SPIRITUALITY, RELIGION, AND EDUCATION

Learning to Live
Together Harmoniously
Spiritual Perspectives from
Indian Classrooms

Jwalin Patel
Spirituality, Religion, and Education

Series Editors
Jing Lin
University of Maryland
College Park, MD, USA

Rebecca Oxford
Huntsville, AL, USA

Sachi Edwards
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Honolulu, HI, USA

Edward J. Brantmeier
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, VA, USA
This series publishes books that examine fundamental questions of life,
touching on the meaning, purpose, and mission of education from a variety
of spiritual and religious perspectives. The series provides a forum for
scholars to explore how to engage learners spiritually and holistically.
It studies how spirituality, religion, and education intertwine with the
learning of wisdom, peacebuilding, cultural and interfaith dialogues, and
the integration of learners' body, mind, emotions, and spirit. Commonalities
and differences among spiritual and religious traditions are explored
alongside new developments from science that bridge the spirit and the
mind. The series especially pays attention to the educational initiatives,
outcomes, and programs that simultaneously engage the cognitive, affec-
tive, and spiritual dimensions of both students and educators. The world
we live in focuses mostly on education for the intellect, thus restricting our
ability to explore and understand deeply the nature of the cosmos and the
meaning of our life. Although education is accessible to more people than
ever before in human history, the dominant paradigm focuses solely on
knowledge, skill, and material acquisition that neglects the meaning and
purpose of life. This creates a huge void in learners and produces a huge
number of people who are unhappy, unfulfilled, restless, lost, or desperate.
An education that distills and recovers wisdom from spiritual and religious
traditions can fill the void and help cultivate citizens who have love,
compassion, knowledge, and the capacities for enlightened action. Books
in the series address these age-old pursuits of inquiry, meaning, pur-
pose, growth, transformation, and change. To submit proposals to the
series for consideration please contact Jing Lin at [email protected].
 Jwalin Patel

Learning to Live
Together
Harmoniously
Spiritual Perspectives from Indian Classrooms
Jwalin Patel
Together In Development and Education Foundation
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
Faculty of Education
University of Cambridge
Cambridge, UK

ISSN 2629-365X     ISSN 2629-3668 (electronic)

Spirituality, Religion, and Education
ISBN 978-3-031-23538-2    ISBN 978-3-031-23539-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23539-9

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 Foreword

We live in a time of division, fragmentation, and conflict. The political

divisions are so strong in the United States that politicians of one party
demonise members of the opposing party. Conspiracy theories are devel-
oped to feed people’s anger. Anger and hatred are fuelled by social media,
talk shows, and cable networks that appeal to a specific audience. There
seems little effort to bring people together and to help us live more har-
moniously. I believe that the education systems in many countries with
their limited focus on developing skills so one competes in the global
economy have contributed to these divisions. There has been little empha-
sis on education of the heart or nourishing student well-being which
would help us to live together more equitably and harmoniously.
In this climate Jwalin Patel’s book Learning to Live Together Harmoniously
deserves our attention. In the west, we can look at how India has given the
world some of the most inspiring educational visionaries—Tagore, Gandhi,
Krishnamurti, Sri Aurobindo, and most recently the Dalai Lama. Patel’s
research focuses on schools connected to these visionaries and the teachers
in these schools. One of the main strengths of the book is how Patel lets us
hear how teachers in these schools work to create learning environments
that are truly holistic and are helping students live together.
Teachers in these schools use dialogue and group work to help students
work together. They also employ meditative activities such as birdwatch-
ing, nature appreciation, writing reflective poems, and breathing practices.
Silence is valued and supported, not as a classroom management tech-
nique, but to slow down and listen more deeply. Silence also supports the
appreciation of beauty which was emphasised by several teachers. Patel

v
vi FOREWORD

comments, “This appreciation of beauty around us leads to a very different

way of living and being; I believe it moves students from an anthropocen-
tric, extractive ways, to more humane, sustainable ways of living and
being.” Awareness of beauty and its importance is not part of schooling in
most countries and needs to become more central in teaching and learning
since it can nourish students’ well-being.
The teachers’ comments in the book moved me. Here is one:

“The day I am close to my inner being there comes a different tone in the
class. Finding and connecting with your own psychic being is the most
important thing you can do as a class teacher.” In my work in teacher educa-
tion, I ask students to do meditation so that they can connect to their “inner
being” and teach from that place.

Here is what one student wrote reflecting on her meditation practice:

Through meditation I feel that I am being gently invited to observe the

nature of my own humanity. Personally, I had been strongly moved and
transformed through the beautiful nature of this spiritual practice. I had
heard my voice and soul with amusement. I had slowly let my inner judge
go away and be more in touch with the unspoken, the unseen, and the
sacred part of myself. I had achieved a larger vision of myself and my reality,
a vision that tenderly dilutes my fears, preconceptions, judgments and need
for control. Because of meditation I had been able to transform my fear,
anger, and resistance into joy, forgiveness, acceptance, and love. (Miller,
2014, p. 154)

Another quote from a teacher in Patel’s book:

The overall goal is to be kind, it’s my prayer that I will be kind in class, just
help me to be kind.

What beautiful words and aspirations. The Dalai Lama talks about a reli-
gion of kindness and this teacher aspires to make kindness central to her
teaching.
Teachers emphasised the importance of living their lives more harmoni-
ously. They felt that more important than any teaching technique was
living harmoniously as a way of life. Patel writes, “There was a constant
sentiment that learning to live together harmoniously requires one to
work consciously on oneself and all teachers shared an inner conviction to
 FOREWORD vii

change themselves. In order to do so, teachers were frequently engaged in

dialogues, sessions where they read spiritual texts, meditation, and regular
and constant introspection/reflection.” The teachers saw their work as an
ongoing process of awakening and being compassionate. As much as pos-
sible they were actualising holistic learning and an education of the heart.
Reading the comments from these teachers, I would want my children in
their classrooms.
A final strength of the books is that Patel presents his ideas and research
in an open manner that encourages the reader to examine their own beliefs
and explore their own ideas. In this way Patel asks the reader to participate
in a conversation with the ideas presented in the text. I encourage the
reader to engage the inspiring material in this book and participate in that
conversation.

Toronto, ON, Canada  John Miller

 Foreword

All human beings are essentially social creatures and their survival, prog-
ress, well-being, and happiness are entirely dependent upon others. An
individual human being, unlike other creatures, cannot thrive, unless the
person is loved and cared for by parents and family members, especially the
mother. Basic requirements for life such as water, food, clothing, and shel-
ter cannot be produced and provided without collective efforts of many
people. This is a clear fact and doesn’t need any arguments to establish it.
To live together harmoniously, therefore, is a key to well-being and prog-
ress of the entire humanity. If we look back at the entire history of the
human race, whatever progress and achievements we see at present are all
due to cooperation and collective efforts. On the other hand, entire miser-
ies of sentient beings are due to negative relationships and conflicts among
the individuals, groups, communities, and nations. In particular, the
present-­day post-modern civilisation has created a mindset that considers
the self to be more important than the others and individual rights to be
more important than the collective rights. Thereby we have lost the cul-
ture of living together and caring for the well-being of every individual.
Among the ancient Indian traditions, the Buddhist concept of educa-
tion is a threefold process, called Trishiksha in traditional language. This
includes morality (Sheel), stability of mind (Samadhi), and awakening of
wisdom (Pragya). The real aim of education is not a to impart knowledge
from external information, but to stimulate and awaken the inner wisdom
of an individual. For this, the individual must have a stable and uncondi-
tioned mind that can only be achieved with moral discipline and right
livelihood.

ix
x FOREWORD

For imparting this threefold education, the process too is threefold.

First, to acquire the necessary knowledge through hearing and reading.
This is called Shrutimaya gyan, a knowledge acquired from information.
This is a borrowed and unprocessed knowledge. Thereafter, the learner
shall have to analyse this knowledge through one’s own logic, reasoning,
and analytical examination and ascertain the reality of things acquired
from information. Thereafter, the logical conclusion and finding of the
fact shall be put as an object of meditation and thereby one gets the direct
perception of things that is an authentic understanding of the subject.
Through this threefold process one achieves the threefold education as
mentioned before. Missing out on any one point of the threefold educa-
tion is not real education and lacking on any one point of the threefold
process will fail to achieve the real education. For this kind of education,
Jiddu Krishnamurti used to say, “[T]he purpose of education is to awaken
the inner intelligence so that the person may flower in goodness”.
The majority of the ancient Indian traditions never consider the pur-
pose of education is the livelihood of the individuals. The root cause of all
human miseries is ignorance. Therefore, to dispel ignorance by wisdom is
the only way to achieve human happiness and well-being. Thus, the awak-
ening of wisdom is the sole purpose of education and this objective cannot
be achieved by imparting mere information or acquiring some skills.
The fundamental challenges that face humanity in the twenty-first cen-
tury are a degradation of ethics and morality, conflict and violence, dispar-
ity, degradation of environment and ecosystem threatening the survival of
living beings on planet earth. The fact that modern science and technol-
ogy as well as the socio-political economic system of the present day have
failed to find any effective remedy to these challenges clearly indicates that
the present education system is inadequate to educate the mind and heart
of the coming generations.
I am delighted to find an intelligent young person, raised in the mod-
ern education system, who realised the necessity and importance of ‘learn-
ing to live together harmoniously’ in our present education system. This
effort is very encouraging and offers a ray of hope to the coming genera-
tions. A system of imparting unprocessed information to the mind of a
growing child does not help to awaken the inner wisdom of the young
person. On the contrary, it becomes a kind of indoctrination for condi-
tioning the young mind in such a manner that the person forgets the
 FOREWORD xi

nature of interdependence, the basis of human relationship. As a result,

conflict and structural violence are becoming ever more menacing in
society.
The author of this book has thoroughly surveyed the inadequacies of
the present education system, has proposed possible alternatives, and the
different alternatives suggested by ancient traditions, as well as many great
thinkers of the recent time. I am sure these will draw the attention of edu-
cationists, teachers, students, and parents and initiate a serious consider-
ation and positive action for evolving an education system that can
inculcate a compassionate heart in the coming generations. Only then can
the total destruction of planet earth and all its living beings be averted. I
appreciate the efforts of the author.
May all sentient beings be happy.

Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, India  Samdhong Rinpoche

 Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the various alternative schools that allowed me to visit and

spend extensive time on their campuses. I am extremely grateful to all the
teachers who participated in multiple research studies and who I have now
come to regard as friends and colleagues. I would also like to thank my
spiritual mentor, family, fellow spiritual colleagues and aspirants, col-
leagues at the TIDE (Together In Development and Education)
Foundation, and friends for their love, and support over the years, inform-
ing key themes of the book and transforming my ways of living.
I would like to thank my academic mentors—Professor Hilary Cremin,
Professor Nidhi Singal, and Dr Benjamin Alcott—for their feedback and
helping to inform the development of the book. I am deeply appreciative
of the authors of the two forewords and the afterword: Professor John
Miller, Venerable Professor Samdhong Rinponche, and Brahma Kumari
Shivani. I would also like to thank Mrs Layla Patel and Mr Nishith Patel
for helping reading through and providing critical feedback, to Dr
Siddharth Pandey and Mrs Layla Patel for sharing photos as potential
book covers, and to Mrs Darshini Sundar for helping design one of the
graphics in the monograph. I am also grateful to the Cambridge Trust,
SMUTS memorial fund, Education Faculty Fieldwork Grant, Mary
Euphrasia Mosley, Sir Bartle Frere’s Memorial & Worts Travelling Scholars
Fund, and Robinson College for supporting the fieldwork and its analyses
as well as the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) UK for their
support in writing the monograph.
Finally, I am grateful (to the universe) for the opportunity to explore
alternative education systems and to write this book. It has transformed

xiii
xiv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

my own ways of living and being. This monograph is written in loving

memory of Dr Ami Meghani, who despite her terminal illness, supported
various social action initiatives and simultaneously completed her
Doctorate in Education and Psychology.
 Contents

1 Introduction  1
My Positionality and Purpose of the Book   2
Togetherness and Harmony   4
Book Outline   6

Part I An Alternative Vision for Education For Togetherness

and Harmony  11

2 Calls
 for Alternative Purposes of Education 13
Limited Scope of the Modern Education Systems  14
Calls for Alternative Purposes of Education  23
Conclusion  32

3 Alternative
 Visions from Indian Thinkers and Schools 35
Indian Thinkers  36
The Relevance of Indian Education Thought in the
Twenty-First Century  42
Alternative Schools  46
Conclusion  55

4 Learning
 to Live Harmoniously: an Essential Aim of
Education in the 21st Century 57
Alternative Purposes of Education Around the World  58

xv
xvi Contents

Education of the Heart as a Primary Purpose of Education: A

Teacher’s Perspective  67
Eastern Perspectives of Education for Harmonious Living  73
Conclusion  77

5 Conceptualising
 Learning To Live Together Harmoniously 79
A Problem of Conceptualisation  80
Building a Conceptual Framework  82
Conclusion 101

6 Learning
 To Live Together Harmoniously (LTLH) as a
Way of Living and Being- Nuances of an Interconnected
LTLTH Framework103
Interconnected Framework 104
Education for LTLTH as a Way of Living and Being 108
Seeds for Lifelong Learning 115
Conclusion 119

Part II Classroom Practices for Togetherness and Harmony 121

7 Experiential
 Learning Pedagogies and Practices129
The Potential (Albeit Limited) Role of Curricula 129
Classroom Pedagogies 133
Underlying Approaches to Teaching 142
Conclusion 153

8 Continuum
 of Harmonious Lived Experiences Through
Classroom Ethos, Behavioural Management Routines and
Teacher Student Relations155
A Continuum of Lived Experiences 156
A Classroom Ethos of Harmonious Living 157
Equal, Caring, and Loving Teacher Student Relations 161
Autonomous Behaviour Management 169
Conclusion 177
 Contents  xvii

9 Teachers’
 Ways of Living and Being: Teachers as Reflective
Lifelong Learners of Harmonious Living179
Teachers’ Philosophy of Education 180
Teachers Living Harmoniously and LTLTH 182
Supporting Teachers’ Journeys of LTLTH 187
Schools as Lifelong Learning Centres, Ashrams, and
Communities for Harmonious Living 197
Conclusion 199

10 Provocations,
 Reflections, and Call to Action201
Concluding Notes 202
A Few Epistemological Considerations 203
A Call for Reflect(act)ion 205

Afterword209

References211

Index249
 Abbreviations

EI Emotional Intelligence
GCE Global Citizenship Education
GRL Generated Resource Learning
LTLT Learning To Live Together
LTLTH Learning To Live Together Harmoniously
MBK Mirambika (school in Delhi)
MGIS Mahatma Gandhi International School (school in Ahmedabad,
Gujarat)
NCERT National Council of Educational Research and Training
NCF National Curricular Framework
NEP National Education Policy
PB Patha Bhavan (school in Shantiniketan, West Bengal)
PGCE Post-Graduate Certificate of Education
RVS Rishi Valley School (school in Madanapalle, Andhra Pradesh)
SDG Sustainable Development Goal
SEC Social Emotional Competency
SEE Social Emotional and Ethical curricula
SEL Social Emotional Learning
SES Socio Economic Status
SF Shreyas Foundation (school in Ahmedabad, Gujarat)
TIDE Together In Development & Education
TSR Teacher Student Relations

xix
 List of Figures

Fig. 4.1 Purposes of education. Represents the frequency of coding for

the various purposes of education that the teachers discussed.
*Education of the heart/spirit includes various other
contextualised equivalents, including education of the psychic,
education for flowering in inner goodness, and for a good
human being 74
Fig. 5.1 Conceptualisations of LTLT. Taken from Patel (2021b). The
various conceptualisations and their synergies: orange
(elliptical), yellow (rounded rectangle with thin border), and
green (parallelogram), respectively, represent discovery of self,
discovery of others, and social skills, while red (rectangle with
thick borders) represents concepts that do not necessarily
resonate across the three components (Color figure online) 95
Fig. 5.2 Coding frequency across the framework. Reproduced from
Patel (2021b). Represents the frequency of coded data across
the 18 components (6 dimensions for each of the 3 domains).
Wavy orange lines represent discovery of the self, green vertical
lines represent discovery of others, and blue horizontal lines
represent discovery of the community 101

xxi
 List of Tables

Table 3.1 Summary of impact of some of the key Indian educationists

who emphasised LTLT 47
Table 4.1 Conceptualisation of education of the heart equivalents 78
Table 5.1 Key ideas within LTLTH framework 102
Table 5.2 Learning to live together harmoniously framework 112
Table 9.1 Summary data of teachers living harmoniously 200
Table 9.2 Teachers and their social action engagements 208

xxiii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

This book proposes an alternative vision and practices for education for
togetherness and harmony through the discovery of oneself, others, and
the larger society along with a transition to harmonious ways of living and
being. The current, mass educational system and its practices were born in
the light of the industrial revolution, capitalism, and modernity. Meanwhile,
in today’s world a vastly different educational system is required; a system
that propels students to learn to live and work together to deal with the
many 21st century issues. In an interconnected and interdependent world,
it is essential to move away from tolerating diversity to appreciating it,
from stereotyping to empathetic understanding and from civic duties to
intrinsic responsibility taking.
Several international development reports and educational thinkers
have called for alternative forms of education, emphasising holistic educa-
tion, learning to live together, character education, social emotional learn-
ing, and global citizenship education. Similarly, various Indian philosophers
and spiritual leaders—like Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Aurobindo
Ghose, Rabindranath Tagore, and Jiddu Krishnamurti—have fore-
grounded various local equivalents like education of the heart, education
of the spirit, education for inner flowering, and education for a wholesome
human being. They founded schools that have experimented to bring
about this kind of education, some of which have existed for more than a
century. The book leverages ideologies and practices of teachers within

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2023
J. Patel, Learning to Live Together Harmoniously, Spirituality,
Religion, and Education,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23539-9_1
2 J. PATEL

these alternative schools to build a contextualised conceptualisation of

Learning To Live Together Harmoniously (LTLTH) and to outline prac-
tices that can aid in bringing about such an education. The book show-
cases teacher voice, whilst bringing to the fore lesser heard and discussed
philosophies, voices, and practices from the global south about an alterna-
tive vision for education, which integrates spirituality within the teaching
learning processes through shared lived experiences of togetherness, har-
mony, and spiritual exploration.
The book draws upon southern knowledge and primary data collected
from various Indian schools that have been founded/inspired by the
aforementioned Indian thinkers. Learning To Live Together (LTLT) is
reconceptualised to LTLTH, with a novel conceptual framework being
developed for the latter. Specifically, three domains for discovery of the
self, other, and society are intersected with the six dimensions of ‘aware-
ness’, ‘empathetic and caring relations’, ‘sense of purpose’, ‘change in per-
spective’, ‘compassion(ate action)’, and ‘meaningful engagement’. The
book also explores how LTLTH can be translated into practice and shares
meaningful practices that teachers adopt. This book calls for creating a
continuum of lived experiences through pedagogy, systems, and processes
for autonomy, autonomous behaviour regulation, Teacher Student
Relations (TSR), school-wide ethos, and teachers’ ways of living and being.
The book makes a case for adaption rather than the adoption of frame-
works as per the local micro-contexts. It guides the reader through a prac-
tical alternative educational system that brings about togetherness and
harmony through a lived experience-based pedagogy and an ethos of har-
monious living. It calls for the reader to explore and define what ideas and
practices for education for harmony could look like in their respective
contexts. The book’s propositions and frameworks are extremely relevant
to practitioners (including parents, teachers, and school leaders), academ-
ics, masters and undergraduate students from both education and devel-
opment studies, and to PGCE (teacher training) students.

My Positionality and Purpose of the Book

I have been exploring and questioning the purpose of modern education
for several years; while by many modern standards I can be regarded as
being well educated, I have frequently questioned whether that is really
the case. I have come to realise that I have developed as a fragmented
individual with different parts of myself in imbalance with each other. I
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

have always been conflicted about the emphasis on one’s ownself and the
complete disregard for others or, even more still, of the larger living world
beyond human beings. Over the past several years I have been trying to
unlearn things I picked from mainstream education system, including
anthropocentrism, competitiveness, and self-centrism, result-/goal-­
oriented approaches, as well as a fragmented hierarchical view of the living
world. Instead, I have been consciously trying to work on myself as an
integrated whole (where there are no components like head, heart, hands,
and spirit and rather, they come together), looking beyond the narrow
needs of oneself and the human society, moving beyond to a postcritical
approach to life, and developing a more interconnected understanding of
the world.
I completed my schooling in India, where I studied at progressive
schools that aimed to bring about education of all components of a per-
son, but these can broadly still be seen as more traditional in their vision
for education and approach to holistic education. Luckily, I got the oppor-
tunity to spend a lot of time within alternative spaces that did not comply
with modernist approaches to life. My parents took me on several short-
and long-term visits to spiritual ashrams (spiritual community living
spaces) and this led to an inherent recognition and appreciation of a dif-
ferent way of living and being. I finished my schooling and pursued higher
education in the UK. At some point, I decided to return to India to work
on quality of life in slums and villages. This led me to working on educa-
tional reforms, as a cofounder of two charities in India and consultant to
several others around the world. Over the past few years, I have found
myself questioning the purpose of education and the grassroots level work
we have been doing through one of the charities (Together In Development
& Education [TIDE] Foundation). At TIDE Foundation, we had been
predominantly remained focused on improving access to education; how-
ever, quality was narrowly defined as education of the head and interven-
tions focused on progressive pedagogy. I have come to believe that
education needs to go beyond narrow modernist vision for functional lit-
eracy and numeracy, instrumental vision of education and academic learn-
ing to other more holistic visions of education including focusing on
intrinsic value of education and bringing about an integral education. I
found myself seeking the integration of learning experiences from my stays
in spiritual spaces; the development of a non-anthropocentric, ecological,
and interconnected epistemology; and ways of living and being. I then
embarked on a journey to explore more integral and holistic approaches to
4 J. PATEL

education that were called for by several Indian thinkers and have been
adopted and are being practiced by several alternative schools in India.
The book draws upon several research studies in many such schools and
deep immersion at a few of them.
We are at a pivotal moment and educational visions need to be recon-
sidered and rethought. Through this book, I envision a different kind of
education that relies on integral and holistic education, with the aim of
bringing about an education for harmony (and togetherness) within one-
self, in the surroundings around oneself, and in the larger world (includ-
ing human and non-human, living and non-living). I want to encourage
debate, dialogue, and reflection around what is the purpose of education.
Should it be instrumental and help fulfil the needs of the society (or an
individual) or hold an intrinsic value and be pursued for its own sake?
Rather than pushing for a single vision or a prescriptive vision, my aim is
to encourage discussion and introspection around the importance of edu-
cation for harmony. I strongly appreciate and believe that there cannot be
one universal theory; it is up to individual students, parents, teachers,
schools, and communities to engage in a reflective process to contextualise
and define their own vision for education. There are no specific dos or do
nots and instead good educators can leverage any tool or strategy in dif-
ferent contexts. Through this book, I introduce some theories and prac-
tices that I collected through case studies of alternative schools in India
across multiple years. These case studies and my interpretation of the find-
ings can hopefully prompt readers to reflect on their visions for education.
It is important also to recognise that, while I draw upon my own experi-
ences in the spiritual spaces and the lived experiences (students, teachers,
and mine) within the alternative schools, these are not representative of all
schools in India. Furthermore, the key findings revolve around a different
way of living and being. However, despite my best efforts to articulate
them, these descriptions come nowhere close to the real lived experiences.

Togetherness and Harmony

Both terms are broad terms and while the book explores what they could
mean and develops a framework, these terms need to be contextualised
and defined by each of us. As we begin the exploration of what they could
mean within educational settings, I leave you with a prompt and personal
reflection to begin exploring what these terms mean to you, within your
respective contexts. The prompt:
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

I have frequently questioned do we not already live together? Well, there

have been constant struggles and wars at the macro level, but leaving those
aside one could argue that we do live together most of the time, even if it’s
merely coexisting. However, I wonder how much of this togetherness is
actually harmonious. Do we live together grudgingly, tolerate each other, or
merely coexist? What could living together in harmony within the larger
natural world (including human and non-human, living and non-living
beings), with each other, and with oneself mean?

I write this introduction after most of the book has been written and
have been struggling with what could serve as being appropriate to set the
scene. I find myself seated on one of the benches on the boardwalk along
the beaches of Puducherry (Pondicherry) initially awaiting and then see-
ing the sunrise. I am currently visiting the city to interact with a few more
teachers in my continued exploration of education for togetherness and
harmony, and over the past few days I have constantly been asked how I
understand harmony. I have used different descriptions, including of those
of balance, inner peace, active forms of harmony (discussed in Chap. 4),
and from the framework later described in Chap. 5 (notably, harmony
within oneself, with immediate surroundings, and within the wider world
that one is not directly connected with).

As I sit by the beach, I find myself surrounded by all kinds of people. At 5am
the ocean is peppered with fishermen’s boats, some rowing while others are
cutting across with their loaded motor driven boats. The beach is filled with
people going about their daily business; including morning walkers and jog-
gers, tourists taking a leisurely stroll, a few people practising morning yoga
and pranayama, and people learning tai chi and other martial arts. Many are
going down to the beach to play in the waves, whilst others are sitting and
awaiting the sunrise. While crows fly around, other birds are chirping and
insects are hovering around the streetlights. There is a cacophony of noises
as the waves crash against the rocks, crows caw, people chat away, and all
kinds of music ranging from prayers to Bollywood songs playing from
phones. Yet, still people continue undisturbed, adapting and making space
for others—notably the practitioners of tai chi continue their practice and
learn from their instructors as people stared at them amused. People start
taking photographs of the sun as it peaks out from behind the clouds, while
many others continue walking around those that decided to stop and take
pictures. As the sun rises the tai chi practitioners turn around to face the sun,
admire it, and bow to it as they continued their practice.
6 J. PATEL

On another day, I would have found it very difficult to work and write in
such busy and loud environment; the sound of dragging feet alone would
have been disturbing enough let alone all the other sounds. I would perhaps
have actively sought a quiet space to sit and listen to the waves, to meditate,
and to work. Yet still I found myself enveloped in a calm silence; connected
to myself, to the ocean, and to others around; frequently, appreciating all
the activities happening around me and being grateful for the place, the
people, and the various activities.

In hindsight, I have reflected upon whether this was the case because I
was relatively free. However, I did have quite a few emails to reply to,
needed to prepare for data collection, had yet to write down reflections
from the previous day, an overdue grant application to write, as well as
needing to work on the book. This incident reminded me of other reflec-
tions, where I had found peace in loud and busy environments, including
the sense of sacred silence that I felt at some of the schools, the deep
appreciation for a busy train ride from Kolkata to Shantiniketan, and dur-
ing a collective meditation session within a building adjoining an extremely
busy street. I invite you to reflect on what harmony, togetherness, and
living together in harmony means to you. I would like to invite you to
reflect specifically upon experiences of these as you explore and develop
your own understanding of these terms.

