely, and to know other schools of thought and to compare these with the thought, work, and ideals of Sri Aurobindo.

We do not insist that our learners accept any particular teaching, practice, or point of view, and encourage a thoughtful and critical examination of all ideas.

2. FREE PROGRESS: INTEGRAL METHOD OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

Our educational approach is inspired by the Free-Progress Integral Method developed by the Mother at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education in Pondicherry, and utilized successfully in various learning institutions in India and abroad.

The term ‘free-progress’ means that within certain basic educational structures, the learner is given full freedom to approach and explore the subjects they study in their own unique manner, but without sacrificing the concentrated focus and rigour necessary for high quality work. This educational method encourages the development of the individual and fosters original and free thinking.

We use the term ‘facilitator’ instead of the more conventional ‘instructor’ because we truly believe that learning can only be facilitated, and “nothing can be taught.” We believe that teachers are mentors and guides for their students, not ‘experts’ who are supposed to ‘impart’ knowledge to the learners. Instead the facilitators are humble learners alongside their students’ learning journeys. When they interact with learners they do not speak from a position of their expertise or authority but as mentors they offer suggestions for learners to explore and come to their own understanding and interpretation.

2.1 Three Principles of Integral Teaching

Our approach to learning and teaching is guided by the three cardinal principles given by
Sri Aurobindo (1956/2004)1.

“The first principle of true teaching is that nothing can be taught.” To put it another way, if nothing can be taught it only means that all can be learned. Our facilitators are also life-long learners and are constantly working on their inner and outer progress. As and when needed, they share appropriate personal experiences and life-situations, which helps develop a deeper and closer relation with the learners. We believe that facilitators and learners learn together as they work together; they just may have different roles but they are both seekers in their own unique ways. Our facilitators sincerely and honestly practice the values and ideals that form the heart of the learning content of many of our courses.

“The second principle is that the mind has to be consulted in its own growth.” Through the various experiential, introspective and self-observation exercises which are generally included in most of our courses, we emphasize the value that it is important for learners to gradually become more and more conscious of their true swabhava and swadharma.

“The third principle of education is to work from the near to the far, from that which is to that which shall be.” Many of our courses include exercises aimed at self-observation and self-transformation which emphasize for our learners that while we may keep our eyes on the distant goal of completely transforming our outer nature, but we always start from what is nearest to us. We recognize the importance of learners’ development based on their unique life experiences and help them recognize that the best way to begin on their journey of self-transformation is to begin from wherever they are.

This principle is also reflected in the nature of our interaction with learners. In order to clarify any doubts and questions learners may have regarding a certain topic, in our responses we start with what we consider as of immediate and local interest to the learner, and use simple and learner-friendly examples to illustrate abstract theories and ideas.

2.2 Education of the Whole Being

The online programmes and courses offered at SACAR provide ample of opportunities for individual learners to develop their vital, mental and psychic parts of the being. We do this through the use of a variety of learning activities and by incorporating plenty of self-reflective and introspective exercises.

We also include a variety of intellectual assignments in order to help the learner gradually perfect their mental faculties. At the same time we believe that learner’s education and training of the intellect divorced from the perfection of moral and emotional nature is injurious to human progress. Therefore, we provide gentle learning opportunities – in the form of selected course content and readings that emphasize living and practicing higher ideals of life and constantly working to purify and transform one’s emotional and vital self.

2. 3 Education of the Mind
Given the online nature of our educational offerings undoubtedly there is a greater emphasis on mental education of the learners. But there also we keep in consideration the principal phases of mental education as given by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in their writings on Integral Education. These principles help prepare learners for a higher life by:

• Developing the power of concentration, the capacity of attention
• Developing the capacities of expansion, widening, complexity and richness
• Organizing one’s ideas around a central idea, a higher ideal or a supremely luminous idea that will serve as a guide in life
• Practicing thought-control and rejection of undesirable thoughts, to become able to think only what one wants and when one wants
• Developing mental silence, perfect calm and a more and more total receptivity to inspirations coming from the higher regions of the being.

2.4 Organization and Synthesis of Ideas

We also encourage our learners to take interest in and study various topics related to their main field of study in order to increase the suppleness and comprehensiveness of mind. At the same time our pedagogical approach of incorporating a range of learning activities related to a particular topic also helps remove the rigidity of the brain, makes thinking richer and more supple, and prepares the mind for a more complex and comprehensive synthesis.

The integral approach to mental education also emphasizes that learners develop the habit of constructing knowledge which will permit all the diverse and scattered and often contradictory ideas accumulated in brain to be organized and put in order, this is necessary to avoid chaos in one’s thoughts. We achieve this by encouraging readers to do a broad and wide reading.

By incorporating reading material from several authors – from different cultural backgrounds and belonging to different generations – we encourage learners to recognize that the mind must progress constantly, revise its notions in the light of new knowledge, enlarge its framework to include fresh notions and constantly reclassify and reorganize its thoughts, so that each of them may find its true place in relation to the others and the whole remain harmonious and orderly.

