Date: October 21, 2021
Venue: Online
“The aim of education is not to prepare a man to succeed in life and society, but to increase his perfectibility to its utmost.”
(The Mother, CWM, Vol. 12, p. 120)
For this month’s Insightful Conversation section, we are happy to bring a deeply inspiring conversation on a topic close to the heart of most Indians — education. What is the true purpose of education, what kind of education will help our children blossom to their fullest potential, how can education address the development of every part of their being, how can it facilitate each individual child’s growth at a pace that is most natural to him or her and also most authentic and individualised? More and more thinking parents of today are interested in these and other such questions.
In addition to these, our conversation with Ms. Jayashree Ashok, Mr. B. Ashok, and Ms. Reshma Madhusudan from Creative School, Bengaluru, throws significant light on another set of important questions — what is the role and place of teachers and parents in the educational journey of a child, can our educational spaces become holistic centers that also facilitate the growth and transformational journeys of parents and teachers? Can educational contexts be re-envisioned and redesigned as sacred spaces where the most sacred work of facilitating a soul’s journey through a deeply conscious process of learning-teaching takes place? How may we truly honour teachers’ work, something which it truly deserves? How can schools help parents become more authentic and conscious facilitators in their children’s growth, and in that process grow as human beings and discover their own deeper selves?
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About our guests:
Jayashree Ashok is Co-founder and Director of Creative School and Prajña Living Wisdom Centre. She has extensive experience in the area of education. She has been deeply inspired by the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother on Integral Education. Jayashree’s inner growth led her to experience a deep spiritual transformation. She has more than two decades of experience working with several healing modalities including Rebirthing Breathwork and Energy Healing methods.
B. Ashok is Co-founder and Trustee of Creative School. His professional education is from IIT Madras and University of Wisconsin-Madison as a computer scientist. Ashok currently teaches at Creative School while continuing to work full-time as the Director of Development at Microsoft Research India. He is passionate about music, basketball, numbers & word puzzles, technology, and humor.
Reshma Madhusudan is Principal and Curriculum Coordinator at Creative School. She enjoys being a teacher, teacher trainer, curriculum coordinator, and healer. With Jayashree’s influence she was led to the teachings of several spiritual masters. She has fully embraced practical spirituality as a way to experience ‘aliveness’ after a transformative journey through illness. Her deep interest in Sri Aurobindo and The Mother’s work on Integral Education, and Steiner’s works in Waldorf Education has moulded her thoughts and practice in the area of holistic learning.