Book Outline
The book is divided into two parts. Part I, containing five chapters,
explores theory and visions for education for togetherness and harmony.
Part II, containing four chapters, explores praxis for these visions of edu-
cation. Each of the parts begins with a reflective poem that draws on direct
quotes from my various interactions and interviews with practitioners,
thinkers, and experts. Each of the chapters ends with a couple of reflective
prompts for you to contextualise the propositions of the chapter and to
explore their relevance within your respective settings. I would love to
hear your thoughts and hope to compile varied responses to the prompts
and various possibilities of an alternative vision for education on www.
empowereducators.in.
Chapter 2 explores the limitations of the modern and mass education
systems and the consequent calls for alternative purposes of education.
The modern education system is marred by reductionism, objectification,
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

fragmentation, materialism, segregation, self-centrism, and anthropocen-

trism. These inevitably lead to the reproduction and propagation of
inequality, arbitrary separations of me and them, fragmented societies, loss
of reverence, awe and wonder for the world, and a limited understanding
of an interconnected world. Instead, I explore alternative visions of educa-
tion that prioritise an ecological and spiritual perspective regarding inte-
gral and holistic education that will eventually lead to harmony within
oneself and wider society. I draw on my own personal reflections and expe-
riences, some data from practitioners in alternative schools in India, as well
as the works of various Indian and international thinkers.
Chapter 3 involves a deeper investigation into the work of various
Indian educationists and thinkers, exploring their visions, recommenda-
tions, and direct and indirect impact on practice and policy. Notably, they
call for an education for both an inner renewal and social change, both,
through the process of education and as a result of it. This brings about an
education that is intrinsically harmonious and also leads to an education
for harmony. The chapter also introduces some of the alternative schools
that the book draws upon, not only providing context to the schools, but
also striving to create an immersive experience for the reader.
Chapter 4 explores various calls for alternative visions for education,
especially those calling more specifically for equivalents of education of the
heart and/or for harmony (both within oneself and in the larger commu-
nity). While education of the heart has been one of the primary goals
within various educational systems, especially within the global south,
there have been several synergetic concepts like learning to live together,
social emotional learning, global citizenship education, emotional intelli-
gence, and peace education that have emerged across the world. These
fundamentally call for a more holistic and integral education, where a child
is educated as a whole (within a larger community/world) as opposed to
an academic education for future careers. Drawing on practitioners’ vision,
the chapter emphasises the role of education for harmony (within oneself
and in the wider world) for building a commitment to the wellbeing of
oneself, others, and the world at large, with the hope that this will inevita-
bly shape an intrinsically and naturally just, peaceful, and harmonious
society.
Conceptualising terms like learning to live together and education of
the heart have several challenges and this, in turn, has led them to being
treated as broad and vague umbrella terms, thus making it difficult to
translate them into practice. Chapter 5 unpacks the nuances and
8 J. PATEL

limitations of developing a conceptual framework and then proposes an

interconnected framework with three domains (discovery of the self,
other, and world) and six dimensions (awareness, empathetic and caring
relations, sense of purpose, change in perspective, compassionate action,
and meaningful engagement). The framework embodies a non-­
anthropocentric perspective, with the domains including other living and
non-living things beyond human society. The domains are related through
one’s responsibility and commitment to each other and their wellbeing,
whilst similarly, the dimensions are interconnected, as the development of
one leads to the development of others.
Chapter 6 explores various nuances of the framework and moves
beyond a simplistic 2D model to a deeply interconnected framework of
education for harmony that needs to be pursued as a way of living and
being. The framework is suggested as being intrinsically linked and an
indivisible whole. Education for harmony relies on the integration of edu-
cation of the head, heart, hands, and the spirit; these cannot be developed
directly through piecemeal efforts, but rather must be developed holisti-
cally. Teachers advocated a pluralistic approach to pursue education for
harmony as a purpose of education, rather than a predetermined goal fol-
lowing a singular path. They frequently believed that education for har-
mony was a nonlinear journey wherein different students took different
paths to developing their own ways of living in harmony. Notably, educa-
tion for harmony is seen as a way of living, being, knowing, and seeing the
world around one, rather than a mere acquisition of knowledge, skills,
and/or habits.
Chapter 7 explores classroom practices for education for harmony. It
emphasises the role of pedagogy (how to teach) over curricula (what to
teach). It explores a range of pedagogical practices, including dialogic
teaching, peer- and project-based learning, meditation, reflection, and
social action. Thereafter, the chapter highlights the importance of a lived
experience-based pedagogy as a means of bringing about an intrinsic form
of education for harmony. Such pedagogy relies on embodied education,
recognition that everything and everyone is a potential educator, as well as
awareness that education is a continuous process that extends beyond
textbooks, curricula, and schools’ four walls.
Chapter 8 problematises notions of pedagogy as being limited to teach-
ing learning practices within the classroom and explores what pedagogy
could be like when education goes beyond transfer of content knowledge
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

or development of skills and competencies. The chapter emphasises that

education for harmony is brought about by a continuum of shared lived
experiences and that these are not just engendered through classroom
practices, but also by the culture and people within the school. It empha-
sises the importance of classroom and school-wide ethos, Teacher Student
Relations (TSR), and autonomous behaviour regulation as underpinning
the continuum of lived experiences.
Chapter 9 emphasises the importance of teachers consciously trying to
live together harmoniously for themselves as opposed to merely modelling
behaviours. It highlights the teachers’ intrinsic commitment to pursuing
LTLTH both for themselves and for their students. It encourages ques-
tioning if schools need to be just learning centres for children or if they
can be restructured as learning spaces for everyone, spaces for community
living, and spaces for experimenting with different ways of living and
being. It exemplifies some of these alternatives and finds that the schools
had several supportive systems for teachers: including those for autonomy,
dialogue, collaboration, reflection, meditation, action on issues of social
justice, and ethos of harmony. These helped teachers question educational
purpose, find their own purpose of life, and pursue LTLTH for themselves.
Chapter 10 concludes the book by summarising the key findings and
epistemological underpinnings for education for harmony. The chapter is
primarily a call to action that encourages the reader to adapt, rather than
adopt, the conceptual frameworks, classroom teaching learning practices,
and school-wide processes and systems as per the local micro-contexts. It
also invites the reader to share their own understandings, reflections, and
experiments with other readers and practitioners.
 PART I

An Alternative Vision for Education

For Togetherness and Harmony

1.1   Education, 12 (+2) Long Years at School

Education, 12 (+2) long years at school

That we want to put everyone through.

Why do we even care? What is the purpose?

A child “does not know anything” and a school will educate him,
To make money, prepare him for the future;
To make an economic contribution, create good citizens.

But is education just that, an instrument for future success?

Do we even know what the future will be like?
Did we know about the financial crisis, Brexit, or the pandemic?
In an ever-changing world, change is the only constant.

And what about the inherent value of education?

The intrinsic value of the process of learning;
The value of developing multifaceted perspectives;
The intrinsic value in appreciating beauty around us;
The value in understanding one’s ownself.
12 An Alternative Vision for Education For Togetherness and Harmony

Perhaps, an education that frees one,

Opens the head, heart and hands;
To appreciate and celebrate rather than just accept diversity;
To find beauty in understanding “others” rather than just tolerate “others”;
To develop values of unity, kindness, empathy, gratitude, and compassion;
Might make the 12 long years value-able.
~Jwalin Patel 2020

The modern, mass educational system and its practices were borne in
the light of the industrial revolution and designed to create technicians. It
is based on materialistic, reductionist, and anthropocentric epistemologies
and has led to homogenisation of diverse cultures and ways of knowing, a
narrow emphasis on what can be measured, frequently lead to reproduc-
tion and propagation of social inequity, and fragmented ways of living and
being. These epistemologies have led to several crises including those of
wellbeing, equity, justice, knowledge, democracy, and climate change
(Cremin, 2022; Illich, 1971a, 1971b; Mignolo & Walsh, 2018;
Santos, 2018).
While the modern education system, much like modernity, has its own
benefits, I believe that a very different system is required as of today: a
system focused on quality rather than access, a system that contributes to
building harmony—both through inner renewal and through social trans-
formation—, and a system that propels to not just tolerate others but
to also deeply respect others. This part explores what an alternative, more
holistic, and more integral vision for education could look like. It draws
upon various philosophies and visions of several Indian thinkers and holis-
tic educators to propose the need for education for harmony, to explore
what education for harmony could mean, and to extend it beyond a pre-
scriptive definition to a nuanced, interconnected, deeply contextualised
way of living and being.
This part explores the limitations of the current educational vision and
processes, explores calls for a more holistic vision for education, and pro-
poses education for harmony as an alternative vision for education. I draw
upon my own experiences, various international and Indian theorists, and
practitioners from alternative schools in India.
 CHAPTER 2

Calls for Alternative Purposes of Education

Modern education and its practices have commonly propagated educa-

tion as narrowly focusing on academic education, following a factory-
based model to train people to conform and prepare them to contribute
to industries, treating education instrumentally as a means of nation-­
building, and, finally, promoting anthropocentric, self-centric, and con-
sumerist ways of living and being that have directly led to many social and
ecological issues around the world. Similarly, mass education and interna-
tional development have predominantly remained focused on access to
education and functional literacy and numeracy due to several systemic
conditions, including an emphasis on competitive testing, curricular com-
pletion, rote memorisation, and top-down implementation of develop-
mental agenda. These have been criticised by many as being a very
reductive vision of education. In this chapter, I draw upon my own per-
sonal reflections and writings of various Indian and international thinkers
to explore alternative visions of education that weave in the importance
of education for harmony and harmonious living. Furthermore, I explore
active forms of peace, togetherness, and harmony, as well as how har-
mony/peace is not the absence of violence or chaos, but rather the pres-
ence of justice.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 13

Switzerland AG 2023
J. Patel, Learning to Live Together Harmoniously, Spirituality,
Religion, and Education,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23539-9_2
14 J. PATEL

Limited Scope of the Modern Education Systems

Personal Reflections
I have always questioned the purpose of the current system of education
through my various roles and positionalities: as a student, as a teacher, as
a social changemaker, as an adult, and as a scholar.
As a student, I questioned the role of rote memorisation, some of the
content that I learnt, and the various exams. I appreciated learning and
being exposed to new ideas and concepts, the degree of care and support
that I received from teachers, and opportunities for engaging in various
non-academic interests. However, more recently through discussions with
my classmates and peers, I have come to realise how non-inclusive the
schools were, and that I had potentially been afforded preferential treat-
ment. Reflecting upon my own schooling experience, I question the rele-
vance and applicability of much of the content that I learnt. I do not
remember much of the academic content that I learnt, which says some-
thing. I would have preferred to learn how to file my taxes, how to farm,
about the interconnectedness in the world, and about issues of social jus-
tice developing. Yes, I did develop some transferable skills at school, like
team working and leadership skills. However, I developed many others at
home, including various socioemotional skills, entrepreneurial skills, and,
importantly, learning to learn. In hindsight, I would have preferred going
to schools that focused on living in the present moment, learning to be
happy, learning to live together, and helped develop values like kindness,
empathy, compassion, and gratitude. I notably recall one of my reflections
that I had noted down while organising a Model United Nations (MUN)
conference at school.

While as delegates we debated solutions to international issues, including

poverty, we conveniently overlooked the children in tattered clothes we
passed by on our way to the conference. We positioned ourselves as experts,
while not recognising, let alone understanding, the issues around us and the
opportunities and privilege that we took for granted.

Furthermore, while my educational journey included a degree of spiritual,

emotional, and social education, which was brought about by my family
and extended stays in ashrams, I always saw school and schooling to have
little to do with the same.
 2 CALLS FOR ALTERNATIVE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION 15

As an educator, I questioned the applicability and relevance of some of

the curricula, the arbitrary separation of subjects, streaming of students,
and the limited scope for personalisation. I strongly appreciated (and still
do) some of the other educators who leveraged varied student interests,
aspirations, and experiences. Learning from them I experimented with
various strategies, including a learn-at-your-own-pace course, integration
of various subjects, as well as education through and within public spaces.
However, with hindsight, much of what we did was limited in scope and
it rarely touched upon deeper understanding of one’s ownself, intercon-
nectedness in the society, and the relevance of the content to their lives.
Additionally, I saw the impact that the education and perhaps the wider
society had on students; it appeared to make them very self-centred seek-
ing arbitrary materialistic social norms, with limited connection to them-
selves, others around them, and nature. While I take heart in the fact that,
over the years, I have now seen many of my students ‘find success’ profes-
sionally, I have also seen some of them struggle with various personal
issues. This has led me to realise how education systems can fail to prepare
students for various emotional and personal struggles that people are
bound to face.
As a ‘social changemaker’ (I have now come to dislike the word), I
started my journey perceiving education as the silver/magic bullet that
could uplift under-resourced and marginalised communities. While there
are several success stories from the work that other organisations and we
at TIDE Foundation have done and more broadly from the various com-
munities themselves, I found myself questioning the narrow purpose and
vision of education as academic learning. Notably, a school leader of a
public school that TIDE Foundation worked with pointed out that, at
times, educational goals are dissociated from students’ own interests and
even from the wider society. She gave an example of a student that the
typical education system would have considered to be a failure, but who
understood how the school functioned, including its electricity, plumbing,
and construction design. Additionally, I found under-resourced commu-
nity members face severe unemployment, where postgraduates from mar-
ginalised communities sought underpaid jobs, like home-helps and office
peons. Furthermore, I came to realise that the mass educational system
has had a very narrow focus on things that we can measure. But “what
about skills and attitudes that cannot be measured such as, kindness, com-
passion, gratitude, courage, justice, leadership, contentment, discernment,
and community living? While many of these may still be describable, what
16 J. PATEL

about other aspects of education that cannot be put in words, for example,
deeper spiritual understanding?” While I recognised education’s potential,
its need as a human right, and valued some of the processes more holistic
education could involve, I questioned my initial stance of education as the
silver bullet to all social issues. Furthermore, I was struck by the decontex-
tualised and colonial nature of the curricula and pedagogy, and its impact-
where in students in villages and marginalised communities were taught
content that was designed for and by a very different population, which in
turn led to a certain degree of estrangement and looking down upon one’s
own and their family’s professions, cultures, and ways of living and being.
As a changemaker, I have been involved in a journey of questioning the
role, purpose, and philosophies of changemaking. Over the years, my own
reasoning for being involved in social changemaking has evolved: as a
child I started with ideas of “I want to help others”. During my teenage
years, these quickly evolved to “I am here because I feel good about myself
(I feel satisfied and get a good night’s sleep)”, and as I engaged more in
the processes by working full time on changemaking, as an adult, these
evolved to “am I actually helping them or harming them through my own
violent approaches to changemaking? I came to recognise that imposing
my own ways of living and being and the modern, colonial education sys-
tem as being extremely violent.” Over time, my vision for changemaking
has evolved to the notion of “the communities I work with actually help
me rather than the other way around”, then to “I am not the doer, I am
just the medium (for the ‘universe/existence’ or communities to find their
interests)”, and finally, to “perhaps our journeys through time and life is
not about changing anyone, but rather, about building meaningful rela-
tions”. When there are meaningful relations the notion of help disap-
pears and dissolves- a parent does not help the child; they love the child.
As I write this book, I have become extremely wary of words like change-
maker, change agent, and agent of change. I am still unsure of an alterna-
tive; a medium for change is better, but with its own issues, as it is still
based on the premise of a change being required and that change is
brought about by someone external to the group. Instead, I identify more
strongly with ideas of building relations, being/recognising oneself as
being connected with the group, and having meaningful engagement with
each other. While this paragraph might be a tangential discussion, I believe
the same applies to educators. I believe that we need to move away from
perceptions of helping the child to those of educators and children engag-
ing with each other through a series of shared, meaningful lived experiences.
 2 CALLS FOR ALTERNATIVE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION 17

As an adult, I have wondered how distant we have become from others

that are different from us, the nature, and our deeper selves. I wonder if
the education system is creating fragmented individuals (Krishnamurti,
2013); individuals with arbitrary separations between aspects of life: arts
and sciences, work and life, personal and public rights, self and the other,
as well as by various labels and stereotypes. Perhaps our society—which is
divided by class, caste, religion, and race—and our education system—
which has various arbitrary divisions based on age, subjects, and times-
pans—are replicating and propagating further fragmentation. Furthermore,
within education, the ideas of multiple intelligences, and labelling stu-
dents based on their ability, needs, and speed of learning, further fragment
them arbitrarily, rather than treating them as a composite whole with vary-
ing sets of needs. We not only train students to perceive themselves, but
also others and the world, as fragmented with limited interconnections. It
is a very divisive process that can lead to isolation where in one can keep
dividing society and people based on gender, race, geography, politics,
caste, class, interests, so on, and so forth, till each person is left isolated as
an individual. Unfortunately, many education systems have been designed
in ways that have led us to see things through narrow, anthropocentric,
fragmentary, self-centric perspectives. Perhaps we need an integrated edu-
cation that enables students to perceive various divides and labels as arbi-
trary and reductive, and appreciate the interconnectedness between
individuals, within the human society, within nature, and within the larger
world (Thapan, 2001). This could allow for William Blake’s suggested
possibility of seeing reality in a more interconnected manner: “[I]f the
doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to [one]1 as
it is, infinite”.
As a scholar, I started exploring whether education, with its narrow
visions, constituted a form of violence. The argument for modern educa-
tion has been based on promises of social mobility, and while this does
happen in a few instances, more frequently it can act in a means to main-
tain status quo. Many sociologists have highlighted the sociocultural vio-
lence that is embedded in terms of who gets access, whose voice is heard,
the hidden curricula at school, and how various educational systems and
processes not just replicate, but also propagate social inequity and frag-
mented sociocultural societies. I wonder if educational systems and
processes in and of themselves are violent. There is a degree of violence in

1
The original quote used the word ‘man’ instead.
18 J. PATEL

limiting education to that within four walls, promoting the development

of a fragmented purview of life, and enforcing a predefined curriculum
and standardised exams with little scope for contextualisation let alone
being informed by student interest. Additionally, students are frequently
looked down upon and ridiculed, the student autonomy and freedom are
replaced by top-down teacher-enforced restrictions on their natural ten-
dencies, and they are subject to being treated as machines that need to
serve the future society. I question whether the modern system with its
reductionist view aims to shape all children into identical people: consum-
ers, global citizens, and/or workers. Modernisation has frequently done
this in other aspects of human life by promoting a monoculture across all
industries, for example, agriculture,2 clothing, architecture, design, and so
on. This, in my opinion, is perhaps the biggest form of violence: getting
diverse children to discard their own identities and selves to fit into an
arbitrary mould. As a social changemaker I have come across and experi-
mented with various forms of autonomous learning systems, including
adapting prescribed curricula to student interests, learn at your own pace
courses, self- and peer-directed learning initiatives, the teachers and stu-
dents co-defining curricula, and discovery education. These were extremely
meaningful to students, allowing for building student onus and setting the
foundations for lifelong learning. Furthermore, I questioned why educa-
tion must be thought as being delimited to schools and universities. Much
of education has always happened beyond school spaces and through lived
experiences. This can be observed in various Indigenous populations,
where children join in with the community and learn by doing, partaking,
and experiencing, thus leading to a more embodied education. Similarly,
all of us are learning all the time- at school, workplace, home, and in the
community. However, within the school confines education is restricted to

2
This pressure for the most efficient monocultures is best demonstrated by some simple
statistics on the variety of rice seeds in India. A couple of centuries ago there were nearly
110,000+ varieties, of which, now, only around 5000–6000 survive. Despite the 1000s of
varieties still available I can only name a handful and through my life would have eaten prob-
ably no more than 20. This culture of monocultures while seemingly in pursuit of efficiency
is known to be counter-productive and this has been exemplified by the potato blight, where
a monoculture was wiped out by a single strain of virus. Moreover, the loss of diversity has
meant that most people consume only one kind (rice in this instance), thus accessing only a
limited set of nutrients (potentially limited in quantity as the variety of rice prioritised within
the monocultures has been focused on other aspects, like quantity produced, rather than
nutrition and the diversity of nutrients contained within).
 2 CALLS FOR ALTERNATIVE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION 19

an abstract predefined curriculum, which many a times is taught in a man-

ner separated from children’s lived experiences.
These questions led me to delve deeply into educational theories, phi-
losophies, and research. Furthermore, given the strong impact of both
colonial and modernist agendas along with their associated dangers, it is
important also to consider various Indian thinkers and their educational
propositions. Explorations beyond my own experiences lead to the realisa-
tion that the limitations of modern education have existed for a long time,
having drawn criticism from both Indian and international thinkers.

Indian Thinkers
My social changemaker journey led me to meeting several educationists
and government officials in Gujarat, India. The opinions of the various
educationists that I met resonated with my personal reflections on the
limitations of the current education systems. They highlighted the narrow
emphasis on English (and not Gujarati, the mother tongue of many chil-
dren) and mathematics, limited contextual relevance of much of what was
taught, how education had become a tool to replicate social inequity (with
the access to types of schools and, finally, finding a job depending on stu-
dents’ backgrounds), and the strong disconnect from spiritual ideas of
holistic development. Up until a few years ago, most of the government
officials that I met spoke out against the modernist approach to interna-
tional aid and development, criticising it for replacing more holistic
approaches of education to a narrow focus on literacy and numeracy.
However, unfortunately, it appears as if we have come back in a full circle
now, with several modernist agendas finding a strong footing, including
those of literacy and numeracy (driven by a coalition of iNGOs), privatisa-
tion of education (Anjela Taneja, 2021; RTE Forum, 2021), and the
development of an Ofsted-inspired school rating model that in its cur-
rent, albeit very early phase, fails to account for the massive sociocultural
differences across communities.
Many of the local educationists have frequently called for a different
educational system, referring to Indian educational thinkers from the
twentieth century. These discussions led me to read and explore philoso-
phies, visions, and practices proposed by various Indian educational think-
ers, like Mohandas Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Jiddu Krishnamurti,
Aurobindo Ghose, Gijju Badheka, Rabindranath Tagore, and
Radhakrishnan (I elaborate upon their backgrounds in the next chapter).
20 J. PATEL

They provided stark criticism of education of the colonial and modern

education systems for several reasons. First, they condemned it for sacrific-
ing of a holistic approach of education by focusing only on literacy
(Gandhi, 1968a, 1968b; Krishnamurti, 2000; Tagore, 1929). For exam-
ple, Gandhi (1968b) suggested “literacy is not the end of education nor
even the beginning. It is only one of the means whereby [people]3 can be
educated. Literacy in itself is no education.” Second, they rued the absence
of an emancipatory nature, whereby modern education practices do not
strive to overcome the divides of class, caste, religion, and socioeconomics
(Gharse & Sharma, n.d.; Tagore, 1929). Moreover, they fail to free one
from one’s own conditioning and oppressive societal structures (Gandhi,
1968b; Krishnamurti, 2000; Tagore, 1929). Third, they lamented the fail-
ure to stimulate critical engagement (Gandhi, 1968a; O’Connell, 2003),
with there being a limited applicability and relevance of what is learnt/
taught. Fourth, they highlighted the failure to cultivate sympathy, empa-
thy, and compassion (O’Connell, 2003; Tagore, 1929). Fifth, they criti-
cised the top-down implementation of colonial/developmental agenda
with very limited contextualisation and say for local stakeholders (Freire,
2005). Sixth, they contended that the current arrangements have led to
the development of a fragmented mind and person, who also learns to see
the world as fragmented and recreates various divisions and hierarchies
(Jinan, 2021; Krishnamurti, 2000). For example, Tagore criticising the
modern education system suggested:

The young mind should be saturated with the idea that it has been born in
a human world which is in harmony with the world around it. And this is
what our regular type of school ignores with an air of superior wisdom,
severe and disdainful. It forcibly snatches away children from a world full of
the mystery of God’s own handiwork, full of the suggestiveness of personal-
ity. It is a mere method of discipline which refuses to take into account the
individual. It is a manufactory specially designed for grinding out uniform
results. … According to the school, life is perfect when it allows itself to be
treated as dead, to be cut into symmetrical conveniences. … We may become
powerful by knowledge, but we attain fullness by sympathy. The highest
education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our
life in harmony with all existence. But we find that this education of sympa-
thy is not only systematically ignored in schools, but it is severely repressed.
(Tagore, 1917, pp. 116–117)

3
The original quote used the phrase “men and women” instead.
 2 CALLS FOR ALTERNATIVE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION 21

All these criticisms hold true even today. Vandana Shiva (in Black, 2010)
notes that, modern education is removed from the pursuit of wisdom, and
even that of knowledge, and is reduced to a mere transmission of informa-
tion that too partial information. While Jinan (2021) provides a stark criti-
cism of the modern education system and notes that such systems have
distanced one from connecting with, observing, understanding and learn-
ing, from the real world in favour of learning from the written word. In a
more recent conversation with an ex-head of nation he noted the modern
education system has driven modern societies into consumerism—pro-
moting competition and comparison over cooperation, prioritising self-­
interest over the wellbeing of others and the world, driving people to bhog
(consuming/using things out of greed or for pleasure) rather than upyog
(using things in a considerate and uplifting manner), and inevitably driv-
ing conflict and issues of social and environmental justice.