Through their responses to learners’ comments and questions, the facilitators at SACAR help learners see that over time and with sufficient practice all contradictions can be transformed into complements, but for that one must discover the higher idea or ideal that will have the power to bring them harmoniously together. We gently remind the learners that upon the choice of the central idea will depend the value of one’s mental synthesis. The higher and larger the central idea and the more universal it is, rising above time and space, the more numerous and the more complex will be the ideas, notions and thoughts which it will be able to organize and harmonize.

3. NATURE OF OUR PROGRAMMES

At SACAR we are inspired by a fundamental aspect of Integral Education, namely that the education of a human being should begin at birth and continue throughout his/her life. This value of life-long learning is evident in the nature and design of our programme and course offerings, and also in the profile of learners who are generally attracted to SACAR.

Within each of our programmes, learners are given a broad choice of courses that focus either on different subjects considered in the main lines of Sri Aurobindo’s thought or on the multifarious aspects of Integral Yoga. Facilitators guide each learner individually, thus helping the learner to find their special interest and to explore the queries particular to each learner.

All courses at SACAR, while focusing on Sri Aurobindo’s thought are sufficiently broad-based so that learners become aware of alternative perspectives and approaches to their subjects, and to tackle profound and complex subject matter in order to widen and clarify their faculties of thought, reasoning, and understanding.

3.1 Education for Transformation

Learners find our programmes and courses refreshing and illumining alternative to traditional fields of higher study. Our programmes are progressive and future-oriented. We strive toward the constant renewal, rethinking, reframing, and most importantly re-living of the timeless ideals and teachings of Sri Aurobindo for our changing times.

The educational values driving our programmes include: emphasis on life-long learning, transformative learning guided by a keen passion for individual and social transformation, quest for knowledge for the development of self and society, respect (and not mere tolerance) for cultural diversity and a global perspective, and practice of critical and contemplative pedagogies.

For many of our learners, individualized and self-directed learning becomes a means for their individual transformation. We understand that true education enables an openness of mind and heart. We encourage learners to move beyond the limitations of dualities, to cross boundaries of ideologies. We view learning as a practice of freedom, and understand ‘knowing’ as that which leads us into greater connection and greater understanding of life, challenge the rigid dichotomy of mental knowing (or knowing by logic, reason) and other forms of knowing including experiential, contemplative, and intuitive.

Through experimentation and constant reflection on our teaching and learning practice, we have developed a system that reconciles these various needs of the total process of learning accurately and harmoniously.

3.2 Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Focus

Sri Aurobindo’s integral thought concerns itself with all levels of human existence, which includes physical, emotional, instinctual, mental, moral, social and spiritual aspects; it looks upon them as equally valid and contributing for human evolution. This vision of integrality helps to appropriately place the vast developments made in the field of Matter — in various disciplines and fields of study — in a much wider, vaster framework of the Spirit.

Our courses cover various aspects of Sri Aurobindo – darshnik-rishi or the philosopher-sage; kavi, the mystic poet; purna yogi, the integral psychologist; social-political thinker; and anti-colonialist revolutionary. By integrating and synthesizing these different aspects these programmes become truly trans-disciplinary and interdisciplinary in nature.

Our learners come from a variety of academic and professional backgrounds and fields ranging from most traditional disciplines to most inter-disciplinary and individualized foci of interests. This further adds to the trans-disciplinary flavour learning environment and often then gets reflected in learners’ contributions to online discussions in various courses.
We welcome innovative ideas of our learners, and encourage them to look beyond the limitations of their own ways of learning and knowing. We value rigorous scholarship, self-reflective practice, specialized and interdisciplinary learning.

4. ONLINE MODE OF LEARNING

SACAR seeks to utilize the best possibilities of the internet to provide a combination of academic excellence and spiritual depth to learners in an effective, affordable, and convenient manner.

Our academic programmes primarily attract non-traditional, adult students who are generally highly motivated and self-directed learners, and feel most comfortable in a learning environment that allows them to be in control of their learning, and provides ample flexibility. An online learning environment can be effectively designed to provide such learning conditions.

Our online courses are structured with specific weekly reading assignments, discussions stimulated with the facilitator’s questions, writing assignments, and tests. Properly designed online courses are effective, because unlike oral lectures, learners have the opportunity to spend the time needed with material and return to it as often as necessary to understand and digest it. At the same time, learners can more readily identify those particular aspects of the course material that they do not understand and seek clarification from the facilitator in a relaxed and private atmosphere.

Our online courses provide a lot of different learning situations in which learners can interact with the content. These learning opportunities include activities such as reflecting on particular themes explored in the week’s reading, responding to discussion questions posed by the facilitator, writing essays, conducting library research, critical thinking and reflective assignments, introspective journaling, preparing annotated bibliography, preparing for test questions, etc. The course assignments generally require learners to apply course content and skills, and also require critical thinking on the part of learners.
We recognize and deeply value the fact that teaching and learning are primarily about the experience that learners and facilitators create collaboratively. Only in a secondary way it is about the mode of delivery.

Endnote
1 Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on Education (1956/2004). Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust.