By Soroj Mullick, SDB –
Educative environment and education itself are interdependent and interactive with each other in the realm of Christian Education in India: therefore, the young need a systematic Christian Education based on a sound, contextualised and practical theology that can give a renewed vision to the educators and the educands.
An inductive form of education can be appropriated into the progressive and experiential patterns of education in a pluriform socio-cultural context. Christian education can be done from the social and theological perspective following a paradigm and open models suited to the context, integrating the teacher-student’s identity, whereby education will grow and transform by inculturating itself.
As the Church shows interest in dialogue among faith, science and society in India (a gamut of multicultural and multi-faith experiences, with deep-seated philosophical interests) concrete efforts are needed to reconcile the Church and science with an open-minded, integral education, in keeping with the Indian educational culture and visions.
A comprehensive Christian education has its scope as: freeing the educand through an integral education, enabling him/her to evaluate critically every aspect of reality. Within a conducive educative space, such a study on Christian education, therefore, is set in the above context based on the hypothesis that there is an integral, reciprocal and dynamic relationship between Christian principles and education and as such one’s development affects the other.
We need to give the children their childhood not treating them adults! The best gift that we can give this children is the best environment where child’s unique creativity is respected. “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
As one keenly observes the boys and girls coming to school some changes are seen: parents dragging the children in uniform, with bags on their backs that are simply too heavy for them. We call that ‘disciplined’ educational environment which gives them the association with ‘teachers’ and classmates primarily; secondly, modern classrooms with equipped technology, black/white boards, well organized exams, tests, marks, grades etc.
Children need informal environment that is the home where they ask questions very naturally, as they are curious; while in a classroom environment, which is formal, a child stops to question and learns because of the fear of the new environment which kills their childhood. Our system has a tendency to silence the child and change their natural behaviour into an artificial behaviour which is the norm for the new environment.
Children who are supposed to be free, playing and enjoying their childhood are often curtailed from expressing their free nature. In so called organized pre-school (which is mostly commercial) we are destroying the children’s world of experience and their childhood.
To be continued…
Fr. Soroj Mullick, SDB is a Salesian priest from the Kolkata Province. He has a Licentiate in Catechetics and a Doctorate (Christian Education) from UPS, Italy. He has number of years of teaching experience in college and in the formation of future priests. Besides, he has written number of research papers and articles, and has 25 years of Ministry in India and abroad as Educator, Formator, Retreat Preacher, Editor and engaged in School, Parish Catechetical & Youth Ministry. He is now an assistant priest in Bandel Basilica, rendering pastoral and catechetical ministry to the parishioners and to the pilgrims. He can be contacted at [email protected].