International Thinkers
While there are several contradictory and partial accounts of the purpose
and impact of the rise of mass education, many commonly argue that it
aimed to prepare individuals to serve the economy (Robinson & Aronica,
2015), build a degree of conformity, differentiate people based on social
divides, and maintain the status quo (Bowles & Gintis, 2011). A few have
challenged this perspective, arguing for mass education as a means of
building reasoning and cultural values like social cohesion and citizenship
(Durkheim, 2013). While this is a different discussion in its own stead,
there is a general condemnation of it for its factory/prison-like model:
cells and bells, division and hierarchy of subjects, and systemic killing of
creativity (Robinson & Aronica, 2015). Furthermore, Freire (2005)
strongly advocated against the colonial nature of education, the culture of
silence that it propagated as a means of maintaining the status quo, and
the narrow vision of the banking model of education, whereby students
are reduced to receiving objects, thus controlling their thinking and
actions, and stifling creative thinking.
Mass education has predominantly remained focused on functional lit-
eracy, numeracy, and measurable outcomes (Global Education Monitoring
Report, 2012). Similarly, education for international development research
and interventions has primarily engaged with increasing access to educa-
tion, improving infrastructure, and measurable outcomes. Moreover, the
implementation of Millennium Development Goals and Education For
22 J. PATEL

All has been focused on access, despite their emphasis on quality (Global
Education Monitoring Report, 2012; Skinner et al., 2013; United
Nations, 2013). Several international reports and thinkers have called for
broadening the focus of education from beyond measurable inputs and
outcomes of the learning processes (Alexander, 2004; Delors et al., 1996;
Global Education Monitoring Report, 2016; Nussbaum, 2010; Skinner
et al., 2013). The United Nations (2013) has stated that “a failure to
ensure that schooling actually leads to education … [has resulted in] a
need to recapture the broad understanding of education and its purpose in
future goals and frameworks”. This has led to parallel discourses criticising
the perceived purpose of education and emphasising the need to go
beyond perceiving it as a means of bringing literary, numeracy, and eco-
nomic development (Global Education Monitoring Report, 2012).
Regarding which, Nussbaum (2010) noted that education for democratic
citizenship is failing, if not completely absent, in favour of education for
economic development due to (a) unawareness, (b) lack of acknowledge-
ment of the role of education in building pluralism and social cohesion,
and (c) shifting the focus to rote memorisation and competitive testing.
Similarly, within international development, the ‘western’ instrumental
view of international development and by extension developmental educa-
tion has been challenged by scholars (Escobar, 1995; Sen, 1999), who
instead call for an alternative conceptualisation of good life based on
sociocultural development. Sen (1985, 2003) emphasised the role of
capability, freedom of opportunities, and wellbeing over human capital.
Several holistic education scholars have criticised the current system for
merely dispensing information. R. Miller (1991) derided the current edu-
cational systems for their materialistic, reductionist, and economic-centric
epistemologies, worldviews, and approaches and argued that these have
only led to divisions between people, a loss of reverence for life, the lack
of ecological and spiritual perspectives, as well as failure to understand the
interconnected nature of the world. Similarly, de Souza (2018) and Hart
(2018) claimed that the simplistic focus on information acquisition, com-
partmentalisation, as well as the reliance on competitive and narrow mea-
sures dehumanises and devalues students. They contended that educational
systems conveniently deem ideas of wonderment, imagination, liberation,
and emancipation as impractical due to pressures to complete an arbitrary
course that students frequently find irrelevant and/or only memorise its
content for exams. Moore (2018) further criticises current education for
its distancing from the soulful life within and around one.
 2 CALLS FOR ALTERNATIVE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION 23

Hart (2018a, 2018b) argues against the modernist ways of knowing.

He suggests that the narrowing of our epistemologies to those based on
objectification (separating oneself from the object, be it human or non-­
human), reductionism (reducing it to parts), dualism (everything can be
neatly segregated into one or the other), and materialism (material inter-
actions and value) have led to an education system that primarily relies on
knowing by detachment, reduction, and possibly domination. This reduc-
tionist view of understanding, while powerful at times, cannot be used all
the time, because while it allows for understanding of various parts of a
given thing, it leaves out others and, even more importantly, the intercon-
nectedness between the parts. Such reductionist and materialistic episte-
mologies and societies end up ravaging, dominating, and exploiting the
natural world, other societies, and each other for selfish gains. For exam-
ple, Leonardo Da Vinci (cited in Capra, 2007, p. 12) suggests that reduc-
tionist approaches lead one to “fall into the same error as one who strips
the tree of its adornment of branches full of leaves, intermingled with
fragrant flowers or fruit, in order to demonstrate that the tree is good for
making planks”.

Calls for Alternative Purposes of Education

Personal Reflections on a Spiritual Education

The mass educational system and its practices were born in the light of the
industrial, economic, and cultural revolution. I believe that this educa-
tional system is responsible for literate yet uneducated citizens, (re)creat-
ing a society fragmented by various divides and creating fragmented
individuals that are, at best, technicians. I believe that a very different
system is required as of today: a system that brings about holistic develop-
ment of students and propels them to learn to live in harmony, respect,
appreciating and celebrating diversity and to engage in social action to
address twenty-first-century issues.
While my own vision for education developed over time, the first step
was the previous reflection on the MUN conference. It stood in stark con-
trast to my lived experiences at a spiritual ashram at around the same time.
The spiritual leader (Brahmavedantji), other ashramites, and visitors dedi-
cated a part of their time to shram (physical service) on a daily basis, where
they (a) desalinated farmland by developing an exquisite system for rain-
water harvesting, diverting, and storing flood water and for the water to
24 J. PATEL

percolate into the aquifers; (b) engaged in reforestation; and (c) trans-
formed an abandoned mine. They constructed a forest area and multiple
lakes as well as creating public spaces and institutions (including a school,
bakery, and a community kitchen). The desalination efforts have notably
improved farm yields, increased ground water levels, and ultimately
improved local livelihoods across several villages in the area. The forest
and the reclaimed mine have become spaces for meditation and the local
public, whilst the public spaces and institutions remain operational today,
despite COVID-19 and the spiritual leader taking samadhi last year. This
strongly contrasted with our efforts at MUN. There was no hue and cry
about what the ashramites were doing. There were no extended planning
meetings. It kept growing organically and everyone engaged in social
changemaking processes as a form of dharma as opposed to holding long
discussions. These initiatives were always viewed with the utmost humility,
as if they were nothing special. Instead, they were considered a natural,
nature-friendly, and obvious response to what needed to be done. This
seemed like an ideal objective for education, where people come together
with a commitment to resolving social issues that may or may not affect
them and engage in social action through deep insight and understanding
of interconnectedness within and across the human and the natural world,
while at the same time remaining extremely humble.
A second major transition in my vision for education was based on
reflections on the way of living and being of Brahmavedantji, who had had
limited “schooling” and yet was one of the most educated people that I
have met in my life. While he exhibited typical educated people’s qualities,
including critical thinking, he also had a spiritual connection with his soul,
profound understanding of the world, a sense of wonder, deep empathy,
and was the epitome of compassion. This form of deep understanding,
relations, and connection with others should be one of the most natural/
obvious goals of education, where one learns to see things from another’s
point of view, learns to connect with others, learns to live with each other,
not just by tolerating diversity, but rather by appreciating (and celebrat-
ing) diversity and each person as they are, as well as living compassionately
by being considerate of and supporting other’s welfare and wellbeing.
The third transformation was driven by the interactions with educa-
tionists that I met through the TIDE Foundation and visits to the various
alternative schools and interactions with their students, teachers, and
school leaders. Up until that point in time, I believed that education had
nothing to do with deep understanding of oneself and the profound
 2 CALLS FOR ALTERNATIVE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION 25

insights about the world, both of which are potentially interconnected.

Given that modern education did not acknowledge this let alone empha-
sise this, I took the view that perhaps those discussions were meant for
spaces beyond the school, for example, at home or within ashrams.
However, through the various interactions with educationists, discussions
of their educational experiments, and visiting alternative schools in India,
I started exploring the role of spirituality in education and its potential for
understanding the interconnected and integral nature of things (Mani,
2009, 2013), for developing a profound connection with nature, as well
as for transforming one’s ways of living and being.
Such an education would be very different from our current mass edu-
cational system and would lead to development of a deep understanding
of oneself, others, nature, and the world as a whole. While these visions are
valuable in and of themselves, we need to explore what they mean, and
whether and how they can be practised. I intend to do so in Parts I and II
of the book, respectively. I must emphasise that, instead of treating educa-
tion for togetherness and harmony as an add-on example, through a class
a day or week, it would need to be integrated into the various educational
processes, systems, and ethos. Furthermore, my work with the two
grassroots-­level foundations, especially in the public education system and
low fee charging schools, has made me starkly aware of the potential limi-
tations and challenges to large-scale transformation and reforms.

Education as a Means of Inner Renewal and Social Change:

A Vision from Contemporary Indian Thinkers
I decided to explore other visions and philosophies of education proposed
by various Indian thinkers. Ancient India had a very different system of
education, namely gurukul (literally translating to the teacher’s home or
family), where a guru worked with the shishyas (students) for years. The
students developed deep bonds with each other and their guru, receiving
a holistic education going beyond various subjects and spiritual/religious
texts to a different way of living. However, this was systemically destroyed
during colonisation, with very little documentation left on its visions, pro-
cesses, and practices. So, instead, I decided to explore more contemporary
Indian thinkers. I prioritised exploration of philosophical traditions that
also have schools that currently pursue these visions because I hoped to
explore if and how these visions and philosophies remain relevant to the
twenty-first centuries. Unfortunately, there are very few gurukuls that can
26 J. PATEL

be studied. Some of these have been (re)established only recently and are
still trying to develop their practices and/or have now become inextrica-
bly tied with religious bodies. I believe that these may merit a different
study; however, for the scope of this book, I draw upon non-religious
schools that were inspired by various Indian thinkers from the twentieth
century.
Several Indian thinkers have called for a very different education system
that brings about holistic development. A range of Indian philosophers
(Dalai Lama et al., 2009; Gandhi, 1968b; Krishnamurti, 2000;
Radhakrishnan, 1956; Tagore, 1929; The Mother, 1977a) concur in the
role of education for freedom/emancipation, equality, peace, harmony,
unity of life, and enlightenment (self-consciousness and self-realisation).
Education in India has historically been emancipatory: “sa vidhya ya vim-
uektye” (Vishnu Purana, n.d.) and this was commonly emphasized by the
philosophers. Regarding which, Radhakrishnan (1959) suggested that
“education has to give us a second birth, to help us to realise what we have
already in us. The meaning of education is to emancipate the individual
and we need the education of the whole [human being]4—physical, vital,
mental, intellectual, and spiritual.” Similarly, Gandhi (1968b) emphasised,
“education is that which liberates”. These ideas of freedom were also reso-
nated by Tagore, Krishnamurti, and Aurobindo, all of whom referred to
freedom, not just from external oppression and/or conditioning but also
from one’s own self, including one’s own emotions, mind, attachments,
and fragmented identities (Krishnamurti, 2000; Tagore, 1929).
All of them called for a spiritual renewal, whereby children reconnect
with their spiritual roots and move away from the modernistic ways of liv-
ing and being to those that embody understandings of interconnected-
ness, interdependence, and coexistence with living beings and non-living
things. Several Indian thinkers (Gandhi, 1968b; Tagore, 1929) have
strongly emphasised engaging students in social changemaking processes,
where the education is not delimited to the four walls of the classrooms
and instead the students actively engage within the society to practice
resolving issues of social justice. Similarly, the TIDE and ITSA Foundations,
both charities that I cofounded, engage students in various changemaking
processes by having them contribute to ongoing movements and design as
well as developing their own social changemaking projects. Gandhi and
Kumarappa (1953, p. 32) noted:

4
The original quote used the word “man” instead
 2 CALLS FOR ALTERNATIVE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION 27

Whilst Sir M. Vishweshwarayya has emphasized one grave defect of our

present education which places exclusive emphasis on literary merit, I would
add a graver defect in that students are made to think that whilst they are
pursuing their literary studies, they may not do acts of service at the sacrifice
of their studies, be it ever so small or temporary. They will lose nothing and
gain much if they would suspend their education, literary or industrial, to do
relief work, such as is being done by some of them in Gujarat. The end of all
education should surely be service.

Education was generally considered as a means of inner renewal and

social change (Gandhi, 1968b; Sharma, 2018; Thapan, 2001). These
seemingly two separate goals, one focusing on the spiritual self and the
other on society at large, were considered to be related to each through
ideas of individual responsibility in maintaining social order (Thapan,
2001). Indian thinkers have commonly suggested that conflicts within
oneself are usually reflected in the world around oneself and have called to
“be the change that you want to see in the world” (Gandhi, 1968b;
Krishnamurti, 2000). Additionally, there are underlying spiritual episte-
mologies of collective consciousness, where the world is not separate from
the individual. Hence, education and human existence should not be frag-
mented into personal and public or inner and outer, but rather perceived
more holistically as the relation between the individual, the community,
natural environment, and human society (Thapan, 2001). Similarly, other
thinkers also extended their understanding of the purpose of life and edu-
cation to building connectedness with the wider community, encompass-
ing the natural environment and all human beings (Dalai Lama, 2015;
Tagore, 1962). Education for both these goals (inner renewal and social
change) was proposed as being brought about through holistic education
(also referred to as integral education): education of the heart or spirit,
intellect, and physical body (or as The Mother, 1977a, conceptualised it,
education of the psychic, vital, mental, and physical).
I explore the idea of the various Indian thinkers in depth in the next
chapter. Similarly, there have been many international movements that
have called for broader purposes of education.

International Calls for Broader Purposes of Education

In the past two decades, several international development reports such as
Delors et al. (1996), Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.7 (UN
General Assembly Resolution, 2015), Delors et al., (1996) UNESCO,
28 J. PATEL

(2014, 2018), and the Council of Europe (2017) have called for Learning
To Live Together (LTLT). Delors et al. (1996, p. 92) conceptualised
LTLT as an effort to alleviate, resolve, and prevent conflict by “developing
respect for other people, their cultures and their spiritual values”. There
has also been a concurrent rise in interest and relevance of synergetic con-
cepts like Global Citizenship Education (GCE), peace education, Social
Emotional Learning (SEL), and Emotional Intelligence (EI), stemming
from the international development, peace research, school improvement,
and psychological educational subfields, respectively (these are further dis-
cussed Chap. 3). While GCE, SEL, and EI treat the broader goals as con-
tent to be transferred or skills to be developed, LTLT suggests a different
vision by foregrounding processes of discovery of the self and others as
well as experiences of shared purpose.
Some of the ideas proposed by the Indian thinkers, especially Gandhi,
Tagore, and Krishnamurti, have been compared to those of citizenship of
Dewey (Nussbaum, 2010) and Freirean emancipation (Ghosh, 2019).
Freire (2005) calls for a critical and emancipatory education that allows
the oppressed to regain their sense of humanity, take responsibility for
their emancipation, and bring about social transformation, example,
“reflection and action directed at the structures to be transformed” (Freire,
2005). Furthermore, Freire (2005) and Greene (1995) call for education
for ‘conscientization’ and ‘wideawakeness’, respectively (resonating with
John Dewey’s ‘extraordinary experiences’). Both refer to developing criti-
cal awareness of one’s reality through reflection and action; mindfulness of
oneself, others, and communities; understanding systems of oppression;
and the societal construction of knowledge, awareness of power, and
inequality. They believed that this would lead individuals to ask meaning-
ful questions, make critical deliberate choices, and bring about a positive
change in the world (Freire, 2005; Greene, 1995, 2005). Dewey (1916,
1944), resonating with Indian thinkers, notes that education is the foun-
dation for democracy as a form of life. It must be perceived “not as acqui-
sition of what others know but as development of capital to be invested in
eager alertness in observing and judging the conditions under which one
lives” (Dewey, 1944, p. 463) and it must equip children to use their skills
for the greater social good. Dewey advocated against training students for
a future workplace, essentially because we do not know what it will look
like and instead suggested educating children for the present and the
intrinsic value of education.
 2 CALLS FOR ALTERNATIVE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION 29

There have been several parallel discourses drawing attention to the

broader purposes of education: Dowbor (Freire et al., 2016) emphasises
the need for reflection upon one’s values, while Noddings (2003) calls for
the need of ethical caring. Dewey (1916) and Nussbaum (1997) highlight
the need for an education that shapes people to be citizens of a complex
interlocking world, whilst Freire (2005), Giroux (2010), and Kumar
(2008) introduced emancipatory and participatory education aimed at
bringing about a social change. Similarly, Bourn (2022), Sharma (2018),
and Shor (1992) have called for an education for social change through
which they hope that students engage in social changemaking process.
There have been several calls for holistic education and these are further
discussed below.

International Efforts for More Holistic Education

“What is the purpose of education?” has been a crucial question for many
years. It has been philosophised as having a role in how people work
together, shaping societies, development, and values since ancient Greece,
with conceptualisations like Plato’s Paideia (education for the ideal mem-
ber of the state; Zovko, 2018) and Aristotle’s Eudaimonia (living well,
happiness, or living in a divine way; Kraut, 2008). There was a strong
emphasis on living a good life, with this being understood as living in a
divine way. It led to the rise of the liberal arts (arts for liberty). Whilst the
education system then was limited to the elite and there were many sys-
temic sociocultural divides and issues (for example, slavery), the liberal
arts sought to bring about holistic education by tapping into full human
potential for one’s ownself and society as a whole. Liberal arts called for an
education that cultivated virtues and liberated the mind by bringing free-
dom from ignorance, emotions such as greed, and prejudice. Hadot
(2002) notably expanded the ambit of education to a different way of liv-
ing and being by suggesting that the liberal arts were “a method for train-
ing people to live and look at the world in a new way. It is an attempt to
transform humankind” (p. 107). Hadot (2002) and Jaeger (1944)
described education as not just an intellectual exercise, but also as a spiri-
tual pursuit of self-transformation, with the latter suggesting that “the
purpose of all Socrates educational activity can be described as caring for
the soul” (p. 304), which plays an important role in “reaching harmony
with the nature of the universe … through complete mastery over
30 J. PATEL

[oneself]5 in accordance with the law [one]6 finds by searching [one’s]

own soul” (p. 44).
Many Indian thinkers have proposed ideas of integral and holistic edu-
cation (e.g., Badheka, 1962; The Mother, 1977a). These are linked to
and/or resonated by several international thinkers, for example, many of
Socrates and Tolstoy’s thoughts and writing informed Gandhi.
Internationally, there has been a noted emphasis on aspects of holistic
education over the past two centuries. While there is not enough space to
explore the works of many of the thinkers in detail, I outline some of the
ideas that have a strong resonance and links with Indian perspectives.
Tolstoy believed that the purpose of education was learning how to live,
which included exploring fundamental questions of ‘who am I?’ and ‘what
is the purpose of life?’. Rousseau, Froebel, and Tolstoy all believed in the
intrinsic purpose of education, inherent goodness of children, and that
children should be allowed to develop naturally and as a whole, with lim-
ited suppression and top-down teacher-driven imposition. They, Tolstoy
in particular, believed that teachers’ role is to help students explore (and
not offer answers) as well as encourage them to build meaningful, caring,
and loving relations. They consciously refrain from top-down impositions,
work on their own moral and spiritual development, and prevent various
indirect impositions from social conventions (Moulin, 2011). In more
recent times, Maria Montessori, Rudolf Steiner, A. S. Neill, and Carl
Rogers promoted alternative forms of education that aimed at teaching
the whole child, advocated person-centred approaches and values, with an
emphasis on self-initiated and self-directed learning. These have led to
international movements and inspired chains of schools.7 While these have
their own limitations, they have pushed back against the mass education
system and called for humanistic approaches. They, in resonance with
many Indian thinkers like Aurobindo and Krishnamurti, believed that any-
thing that could be taught was inconsequential and education that impacts
on one’s ways of living and being is self-discovered (see C. Rogers, 1961,
1979). However, Dale (1982) argued that such radical educational

5
The original quote used the word “himself” instead.
6
The original quote used the word “he” instead.
7
Montessori has inspired several Montessori schools around the world, Rudolf Steiner has
led to a movement of Steiner or Waldorf schools, and A. S. Neill’s work at Summerhill
prompted the free school movement.
 2 CALLS FOR ALTERNATIVE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION 31

experiments were tolerated and were a means of managing the tensions

without radically changing the mass education systems.
It is important to note the work of Maria Montessori, who had a strong
link with the alternative education thought and practices in India. She
visited the country on several occasions, gave talks, and inspired several
Indian schools and thinkers. She was the director of an alternative school
in India, which continues to run (and is included in my own research).
Montessori proposed alternative visions for education, developed prac-
tices, piloted them in at schools and/or centres, and has had a lasting
impact on education, continuing to inspire schools around the world,
including in India. Montessori believed in lifelong learning and high-
lighted the intrinsic value of education through ideas of joy of learning
and intrinsic motivation to learn. She was of the view that the key goals of
‘education’ were to cultivate children’s curiosity, motivation, and desire to
learn. Montessori also forefronted ideas of respect, love, and autonomy of
children, where they would follow their own learning trajectories within a
caring community (including peers across multiple ages and the teacher).
She (Montessori, 1949, p. 27) highlighted the role of education in peace-
building “preventing conflicts is the work of politics; establishing peace is
the work of education”. She further emphasised the importance of devel-
oping ethically and socially conscious individuals: “The crux of the ques-
tion of peace and war thus no longer lies in the need to give human beings8
the material weapons to defend the geographical frontiers separating
nation from nation, for the real first line of defence against war [are human
beings themselves], and where [human beings are9] socially disorganised
and devalued, the universal enemy will enter the breech” (Montessori,
1949, p. xv). Duckworth C. (2006), commenting on Montessori’s work
and classroom practices, highlights the role of social imagination in lead-
ing to empathy and action against issues of social justice. Gijjubhai
Badheka, an Indian educationist, was inspired by Montessori’s work and
extended it to the rural Indian contexts. He led the Montessori movement
in Western India, setting up schools, organising conferences, and exten-
sively experimenting and writing about his experiments. Badheka (1962)
emphasised freedom, self-directed learning, and intrinsic purposes of edu-
cation (e.g., education for the sake of education in itself and the

8
The original word used the word “men” instead.
9
The original quote used the phrase “the real first line of defence against war is man him-
self, and where man” instead.
32 J. PATEL

happiness/satisfaction derived from learning, rather than marks, rewards,

or future jobs). He extended Montessori’s methods to include several
community-­based activities, including storytelling, music, singing, danc-
ing, and others, to bring about holistic development, improve student
engagement, as well as tapping into and contributing to students’ socio-
cultural knowledge, with particular emphasis on harmony.
Furthermore, internationally, there is growing interest amongst
researchers and practitioners in holistic education, with several networks,
special interest groups, and conferences having been produced. Culham
et al. (2018), Lin (2006), Lin et al. (2019), J. P. Miller (2010), and
J. P. Miller et al. (2005, 2018) have called for a transformative holistic
education that includes education for emancipation, love, compassion,
wonderment, and awe, as well as spiritual consciousness. J. P. Miller et al.
(2007) suggest that holistic education differs from wholistic education,
the latter being propounded by Dewey and Noddings and while involving
a broader view of education, does not include spiritual dimensions. In a
similar vein, several holistic scholars are also critical of Freirean critical
pedagogy believing it to be anthropocentric and lacking the spiritual
dimension. Instead, holistic education calls for educating the person as a
whole (soul, emotions, body, and mind) and not the parts, within an inter-
connected world (Cajete, 1999; Darroch-Lozowski, 2018; Four Arrows,
2018; Kessler, 2000; Miller, 2000). Various authors in the handbook of
holistic education (Miller et al., 2018b) recommend a reflexive, decentral-
ised, contextualised, and autonomous decision-making, leading to educa-
tional systems and processing become more meaningful to both teachers
and students. They call for a shift from materialist and reductionist world-
views to co-constituted, interdependent, and integrated ones, with school-
ing shifting from categorical knowing to more embodied knowing that
recognises wholes and connections. Furthermore, holistic education nota-
bly emphasises education for harmony, both within oneself and with the
world (including the nature), thus focusing on interconnectedness and
interdependence.

Conclusion
The chapter has demonstrated that the purpose of education has been
questioned for a long time, with various holistic visions being proposed.
These have led to some transformations to varying degrees (further dis-
cussed in this and the next chapter). Unfortunately, many of these have
 2 CALLS FOR ALTERNATIVE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION 33

waned in light of the various colonial and/or modernist systems. However,

these ideas have continued to exist and thrived in certain communities of
thinkers and practitioners.
I invite the reader to explore their own vision for education and how it
compares with the current educational systems’ vision and practices.
Additionally, I would also like to ask you to explore the question from
various perspectives, including that of the child, teacher, parent, and gov-
ernment. I also invite you to consider the following questions: is educa-
tion just a tool/instrument for future success (academic or financial
success of the individual or the development of the nation)? How can
education go beyond being a mere academic education, training children
to conform, and reproducing and propagating social inequity? What can
holistic education look like? I believe that a single vision and set of prac-
tices may not be the answer and instead individual readers have to find
their own contextualised vision and supporting practices. But then, what
is the point of me, with my limited set of experiences, writing this book
and you reading this book? I hope to draw on my experiences, a few read-
ings, and some data that I collected to articulate a form of holistic educa-
tion, which may or may not resonate with visions of various stakeholders
or those in different contexts. The book is best considered as a case study
that prompts you to explore other visions and potentially contextualised
purposes of education, by drawing on your experiences and educational
thinkers local to your context.
 CHAPTER 3

Alternative Visions from Indian Thinkers

and Schools

The various shortcomings of the modern education systems prompted me

to explore alternatives that are relevant to the twenty-first century. Various
Indian thinkers strongly emphasised education of the heart (Gandhi and
the Dalai Lama), education of the spirit (Aurobindo and Tagore), educa-
tion of the psychic (Aurobindo), and flowering in inner goodness
(Krishnamurti). I was driven to explore what these alternative visions are
and how they are practised. While I value the original thinkers’ visions, I
was more interested in whether and how these ideologies are relevant to
the twenty-first century and if so, how are they conceptualised and prac-
tised by educators. It led me to visit, deeply immerse myself in, and explore
schools that were founded on these principles and claimed to actively pur-
sue education for the aforementioned alternative visions for education.
Before we go further, it is important to provide some more context to the
various Indian thinkers and the schools that the findings are based on. In
this chapter, I specifically explore the key ideas of some of the Indian
thinkers and the lasting impact and relevance of their ideas within India
and more globally. Finally, I provide some more context on some of the
schools that the aforementioned thinkers set up/inspired. I collected pri-
mary data from these schools, which I later draw upon throughout the
rest of the book.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 35

Switzerland AG 2023
J. Patel, Learning to Live Together Harmoniously, Spirituality,
Religion, and Education,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23539-9_3
36 J. PATEL

Indian Thinkers
The book specifically focuses on educational thought and ideas from the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries. While there have been various educa-
tional thinkers and each of them merit (and at times have) a book about
their ideas, it is not possible to review their individual contributions in this
work. For readers interested in Indian thinkers I would strongly advocate
reading the works on Gijju Badheka, Nana Bhatt, Mohandas Gandhi,
Aurobindo Ghose, Zakir Hussain, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Dalai Lama, Manu
Pancholi, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Rabindranath Tagore, and Har
Trivedi. Herein, I explore key themes and ideas that come up across the
various thinkers, including calls for education of inner renewal and social
change, child-led education, and holistic education. Many of these think-
ers were engaged in several other pursuits and did not only work on edu-
cation. Despite this, they have had a profound impact on the Indian
education system, practices, and, at times, policies (see the next section for
more details).

