Page 106 - JOURNAL OF THE KRISHNAMURTI SCHOOLS

the journal of the krishnamurti schools no.25

building moral agency as much as in imparting knowledge and
skills.
The sociologist Emile Durkheim too was simultaneously com-
mitted to an understanding of the psychological bases of the child
that took into account ‘altruism’ as an equal partner to ‘selfishness’
(1961: 217). He sought to instil the importance of the view that
even within our egotism, there is always ‘something other than our-
selves’ (1961: 224). In this duality, there is the possibility of making
the child truly social and ready for collective life through the dis-
cipline and rigour (albeit, without punishment) of the school envi-
ronment and the curriculum. This points to the significance of the
school’s role in promoting ideas and values that may be absorbed
and appreciated by the intrinsic goodness in the child. Such a
view emphasizes the importance of schools as not only socializing
agents, but of providing a moral compass in society, and points to
the urgency with which we need to foreground and recognize this
aspect of schooling in everyday life.
The ability to realize a child’s ‘goodness’ does not however rest
on young children alone, with some help from an educator, as clas-
sical educational thought tells us. Significantly, it rests on the abil-
ity of schools and teachers to provide an ethos, a culture, wherein
cognition and emotion are both equally valued and nurtured so
as to enable the development of a morality that is not steeped in
religious diktats, nationalism, or petty social virtues, but rests on
a sense of the ‘moral worth’ of individuals. School cultures must
enable the development of a secular morality that engenders empa-
thy, compassion, and humanism.
Most educational institutions have taken on the role of merely
imparting skills and knowledge in different academic subjects over
a period of time to various age cohorts that pass through them.
Krishnamurti set up schools where, apart from paying attention to
the pedagogic processes and activities associated with certification,
there is a simultaneous effort among both students and teachers to

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