Sir Ken Robinson -- Educating the Heart and Mind
The world can be divided into two parts using our physical self as the divider -- an external one and an internal one. The external world is the physical world around us, which witnesses the occurrences of various types of events and forms impacts on our body and mind constantly; the internal world is the intellectual, spiritual and emotional world within us that dictates how we react to and interact with the occurrence taken place in the external world. More often than not, our education system educates us to study and research the external world with subjects such as physics, chemistry, economics, political science, statistics, and history. However, it neglects to teach us to interact with our inner world, to converse with ourselves, to discover ourselves and our aspirations. More often than not, our education system is "success" oriented. Our teachers brag about the success of our alumni (often measured by titles, wealth, and fame) as if "success" is equivalent to "happiness", which is of course far from being true. They seem to forget that ultimate goal of every human is happiness as recognized by our founding fathers and reiterated in our Constitution. As one of the great psychologists of the 20th century Viktor Frankle wisely put (Man's Search for Meaning, 1984):
Again and again I therefore admonish my students both in Europe and in America: "Don't aim 16 PREFACE TO THE 1984 EDITION at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run - in the long run, I say! - success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.
I would like to see our education system becomes "happiness" oriented one day and educates us more of our inner world. A great educationalist, Sir Ken Robinson takes us on an inspiriting and self-reflecting journey of educating our heart and mind. Discover thyself!
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