Education as a Means of Inner Renewal and Social Change:

A Vision from Contemporary Indian Thinkers
As previously described in Chap. 2, Indian educational thinkers (Dalai
Lama et al., 2009; Gandhi, 1968b; Krishnamurti, 2000; Radhakrishnan,
1956; Tagore, 1929; The Mother, 1977a; Vivekananda, 1947) concur on
the role of education for freedom/emancipation, equality, peace, har-
mony, universal brother/sisterhood, unity of life, and enlightenment (self-­
consciousness and self-realisation). They strongly emphasised education as
a means of inner renewal and social change (Gandhi, 1968b; Sharma,
2018; Thapan, 2001). They envisioned an education that will immerse
and engage students in emancipation from various social conditioning,
build a sense of kinship and diversity-based oneness, as well as drive them
to engage in social changemaking processes.

 alls for Spiritual Education (Education of the Heart

C
and Its Equivalents)
Over the years, there has been a consistent call for inner renewal and spiri-
tual education. This has been referred to by various names, including edu-
cation of the heart, education of the spirit, psychic education, and
education for flowering in inner goodness. Gandhi spoke about the educa-
tion of the heart, referring to ideas of moral training, character
 3 ALTERNATIVE VISIONS FROM INDIAN THINKERS AND SCHOOLS 37

development, and spiritual development, as being more important than

intellectual development. He suggested education of the heart as referring
to spiritual training and character education as a means of self-realisation,
with individuals empathising with each other, building tolerance, living
together, and enacting conflict resolution (Gandhi, 1968b). Similarly, the
Dalai Lama speaks of education of the heart in terms of mindfulness, one-
ness of humanity (shared humanity, interconnectedness, and interdepen-
dence of everyone), better understanding of emotions, forgiveness,
compassion, and tolerance (Dalai Lama, 2014, 2015; Dalai Lama et al.,
2009). Moreover, Aurobindo Ghose asserted that the central aim of edu-
cation is to bring about mental and spiritual transformation, leading to
free and moral beings who show extreme love for all others (Mehra, 2011;
The Mother, 1977a, 1977b). On a similar note, Radhakrishnan (1956)
noted, “For a complete human being, we require the cultivation of the
grace and joy of souls overflowing in love and devotion and free service of
a regenerated humanity. If we wish to realise the reign of law and justice
in this world, it is to enable the soul to gain inward peace. Physical effi-
ciency and intellectual alertness are dangerous if spiritual illiteracy pre-
vails.” Krishnamurti (1981, 2000, 2013) asserted the role of education for
the oneness of humanity, inner flowering (freedom, self-realisation, and
consciousness), and building individual responsibility to create a better
society. He referred to ideas of ‘cultivation of total human being’, aware-
ness, awakening consciousness, inner peace, and harmony. Further advo-
cating the cultivation of a human being who maintains the ‘right relations’
with people, society, and ideas. Whilst Rabindranath Tagore emphasised
education of feelings (Bodhersadhāna), self-awareness, oneness with oth-
ers and nature, self-realisation, love for humanity, freedom, and creativity
(O’Connell, 2003; Tagore, 1929; Tirath, 2017).

 alls for Education for Peace (and Social Justice)

C
The calls for education for social change relied on emancipation of stu-
dents from various forms of social conditioning that they may have devel-
oped over the years. There was a strong emphasis on engaging in various
kinds of social changemaking processes, including short-term relief work
and long-term changes to counter issues of social justice. The latter were
embedded in ideas of breaking down systems of sociocultural and systemic
violence and in notions of ‘positive peace’, which Galtung (1964) described
as “there are two aspects of peace as conceived of here: negative peace
which is the absence of violence, absence of war—and positive peace which
38 J. PATEL

is the integration of human society”. Similarly, Gandhi differentiated peace

as containing a negative and a positive sense: “[E]limination of wars,
absence of conflicts between classes, castes, religions and nations is a nega-
tive sense, and love, rest, mental equilibrium, harmony, co-operation,
unity, happiness are the positive indices of peace” (Gharse & Sharma,
n.d.). There is a strong resonance with Freirean (2005) emancipation and
critical consciousness (or conscientisation, example, critical awareness of
one’s reality through reflection and action; Ghosh, 2019), while like
Freire, the Indian thinkers envisioned students bringing about emancipa-
tion. They believed that the oppressed and oppressors were inherently
interconnected, and education needed to engage both in creating a social
change through ideas of universal brotherhood, kinship, and empathy.
Some of the ideas proposed by Gandhi, Tagore, and Krishnamurti have
been compared to those of active citizenship of Dewey (Nussbaum, 2010),
whereby students engage in resolving issues of social justice.

Child-Led Education
Various Indian thinkers believed and proposed that education needs to be
led by the child. There are two common subthemes: the first that teachers
and other adults around the child should not interrupt the process and
instead should merely just support them in the self-discovery. Regarding
which, Swami Vivekananda (1947, p. 383) noted:

Each of us is naturally growing and developing according to our own

nature … what can you and I do? Do you think you can teach even a child?
You cannot. The child teaches oneself.1 Your duty is to afford opportunities
and to remove obstacles. A plant grows. Do you make the plant grow? Your
duty is to put a hedge round it and see that no animal eats up the plant and
there your duty ends. The plant grows itself.

There is a strong resonance with various international thinkers, including

Froebel and the ideas of educere-ing,2 which emphasise letting children be

1
The original quote used the word “himself” instead of “oneself”.
2
The etymology of education leads us to one of the two Greek words: educare and educere.
Educare has been predominantly used as a form of training and moulding, while educere
refers to leading or bringing out what is already there in a person.
 3 ALTERNATIVE VISIONS FROM INDIAN THINKERS AND SCHOOLS 39

and letting them develop naturally. This has been associated with ideas of
bringing out what one possesses within and helping one excel within one’s
own talents within.
Second, while a few others emphasised consciously educating the child,
they strongly advocated for it to be a child-centric approach, where the
child’s natural tendencies, interests, and pace are taken into account.
There is a strong emphasis on a teacher not being a tutor, but rather a
facilitator who creates an appropriate learning environment and supports
students’ learning based on their interests. All thinkers have emphasised
that all children develop at different paces and take different paths, which
educational approaches need to factor in. Such a child-centric approach
and its associated experiential learning pedagogies are related to various
ideas of Dewey and Montessori.
Both these ideas led to the various thinkers (Badheka, 1962; Chaube,
2005; Chaube & Chaube, 2016; Gandhi, 1968a; Krishnamurti, 2000;
The Mother, 1977a; Tagore, 1929; Vivekananda, 1947) to call for educa-
tion to be rooted in children’s lived experience and led by children.
Regarding which, Aurobindo and The Mother suggested three principles
of education: (a) nothing can be taught, (b) the mind has to be consulted
in its own growth, and (c) education is brought about by working from
the near to the far. Similarly, Vivekananda, as seen in the previous quote,
suggested that the child grows by him/herself according to his or her
tendencies and Krishnamurti questioned education for facts and knowl-
edge. Instead, he advocated for the holistic flowering of children through
student autonomy, deep observation of oneself (thought patterns, habits,
conditioning, and fears and desires), and the world around them as well as
active (experiential) learning.

Holistic Education
The various Indian thinkers adopted a holistic epistemology, which under-
pinned all their philosophies and approaches to education. This is reflected
in multiple aspects including (a) their approach to life and calls for non-­
anthropocentric epistemologies and ways of living and being; (b) calls for
harmony both within oneself and in the world (and their understanding of
the interconnectedness between oneself and the world); (c) approaches to
educating the whole child, rather than education of separate parts of an
individual (further discussed below); (d) emphasis on embodied and expe-
riential learning, whereby students learn through interactions and
40 J. PATEL

experiences within the world around them; and (e) emphasis on school-
wide systems that are applicable to everyone at the school (including
administrative and supporting staff, teachers, and students).
Holistic education has been proposed as meaning educating the follow-
ing: (a) the whole person (all ‘parts of a person’); (b) a person as a whole
(not educating an assimilation of parts); and (c) the person within a larger
whole (including the human community, nature, and the universe;
Tagore’s vision is described by Forbes, 2000). In India, it is referred to as
the latter two. Various Indian thinkers have proposed an education that
learns from the whole movement of life, with many referring to ideas of
‘life is the best educator’ and education for life. There is a significant dif-
ference between educating the parts of a person individually and educat-
ing the whole person; it relates to the common maxim of the whole is
greater than the sum of the parts. That is, a group of 100 ants can do a lot
more than what 100 ants can do individually. In education, we have com-
monly trained individual parts of a person separately through special
classes for training the body (like sports and physical education), the heart
(sessions on value and moral education and social emotional learning),
and the brain (through academic sessions). Instead, we need to educate
the person as a whole through an integrated education. Such that all parts
of the individual are engaged in the learning process. While some special-
ised training for each part might be important, the modern education in
certain instances has become extremely reductionist (e.g., through exces-
sive emphasis on academic education or training only certain aspects of the
body or the mind, like training certain sets of muscles or an overemphasis
on certain cognitive skills3).
There is a strong call for education of the whole person (including the
physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual). This entailed, both, specific,
targeted education of individual aspects/parts of oneself (with equal
weightage being given to each), and an integrated education where educa-
tion is considered for the whole person (all aspects are trained together).
Physical education includes aspects of understanding breathing, various
movements, building physical capacities, training the various senses, devel-
oping healthy bodies (and stronger immune systems), and using the hands
creatively to make things. These are related to the development of aspects

3
It is important to note that frequently modern education’s narrow focus on literacy and
numeracy goals or more progressive modern education’s emphasis on specific cognitive skills
may not contribute to the education of the mind and its various facets.
 3 ALTERNATIVE VISIONS FROM INDIAN THINKERS AND SCHOOLS 41

like awareness, self-control, and creativity. Emotional education is based

on ideas of developing the right relations, empathy, compassion, self-­
governance, and control. These will lead to the development of other
aspects, including that of kinship. Mental education far exceeds a mere
transfer of information, for while such information is valued, mental edu-
cation is seen to include ideas of independent thinking, critical thinking,
and emancipation from various forms of conditioning. Spiritual education
has focused on polishing the inside, reconnecting with one’s soul, and
linked to ideas of bringing about wider social justice. In a recent interac-
tion with an Indian educationist, he emphasised the importance of educa-
tion of the spirit, as it can help develop vivek (there is no exact translation
though it roughly translates to discretion based on wisdom) and guide
one’s actions.
The Indian thinkers have strongly emphasised that such a holistic (or
integral) education of the whole person needs to happen with an under-
standing of the larger whole. This means that students cannot be separated
from the real world beyond the four walls of schools and their education
needs to take place within the community, within the forests, and through
deep immersion in the world around them. Internationally, there has been
a strong increase in the numbers of forest schools and at times (some of)
these schools are situated in urban environments, aiming to take students
into the natural environment for a couple of hours a week. I believe that,
while this is a step away from modern educational systems, we need to go
further and have schools situated within nature, where students are in
constant interaction with that around them. This is also tied to their
emphasis on a non-anthropocentric epistemology, emphasis on contextual
education (and ideas like education from near to far), as well as various
pedagogical approaches that prioritise embodied and experiential learning.

Discussion and Limitations

It is also important to note the background of these educational philoso-
phies. Many of these philosophers exhibited a spiritual background and
were critical of religious structure. They were in communication with each
other, with their works spanning pre- and post-Indian independence. All
of them questioned the purpose of life and the role of society (despite
some differences around social reforms and independence) before they
turned to educational interventions. They held similar opinions on the
purpose(s) of education, albeit they placed different emphasis on the
42 J. PATEL

various means to achieve the same ends, these views being partly informed
by their positions on other questions about society and independence. For
example, Tagore placed a strong emphasis on arts and poetry, while
Gandhi’s ideas of swaraj, swadeshi, and satyagraha led to his insistence on
independent thinking, self-governance, and vocational training, and
Krishnamurti called for critical thinking and continued awareness. Many
of these philosophers are humanists by nature, and at times have been sug-
gested as being idealists, lacking a formal background in education, and
having educational thoughts, ideas, and opinions scattered across different
works. Additionally, their writings in the spatio-temporal context of Indian
independence have been critiqued for having contradictions across time as
their ideas and practice evolved (Aronson, 1961; Ghosh, 2019; Parekh,
1989). Furthermore, some scholars have highlighted that, at times, some
of the thinkers failed to embody some of the ideas they suggested.
However, I believe that their visions are not necessarily eclipsed by these
proposed limitations, because everyone, including researchers, can be sub-
ject to similar criticism especially regarding their ways of living and the
contradictions within their written works over time. For instance, I started
my journey with a strong emphasis on independent, critical, and creative
thinking, before realising that education could help bring about some-
thing much more meaningful. I started off with ideas like learning to live
together before transitioning to the notion of education for harmony.
Additionally, I doubt if I will ever be able to make the claim that I embody
all the aspects of education for harmony 24*7.
The visions and ideas of the various Indian thinkers have informed pol-
icy, inspired many schools, and informed teachers across India and the
world (further discussed below). I must highlight again that the current
book is aimed at exploring how teachers in schools inspired by such think-
ers understand and practise these alternative visions of education.

The Relevance of Indian Education Thought

in the Twenty-First Century

The various educational thinkers’ ideas are widely used and extremely rel-
evant today, if not more so (Table 3.1) than previously. Gandhi’s ideas
started a national movement, where the government used his thought to
start buniyadi shalas and tribal schools across the country. Moreover, there
was the nation-wide implementation of the nai taleem curriculum and
materials across government-run schools. The Dalai Lama’s thought
informs various schools run by the Central Tibetan Association in multiple
 3 ALTERNATIVE VISIONS FROM INDIAN THINKERS AND SCHOOLS 43

Table 3.1 Summary of impact of some of the key Indian educationists who
emphasised LTLT
Thinker Life Key educational ideas Key texts Impact
span

Rabindranath May Education of the spirit Tagore (1929, Informs national

Tagore 1861– and education for the 1962) curricular framework.
Aug wholesome human Set up Shantiniketan,
1941 being. Sriniketan, and
Education of feelings Vishwabharati
(Bodhersadhāna). (university).
Oneness with others
and nature.
Freedom, creativity,
questioning societal
structures, and
self-governance.
Self-realisation and love
for humanity.
Mahatma Oct Education of head, Gandhi Informs national
Gandhi 1869– heart, and hands. (1968a, curricular framework.
Jan Spiritual training and 1968b, 1983) Experimented at a
1948 character education. few initial schools.
Empathy, equality, Set up Gujarat
tolerance, and vidyapeeth
self-governance. (university).
Nai Taleem
movement.
Buniyadi shalas.
Aurobindo Aug Integral education. The Mother Informs national
Ghose and 1872– Education of the (1977b, curricular framework.
Mirra Alfassa Dec psychic. 1977a) Chain of schools
1950 Mental and spiritual across India.
Feb transformation. Large-scale in-service
1878– Free and moral beings teacher training
Nov that love all. programme across
1973 multiple states.
Jiddu May Flowering in inner Krishnamurti Informs national
Krishnamurti 1895– goodness. (1981, 2000, curricular framework.
Feb Oneness of humanity. 2013) Set up and inspired a
1986 Deconditioning and chain of schools
questioning societal (including a school in
structures. the UK and another
Inner flowering in the USA).
(freedom, self-­ Inspired activity-­
realisation, and based learning
consciousness). movement.
(continued)
44 J. PATEL

Table 3.1 (continued)

Thinker Life Key educational ideas Key texts Impact

span

His Holiness Jul1935– Education of the heart Dalai Lama Informs central
Dalai Lama mindfulness. (2015); Dalai Tibetan
Oneness of humanity Lama et al. administration run
(shared humanity), (2009) schools.
interconnectedness, and Curricular
interdependence. development through
Understanding social emotional
emotions. ethics and Ayur Gyan
Kindness, compassion, Nyas.
forgiveness, and
tolerance.

Adapted from Patel (under review). Table is sorted by the birth year of the prominent thinkers

countries, while the Krishnamurti and Aurobindo foundations have chains

of institutes. Additionally, school leaders and schools in many cities have
tried to experiment with their ideas. However, these schools have remained
a minority as ‘centres of experimentation’ in comparison to others. Several
factors can explain this including lack of appropriate teacher education and
training, absence of proactive school management committees that under-
stand the philosophies, limited scalability, and a rapidly spreading mass
education system (both private and government). Dale (1982) argued
that such radical educational experiments are tolerated and are a means of
managing the tensions without radically changing the mass education sys-
tem. However, one can also perceive these schools as sites of excellence,
experimentation, and noncompliance with modern education systems.
These thinkers have had a much wider impact than the organisations
with which they were directly associated. Gandhi, Krishnamurti,
Aurobindo, Vivekananda, and Tagore’s thoughts on the role of education
in building peace and harmony have been highlighted and have informed
various policies, including the Sri Prakasa Committee (Committee on
Religious and Moral Instruction, 1959), Chavan Committee (Chavan,
1999), and new National Educational Policy (NEP, 2020). The former
two informed Indian National Curricular Framework 2005 (NCF) devel-
oped by the National Council of Educational Research and Training
(NCERT, 2005; Rajesh, 2002) and a later position paper on peace educa-
tion (NCERT, 2006). Krishna Kumar criticised NCF 2000 for its neglect
of the work of Indian “teacher-philosophers”, like Gandhi, Tagore,
 3 ALTERNATIVE VISIONS FROM INDIAN THINKERS AND SCHOOLS 45

Aurobindo, Krishnamurti, and Badheka (Pinar, 2015). Later, as a director

of NCERT, he weaved their opinions more strongly into NCF 2005
(Kumar, 2017; NCERT, 2005). This led to development of various frame-
works and guidance notes for teachers (Central Board of Secondary
Education, 2012) and schools (NCERT, 2012). They also form a key
component in teacher training programmes, with various authors author-
ing books compiling their educational thought (Chaube, 2005; Chaube &
Chaube, 2016) as well as continuous professional development plans and
proposed resources (Kumar, 2010; NCERT, 2010). In contemporary
India, the NEP (2020) reaffirms its commitment to “develop[ing] good
human beings capable of rational thought and action, possessing compas-
sion and empathy”. Furthermore, the Happiness Curriculum (Delhi State
Council of Educational Research and Training, 2019), a noted SEL inter-
vention, was inspired by another Indian thinker named A. K. Nagraj (Das
et al., 2022) and was launched in 2018 by his holiness Dalai Lama. It and
its adaptations are currently being implemented across tens of thousands
of public schools across multiples states in India including Delhi,
Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, and Tripura with ongoing efforts to scale it to
other states. The programme involves daily sessions on social emotional
wellbeing, mindfulness, and happiness. These sessions are facilitated by
trained schoolteachers, with the help of a grade-specific teachers’ hand-
book. The curriculum aims to promote lifelong learning, prosocial rela-
tions, emotion regulation, and goal setting in classrooms. Despite the
widespread recognition of the ideas and ideologies and development of
specific curricula, attempts for integration across school-wide systems and
processes, within the core academic curricula, and within classroom peda-
gogy remain scarce, due to sustained emphasis on literacy and numeracy,
lack of supporting school-based systems, and limited emphasis on prac-
tices for the implementation of these ideologies during teacher education
and training.
Several ongoing large-scale national and international movements have
been driven and inspired by these ideas and have successfully implemented
parts of the aforementioned educational thinkers’ visions: (a) the peace
education movement in India was driven by Gandhi, Krishnamurti, and
Tagore (Kumar, 2010; NCERT, 2006). This has led to incorporation of
various closely related international ideas, like Learning To Live Together
(Delors et al., 1996), into the National Curricular Framework 2005
(Kumar, 2010; NCERT, 2006). (b) The Dalai Lama organises educational
deliberations on mind and life, which have engaged researchers like
46 J. PATEL

Richard Davidson, Kimberly Schonert-Reichl, Adele Diamond, and

Matthieu Ricard, with an emphasis on SEL. (c) The Dalai Lama has
inspired and funded the development of an international curriculum for
Social Emotional and Ethical (SEE) learning (Emory University & SEE
Learning, 2019), which Daniel Goleman coined as SEL 2.0). (d) The
activity-based learning and Multi-Grade Multi-Level approach, developed
at Rishi Valley and inspired by Krishnamurti, was scaled up to many gov-
ernment schools in India from the early 2000s and is now being intro-
duced to other countries, including Ethiopia, Bangladesh, France,
Germany, and Nepal. Additionally, this is being supported by an online
teaching enrichment programme and slowly being rolled out across
teacher training colleges. (e) The happiness curricula, described above,
draw on the ideas of A. K. Nagraj and were launched by the Dalai Lama.

Alternative Schools

Background to Alternative Schooling in India

India has many diverse types of schools, including government-run,
government-­aided, and private. Private schools are unaided by the govern-
ment and typically charge a fee. There are several subtypes of private
schools, including low-fees private schools, trust (charity) run schools,
private (high-fees) schools, and international schools. The latter two try
and maintain classroom sizes of 20–30 students. There is another means
of classifying education in India: mainstream and alternative. There is a
small set of alternative schools (both government-run/aided and private),
which have been inspired by the various Indian thinkers and operate as
centres of experimentation. They follow limited government mandates
(related to teacher recruitment and curricula, except when close to the
national assessment; e.g., grades 9–12 the last four years of schooling).
“Alternative schooling” arose out of dissatisfaction with mainstream edu-
cation systems, with schools adhering to a different vision for education
and pedagogical philosophy. Their yardstick of success relies on different
measures for the individual and the school. That is, they generally aim to
be child-centric, inclusive, and have an explicit focus on a child’s
 3 ALTERNATIVE VISIONS FROM INDIAN THINKERS AND SCHOOLS 47

life-enriching needs, with many such schools also focusing on the develop-
ment of spiritual values, identity, self-respect, and a sense of belonging
(Vittachi et al., 2007).4
Please note that, as previously discussed, India had a rich tradition of
the gurukul system; however, currently there are very few secular guru-
kuls, with many of these only being founded more recently. I decided to
visit and explore 21 alternative schools founded/inspired by Indian think-
ers from the 20th century, primarily looking at 5 such schools. I completed
short visits at 175 of the schools, while I spent extended periods of time
(and at times with multiple visits) at the other 5, thus allowing for deep
immersion in them. I have also been running a community of holistic
educator practitioners from alternative schools across India and draw on
some of the interactions from there. The five schools where I spent
extended time are Mahatma Gandhi International School (MGIS; private
international school), Mirambika (MBK; trust-run school), Patha Bhavana
(PB; government-aided school), Rishi Valley School (RVS; private school),
and the Shreyas Foundation (SF; private school). The schools were
founded by different thinkers and I discuss each of their contexts in the
following section. Despite the alternative nature of these schools, many
also do relatively well academically, with some of them being considered as
the best school in the city (SF), the state (MGIS and PB), and the country
(MBK and RVS). Furthermore, their students, upon graduation, seek
admission to a large host of institutions and their alumni (including a
Nobel laureate at PB) subsequently do well in their respective fields
of choice.
The schools are influenced by spiritual leaders and philosophers who
spoke out against gender, socioeconomic, religious, and caste divides. All
schools sought to be diverse and inclusive, especially embracing students
from under-resourced backgrounds. MBK and PB charge no fees, while
SF has relatively affordable ones. Whilst RVS and MGIS charge higher

4
See Patel (2020, 2021), Sibia et al. (2006), Thapan (2018, 2006), and Vittachi et al.
(2007) for studies on various alternative schools in India. They have researched these schools
in India, including some of those covered in this book.
5
These schools have been inspired by a wide range of thinkers, including Aurobindo, Dalai
Lama, Gandhi, Krishnamurti, Mr M, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and Tagore. The schools visited
were Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Deepanam, Tong-Len Trust,
Mewoen Tsuglag Petoen School, Tibetan Children’s Village—Upper Dharamshala,
Vishwagram, Sahyadri School, Rishi Valley Rural Education Centre, Satsang Vidyalaya,
Peepal Grove School, Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya—Narendrapur, Sri Sri Academy—
Kolkata, Ananda Vidyalaya, Shikha Shastra, Shishu Tirtha, and Marudam Farm School.
48 J. PATEL

fees, at RVS this covers boarding and lodging facilities and at MGIS vari-
ous international board affiliation costs are met. The majority of children
who attend PB are from local and rural areas and SF provides girls’ schol-
arships and free education to children within an on-campus orphanage
that they run. MGIS and RVS run scholarship programmes, with the for-
mer being studied as a model school for the development of the Indian
Right To Education Act, which seeks to integrate children from various
backgrounds into schools, with those unable to afford the fees being
cross-funded by other students. All the schools seek to be inclusive and do
not consider religious or caste backgrounds in their admission decisions.
However, given the intersectionality of caste, religion, and class this can
possibly lead to replication of societal inequalities. The schools also make
proactive effort to be inclusive and secular by appreciating different tradi-
tions, supporting diverse children’s unique needs, and celebrating varied
Indian festivals.
The philosophers and the schools are generally well reputed in the local
area (as well as nationally), with many parents believing in the school’s
philosophy and thus choosing to send their children there. However, eth-
nographic observations and informal interactions with teachers, parents,
students, and alumni suggest that the admission to all the schools sampled
was not limited to parents’ belief in the philosophers’ ideologies. That is,
they applied for admission to the school for other reasons, including their
infrastructure, academic rigour, location, the integration with nature, and
teaching pedagogies. This has led to engaged/reflective parents being
involved in the schools, who hold and express various expectations (aca-
demic, extracurricular, and the associated philosopher’s ideology). The
schools’ philosophy, reputation, and parental bodies also lead to very well-­
educated, proactive, and reflective teachers being recruited.

Context to Some of the Alternative Schools

As aforementioned, I spent extended periods of time at some of the
schools and I share a bit more context on them here, including their back-
ground, philosophy, educational practices, and school-wide systems. I also
include a notable highlight from each of the schools. While the schools
share many characteristics and there were multiple highlights, I only share
a few, with the hope that the subsections help build a sense of what some
of these alternative schools are like.
 3 ALTERNATIVE VISIONS FROM INDIAN THINKERS AND SCHOOLS 49

S hreyas Foundation, Ahmedabad, Gujarat

SF is in Western India and was cofounded in 1947 by the educationist
Leena Sarabhai, with its first president being Maria Montessori. The
school follows the ideologies of Gandhi, Tagore, and Montessori. Various
Montessori-based activities are integrated through the pre-primary and
primary school, the high school being affiliated with the Gujarat Secondary
and Higher Secondary Education Board. The school aims to bring about
holistic education and many of the teachers, during my visit to the school,
had studied under, lived with, and were trained directly by Leena Sarabhai.
Post Leena Sarabhai’s demise, in 2012, the school has been in transition
to keep up with rapid changes in the last decade, while still trying to hold
onto the visions, ideals, and practices. The school also frequently opens its
door to the wider community of the city by offering access to its museums,
running a variety of extracurricular activities, during the evenings and hol-
idays, to children and adults alike (e.g., swimming, cooking, and horse-­
riding classes), and providing space for public activities, including theatre,
plays, and concerts.

Notable highlight from my visit: I was struck by the school’s inte-

gration with nature, its open design, and architecture. The school is
based in the heart of the city but has sprawling green cover, a
Miyawaki forest as well as various animals and birds on the campus.
The school’s architecture6 leverages and promotes the connection
with nature with the various buildings and rooms interspersed
through it, classrooms windows overseeing the various trees, and
various activities spread out under the trees. The open-ended design
and open-style design lead to a feeling of being connected with the
nature around. Children played around the trees, especially an
incredibly old banyan tree; at one instance I had noted nearly 50
children playing around the one tree. The nature provided various
learning opportunities, where teachers leveraged different spaces for
the classes, children studied nature through nature walks, and nature
contributed to children’s social emotional learning and wellbeing.

6
The school was designed by renowned architects Balkrishna Doshi (considered one of the
leading architects around the world, who has designed several institutions and won numer-
ous awards, including the Pritzker Prize) and Kamal Mangaldas.
50 J. PATEL

 ishi Valley School, Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh

R
RVS is in Southern India and was founded by Jiddu Krishnamurti in 1926.
The primary school experiments with various different curricula, while the
high school is affiliated with the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education.
The residential school is based within and surrounded by forests and hills.
The school maintains a high degree of rigour across all their learning areas:
academic and extracurricular. The school leverages various progressive
pedagogies in the classroom, including participatory and experiential
learning. Once a year, students engage in a month-long project to explore
in-depth a particular educational area through multiple transdisciplinary
perspectives. The school emphasises the importance of teachers question-
ing and constantly reflecting on the purpose of education and their pro-
cesses. They have strong systems for promoting questioning, reflection,
and continued development, including through regular reading circles,
daily discussion meetings, and several types of planning meetings. The
school is notably also referred to as the Rishi Valley Learning Centre, con-
sidered as being a learning centre for both students and teachers. The
school is also associated with the Rishi Valley Rural Education Centre,
which has several rural schools and its educational model for activity-based
learning has been scaled up to millions of public schools across several
states in India as well as several countries beyond (Shailaja Fennell et al.,
2016). A recent challenge that the school has been facing, is the increasing
urbanisation around the campus (and an increasing presence of relatively
unknown people who come to the area, as new colleges have and con-
struction sites have sprung up), which has meant the school has had to
start fencing the extremely large campus, thus separating it from the vari-
ous hills, plains, and other forests around.
 3 ALTERNATIVE VISIONS FROM INDIAN THINKERS AND SCHOOLS 51

Notable highlight from my visit: The school is situated within a

valley and has a thriving forest. Students do not specifically need to
go into a forest, but rather they are in one all day long. Some classes
happen within four walls, some in alternative learning spaces like
huts, some under trees, and some while walking around. Additionally,
students frequently engage in bird watching, long hikes, cycling
treks, and daily silent walks atop a hill to watch the sun set. They also
had a strong understanding of nature around them ranging from
identifying, relating with, and appreciating nature (trees, birds, ani-
mals, flowers, etc.). The children have an extremely deep apprecia-
tion of nature; students frequently spoke to each other through
phrases like “look, how beautiful is this tree”, “this is a wonderful
rock”, and “the hill looks very beautiful [as it is struck by sunlight]”.
They were able to connect and communicate with trees sensing
when they were ill or when they felt low. Similarly, they weren’t
scared of snakes, and once when one wandered onto a verandah,
students commented: “[O]h do not worry it’s just come out to take
the sun it will go away soon”.

 atha Bhavana, Santiniketan, West Bengal

P
PB is in Eastern India and was founded by Rabindranath Tagore in 1901.
The school is affiliated with the West Bengal State Board of Education,
but still has considerable freedom because of its stature, reputation, and its
positionality as an alternative school. The school holds a strong apprecia-
tion for aesthetics education, where students are encouraged and sup-
ported to engage in various forms of art. Students and teachers frequently
take part in singing, dancing, theatre, poetry, art, and crafts. While the
school has specific classes to help develop these skills, they also have daily
assemblies with extended singing, weekly poetry evenings, arts and crafts
exhibitions, and theatre performances and the school has various forms of
arts embedded all across the campus (including wall paintings, paintings,
and sculptures). The school embodies an open environment: all learning
happens in open spaces (further described in the noted highlight); parents
52 J. PATEL

frequently join in with morning assemblies, weekly special morning medi-

tation, and weekly poetry sessions; and there is a sense of freedom for
students to attend/not attend sessions. While education is very subject-­
specific, teachers experiment with varying pedagogies within the classes.
Interestingly, teachers teach across very diverse grades (e.g., a given
teacher can potentially teach grades 2, 5, 8, and 11) as a means of continu-
ous development and developing an understanding of broader child devel-
opment. A recent challenge the school is facing is related to the increasing
pressures to follow a state-prescribed curriculum.

Notable highlight from my visit: Most of the classes in the school

happen under trees. While the school has a building, it is rarely used
(mostly during the monsoons or when specific tools and materials
are required, e.g., for specialised craft sessions). At other times of the
year all teaching and learning take place in the open compound
under large trees with students sitting in a circle around the teacher
who sits at the base of the tree. This means that there is no real bor-
der between the classroom and the world around; children can see,
observe, and interact with the birds, nature, soil, and animals.
Teachers actively encourage this and do not perceive children as
being distracted when they are observing birds or playing with a cat
or dog that has walked into the ‘class’.

 ahatma Gandhi International School, Ahmedabad, Gujarat

M
MGIS is in Western India and was founded in 1998. It has a formidable
reputation for its emphasis on freedom and autonomy, for both teachers
and students. The school has an extremely limited hierarchy and leverages
ideas of non-positional leadership (Bangs & Frost, 2015; Frost, 2017),
with teachers frequently making autonomous decisions and, at times,
directing the school leaders. The school follows the International
Baccalaureate and the Cambridge International Examinations, which
allows them significant freedom in their curricula and pedagogy. The
school engages in Project Based Experiential Learning and Generated
Resource Learning (GRL) pedagogies; all learning takes place through
projects, which typically last at least a month. GRL was developed by
Chazot (2006) and Musafir-Chazot (2019), being inspired by Dewey,
Erikson, Freire, Gandhi, Krishnamurti, Piaget, and Vygotsky. The syllabus
is co-constructed by teachers and students of the given grade, with
 3 ALTERNATIVE VISIONS FROM INDIAN THINKERS AND SCHOOLS 53

students informing the key topics (e.g., the space, waste management, and
football) that they would like to explore and teachers mapping various
age-specific competencies and learning objectives against the selected
topic. Additionally, the school embodies a culture of dialogue and collabo-
ration, wherein teachers, students, as well as teachers and students together
engage in projects and group work. The school has a triadic structure such
that it not only acts as a space for learning for children, but also as a centre
of action research, experimentation, and teacher training. Over the last
few years, the school members have been involved in training thousands of
teachers across the country in experiential and GRL pedagogies. A recent
challenge the school has been facing, despite being one of the model
schools for the Right To Education Act (one of its clauses requires all pri-
vate schools to provide free education to 25% students from marginalised
backgrounds), is increasing government regulation around fee caps; how-
ever, school parents have come together with the school authorities to
push back against this.

Notable highlight from my visit: The school is deeply invested in

project-based learning. The projects last a minimum of a month and
frequently much longer (some are one-year-long projects). The chil-
dren’s day is structured in 2-hour blocks instead of the typical
40 minutes periods. All academic content, target skills, and compe-
tencies to be developed were woven into the project. The projects
offered students the unique opportunity to engage with each other
on topics that they were passionate about and to understand the
relevance and application of the content covered. The project topics
are decided upon by the students and involve extensive collaborative
decision-making between students. Thereafter, (groups of) teachers
map out their learning objectives for the various subjects against the
project area.

 irambika Free Progress School, Delhi

M
MBK is in Northern India and was founded in 1981. The school follows
ideologies of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo, who emphasised the impor-
tance of integral education (which includes an education for several inter-
connected aspects, including mental, physical, vital, psychic, and spiritual).
The school is not affiliated to a board of instruction and instead follows
ideas of free progress, where students progress at their own pace. They take
54 J. PATEL

ideas of student autonomy and freedom much further than other schools
(including MGIS), such that students not only decide upon the project
areas, but also do so regarding the curricula, including the objectives of the
year; the content that they want to learn; the cognitive, physical, emo-
tional, and behavioural skills that they want to develop; and the outputs
they want to create throughout the year. This involves collaborative deci-
sion-making between the students and teachers, with there being enough
freedom for individuals to pursue some degree of independent objectives.
Much like MGIS, the school leverages project-based learning, with projects
typically lasting several weeks or months. They included aspects of cross
age group activities, social action components, and integral education.
There are no exams whatsoever and instead students engage in ongoing
self-reflective practices to map their own development, while teachers draft
elaborate reports to support students’ development and their achievement
of their objectives. The school used to have a strong supporting parent
body, who would come into the school, volunteer their time, and partake
in various activities. However, this was disrupted for a couple of years, but
is now being reconstituted. The school has faced some major challenges in
the recent years, including being forced to change school buildings, and
installation of CCTV cameras as per government mandates.

Notable highlight from my visit: The school is based within a

spiritual ashram and most of the teaching body comprises ash-
ramites, teacher trainees, and volunteer parents. The school deeply
emphasises the importance of teachers’ own holistic, integral, and
spiritual development. This is facilitated through various processes,
including teachers joining prayer and meditation sessions before
school begins (many students and parents came to school earlier to
join these), engaging in deep daily reflection after the school day has
ended, joining weekly reading groups, participating in planning
meetings, sharing their progress and practices during monthly shar-
ing sessions, as well as consciously working on and learning a new
skill (e.g., woodwork, musical instruments, dance, and yoga) every
few years. The school is seen as a space for development for all; one
of the teachers notably suggested, “[T]he day I stop growing inwards
I will stop coming to the school”. The teachers constantly strive to
incorporate ideas of education for harmony within their own ways of
living and being.
 3 ALTERNATIVE VISIONS FROM INDIAN THINKERS AND SCHOOLS 55

Conclusion
The modern education system takes a very narrow, instrumental lens to
the vision, purpose, processes, and systems of education. The chapter has
reviewed various Indian thinkers’ calls for a substantially different educa-
tion that brings about inner renewal and social change through a child-led
holistic education. These thinkers have directly and indirectly informed
various local, national, and international thought, policies, interventions,
and movements. Their ideas have also led to the establishment of a series
of alternative schools that aim to deeply imbibe and embody visions for
education for harmony. Moreover, the chapter has provided a short over-
view to some of the alternative schools. While the descriptions do not
provide a complete picture of any of the schools, I would invite the reader
to explore documentaries on alternative schools in India. I would also like
to invite you to think about other alternative schools, within your con-
texts, which attempt to bring about education for harmony. What are the
school-wide processes they adopt? What are the various relations within
the school community like? What kind of classroom processes do the
schools pursue? And how do the children experience such an education?
 CHAPTER 4

Learning to Live Harmoniously: an Essential

Aim of Education in the 21st Century

My personal experiences and readings on the various educational thinkers

led to me narrowing down on what Kelavani could look like. I strongly
resonated with ideas of education as a means of inner renewal and social
change. Such an education would not only support students in developing
a deep scientific and spiritual understanding of their own selves, the com-
munity, and nature, but also a moral commitment to the understanding
and wellbeing of the society and nature. Education, and not just school-
ing, would become a process of transformation of one’s ways of perceiv-
ing, living, and being, such that one learns to live in harmony with oneself,
others, and the nature. Such an education would be spiritual, holistic, and
transformative. In this chapter, I look at what these alternative visions for
education of the heart and its equivalents can mean in the twenty-first
century. Furthermore, I explore the role of active harmony and peace in
building active communities and democracies.
Education of the heart is a broad umbrella term that has been widely
used in India to encapsulate the aforementioned ideas. It has also been
used in several other contexts beyond India, especially colloquially within
schools (Schonert-Reichl & Hymel, 2007), referring to a wide range of
concepts, including Social Emotional Learning (CASEL, 2003), character
education, moral and virtues education (Schwartz, 2007), Global
Citizenship Education (Oxley & Morris, 2013; UNESCO, 2014a), and
Learning To Live Together (Delors et al., 1996). Different ideas have

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 57

Switzerland AG 2023
J. Patel, Learning to Live Together Harmoniously, Spirituality,
Religion, and Education,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23539-9_4
58 J. PATEL

developed differently across different contexts; however, many of them

have resorted to perceiving these ideas as content/knowledge to be trans-
ferred or skills and competencies to be developed. This contrasts with
Indian thinkers’ visions for education, who instead have envisioned educa-
tion of the heart as a different way of living and being. Do note that the
first half of the chapter serves as a broad literature review and takes a
deeper dive into literature; and I recognise practitioners may not find the
chapter as engaging as others, however, I hope it is equally valuable.

Alternative Purposes of Education Around

the World

A Sustained Emphasis on Education of the Heart in India

There has been a long-standing interest in value-based education in India,
with many notable thinkers having called for a shift to more affective
mind-sets and governmental interventions targeted at such education.
Education of the heart and its equivalents have been recognised by several
Indian educationists and philosophers, including Mahatma Gandhi,
Aurobindo Ghose, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Dalai Lama, The Mother,
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and Rabindranath Tagore. Indian philosophers
have emphasised the role of education for equality, peace, justice, har-
mony, unity of life, freedom/emancipation, and self-realisation (Patel,
2021b). As noted previously, the ideas of the various Indian thinkers have
strongly informed various policies, interventions, curricula, and teacher
training initiatives (see Chap. 3 for further details). In more recent times,
these ideas have informed two of the most important policies in India.
First, the Indian National Curricular Framework 2005 (NCERT, 2005;
Rajesh, 2002) and its approaches to peace education (NCERT, 2006). It
notably weaved ideas of education of the heart as a means of developing
cultures of peace and peaceful ways of living and being.

Living in harmony within oneself and with one’s natural and social environ-
ment is a basic human need. Sound development of an individual’s personal-
ity can take place only in an ethos marked by peace. A disturbed natural and
psycho-social environment often leads to stress in human relations, trigger-
ing intolerance and conflict. We live in an age of unprecedented violence—
local, national, regional, and global. Education often plays a passive, or even
insidious role, allowing young minds to be indoctrinated into a culture of
 4 LEARNING TO LIVE HARMONIOUSLY: AN ESSENTIAL AIM OF EDUCATION… 59

intolerance, which denies the fundamental importance of human sentiments

and the noble truths discovered by different civilisations. Building a culture
of peace is an incontestable goal of education. Education to be meaningful
should empower individuals to choose peace as a way of life and enable them
to become managers rather than passive spectators of conflict. Peace as an
integrative perspective of the school curriculum has the potential of becom-
ing an enterprise for healing and revitalising the nation. (NCERT,
2005, pp. 6–7)

Second, the New (Indian) Educational Policy (NEP, 2020) resonates with
some of the ideas, albeit with a reduced emphasis, reaffirming its commit-
ment to “develop[ing] good human beings capable of rational thought
and action, possessing compassion and empathy, courage and resilience,
scientific temper, and creative imagination, with sound ethical moorings
and values. It aims at producing engaged, productive, and contributing
citizens for building an equitable, inclusive, and plural society as envisaged
by our Constitution” (NEP, 2020, pp. 4–5). However, the policy docu-
ment is steeped in ideas of twenty-first-century skills and being much
more focused on other areas. Furthermore, education of the heart is
treated as an add-on, delimiting it to knowledge developed through read-
ing ‘fun fables’ and the constitution and putting it off till higher education
institutions where students can opt for credit-based courses on commu-
nity engagement, value-based education, and environmental education.
Despite these it would be unfair to judge the policy just yet; the policy has
a much broader scope and many others reckon it to have unprecedented
emphasis on equivalents of education of the heart. The national curricular
framework and various positions papers have now been commissioned and
should follow in due course of time. Promisingly there are position papers
being written on health and well-being, value education, and inclusion
and going by the emphasis on value education in the elementary national
curricular framework (the first framework to be released) these may
­inadvertently build on NCF’s (2005) integrative and holistic approach to
education of the heart.
In the past five years, there has been a notable large-scale intervention
in government-run schools, wherein the happiness curricula (Delhi State
Council of Educational Research and Training, 2019), drawing on spiri-
tual Indian ideas, were proposed as an add-on subject for developing
socioemotional competencies. The programme is currently being repli-
cated across many other states in India. In more recent times, the Delhi
60 J. PATEL

Government have taken the idea a step forward and built in an emphasis
on integration across other subjects and on building teachers’ own socio-
emotional competencies. While the intervention still treats education for
happiness as development of certain skills and knowledge, it is continu-
ously evolving and hopefully will develop into emphasising a different way
of living and being through more holistic school-wide approaches.

Learning to Live Together Proposed as One of the Four UN Pillars

of Education
In my explorations of what education of the heart means, it was fre-
quently referred to as a large umbrella term with limited conceptual frame-
works and guidance on how to convert these philosophies into practice.
This led me to exploring other related international ideas and conceptuali-
sations, such as Learning To Live Together (LTLT), Social Emotional
Learning (SEL), Emotional Intelligence (EI), and Global Citizenship
Education (GCE). I found a certain resonance with the ideas of LTLT,
which had also influenced the Indian National Curricular Framework
2005 (NCERT, 2005, 2006). LTLT, whilst stemming from a report to
UNICEF and based on modernist ideas, had been co-opted by Indian
educationists and was referred to and rephrased as learning to live together
harmoniously (Ajit Mondal & Jayanta Mete, 2014; NCERT, 2006).
Furthermore, recently, there has been a renewed emphasis on LTLT with
the SDG 4.7, sometimes termed “learning to live together sustainably”
(UNESCO, 2018), aiming to bring about global citizenship education
and education for sustainable development, and the Council of Europe’s
(2017) conference on ‘Learning To Live Together’. Within the Indian
context it is important to extend the idea to learning to live together har-
moniously (Patel, 2021b). This resonates with other Indian thinkers, who
see education as a means of building harmony and strong communities;
for example, Radhakrishnan (1964) noted, “The importance of education
is not only in knowledge and skill, but it is to help us to live with others”.
Delors et al. (1996) notably expanded the ambit of education to “learn-
ing throughout life”, to include four pillars of (lifelong) education: learn-
ing to know, learning to do, learning to be, and learning to live together.
It is important to note that the Delors Report was written to the UN as a
basis to drive policy reforms. Furthermore, it is also pertinent to note that
Jacques Delors, the head of the commission drafting the report, was the
previous president of European commission. The report in and of itself
 4 LEARNING TO LIVE HARMONIOUSLY: AN ESSENTIAL AIM OF EDUCATION… 61

makes several important points and has been quite humanistic in nature
due to its consideration of the whole person, rather than education as a
tool for driving economic development. The report proposed LTLT to be
the most evocative pillar of education, introducing notions of discovery of
oneself, recognition of others, and social cohesion. Delors et al. (1996,
p. 92) conceptualised LTLT as an effort to alleviate, resolve, and prevent
conflict by “developing respect for other people, their cultures and their
spiritual values”. Delors et al. (1996) and UNESCO (2014b) advocate
two complementary paths: discovery of others (a more static path) and
learning to work together (and a more dynamic path), as ways to combat
prejudices, cater to biases, and resolve conflict. These, in turn, will lead to
experiences of shared purpose. Moreover, Delors et al. (1996, p. 93) pro-
pose a sub-objective of “understanding of the self”, as a prerequisite
for LTLT:

If one is to understand others, one must first know oneself. To give children
and young people an accurate view of the world, education … must first
help them discover who they are. Only then will they genuinely be able to
put themselves in other people’s shoes and understand their reactions.

Similarly, Nussbaum (1997) argues for education of democratic citizen-

ship, which involves individuals developing capacities for critical and
reflexive self-reflection (aligning with discovery of the self), a ‘narrative
imagination’ that will allow them to position themselves as others (align-
ing with discovery of the other), and a moral commitment to the human
community (resulting from learning to work together and resulting in
experiences of shared purpose). LTLT has a certain resonance with educa-
tion of the heart equivalents as it hints at a different way of living and
being. While it is important to note the modernist and universalist under-
pinnings of LTLT, Delors, and the iNGOs supporting these ideas, it does
not necessarily take away from the ideas proposed (that too by a commis-
sion composed of various diverse authors from diverse cultures).
Since the Delors Report (1996), LTLT has frequently been used to
refer to a range of ideas, including GCE, education for sustainable devel-
opment, peace and conflict resolution, tolerance, value education, human
rights, humanitarian action, and civic responsibilities (Sinclair, 2013). In
the past two-and-half decades there has been a notable shift in the per-
ceived purpose of education and international development through it.
The report informed policy debates, international development objectives,
62 J. PATEL

and led to initiatives in more than 50 countries (Carneiro & Draxler,

2008). LTLT is also embedded in the discourse of twenty-first-century
skills (within life skills, one of the three domains of the twenty-first-­century
skills framework).

Rising Interest in Other Synergetic Equivalents

Across other subfields of education research there has been a discourse for
the need for education for more holistic purposes. This has led to an
emphasis on LTLT, SEL, EI, GCE, education for sustainable develop-
ment, peace education, and human rights education (Sinclair, 2013).
Following Dewey’s (1916) philosophical stance that education is a nation-­
building process, there have been several research discourses focusing on
ideas similar to LTLT, including (a) education for international develop-
ment, which includes the UN’s pillars of education and LTLT, GCE, edu-
cation for sustainable development, and twenty-first-century skills; (b)
peace (and peace education) research through its emphasis on transra-
tional and aesthetic peace; (c) psychology relying on EI; and (d) school
improvement research emphasising SEL (for an in-depth comparison of
the fields refer to Chap. 5, Fig. 5). Whilst these perspectives had different
initial motivations, all of them involve children exploring how they can
manage their emotions, understand others, and work/live together. The
following paragraphs focus on the significance and relevance of the equiv-
alent concepts.
The international development research inquiry into LTLT began with
“what is the purpose of education?” and its role in a good life (Delors
et al., 1996). The Delors Report was perceived as being “more profoundly
humanistic […] and less market driven” (Cougoureux & Sobhi Tawil,
2013) than other international development reports, one which recog-
nised education as an end in itself as opposed to other discourses of means
to an end (Power, 1997). However, others like Bhola (1997) note that the
report still perceived education as an instrumental vision for preparation
for the future as opposed to praxis for the present. Meanwhile, interna-
tional development has also had a strong interest in GCE, referring to an
education that shapes a global citizen with a sense of belonging to com-
mon humanity and the global community, leading to solidarity, collective
identity, and collective responsibility (UNESCO, 2014a). GCE has been
conceptualised through three different approaches (Hunt, 2017; Oxley &
Morris, 2013): (a) global competence—people need to be prepared to live
 4 LEARNING TO LIVE HARMONIOUSLY: AN ESSENTIAL AIM OF EDUCATION… 63

and work in a jobs market in an interconnected global world; (b) cosmo-

politan—in a global community it is important to understand each other
and respect the similarities and differences; and (c) advocacy—it is impor-
tant to challenge and uplift social conditions in the unequal society.
UNESCO (2014a), drawing on the cosmopolitan and advocacy approaches
to peace education, notes that GCE aims to “empower learners to engage
and assume active roles, both locally and globally, to face and resolve
global challenges and ultimately to become proactive contributors to a
more just, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable world”.
However, it is important also to note that, historically, GCE has been
linked to liberal ideas of citizenship and often aligned with colonial ideas
of a civilising mission (de Oliveira Andreotti, 2011). Moreover, recently
GCE has been used very broadly and Pais and Costa (2017) question
whether it makes it a global project that everyone from different perspec-
tives is able to champion to suit their own needs, masking the various
internal tensions. For example, many consider GCE as helping to develop
marketable employees that can work across contexts, while others use it to
encourage development of tolerance and global understanding (e.g.,
Khoo & Jørgensen, 2021).
Peace studies, in the light of wars, started enquiring about education
for a co-operative society, helping students to be agents of peace (Page,
2008) and proponents of “positive peace”. Galtung defined positive peace
as peacebuilding processes based on resolving structural and cultural vio-
lence as opposed to threats and punishments (Galtung, 1969). Page
(2008, p. 158) stated that “if we believe that peace, that is, harmonious
and co-operative relations between individuals and societies, is a beautiful
thing, a valuable thing in itself, then we should not be reticent in encour-
aging this as a stated objective for education”. Peace education research
has explored various notions of “peaces” (stemming from the discourse of
many different types of peaces; Dietrich, 2012) and peace education.
Moreover, recently there has been a noted emphasis on the ideas of
aesthetic peace, transrational peace, and co-poesis, which resonate with
LTLT and the various Indian equivalents of education of the heart, intro-
ducing ideas of spiritualism. Page (2008) described aesthetic peace per-
taining to eastern ideas of peace as embodied, spiritual, and affective
dimensions of peace that stem from within. Gurze’ev (2010) put forward
the idea of co-poesis as togetherness, characterised by openness, respon-
sible co-improvisation, and relations with others without aspects of self-­
centrism or self-sacrifice. Dietrich (2012) explained transrational peace as
64 J. PATEL

being concerned with inner transformation and as a form that integrates

eastern ideas of spirituality and rationality. He developed a 2x2 matrix of
internal and external peace along with the individual and collective aspects
of engagement, which he later (2013) extended to a multi-layered pyra-
mid with inter- and intra-personal layers.
Psychology research inquiring “how children develop” conceptualised
EI (Goleman, 1995; Krathwohl & Bloom, 1964; Salovey & Mayer, 1990).
Salovey and Mayer (1990) coined EI, referring to “the ability to perceive
and express emotion, assimilate emotion in thought, understand and rea-
son with emotion, and regulate emotion in the self and others” (Mayer
et al., 2000). Goleman (1995) popularised EI, proposing a model (now
called the mixed model) based on a wide range of competencies catego-
rised into self-awareness, self-regulation, social skills, empathy, and moti-
vation. Other EI models include the ability model (Mayer & Salovey,
1997), which is based on perceiving, using, understanding, and managing
emotions and the trait model (Petrides & Furnham, 2001), which focuses
on self-perception of emotional personality and behavioural dispositions.
The ability and mixed models have been most widely used, whilst the trait
model has been criticised for being very generic (not having a framework)
and subsuming EI as a personality trait.
School improvement (and now co-opted by psychology) conceptual-
ised SEL, which focuses on “youth development programs for drug pre-
vention, violence prevention, sex education, civic education, and moral
education” (CASEL, 2003). SEL “involves children’s ability to learn
about and manage their own emotions and interactions in ways that ben-
efit themselves and others, and that help children and youth succeed in
schooling, the workplace, relationships, and citizenship” (S. M. Jones &
Doolittle, 2017). McKown (2017) defines SEL as “the thinking skills,
behavioral skills, and regulatory skills needed to interact effectively with
others, and to make, form, and deepen relationships”. There are also sev-
eral frameworks for SEL, which S. M. Jones and Bouffard (2012) com-
pared and conceptualised three competencies of cognitive regulation,
emotional processes, and interpersonal skills. While CASEL (2003) identi-
fied five competencies of self-awareness, self-management, social aware-
ness, communication and relationship skills, and responsible
decision-making. SEL and EI are both understood to be crucial to stu-
dents’ wellbeing, self-regulation, relations with others, and being engaged
citizens (Greenberg et al., 2017; OECD, 2015).
 4 LEARNING TO LIVE HARMONIOUSLY: AN ESSENTIAL AIM OF EDUCATION… 65

These relatively synergetic conceptualisations, albeit stemming from

different initial epistemological positions, point towards the apparent need
for a different educational system. For example, the OECD (2015, 2018),
drawing on LTLT and the synergetic concept of SEL, has highlighted the
importance of the latter in the development of skills, knowledge, and atti-
tudes towards individual wellbeing as well as capacities to manage one’s
emotions, work together, and become responsible and engaged citizens.
The OECD (2015) report is also notably titled ‘Skills for Progress; the
Power of Social and Emotional Skills’. However, the various conceptuali-
sations take different approaches, ranging from those that perceive them
as knowledge to those referring to them as skills of competencies. They
also stem from an instrumental vision for education (education for better
future returns and/or for better academic outcomes) as opposed to a
more intrinsic one (e.g., education for the sake of education and educa-
tion for these equivalents for their own sake and wellbeing), which has
been adopted by several aforementioned Indian thinkers, and advocated
by Brighouse and Unterhalter (2010) and Kumar (2010a). I invite the
readers to explore and reflect on whether the education for these various
equivalents would look any different, if pursued for the intrinsic value in
them. In either case, the interest in these concepts has not been restricted
to researchers and policymakers, for it can also be found in practitioners
and to a certain extent it could be argued that many of these concepts have
been driven by them, who have consistently focused upon and emphasised
these equivalents.

International Interventions Transforming Educational Systems

There has been a range of interventions that have been developed targeting
LTLT, GCE, and SEL for children. LTLT and GCE have been promoted
by international bodies, like UNESCO. Between 1996 and 2008, the
Delors Report led to initiatives in more than 50 countries (Carneiro &
Draxler, 2008) and since 2008, organisations such as Arigatou International
(they run an international programme referred to as Ethics for Education),
in collaboration with UNESCO, have been leading various programmes,
including teacher training and curricular development for LTLT. Since
2012, UNESCO has been actively engaged in using GCE, especially with
the launch of the Global Education First Initiative and thereafter, with the
SDGs (Torres & Bosio, 2020). However, most GCE implementation has
remained limited to inclusion in curricula through special subjects or
66 J. PATEL

through integration into certain ones (Davies, 2006; DfID & DfEE, 2000;
Oxfam, 1997; Oxley & Morris, 2013; Reimers et al., 2016), while SEL has
found strong interest in North America, with many interventions being
developed across the USA and Canada (Weissberg et al., 2015). S. M. Jones
et al. (2017) reviewed 25 of the most prominent interventions (also
reviewed in Durlak et al., 2015), including (a) within classrooms, involving
interventions through a specific subject or coverage under other subjects
(Zins, 2004), with some teacher support to use the materials (notable pro-
grammes include Social Emotional and Ethical [SEE] curricula, Second
Step, RULER, and 4Rs); (b) school-wide interventions targeting policies,
conflict resolution, and creating safe spaces (notable programmes include
Caring School Communities, SECURe, and latter models of RULER)
(Oberle et al., 2016); and (c) community-based interventions, which bring
about parental involvement and providing other opportunities to practise
(e.g., community service programmes and parental engagement in the
aforementioned programmes) (Durlak et al., 2010). Over the past decade,
there has also been a rise in the number of programmes involving medita-
tion (Luberto et al., 2018), mindfulness (Berry et al., 2018; Diamond &
Lee, 2011; Emory University & SEE Learning, 2019; J. P. Miller et al.,
2005; Schonert-Reichl & Roeser, 2016), and compassion training (Luberto
et al., 2018). These, in turn, have led to various curricula and extra-curric-
ular interventions across the world, notably government trials across 224
schools in the UK (Hayes et al., 2019; Magra, 2019). Furthermore, in
India, over the past five years a range of SEL interventions have been devel-
oped by various state and non-state actors, with the Happiness Curriculum
being one of the most notable changes.
There have been several studies that have studied the impact of these
interventions and education for these broader objectives, suggesting a posi-
tive impact on a range of learning outcomes, including academic outcomes,
cognitive skills, prosocial behaviours, and communication skills (Durlak
et al., 2011; Weissberg et al., 2015), as well as predicting success at school
(Zimmerman & Bandura, 1994; Zins, 2004) and work (Caspi et al., 2002;
Hanushek et al., 2011; D. E. Jones et al., 2015). Education for SEL has also
been implied to promote democratic and engaged citizenship, reduce crimi-
nal behaviour, and lead to improved mental health (D. E. Jones et al.,
2015). Various SEL programmes have been shown to improve social emo-
tional outcomes, including promoting positive attitudes and relations with
oneself, others, and at times the larger community, while reducing problem
behaviours and depression (Durlak et al., 2011; Sklad et al., 2012).
 4 LEARNING TO LIVE HARMONIOUSLY: AN ESSENTIAL AIM OF EDUCATION… 67

Education of the Heart as a Primary Purpose

of Education: A Teacher’s Perspective

The previous section demonstrated increased recognition of the relevance

of various education of the heart and LTLT equivalents. Many of the
equivalents have had a lasting impact and have resulted in interventions
around the globe, including in India. Deeper exploration and comparisons
lead me to realise that conceptualisations like SEL, EI, and GCE treat
education of the heart as knowledge and skills about the society. Their
proponents believe in transferring content and practising certain skills
through one-off sessions in the classrooms. While these are valuable, how
can we go beyond perceiving education for togetherness and harmony as
gathering certain knowledge or developing certain skills to transform
one’s ways of thinking, living, and being? I believe that Kelavani would
need to be a deeply transformative process for a different way of living and
being. And exploration of this question led me to visit alternative schools
founded/inspired by the aforementioned Indian thinkers to understand
their perceptions and practices of education. I spent nearly 10 months
through an ethnographic study at 5 such schools and visited 13 others
through short one-day trips. In this section, I explore teachers’ percep-
tions of the purpose of education. The teachers foregrounded education
of the heart and its equivalents as their primary focus, with 52% sections of
my data exploring teachers’ perceptions of purposes of education coded
for education of the heart equivalents, while there were limited references
to other purposes, like children’s wellbeing (22% codes), holistic educa-
tion (13% codes), knowledge (6% codes), finding one’s interest (5%
codes), career (1% codes), and other (1%) (Fig. 4.1).1

Limited Emphasis on Career and Knowledge

Is my purpose in life to get through the exams and get a job and lead a
comfortable life, or have I come here with a specific purpose and [the pur-
pose of education should be] to find the purpose [of life]? We often end up

1
It is important to note that a few teachers questioned if there must be a predefined pur-
pose of education. They strongly believed that having predefined purpose of education is
hierarchical and therefore delimiting. Instead, they advocated for a form of mindful purpose-
lessness, being led by students and their visions and being led for one’s love for children. This
resonates with ideas of Educere-ing and is further discussed in Chap. 9. However, upon
further discussion the teachers described their approach as one resonating with that of educa-
tion of the heart and its various equivalents.
68 J. PATEL

Fig. 4.1 Purposes of education. Represents the frequency of coding for the vari-
ous purposes of education that the teachers discussed. *Education of the heart/
spirit includes various other contextualised equivalents, including education of the
psychic, education for flowering in inner goodness, and for a good human being

looking at very inconsequential things. Things that do not really matter.

How does it matter in the long run whether I get this or that? How does it
matter if I do not learn the rules of grammar? How does it matter, if my
students are weak, let us say in maths or they do not remember history
dates? What should be more important is whether they can look at their
school and say because of that I am a better person. I have learned how to
locate myself. (AadityaPB)

Education for building a student’s future career was mentioned rarely and
that too only in passing, with teachers clarifying that the “primary aim of
education should be to develop your human qualities and human apti-
tudes”. While knowledge as a goal had a wider spread of importance,
ranging from not important to one of the primary goals: (a) as something
that was not relevant or important, through notions of “it does not mat-
ter; it is just a context why we engage with each other” and “we do not
care about academics”; (b) in passing as a secondary goal, for example,
“mastering knowledge and all is nothing [not important]” and “it’s only
a stepping stone to get to where I want to”; or (c) as important and a
 4 LEARNING TO LIVE HARMONIOUSLY: AN ESSENTIAL AIM OF EDUCATION… 69

given, with one teacher suggesting, “The first one is how the children
learn, because we are educators”. However, those that emphasised knowl-
edge also clarified that their primary goal was centred around the child’s
wellbeing and education of the heart.
Teachers frequently questioned the modern systems of education, for
example, “purpose of education … as it is practised nowadays in society, I
do not agree (with) … memorise and cram the memory with all this infor-
mation, data, that is useless” (BarenMBK). While another expressed,
“Whether the child is achieving what’s been set out is not important. …
There are lots of opportunities to come back to things. So, actions will be
done in 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th. So, it may slow down at some stage, but that’s
okay” (TanujRVS). Furthermore, teachers questioned the role of some of
the more competitive exams, considering them to be the irrational way of
evaluation, leading to stress and anxiety and ultimately promoting indi-
vidualism and dividing society, rather than promoting cooperation.

Some Emphasis on Finding One’s Passion

The experience of flow where you lose a perspective of time when kids are
so engaged. We do not want a break. That is very important, that means you
are happy doing this, you are connected with that thing. (AnjuMGIS)

Teachers frequently emphasised the importance of finding one’s passion,

referring to ideas ranging from building curiosity and interest, openness to
novel ideas, exploring interests beyond academics to ideas of helping stu-
dents find their dharma. Dharma in this context meant finding one’s pur-
pose of life, finding something that really drove them, and/or finding
something that led to sense of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Furthermore,
finding one’s true passion was discussed in terms of students’ current and
future wellbeing. They emphasised the need to give students the opportu-
nity and freedom to find and develop their interests and for these to evolve
over time.

An Emphasis on Holistic Education

All teachers emphasised holistic development, at times referring to it as
“all round development”, which included the development of thinking
skills (creating, organising, critical and creative thinking), soft skills
70 J. PATEL

(multitasking, articulating ideas, communicating them, negotiating, team

working, leadership skills), attitudes (towards subjects, other people), cre-
ativity (through hands or the mind; not limited to crafts or sports), and
the development of a ‘complete human being’ (linking to ideas discussed
further below in the education of the heart equivalents section). They
frequently referred to ideas of education of the head, heart, and hands.
The ideas of holistic education were later developed into integral educa-
tion, where the three were seen as an integral whole; not as three parts that
came together, but rather as a single whole, with the arbitrary segregation
of heart, head, and hands just being used to support conceptualisation and
communication.

Wellbeing as an Essential Goal of Education

The purpose of education to come back to that is who am I? Why am I here?
And they do enjoy this experience of school life discovery, expression, and
the joy in learning so when we started the school, we have stated the two
objectives to start in the school. I mean for the public, we said the first
objective is the child should be happy and the final objective is the child
should be autonomous. (AnjuMGIS)

Children’s wellbeing was considered important and widely discussed at

all schools. Teachers emphasised the role of education and schools to pro-
mote both hedonic (e.g., where students felt good) and eudemonic (e.g.,
where students were driven by a sense of purpose) wellbeing of students
both in the present and in their future. While mental, emotional, and spiri-
tual health along with feelings of happiness, joy, and satisfaction were
commonly associated with wellbeing, teachers also placed emphasis on
ideas of acceptance, belonging, and freedom. They believed that happiness
was thought to be brought about by, first, freedom to pursue one’s goals
and that the purpose of education was to free students from their own
behavioural patterns and conditioning, external oppression, as well as
social and cultural violence in the wider society. Several psychologists
(Ryan, 1995; Ryan & Deci, 2000) have emphasised the importance of
autonomy and autonomous decision-making, while the teachers extended
these discussions to Foucault’s (1977) and Krishnamurti’s (2000) ideas of
‘deconditioning’, whereby students learn to recognise and counter ‘soci-
etal conditioning’. Second, they iterated that happiness was brought about
by a sense of acceptance and belonging wherein every child felt included,
 4 LEARNING TO LIVE HARMONIOUSLY: AN ESSENTIAL AIM OF EDUCATION… 71

heard, respected, and valued for the people that they are. Several psy-
chologists (Leary, 2010; Ryan, 1995) have stressed the role of relatedness,
acceptance, and belonging in developing meaningful relations and wellbe-
ing. Hargreaves et al. (1996) and Osterman (2000) have emphasised the
importance of reforming schools into better and caring communities,
where students feel a sense of belonging. Third, teachers emphasized the
notion of ‘atmasantosh’, a deep form of satisfaction by doing the best that
one can, meaningfully engaging in the community and/or living in the
community. This also resonates with experiences of ‘flow’ (Csikszentmihalyi,
1990), where one loses perspective of time as one engages in something
that one finds meaningful and “in sync with one’s interests, passions and
the soul” (AnjuMGIS).

Education of the Heart Equivalents as the Primary Goal

of Education
[One] clothes the ideal or the absolute he seeks to attain with different
names according to the environment in which he is born and the education
he has received. The experience is essentially the same, if it is sincere; it is
only the words and phrases in which it is formulated that differ according to
the belief and the mental education of the one who has the experience. (The
Mother, 1977)

The most discussed purpose of education were equivalents of education

of the heart, including education of the spirit, for flowering in inner good-
ness, for being a good human being, and/or for psychic education. These
phrases were generally highly localised and stemmed from the contextual-
ised difference (the schools are inspired by different philosophers and have
different historic traditions depending on their geographical locations).
Teachers used different phrases depending on local contexts, school con-
text, and philosophies, as well as personal backgrounds, albeit largely syn-
ergetic, referring to similar notions of compassion, kindness, and care
leading to “good/better/wholesome human beings”, “a balance between
the inner and outer worlds”, “living a truly sustainable life”, and “harmo-
nious living” (summarised in Table 4.1; Patel, 2021b). Moreover, all the
teachers held that education of the heart equivalents were one of the major
goals and ‘swabhavik’, an obvious implicit condition that does not need to
be stated, for example, “real education develops the heart and the spirit”
and “education without values is useless”.
72 J. PATEL

Table 4.1 Conceptualisation of education of the heart equivalents

Conceptualisation Key concepts Indian
educational
thinkers

Education of the Deep understanding of oneself, inner peace, Gandhi, The

heart simple living, being free, and not pressurised Dalai Lama
(societal or peer), experiencing happiness and
joy, developing values, being empathetic and
compassionate, becoming a better human being,
and harmonious and inclusive living.
Education of the Peaceful and harmonious living, emotional Aurobindo
spirit or psychic regulation, spiritual understanding of the self/
soul, deep satisfaction (‘atmasantosh’), balance
between the inner and outer world (‘samta’),
sensitivity, awareness of beauty, cooperation in
nature, non-judgemental respectful relations,
oneness with everyone around, community
living, and contributing to society.
Education for inner Critical inquiry and reflections as a means of Krishnamurti
flowering better understanding oneself, harmonious living,
and breaking away from conditioning and
divisive frameworks; leading to sensitivity and
‘sensibilities’, selflessness and egolessness,
kindness, and care and compassion to others.
Education for Developing values, critically analysing one’s own Tagore (1962)
wholesome/better self, behavioural and emotional regulation, coined
human being responding as opposed to reacting, being open “wholesome
and sensitive to others, accepting others, human being”
compassion, and a feeling of oneness with all of
humanity and community living.

Adapted from Patel (under review)

They notably did not see education of the heart as an add-on, but
rather as the fundamental and key goal of education, which also under-
pinned the school vision for education, the school-wide systems and ethos,
teaching-learning processes, and interactions amongst school members.
Teachers frequently suggested that education of the heart cannot be
brought about through singular sessions, for it must be embedded in the
individual’s lived experiences and relations, such that it leads to learning to
live differently (for both the teachers and the students).
 4 LEARNING TO LIVE HARMONIOUSLY: AN ESSENTIAL AIM OF EDUCATION… 73

Eastern Perspectives of Education

for Harmonious Living

Building a Focus on Harmony; Learning to Live

Together Harmoniously
The teachers explicitly emphasised education of the heart equivalents and
LTLT and how their deep understanding of these localised equivalents led
to a different, more spiritual, vision for education. Much like various
Indian thinkers they strongly called for education for emancipation, equal-
ity, empathy, compassion, gratitude, peace, and harmony (Patel, 2021b).
While I started my exploration of alternative purposes of education with
the goal of unpacking learning to live together and education of the heart,
further readings, interactions with teachers, and lived experiences at these
school led to the realisation that many of the teachers and thinkers were
aiming for a deeper purpose of education, for example, education for har-
mony. Teachers strongly emphasised harmony, which is shared by the vari-
ous Indian thinkers, for example, the “highest education is that which
does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with
all existence” (Tagore, 1917). Other Indian philosophers have discussed
ideas of harmony and harmony through education, referring to harmony
as both inner harmony and harmonious communities (non-­discriminatory,
inclusive, just, and egalitarian). I have come to understand harmony as
being associated with deep spiritual understanding of oneself and the
larger world, going beyond ideas of tolerance, diversity, and acceptance of
deeper ideas of diversity-based oneness. Diversity-based oneness was sug-
gested to include an appreciation of the uniqueness of various living and
non-living things and a simultaneous recognition of their interconnected-
ness and interdependence. Harmony was perceived as something that
both required active efforts and existed naturally. Active efforts were
required to deconstruct various individual and societal conditioning to
allow for more natural ways of harmonious living and being.
Peace, togetherness, and harmony should be considered active forms of
the terms, which are not conceptualised as the absence of conflict, separa-
tion, and chaos, but rather as the presence of justice, commitment to
mutual wellbeing, and consciousness of interdependence (Cremin &
Archer, 2018; Galtung, 1964; Gharse & Sharma, n.d.; Morling & Fiske,
1999; Patel, 2021a, 2021b; Regnier, 1995). For example, Gandhi (Gharse
& Sharma, n.d.), like Galtung (1969), differentiated positive and negative
74 J. PATEL

peace, with the former being based on the presence of justice, coopera-
tion, inclusion, oneness, harmony, and respect, whilst the latter pertains to
the absence of conflicts (between races, nations, religions, and castes).
However, harmony and chaos do not need to be mutually exclusive, for at
times harmony can rely upon dissent, separation, conflicts, and chaos to
bring about social justice (Patel, 2021a). Additionally, harmony is per-
ceived as something that naturally exists, but one’s “social conditioning”
(Krishnamurti, 2013; Krishnamurti & Martin, 1997 or Foucauldian “nor-
malisation”) prevents one from experiencing it. Hence, achieving har-
mony requires conscious and active efforts to transcend boundaries, both
within and outside/beyond oneself.
Practitioners in India have emphasised education for harmony (within
oneself, with others, and within the larger society) as a major goal of edu-
cation. They have extended ideas of harmony beyond human society to
nature and even non-living things. They have discussed notions of ‘active’
harmony and peace, which were based on ideas of transformation of ways
of living and being that foreground understanding of interconnectedness,
social justice, inner harmony, and inner peace, and overcoming sociocul-
tural violence, rather than a mere absence of conflicts, disagreements, and
chaos. For example, “[I]t is like silence; silence is not absence of sound
[but rather about tranquillity or being calm and at peace]” (ShreyaPB).
Furthermore, they suggested harmony and harmonious societies should
not become about pacifist unity, but rather should include and rely upon
disagreements, dissent, and non-violent conflict to allow for differing per-
spectives to be engaged with through active dialogue (Patel, 2021a). They
notably reconceptualised Learning To Live Together as Learning To Live
Together Harmoniously (LTLTH). They commonly emphasised that,
while currently communities do live together, this might be within unjust
systems or with individuals isolated from each other and instead living
together in harmony is more important. Differences of opinions, con-
flicts, and separation are essential to community building as long as they
are accompanied with notions of a commitment to mutual wellbeing, sys-
tems of engaging in dialogue and conflict resolution, and embedded with
ideas of satyagraha (where the actor and the act idea are seen as separate).
These are further discussed in below.
Similarly, harmony has been foregrounded by various holistic education
scholars and defined as learning to not just be in harmony with oneself and
others, but extended to being in harmony with the nature (Cajete, 1994;
Culham et al., 2018; Lin et al., 2019; J. P. Miller et al., 2018). This
 4 LEARNING TO LIVE HARMONIOUSLY: AN ESSENTIAL AIM OF EDUCATION… 75

emphasis on harmony relates with some of the underpinnings of the

Delors Report, wherein harmony was also mentioned several times and
many of the contributors stressed notions of it throughout the report.
Regarding which, Myong Won Suhr (Delors et al., 1996) noted, “Living
together in harmony must be the ultimate goal of education in the twenty-­
first century”. LTLTH extends the ideas of LTLT, social emotional and
ethical curricula, SEL, EI, and peace education to include deeper notions
of transrational and post-critical peace. It includes ideas of deep inner
peace, harmony, community responsibility, and living along with just and
equal societies. LTLTH includes harmony within oneself (balance between
the inner and outer world), with others (meaningful engagement with
those around including people, living beings, and non-living things), and
across the human and non-human societies (countering systemic, struc-
tural, and cultural violence against others that one is not directly con-
nected to). I explore what LTLTH means and develop a potential
framework to explore this in the next chapter. LTLTH aims to transform
students’ perceptions, attitudes, as well as ways of living and being to
move beyond fragmented ways of looking and relating with oneself, oth-
ers, and interconnected communities of all living beings, thus moving
towards an inner sense of oneness and harmony.

The Role of LTLTH in Building Active Democracies

LTLTH can allow for building harmonious communities, active democra-
cies, and a compassionate world. Drawing on earlier definitions of active
harmony, building harmonious communities require a potential social
transformation, which could be supported by LTLTH. It would allow the
communities to embody the following four major principles as a means to
counter various sociocultural injustices. First, a commitment to each other,
the larger community, and social justice. Dewey (1916) suggested that
such a commitment to empathetic understanding and wellbeing of another
would be foundational to building a democracy that is not just merely a
means of governance, but rather a ‘mode of associated living, a conjoint
communicated experience’. Second, systemic and structured processes of
dissent, empathetic understanding, dialogue, as well as democratic and
equitable decision-making. Several thinkers (Dewey, 1916; Freire, 1970;
Gandhi, 1968; Guha, 2016; Thapar, 2021) have emphasised institution-
alised systems of participation, dialogue, dissent, and conflict resolution
for all members as being foundational to equitable and active democracies.
76 J. PATEL

Furthermore, such systems along with the aforementioned commitment

would allow for the empathetic understanding of each other and each
other’s lived experiences (Nussbaum, 2010; Patel, 2021a). Third, social
action against issues of social justice, with Indian thinkers having com-
monly proposed challenging oppression, transforming oppressive societal
structures, and bringing about social upliftment as a major educational
outcome (Gandhi, 1968; Krishnamurti, 2000; Prasad & Bilgrami, 2020;
Tagore, 1929). Teachers suggested that action against issues of social jus-
tice need to be embedded within day-to-day living and not just through
large movements of social change. Fourth, the ability to differentiate the
actor from the act in itself. Gandhi emphasised satyagraha and while the
literal translation means polite insistence of truth or sustained dissent, he
called upon everyone to engage in social action and dissent against the act
but not the actor/oppressor (Patel, 2021a; Thapar, 2021). Resonating
with Thapar (2021), teachers held that difference of opinions and voicing
them is necessary and a sign of a healthy community that is engaged in
constant dialogue, irrespective of its outcome, where individuals may
arrive at an agreement, agree to disagree, or simply just understand and
explore a different perspective. Notably, KamalaMBK suggested that con-
flicts are inevitable and essential for the process of LTLT:

Fighting, disagreements, clashes, [and] groupism. Until and unless you go

through all of these and resolve them, living collectively will not happen.
[Students] become tolerant by conflict; by learning to know that you need
not always be right and that many times you have to live with what will be
partially right in your view. You cannot have it’s either my way or no way
attitude. … If there is no conflict, if there is kind of uniformity, then it
becomes like these religious mutts.

LTLTH is both a process of inner renewal and societal transformation.

It leads to harmonious living and harmonious communities through criti-
cal and reflexive self-reflection, empathetic and compassionate relations,
understanding of each other, a commitment to the larger community, and
experiences and understanding of shared purposes (Nussbaum, 1997).
LTLTH, fundamentally, involves emancipation of one’s own self and oth-
ers in the community. It would allow for freedom from one’s own emo-
tions, prejudices, societal conditioning (or normalisation), and oppressive
behaviours/habits, while at the same time also leading the transformation
of oppressive sociocultural systems, structures, and practices. Historically,
 4 LEARNING TO LIVE HARMONIOUSLY: AN ESSENTIAL AIM OF EDUCATION… 77

education in India has been thought to be emancipatory (see also Chaps.

1 and 2) and much like Freire (1970), emphasising praxis, critical think-
ing, and social change. Regarding which, Radhakrishnan (1959) noted,
“It is through education that we acquire the passion and perspective to
fight caste prejudices, class privileges and group antagonisms. … Education
has to give us a second birth, to help us to realise what we have already in
us. The meaning of education is to emancipate the individual.”

Conclusion
The chapter has highlighted both the intrinsic and the instrumental value
of education for LTLTH. I call upon the reader to explore education for
LTLTH as a process of, both, inner renewal and social transformation.
While education for LTLTH will help build more harmonious communi-
ties, democracies, and a global world, the teachers, various Indian think-
ers, and I—resonating with Brighouse and Unterhalter (2010) and
K. Kumar (2010a)—believe in the intrinsic value of LTLTH for its own
sake. Furthermore, I call upon the reader to explore LTLTH as a purpose
of education, rather than a set goal or a set process. I invite the reader to
explore whether education needs to have a purpose and if so, what should
that be? What does harmony mean to you, and do you recall instances
when you experienced it as child? What have your experiences of educa-
tion of harmony been like? How do you imagine an alternative educa-
tional system that brings about education for harmony?
The rest of the book explores whether and if so how LTLTH can be
conceptualised and the potential processes that it could draw upon.
However, I would like to reemphasise that there is no single path/way to
LTLTH and instead it needs to be perceived as an overarching purpose
with multiple paths towards its fulfilment.
 CHAPTER 5

Conceptualising Learning To Live Together

Harmoniously

In my continued exploration of education of the heart and education for

togetherness and harmony, I questioned, “[B]ut what does it really mean?
It cannot just be a constellation of descriptive words?”. I recognise that
these are complex ideas only when they are interrogated fully can a more
nuanced understanding of them be acquired. I acknowledge that it may or
may not be possible to completely understand these ideas, but I believe(d)
that a detailed exploration would allow for deeper understanding and per-
haps open other layers of complexity that are currently unseen. Treating
these visions as just broad objectives, without a supporting conceptual
framework or deep exploration, can lead to ambiguity and vagueness, fre-
quently leading to it being systemically overlooked. Furthermore, it can
also communicate the lack of its importance and lead to it being side-
lined, ignored, or being treated as an ad-hoc goal. In this chapter, I explore
the challenges of conceptualising education of the heart and its equiva-
lents and then draw upon various international conceptualisations and
Indian teachers’ perceptions to build an initial conceptual framework for
LTLTH. This can, hopefully, serve as a prompt for readers to deepen and
develop their own contextualised understanding of LTLTH.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 79

Switzerland AG 2023
J. Patel, Learning to Live Together Harmoniously, Spirituality,
Religion, and Education,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23539-9_5
80 J. PATEL

A Problem of Conceptualisation

A Broad Umbrella-Like Term

LTLT has frequently been used as an umbrella term covering GCE, edu-
cation for sustainable development, peace education, SEL, conflict resolu-
tion, value education, human rights, and civic responsibilities (Sinclair,
2013). The use of LTLT as an umbrella-like term has led to a fuzzy con-
ceptualisation without clear aims and target (Sinclair, 2013). Similarly, its
Indian equivalents of education of the heart are also treated as umbrella-
like terms, which are partly owing to the holistic understanding of con-
cepts and reluctance to break these down into conceptual fragments
(Gandhi, 1968b; The Mother, 1977a). The local conceptualisations are
broadly referred to in terms of their ultimate outcomes, including those of
freedom/emancipation, equality, peace, harmony, unity of life, and
enlightenment (self-consciousness and self-realisation). However, these
broad objectives, without a supporting conceptual framework or deep
exploration, lead to vagueness and difficulty when it comes to translation
into practice. Additionally, the extant framework(s) are ideological and
not based on practitioner voice or classroom practices, thus making it even
more difficult to translate them into practice.
One can argue that the lack of conceptualisation could be by design to
prevent piecemeal efforts; however, the local conceptualisations were pro-
posed as broad visions by thinkers, who were engaged in multiple pursuits
and could not necessarily build on the aims further. These need to be
unpacked either through descriptive and narrative efforts or through an
interconnected framework. The Mother (1977a) endeavoured to generate
a conceptual framework for education (in general), coining the term
“integral education”, to include dimensions of physical, mental, vital, and
psychic (with the vital and psychic being akin to LTLT), with detailed
discussion on each of the components. However, education for the psy-
chic was still perceived and presented as something that could not neces-
sarily be conceptualised, because it involves education for/connection
with “greater consciousness beyond the consciousness of his normal life …
what the human mind does not know and cannot do, this consciousness
knows and does” (The Mother, 1977a, p. 133).
 5 CONCEPTUALISING LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER HARMONIOUSLY 81

Non-describable/‘Indescribable’ Conceptualisations
Several teachers and local educationists who I met held that ideas of edu-
cation of the heart cannot be put in words and “it cannot be said; it has to
be felt”. There were strong ideas of: (a) the moment it is articulated it
ceases to be what it is. For example, one senior non-participant teacherRVS
said, “[S]ilence is what it is. The moment you speak about it, it is not
silence”, while SrilaMBK suggested, “The more you speak about it, the
more you mentalise it, then it stops being the psychic. So [it] cannot really
be spoken about, but just has to be lived.” (b) There is no need for a defi-
nition, because one knows what it means: “[Y]ou do not have to define
what a brother is, you just have to say this person feels like a brother to me
and the idea is communicated straight away, which to me means that inside
us we already know what this is, so you do not need the definition”
(AtulRVS). And (c) there is a need to practise these (ideas) rather than talk
about them: “[T]eachers are doing it, they do not say these words, but
they really try to live” (BarenMBK). JayanthyMBK expanded on points (a) and
(c), explaining “in either case we do not speak about it now, because we
think we should know about it [first]”, thus linking to ideas of it needing
to be practised and lived rather than spoken about. She went on to say,
“[B]ut the moment we know about it, again we won’t speak about it
because there is nothing to speak about [as it would cease to be what it is
once put into words]”.
However, AtulRVS suggested the need for articulation when saying:

The reality is obviously something in itself, but it can be expressed in words,

and it can be communicated … otherwise we get into this trap of the truth
is not communicable and then, what are you doing here [as a teacher]? And
this communication that the ‘truth is incommunicable’, where did that
come from? That should be incommunicable too.

Similarly, The Mother (1977a) notes, “[A]ll formulation is only an

approximation that should be progressive and grow in precision as the
experience itself becomes more and more precise and coordinated”. As is
evident, there is definite tension around trying to articulate what educa-
tion of the heart equivalents could mean, which partly also stems from the
overarching nature of the terms, difficulty in unpacking them, and the lack
of research on them. Over time, I came to realise that, perhaps, there
could be no one global answer as to what education of the heart means
and rather it must be an individual exploration of what it means to oneself.
82 J. PATEL

In this chapter, I draw upon teachers’ voices to explore what education for
togetherness and harmony means to me and hope that it prompts a similar
contextualised enquiry for the readers.

Multitude of Incomparable Frameworks of Various

International Equivalents
While there are limited frameworks for education of the heart in Indian
contexts, there have been several international attempts at creating con-
ceptual frameworks for some of the education of the heart equivalents,
which make up components of the LTLT umbrella (CASEL, 2003;
Dietrich, 2012, 2013; Goleman, 1995, 1998; Mayer & Salovey, 1997).
Blyth et al. (2018) suggest that the spectrum of frameworks leads to a
challenge akin to putting together a puzzle with pieces from multiple dif-
ferent ones of which two have the same shaped pieces. This, once again,
leads to problems in translating frameworks into practice and measuring
and evaluating already hard to measure competencies (Stecher &
Hamilton, 2017; Unterhalter, 2017). In this chapter, I start by exploring
some of these as a potential starting point to exploring education for
togetherness and harmony.
In this chapter, I build a holistic framework exploring what education
for togetherness and harmony means to me (the framework is merely a
tool that allowed me to develop a deeper understanding of LTLTH). It is
aimed at prompting readers to question and explore what education of
togetherness and harmony means to them (rather than just accepting the
proposed framework here) and aiding teachers in translating the ‘fuzzy’
ideologies into practice.

Building a Conceptual Framework

Exploring Extant Frameworks

Chapter 3 introduced LTLT as having the three broad components of
discovery of the self, discovery of the other, and learning to work together.
There are several synergetic international conceptualisations which could
be used to provide better understanding as to what these components
mean (Fig. 5.1).
Dietrich (2013), SEL and Goleman’s (1995) EI share a strong overlap
with the three LTLT components, while Dietrich (2012), GCE, and Mayer
 5

Fig. 5.1 Conceptualisations of LTLT. Taken from Patel (2021b). The various conceptualisations and their synergies:
orange (elliptical), yellow (rounded rectangle with thin border), and green (parallelogram), respectively, represent discov-
ery of self, discovery of others, and social skills, while red (rectangle with thick borders) represents concepts that do not
CONCEPTUALISING LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER HARMONIOUSLY

necessarily resonate across the three components (Color figure online)

83
84 J. PATEL

and Salovey’s EI frameworks are harder to compare with LTLT, because

they refer to dimensions that cut across various domains referred to in
LTLT components. GCE discusses the dimensions of cognitive, socioemo-
tional, and behavioural to include aspects related to both the inter- and
intrapersonal. Mayer and Salovey’s (1997) notions of perceiving and
understanding emotions cut across discovery of the self and others.
Similarly, whilst Dietrich (2012) initially suggested dimensions of harmony,
security, truth, and justice, later (Dietrich, 2013), he built on the model to
include intra- (persona, sexual, socioemotional, mental, spiritual, and tran-
srational awareness) and interpersonal (family, community, social, political,
and global) layers (akin to Delors’ domains). In sum, Dietrich (2012),
GCE, and Mayer and Salovey’s EI frameworks propose dimensions, while
Delors, Dietrich (2013), SEL, and Goleman’s EI frameworks propose
domains. Both the types of frameworks have similar aims and cover similar
aspects; however, the use of fundamentally different perspectives, domains
versus dimensions, makes direct model-based comparisons harder.
In the next subsections, I draw upon Indian teachers’ voice to develop
a novel conceptual framework. I develop a nuanced, interconnected
model, with three domains (of discovery of the self, other, and the world)
and six dimensions that cut across the domains (awareness, caring rela-
tions, sense of purpose, change in perspective, compassionate action, and
meaningful engagement). For a more detailed exploration of what these
domains and dimensions entail, see Chap. 6 in Patel (2020).

Three Domains
Teachers’ descriptions of LTLTH lead to the adaptation of the original
three component structures of LTLT. I make two adaptations: first, I add
a new domain corresponding to discovery of the world (including the
wider human society, other living beings in nature, and non-living things),
referring to discovery of those one does not have direct connections with
(the three domains are further discussed below). The differentiation of
domains of the other and the discovery of the human and natural world
resonate with many Indian traditions. For example, Dalai Lama and
Hougaard (2019) distinguish compassion from extended compassion,
which extends towards all 7 billion humans. This also aligns with Dietrich’s
(2012) matrix, whereby the “interior aspects of the individual” corre-
spond to discovery of the self, “exterior aspects of the individual” corre-
spond to discovery of others, and “interior and exterior aspects of the
 5 CONCEPTUALISING LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER HARMONIOUSLY 85

collective” correspond to discovery of the community. Second, learning to

work together (at times also referred to as social skills) has been subsumed
within the dimensions that intersect the domains.
Teachers generally perceived the three domains as highly intercon-
nected; they believed that the various aspects were inseparable and inter-
acted with each other. The domains were described as being in a continuous
flux, whereby each helped develop the other, for example, ‘using others as
mirrors to understand oneself’, ‘extending compassion from people one
knows to the wider community’, and the ‘conflicts in society are reflection
of conflicts within one’s own self’. Also, within the Indian context there is
a common understanding that deep discovery of any of the domains will
eventually lead to discovery of other domains, for example, through dis-
covery of self one can realise the interconnectedness with others and
the whole.

Discovery of the Self

Across the literature there is a strong emphasis on discovery of the self, with
the Delors Report (1996) stating, “There is … every reason to place
renewed emphasis on the moral and cultural dimensions of education …
but this process must begin with self-understanding through an inner voy-
age whose milestones are knowledge, meditation, and the practice of self-­
criticism” (p. 17). Similarly, Dietrich (2013) called for internal peace and
included an intrapersonal layer, while both EI (Goleman, 1995) and SEL
(CASEL, 2003) place emphasis upon self-awareness and self-regulation.
Self-awareness is considered to mean knowledge of one’s emotions,
strengths, weaknesses, needs, values, and understanding of one’s behav-
iour. While self-regulation refers to regulation of emotions, thoughts, and
behaviours to manage and redirect disruptive emotions and impulses.
Similarly, various Indian philosophers have strongly emphasised notions of
discovery and understanding of deep spiritual/‘inner’ world. For example,
Krishnamurti (1981) stated, “[W]hat one is inwardly will eventually bring
about a good society or the gradual deterioration of human relationship. …
This harmony cannot possibly come about if our eyes are fixed only on the
outer … the inner world is the source and continuation of the disorder.”
Additionally, Krishnamurti recommended choiceless awareness or critical
looking (akin to self-awareness) as a form of self-discovery (Krishnamurti
& Martin, 1997). Similarly, other Indian thinkers have frequently empha-
sised changing oneself as a means of changing the world, with Gandhi
notably calling for being the change that one wants to see in the world.
86 J. PATEL

All the teachers who participated in the study strongly emphasised the
importance of self-regulation, with most believing knowing oneself as
being extremely salient, while some went to the extent of saying that it is
the starting point to allow for everything else. Teachers referred to a range
of ideas: awareness and responsibility of inner and outer worlds, becoming
a free soul, understanding the inner self or soul, finding who one is, find-
ing one’s swadharm (a purpose of life) or why one is here, self-regulation,
self-governance (and autonomy), discipline referring to ideas of inner dis-
cipline or the discipline of the spirit, and understanding and managing
emotions. Teachers also referred to self-compassion and inner peace. Most
of these ideas could be categorised as awareness, understanding, accep-
tance, responsibility, regulation, and self-compassion. Education for this
domain was brought about through reflection, meditation, discussions,
and feedback from others.

Discovery of Others
Within the literature, all conceptualisations of the various LTLT equiva-
lents have stressed discovery of others. Delors et al. (1996) emphasised the
need for developing understanding of others’ emotions, history, traditions,
and values, further advocating the importance of building an awareness of
the similarities between people and interdependence of all. While UNESCO
(2014b) conceptualised it to entail empathy, cultural sensitivity, and toler-
ance. During primary schooling years, children may not necessarily be
expected to understand the different histories and traditions of others;
however, an understanding of others’ emotions (empathy) would reflect
discovery of others. Developing empathy at school was suggested to influ-
ence adult social life by helping people understand other points of views
and avoiding the lack of understanding that leads to hatred and violence
(Delors et al., 1996). Empathy can lead individuals to appreciating and
celebrating different perspectives as well as recognising, understanding,
and feeling different people’s emotions, thus allowing for possibilities of
working together and leading to experiences of shared purpose. Empathy
is understood to have two components: first, affective empathy—experi-
encing and feeling others’ emotions—and, second, cognitive empathy—
understanding others’ emotions and perspectives (Decety & Jackson,
2004; Feshbach, 1975). Empathetic responses can lead to sympathy
(involving a feeling of care, sorrow, or concern), personal distress (self-
focused behaviour leading to discomfort and anxiety), or compassion
(motivation to act), depending on the activation of affective and/or
 5 CONCEPTUALISING LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER HARMONIOUSLY 87

cognitive empathy (Eisenberg, Eggum et al., 2010). Compassion is brought

about through a balance between both affective and cognitive empathy.
Indian philosophers discuss discovery of others in the context of right
relations, referring to sensitivity (empathy), non-discrimination, and com-
passion. Krishnamurti (1977) emphasised an individual’s relation with
society and one’s responsibility for establishing a ‘good’ society. He fur-
ther referred to ideas of deconditioning (freedom from ways of being and
living imposed by society), freedom from false barriers, and harmony
across socioeconomic and religious divides. Similarly, Gandhi, Tagore, and
Aurobindo (Gandhi, 1968b; Gharse & Sharma, n.d.; Tagore, 1929) com-
mented on overcoming divides: class, caste, religion, socioeconomic, and
national, with the potential for education to aid in the process.
Most of the teachers from alternative Indian schools described discov-
ery of others as extremely important. They referred to rising/going
beyond the individual self, sensitivity to others and their needs, ‘right rela-
tions’ with others and with the environment, empathy, compassion,
mutual understanding, interconnectedness between people, a feeling of
oneness, and developing a multiplicity of views (and perspectives). The
ideas were centred on sensitivity and awareness, empathy (as opposed to
sympathy) and respect-based relations, and compassion towards the imme-
diate surroundings, including people, other living (like plants, animals,
and birds), and non-living things (buildings and physical spaces).
Pedagogical practices for this domain included reflection, dialogue, proj-
ect- and group-based learning, peer learning, conflict resolution, various
behaviour regulation routines, and lived experience of living together.

 iscovery of (Human and Natural) World

D
Most of the literature on LTLT equivalents has primarily focused on the
development of social skills instead of discovery of the human and natural
world. However, I propose a new dimension, wherein one discovers peo-
ple, nature, and non-living things that one is not directly connected with.
There is a strong resonance with the SEE curricula (Emory University &
SEE Learning, 2019), which introduced the domain of systems. Emory
University & SEE Learning (2019, pp. 18–19) describes the systems
domain, “We do not solely interact with each other one-on-one. In our
increasingly complex world … [we require an] understanding of the wider
systems within which we live.” Discovery of the natural and human world
that one is not directly connected with will allow for understanding the
interconnected and interdependent nature of the world, thus fostering the
creation of truly harmonious communities. Additionally, it will also lead to
88 J. PATEL

the discovery of various issues of sociocultural and structural violence.

Peace education has commonly emphasised the importance of under-
standing and resolving sociocultural and structural violence, with Dietrich
(2013) designating two of the four components of his model to it.
Similarly, several sociologists and Indian thinkers have highlighted the
importance of understanding, dissenting, taking action against, and trans-
forming systems and societal structures of oppression as a major educa-
tional outcome (Gandhi, 1968b; Krishnamurti, 2000; Prasad & Bilgrami,
2020; Tagore, 1929). Furthermore, it is important to note that the
domain (like the previous one) includes the larger natural world; several
Indian (Mani, 2009, 2013), indigenous (Cajete, 1994; Four Arrows,
2018), and holistic education (Four Arrows, 2018; Miller et al., 2018)
scholars have emphasised the recognition of the interconnectedness with
(and within) nature and the development of a sacred view of this.
All teachers (except AnitaMGIS, JoonaMGIS, HemaMGIS, and SurojitPB)
focused on notions of understanding a wider community that one may not
have immediate links with. In different contexts different phrases were
used to describe this, including ‘a larger family’ and ‘a collective’. They
referred to notions of responsibility to the inner and outer worlds, being
good or responsible citizens, building or living as a collective or a ‘larger
family’, understanding interconnectedness, breaking away from condi-
tioning, community living, being proactively involved in taking commu-
nity responsibility, bringing about a change in the wider world, and making
the world a beautiful place. The ideas were centred on understanding of
interconnectedness, influencing a change, and living as a single family with
extended surroundings (including people, nature, non-living things, and
ideas across various boundaries). Education for the domain was brought
about through dialogue, field trips, adaptation of content to focus con-
nectedness with the wider society, and integration of social action projects
as an important aspect of project-based learning.
It is important to note that the framework goes beyond the anthropo-
centric worldview and appreciates/emphasises the importance of learning
to live in harmony with the natural word. This is in terms of both the
discovery of the other and the discovery of human and natural world
domains. This emphasis on nature within the framework (and not as a
separate domain) fundamentally integrates and extends our ontological
understanding of the world as not just the human world, but rather a
larger world, which human society is a small part of. While modern educa-
tion system has predominantly focused on the human world, it is impor-
tant that we not only learn about nature (beyond extractive/exploitive
 5 CONCEPTUALISING LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER HARMONIOUSLY 89

purposes), but rather learn how to live in harmony with nature.

Furthermore, it is important to note that many of the teachers thought of
the nature as one of the biggest educators (for more details see Chap. 7,
Cremin, 2022; Patel & Ehrenzeller, under review); they believed nature
helps students understand and experience a deeper connection with one’s
own soul, inner peace and harmony, and interconnectedness.

Six Dimensions
Teachers described six dimensions (awareness, empathetic and caring rela-
tions, sense of purpose, change in perspective, compassion, and meaning-
ful engagement) that intersect the three domains. Figure 5.2 depicts the
frequency of coded data, while Table 5.1 outlines the key concepts within
each of the dimensions.

300

250

200
Coding Frequency

91 127

111
150
67
47
100
53
111 36
33 39
38
50 16
67 57 66
47 41
31
0
Awareness Empathetic Sense of Change in Compassion Meaningful
and caring Purpose Perspective (ate action) engagement
relations
Dimensions
Self Other World

Fig. 5.2 Coding frequency across the framework. Reproduced from Patel
(2021b). Represents the frequency of coded data across the 18 components (6
dimensions for each of the 3 domains). Wavy orange lines represent discovery of
the self, green vertical lines represent discovery of others, and blue horizontal lines
represent discovery of the community
Table 5.1 Key ideas within LTLTH framework
Domains

Self Other World

Dimensions Awareness • Self-­awareness • Sensitivity • Unrestricted sensitivity across boundaries

• Understanding of conditioning and beliefs • Empathetic understanding • Cultural diversities
• Distancing from self • Awareness of prejudices • Interconnectedness
• Living in the present • Distancing from self
Empathetic • Non-­judgemental acceptance • Non-­judgemental acceptance • Equity
and caring • Patience • Care • Care
relations • Mutual love and respect • Individuality within communities
• Not imposing/being imposed on • Teamworking and communication
• Not imposing/being imposed upon
Sense of • Sense of purpose (quest for happiness/ • Empathy • A sense of purpose for the collective
purpose inner self) • Similarity between people • Kinship; one family
• Swadharm (inner purpose) • Family-like relations • Doing something because it’s right
• Responsibility of self
 Domains

Self Other World

Dimensions Change in • Identity • Appreciating multifaceted • Absence of prejudices and stereotypes

Perspective • Who am I? identities • I to we (mine to ours)
• Critical self-reflection • I to other (or us) • Ideological plurality
• Balance between inner and outer worlds • Appreciating and celebrating • Diversity-based oneness (seeing the beauty
• Impermanence (anityata) diversity in the diversity)
• Understanding the cycle of emotions • Similarity between people • Common humanity
• ‘Minisculity’ of problems • Others’ perspective • Interdependence
• Illusion of separation • Impermanence
• Impermanence • Respecting different paths
Compas • Self-regulation and self-governance • Compassion • Sewa (social/divine work) and uplifting
sionate  • Deconditioning  • Helping others others
action  • Self-compassion  • Responding (non-reaction) • Peacebuilding
 • Self-transformation  • Gratitude • Community responsibility
 • Dissolving the ego  • Self-transformation
Meaningful • 
 Inner joy, peace, satisfaction, and harmony • Meaningful relations  Community living and onus
•
engagement • Connection with paramatma/soul  • Engaging as equals • Extended compassion (wishing everyone is
• Equanimity (upeksha) and balance   Unconditional love (loving
• free of suffering; karuna)
(samata) kindness; metta) • Empathetic joy (mudita; finding joy in that
• Transcending divisive perspectives • Transcending boundaries of the of others’ joy or sharing one’s joy with
self and other (oneness) others)
• Open-hearted • Universal oneness/brotherhood
• Non-attachment

Adopted from Patel (2021b)

92 J. PATEL

Awareness
Teachers suggested awareness to include aspects of ‘empathetic under-
standing’, for example, deep understanding based on empathetic rela-
tions. Regarding which, KamalaMBK stated, “I wish … we could be little
more open to each other’s needs without the other person saying so”.
Teachers frequently also discussed notions of unrestricted sensitivity
(unrestricted by national, geographical, political, religious, and socio-
economic boundaries) as seeing beyond ‘superficial’ or ‘man-made
divides’. This was described as helping students understand similarities
and differences between groups as well as multiple perspectives of vastly
different people in society as shades of grey, with none of them being
correct or incorrect. In addition, this included an understanding of the
possibility of various strands of the different perspectives, ideas, behav-
iours, and actions also being present in one’s own self. The teachers
fundamentally held that students need to understand interconnected-
ness and learn to see things holistically beyond ‘arbitrary’ divides. For
example, AtulRVS commented:

Sometimes we have designed things so poorly that lots of connections are

invisible. See, like many city children, they have no idea where milk comes
from. It comes from the door in the morning, where the milkman hangs the
carton and he goes, Cows give us milk, no cow gives us milk, we take the
milk … They should know that cows are milked, and you do not get milk
just like that. And [similarly when we ask where water comes from, children
will respond] water comes from the tap.

This resonates with Rosenberg and Cullen (2013), who stressed that
compassion, care, and concern all begin with awareness, sensitivity to oth-
ers, and mindfulness. Similarly, Nussbaum (2010) emphasised three key
values of citizenship (education) that can be encompassed in the awareness
dimension: (a) critical thought about one’s own tradition; (b) narrative
imagination (described as being able to put oneself in another’s shoes);
and (c) understanding oneself as a member of a heterogeneous nation. I
conceptualise awareness as going beyond awareness of one’s own emo-
tions to resonate more with Krishnamurti (2000), who emphasised the
need for understanding the social, economic, and political systems that
condition one’s consciousness and behaviours.
 5 CONCEPTUALISING LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER HARMONIOUSLY 93

 mpathetic and Caring Relations

E
Teachers placed emphasis on relations based on care, respect, trust, and
love. A leader at Rishi Valley School noted, “Good education focuses on
developing the right relations with others [and] with environment”.
Meanwhile, KamalaMBK held relations to be central to LTLTH, as

(Togetherness) is not something that will be built by imposition. It has to

come by building each individual’s faith and trust in being themselves and
adjusting to the others [and] respect[ing other]. Lots of work has to be
done in doing that kind building mutual respect in each person, which is not
just for show, but genuine.

Teachers frequently emphasised: (a) not judging oneself, others, and

groups of people harshly for actions and identities as people have a multi-
faceted identity, which keeps changing; (b) not judging the actor, but the
act, in resonance with Gandhian ideas of ‘hate the sin but love the sinner’;
and (c) not making definitive statements as everything keeps changing.
Ideas of non-discriminatory and non-judgemental relations were extended
to the wider community through notions of egalitarianism, equity, appre-
ciating (and celebrating) differences, and transcending arbitrary divides
between people.
Schools in India generally embody notions of competition, compari-
sons, and discrimination; however, the sampled schools aimed to build an
environment of cooperation, where throughout the 10 months of field-
work, competition was only referred to once (that too a competition to
save water during a past drought). Competition was generally perceived as
(a) blinding, as AnjuMGIS shared, “if you view the others as competition
then … you are going to be in this dog world”; and (b) leading to loss of
wellbeing and self-esteem, with TanujRVS explaining how “competition can
make them lose their sense of wellbeing easily. Outward yardsticks become
more important than their inner sense [of accomplishment and of
learning].”
The dimension shares strong resonance with Noddings’ (2003) ethi-
cal caring, Rosenberg and Rutsch’s (2012) culture of compassion, and
Freire et al.’s (2016) emphasis on humanising education, involving sen-
sitivity to one’s own and others’ needs and aspirations. However, holistic
education takes the role of relationship a step forward by emphasising it
94 J. PATEL

to be a key goal of education, including relationships between the soul,

oneself, the community, and the Earth (de Souza, 2018; de Souza et al.,
2016; J. P. Miller, 2007). Furthermore, notions of equity, mutual love,
and acceptance have been discussed by all Indian education philosophers
(previously discussed in Chaps. 1 and 2). For example, Buddhist philoso-
phers talk about openness in Samaya: a vow to openness and acceptance
to all situations, emotions, and people (Chödrön, 2012). Similarly,
Tagore (1917) wrote, “[W]e may become powerful by knowledge, but
we attain fullness by [empathy].1 The highest education is that which
does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with
all existence. But we find that this education of [empathy] is not only
systematically ignored in schools, but it is severely repressed.” There is
also a strong resonance with empathy such that it can also lead to self-
awareness. Ramachandran (2011) suggests that the mirror neurons
involved in empathy (Gallese, 2001) can ‘turn inwards’ or lead to the
development of a sense of commitment to other’s wellbeing (further
discussed below).

Sense of Purpose
Teachers emphasised the importance of finding one’s swadharma (pur-
pose of life) and it leading to a meaningful and natural way of life. They
frequently referred to it also as “life work”, “divine work”, “inner call-
ing”—something that one pursues as a quest for meaningful life, rather
than as a 9 to 5 job. Teachers suggested that empathy and a sense of kin-
ship lead to a commitment to the wellbeing of others and the wider world.
AnitaMGIS narrated an incident, where a student commented, “[H]e is just
like me. He also minds that [if/when] he is pushed”, while BharatSF nar-
rated how students shared what they had, even when they themselves had
very little, based on ideas of “how can a classmate go thirsty or hungry”.
Empathy, kinship, and a sense of responsibility (as opposed to duty) were
suggested to drive action and bring about LTLTH ‘swabhavikpane’ (as a
naturalistic way of being and living).
Finding one’s own dharma resonates with Moore’s (2018) call for the
care of the soul. He suggested that the neglect of the soul leads to being

1
The original quote mentions “sympathy”; however, “empathy” was only coined in 1909
and sympathy was commonly used to refer to empathy around the time Tagore wrote this.
 5 CONCEPTUALISING LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER HARMONIOUSLY 95

lost, not finding one’s calling or purpose, and not feeling the sense of
belonging. Teachers understood the sense of purpose and swadharma to
be based on ideas of responsibility and ‘commitment’. This taps into Sen’s
(2005) ideas of commitment and pursuit of goals based on others’ wellbe-
ing and interests, while also resonating with Tagore’s vision for “a world
where multiple voices were encouraged to interact with one another and
to reconcile differences within an overriding commitment to peace and
mutual interconnectedness” (O’Connell, 2003). Similar ideas of ‘will to
act’, ‘motivation to act’, and ‘empathetic concern’ have been explored by
compassion and mindfulness researchers (Berry et al., 2018; Rosenberg &
Cullen, 2013). Berry et al. (2018) suggest that compassion is more than
noticing (and empathising) someone’s suffering, for it requires a will to
act. The will to act also gets emphasised in Noddings’ (1986) differentia-
tion of “caring for” as “an act that demonstrates care” from her initial
definitions of “caring about”, which reflects “a certain benign neglect”
that does not manifest itself in action. Additionally, the sense of purpose
also forms the basis of eudemonic happiness (Niemiec, 2014).

Change in Perspective
Teachers frequently used ideas of a change in perspective referring to
changes in ways of being, thought patterns, and attitudes, in line with
paradigm shifts related to looking at ‘a larger/bigger picture’. Teachers
questioned who one is, one’s purpose, and multifaceted identities of one-
self and others. They believed that human beings are holistic and labelling
anyone fragments them. AnjuMGIS explained:

(Labelling) is very dangerous, because then you enter a hierarchy and a

gradation of intelligences [and] you are fragmenting it more and more.
Human intelligence is a composite intelligence; I am not only left or only
right, but I am also kinaesthetic [and] visual, and I am also this and that …
[else] it becomes a bit simplistic and reductionist. And also, we are changing
[all the time].

Additionally, teachers advocated transcendence of dualities and dichoto-

mies, to seeing the world as a continuum with strands all existing in every-
one. Teachers discussed interconnectedness and interdependence (within
and across human and natural worlds); they perceived boundaries as
unending, that keep fragmenting people until a single person is left
96 J. PATEL

isolated. Teachers extended these discussions of interconnectedness to

highlight the role of every living being in the society, questioning struc-
tural and cultural violence, promoting an egalitarian society, and develop-
ing a sacred view of nature. For example, AadityaPB suggested:

There is of course one way of looking at a problem that is something that

happened, but it does not affect me, so I am good. Then, there is the other
way of looking at it’ whatever happens I am kind of involved [directly or
indirectly] and I am responsible.

Teachers perceived tolerance as limited and instead proposed appreciat-

ing and celebrating diversity. All stressed the need to recognise, value, and
appreciate different ways of life as equally ‘valid’. They discussed a holistic
(not just pluralistic) epistemology, where different perspectives coex-
ist, complement, and build on each other. This was best captured in
Baren’s student’s comment that a “scientist may not consider Pluto as a
planet, but artists do”. They suggested that, despite the differences, there
are many similarities that bind us together: across the schools and the
teachers there was an attempt to foster diversity and maintain unity and
oneness. This idea of a diversity-based oneness is quite different from
notions of enforced uniformity through uniforms, bells, and predefined
streams; instead, it is established through shared experiences, efforts of
harmonious living, and a commitment to each other.
One’s worldviews and perspectives, which are picked up from various
experiences across time, underpin and inform all our actions. This dimen-
sion calls for changes in perspectives to more holistic ones, as previously
described, which in turn, will help address problems of fragmentation and
to transcend boundaries. These ideas of change in perspective are linked to
Freire’s “conscientization”, Greene’s “wideawakeness”, and Dewey’s
“extraordinary experiences”. Additionally, the understanding of intercon-
nectedness and structural and cultural violence within human societies
resonates with peace researchers (Dietrich, 2013; Page, 2008) and
Noddings’ (2003) “sense of justice for the larger community”, which is
central to extending compassion to the ‘discovery of the world’ domain.
Many of the quotes on appreciating and celebrating diversity resonate
with Giroux (1992), who wrote: “[D]emocracy is a celebration of differ-
ence”. The dimension also resonates with emancipatory ideas of the Indian
philosophy (sa vidhya ya vimuktye; i.e., knowledge that liberates). For
example, Radhakrishnan (1959) noted that “it is through education that
 5 CONCEPTUALISING LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER HARMONIOUSLY 97

we acquire the passion and perspective to fight caste prejudices, class privi-
leges and group antagonisms. Education has to give us a second birth …
to emancipate the individual.” Whilst Krishnamurti (2000) emphasised
the ideas of deconditioning one’s own self (freedom from ways of being
and living imposed upon by society), freedom from false barriers, and
harmony across socioeconomic and religious divides. Furthermore, these
holistic perspectives strongly align with what several indigenous scholars
(Cajete, 1994, 1999; Four Arrows, 2018) have referred to as change in
the worldview to a non-anthropocentric one. They and similarly Indian
thinkers (e.g., Jinan, Lata Mani, and Tagore) have called for developing an
understanding of the sacred and interconnected view of nature.

Compassion(ate Action)
Compassion was generally understood as an action that results from empa-
thy; it was seen as a culmination of the rest of the dimensions, which in
turn also cyclically bring about the other dimensions. Compassion(ate)
sewa (social action) was described as doing something or ‘being there for’
the other person, because of the person rather than for oneself. Teachers
emphasised the importance of the underlying intention and whether it was
to genuinely help the other or because one would feel good about them-
selves. All teachers discussed notions of self-transformation and self-­
governance as the basis for compassion. For example, AnitaMGIS remarked
“that’s compassion—first that you control yourself; I do not care how
[angry/frustrated you are]”. Self-transformation included ideas of under-
standing and quietening the mind, freeing oneself from conditioning and
eventually freeing oneself of ego. While, self-governance drew on notions
of inner discipline, whereby the discipline was based on actions being
driven by the inner spirit/soul as opposed to external rules. Teachers pro-
posed community responsibility-taking as a form of compassion, where
they contrasted responsibility-taking and building a sense of onus and
trusteeship against duties, where the lattermost was perceived as top-down
imposition and a ‘burden’, while the former two were described as stem-
ming from a sense of love. Trusteeship is another Gandhian idea where
teachers believed that one does not own anything, but rather is responsi-
ble for taking care of certain things. The word was associated with material
things that one would otherwise possess, including money, house, school,
tables and chairs, water, food, so on and so forth. It was generally per-
ceived that given that we cannot own anything and are mere trustees and
that one must treat the things with responsibility. This is a different way of
98 J. PATEL

living and being that does away with ideas of ownership and control,
instead perceiving humans as transient caretakers of the material and
nature. This ontological perspective is fundamentally also linked to other
previously discussed indigenous perspectives and ontologies. This, in turn,
prevented attachment, possessiveness, greed, competition, and misuse.
Compassion has been widely emphasised in recent years, with the rise
of EI, SEL, and various initiatives for students and adults alike, including
those in the global north, for example, Compa ssion Cultivation Training
(Stanford University), Making Caring Common (Harvard University),
and Cognitively Based Compassion Training (Emory University). The
ideas of compassion as action, social service, and self-governance resonate
with Dalai Lama’s (2014) and Gandhi and Kumarappa’s (1953) ideas of
compassion through a sense of oneness, self-governance, and community
service. Gandhi (1968b) and Tagore (1929) both contended that compas-
sionate action is one of the crucial aims of education; they advocated an
education that would empower and motivate students to bring about
social uplifting. It is important to note that, for many Indian thinkers,
compassionate action comes about swabhavikpane (i.e., as a natural way of
living and being). Regarding which, Ramana Maharshi (1985) stated,
“[A]s the activities of the wise person exist only in the eyes of others and
not in [one’s own],2 although one may be accomplishing immense tasks,
one really does nothing. … For one knows the truth that all activities take
place in their mere presence and that one does nothing. Hence, one will
remain as the silent witness of all the activities taking place” (p. 137).

Meaningful Engagement
Teachers emphasised the importance of a shift in one’s way of living and
being, such that one embodies notions of inner peace, inner joy (anand),
deep satisfaction (atmasantosh), harmony (samata), equanimity (upeksha),
unconditional love (metta), extended compassion (karuna), empathetic
or vicarious joy (mudita), and universal oneness. The dimension was seen
as a long-term impact that may or may not manifest itself during schooling
years for all children and at times be like sowing seeds of change that come
to fruition after school lives (further discussed in the next chapter). There
were strong notions of universal oneness, and transcending false boundar-
ies within oneself, between oneself and others and between people. For
example, HemaMGIS explained a classroom incident:

2
The original quote used the phrase “man exist only in the eyes of others and not in his
own” instead.
 5 CONCEPTUALISING LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER HARMONIOUSLY 99

She (a fourth-grade student) said something like she is a human, she is not
this or that [referring to religions] but only a human. … I was, like, pretty
shocked that this fourth grader came up with that … it’s so important to
teach children to move beyond all these boundaries that everyone has in
terms of they belong to this and that and maybe this larger circle … [but]
she was just like there are no circles and it’s just like I am human; that means
I am part of every group.

Teachers extended the discussions on community responsibility to com-

munity living, which was based on ideas of swabhavikta (a natural state of
being), “people do good without knowing they are doing good” and to
be truly alive means living as being connected with everyone.
The dimension draws on Indian and Buddhist spiritual values, which
have also been emphasised by Miller (2010), in education of the whole
child. Several eastern thinkers and spiritual leaders have called for a spiri-
tual transformation, and while teachers recognised that these maybe life-
long journeys, education could help ‘sow the seeds’. Buddhist philosophy
holds that compassion and wisdom are two wings of a bird, both of which
are equally important (Siegel & Germer, 2012). Both deeply draw on
notions of spiritual wisdom and interconnectedness, these also being
emphasised by J. P. Miller (2010) and J. P. Miller et al. (2005), with their
description of holistic education of the whole child. A key point to high-
light is that the dimension, much like Noddings’ (1988) relational ethics
of caring, is not based on Kantian ideas of moral duty or conformity-based
rules, but rather on love, oneness, and a sense of commitment. Aronson
(1947) described Tagore’s ideas of meaningful engagement as “fruitful
co-operation among human beings based upon the awareness of one’s
own individual separateness and of one’s responsibility towards the society
in which one happens to live and towards all the other societies that con-
stitute humanity”. It is important to note that individuality, perceived as
understanding one’s soul, is not seen as an opposite of community living
or notions of oneness. Teachers suggested a nuanced understanding based
on the idea of non-duality, where oneness and individuality coexist.
Moreover, the goals of discovery of the self, the other, and the world at
large are related through people’s responsibility and meaningful engage-
ment with each other (Patel, 2021b) (Table 5.2).
Table 5.2 Learning to live together harmoniously framework
Domains

Self Other World

Dimensions Awareness

Self-awareness Sensitivity and Interconnectedness

empathetic
understanding
Empathetic
and caring
relations

Equity
Non-judgemental Mutual love and
acceptance respect

Sense of
purpose

Swadharm (inner Empathy

Kinship
purpose)
Change in
Perspective

Interdependence and
Anityata Illusion of
common humanity
(impermanence) separation
Compassion
(ate action)

Self-governance Compassion Community responsibility

Meaningful
engagement

Equanimity, Metta Universal oneness and

balance, and (unconditional karuna (extended
inner peace love) and oneness compassion)

©2020 Jwalin Patel and Darshini Sundar

 5 CONCEPTUALISING LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER HARMONIOUSLY 101

Conclusion
The chapter has demonstrated the complexity of conceptualising LTLTH
and education of the heart equivalents. While many of these ideas were
suggested as broad ideological directions, the chapter has explored what
these could mean by drawing on practitioners’ voices. While the proposed
framework appears to be neat (organised in a matrix), it has an inherent
‘messiness’ and opens other layers of complexity, which are further
explored in the next chapter. The framework is aimed at helping other
practitioners and researchers better understand LTLT, rather than being
utilised as an evaluative tool. Furthermore, given that all models are a
simplification, they break a continuous whole into components (albeit
interacting) and reduce lived experiences into a few words, I recommend
perceiving the proposed framework as a potential way to deepen our
understanding of LTLTH. I hope that the reader takes the onus to see the
interconnectedness, recreate the whole, and more importantly hope that
it prompts readers to explore what ideas of education of togetherness and
harmony could mean in one’s respective contexts.
I call on the reader to explore the following reflective prompts: what
does meaningful (spiritual) engagement mean to you and what can it look
like within children? What would the framework look like within your
context; how would you extend and/or adapt the framework? How can I
overcome the limitations of showcasing complex ideas in 2-dimensional
space? How would you transfer these ideas into practice within your
homes, schools, and communities? How could you support a different,
more meaningful, way of living and being that is fundamentally different
from our more modernistic ontologies, epistemologies, and ways of living
and being?
 CHAPTER 6

Learning To Live Together Harmoniously

(LTLH) as a Way of Living and Being-
Nuances of an Interconnected LTLTH
Framework

The popular maxim, “all models are wrong, but some are useful”, suggests
that all models are approximations that simplify reality into a few key con-
cepts in the frameworks. Furthermore, it is important to understand what
information a given model fails to convey and the implications on how it
can be perceived and used. The previously proposed framework, while
quite useful, must be perceived not as an evaluation tool or a blueprint,
but rather as a means of deeper exploration, understanding, and contextu-
alisation. While using it, it is useful to be mindful of its several nuances. It
is a highly interconnected framework, where the various domains (and
similarly dimensions) are linked with each other. While they are segregated
to allow for a conceptual understanding, these separations are arbitrary.
Any changes in ways of living and being will prompt a cyclical change
across various other components in the framework. It is difficult to convey
this kind of interconnectedness in a simple-to-use, 2D, matrix-based
model. This chapter explores three major nuances of the framework,
including its inherent interconnectedness and need to avoid piecemeal
efforts, perceiving LTLTH as a way of living and being rather than a short-­
term activity, and educational processes and lived experiences as being
seeds for lifelong LTLTH.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 103

Switzerland AG 2023
J. Patel, Learning to Live Together Harmoniously, Spirituality,
Religion, and Education,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23539-9_6
104 J. PATEL

Interconnected Framework
The inherent messiness within education for harmony allows for pluralistic
and diversified efforts to achieve its broader objectives. As previously dis-
cussed, LTLT, education of the heart, and their equivalents have been
perceived as umbrella-like terms. I have now come to see some insight in
it being treated as such. Whilst umbrella-like terms can lead to fuzzy con-
ceptualisations without clear aims and targets and difficulty in translating
these into practice, it prevents ‘piecemeal efforts’ and instead promotes
bringing about education of the heart as a form of lived experience. This
perspective prevents any ‘fragmented’ or prescriptive efforts of developing
a specific subject, expectations of linear learning trajectory, and pursuits of
quantitative measurement. ShreyaPB exemplifies this while expressing her
hesitancy with defining education of the heart and creativity:

(Like education of the heart) there is no definition of art and creativity; over
here, the purpose is to activate the senses. The moment you define creativity
you are delimiting individuals and the community too. By giving a defini-
tion of creativity, actually, you are limiting the notion of creativity. We just
cannot fix a parameter and then start doing it. We have to let it be (and an
understanding develops) with the time and individually (for each child). I
think that’s important for me personally; I do not define, I do not want a
fixed aim and an objective structured position.

Definitions and frameworks can understandably delimit our perception

of what education for harmony could entail and more importantly draw
boundaries on what it does not include. Moreover, neat frameworks, at
times, lead to the perception of singular paths to predetermined outcomes.
Teachers believed that education of the heart/for harmony is a non-linear
journey, without a predetermined outcome or a singular path (further dis-
cussed below). They believed that it was difficult to define a singular set of
characteristics of a person who is educated to live harmoniously and
instead they suggested a constellation of different characteristics that one
may develop depending on who they are and their individual journey.
They frequently believed that some of these characteristics cannot be seg-
regated and are overlapping in nature and that if over time some of these
are consciously developed, then the rest will follow suit.
 6 LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER HARMONIOUSLY (LTLH) AS A WAY… 105

LTLTH Through Education of the Head, Heart, and Hands

While I primarily hoped to explore education of the heart and what that
means in the Indian context, I realised that the head, heart, and hand were
intrinsically connected. Initial analysis of the LTLTH framework suggests
a connection with Indian notions of the head, heart, and hand, with (a)
awareness and change in perspective corresponding to the head; (b) will to
act and action, compassion, and sewa being associated with the hand; and
(c) right relations and meaningful engagement being associated with the
heart. It is understood that LTLTH would involve aspects of critical think-
ing (commonly proposed by Freire, 2005; Giroux, 1983) and creativity,
while notions of community action have commonly been understood as
the education of the hands (Gandhi, 1968b; Tagore, 1929). However,
further analysis of the data suggests that all dimensions involved education
of all three: heart, head, and hands, with BodhirupaPB commenting that
they are like three pillars of a given structure; all pillars are equally impor-
tant and only when they come together do they hold the structure
together. In the east, heart and mind are not seen as separate, but rather
as very much interwoven, while the differentiated terms are only used as a
means to conceptualise and communicate. As Gandhi (1968b) noted:

Man is neither mere intellect, nor the gross animal body, nor the heart or
soul alone. A proper harmonious combination of all three is required for
making of the whole man… they constitute an indivisible whole. According
to this theory, therefore, it would be a gross fallacy to suppose that they can
be developed piecemeal or independently of one another.

In contrast to Descartes, AnjuMGIS suggested that “Indian philosophy

speaks of Advaita; it speaks of non-duality [and how the heart, mind,
body, and soul are all interlinked]”. It was a commonly held understand-
ing amongst the teachers that practices for the development of any of the
components are overlapping. For example, SurojitPB expressed, “Through
arts, painting, music, dance, woodwork; it is not about the final perfor-
mance but the process. It allows space for the mind’s development. It
creates a different kind of mind (creative, observant, and sensitive). Mind
develops through hands.” Likewise, in India, many frequently colloquially
comment that restlessness in the mind manifests as restless in the body and
a common way to deal with restless minds is to engage with physical exer-
cise and sports. Similarly, in peace education literature there has been a
106 J. PATEL

noted shift towards integration of the various aspects, with Cremin (2016)
suggesting innovative approaches to such education that integrate the
body, mind, heart, and spirit. This, in education, means that we learn
through our bodies, emotions, soul along with our minds. We need a
holistic education that trains not the parts of oneself, but rather the person
as whole. Various piecemeal efforts are based on arbitrary separation
within a person and fail to acknowledge that the whole is much greater
than the sum of its individual parts.

Interconnected Framework
The framework, as demonstrated previously, is highly interconnected.
SrilaMBK, discussing components of LTLT, remarked, “[I]t cannot be split
into parts …; you have to see things as whole and interconnected.” Many
other teachers also commented on the inherent interconnectedness of the
various domains and dimensions. They commonly suggested that: (a)
regarding the three domains, the inner (the self and the soul) and outer
(other and community) are indivisible, intrinsically linked, and highly
interdependent (e.g., self-awareness and self-transformation are founda-
tional for empathy and compassion for others and the community, while
others and the wider community can act as a mirror to help one better
understand oneself). (b) The dimensions are interlinked and the develop-
ment of one of these could also lead to that of others or a single teaching-­
learning process could target multiple dimensions. This interconnectedness
across the various components of the framework can be demonstrated best
by the following example. Schools commonly involved students in group
social action (sewa), which led to understanding of interdependence and
development of team working skills, which, in turn, fostered a better
understanding of others’ and one’s own conditioning. This results in an
understanding of similarities between oneself and others and a shift from
I to we mindsets, finally leading to increased motivation for sewa and/or
various forms of meaningful engagement.
This form of interconnectedness was embedded in teachers’ own ways
of living and being and their classroom practices. For example, KamalaMBK
commented:

I am blessed that I am not poor or not hungry or I am not ill clothed, but
there are so many around me who are, and as long as they are I am also poor,
I am also ill clothed and I’m also hungry, so I have to feel that pain and I
 6 LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER HARMONIOUSLY (LTLH) AS A WAY… 107

cannot wish it away, because I do not see it, or I am not in it. … You have
got to somewhere feel that you are responsible for what happened. It’s not
that there are murderers in society, and I do not know them [and therefore
I do not care]. So, those people who are murdered are unfortunate and
those who murder are sick and so they should put in mental asylum. No.
When anyone hurts other, do I feel the pain? Am I troubled by it? Can I take
away that pain in anyway?

LTLTH as Purpose of Education Rather than a Predetermined

Goal/Objective with a Singular Path
The teachers made a further distinction, whereby LTLT was considered as
a purpose, rather than a set goal or a set process. They commonly explained
how there is neither a predetermined goal nor a single path, but rather a
guiding purpose, which allows for both varied and a multitude of different
paths and manifests in diverse ways of living and being, depending on
students’ backgrounds and interests. They believed that every individual
has a different journey, where individuals may pick paths as diverse as
themselves and progress through them at a vastly different pace.
Furthermore, they recognised that, at times, this could lead to a seemingly
distinct set of characteristics, and rather than seeking predetermined paths
or singular or even measurable outcomes, they called for understanding
individuals as a whole and allowing for individualised progression through
their own educational journeys of togetherness, harmony, and spirituality.
The recognition, appreciation, and adoption of pluralistic understanding
of education for harmony allowed for diverse approaches being adopted
by teachers depending on the students they worked with and who they
themselves were.
In practice, this meant that teachers developed an ethos of harmonious
living through shared lived experiences and teacher-student relations, cre-
ated spaces for students to reflect and deeply understand themselves, cre-
ated opportunities to engage and dialogue with each other and the larger
community, sought teachable moments that resulted from everyday inter-
actions, and maintained detailed qualitative behavioural reports for each
child. This strongly links to the idea of promoting and preserving stu-
dents’ diversity and allowing for the pursuit of diverse goals and trajecto-
ries, rather than a monoculture-based approach to developing a certain
pre-set value system through a predetermined singular route. This con-
trasts with increasing efforts to develop curricula with predetermined
108 J. PATEL

learning trajectories, and quantitatively measuring emotional intelligence,

SEL, happiness curricula outcomes, and SDG 4.7 outcomes.

Education for LTLTH as a Way of Living and Being

Education for togetherness and harmony, while overlapping with various
international perspectives and outcomes, notably contrasted with several
of them by being fundamentally pluralistic (discussed above) and not
being about knowledge or skills, but rather as a way of living and being.

LTLTH as Knowledge, Skills, and/or Virtues, Values,

and Attitudes
It is important to explore whether education for harmony is a form of
information that is transferred, a set of application and understanding-­
based knowledge that is developed, a skill that can call upon, a set of atti-
tudes or habits that one develops, values/virtues which underpin attitudes,
what people prioritise and their decisions, and/or (a process of transfor-
mation of one’s) way(s) of living and being. This exploration will underpin
what LTLTH means, if and how a framework for it can be used, and how
it can be practised in the classroom.
Internationally, the various LTLTH equivalents are fundamentally dif-
ferent concepts, which have led to them adopting different approaches
and processes within the classrooms. The cosmopolitan approach (Oxley
& Morris, 2013) of GCE focuses on building a knowledge set (of under-
standing different people in a global community) and at times values of
understanding, tolerating, and respecting each other. However, the aware-
ness or knowledge does not always translate to changes in behaviour or
ways of living and being. Meanwhile, SEL (OECD, 2018; Trier, 2002),
GCE within the global competence approach (Oxley & Morris, 2013),
and positive psychology-based ideas, like grit (Duckworth, 2016), are fre-
quently considered as skills (Chernyshenko et al., 2018; OECD, 2015) or
competencies (Trier, 2002) that one develops. Moreover, as with any
other skill one is free to choose to use or not to use them.
In contrast, character education has gone beyond these by perceiving
character as a way of living and being. For a long time, there have been calls
for education for character development and/or virtues (like wisdom, kind-
ness, gratitude, and compassion). For example, in ancient Greece Socrates
 6 LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER HARMONIOUSLY (LTLH) AS A WAY… 109

and Aristotle called for education for a virtuous and good life. Similarly,
education in various other cultures has also emphasised the importance of
character education, for example, Confucius calling for ren (love and good-
ness). In more modern times, Seider (2012) developed a character compass
of moral character, performance character, and civic education. While such
character values are difficult to measure and are influenced by many factors
(H. A. Alexander, 2016), they underpin people’s behaviours, passions, and
choices. Similarly, J. P. Miller (2018b), commenting on holistic education,
suggests that education should not just be about the mere transfer knowl-
edge or building of skills, but rather should pertain to the engagement of
teachers and students’ souls.
Aristotle thought of virtues as a state of being instead of a feeling,
capacity, or tendency to behave in specific ways. For him, character was
about a way of life whereby one actively pursues certain virtues (like the
golden mean). Furthermore, for Aristotle, living virtuously is a continu-
ous process, where there is no one right answer, but instead one is con-
stantly engaged in the process of finding the correct balance between two
extremes, for example, the balance point between cowardice and bashful-
ness would be confidence, whilst between fear and fearlessness would be
courage. He importantly suggests that it is a continuous process, where
one does not have a pre-set answer, but rather the more one practices
being virtuous, the more they improve at balancing two different extremes.
Similarly, teachers suggested that for education for harmony, this does not
have a pre-set answer or path and instead is a continued exploration and
engagement in trying to live harmoniously; this in turn will lead to a more
nuanced understanding and decision-making, opening new planes of
complexity, and transcending from pursuit of outcomes to pursuit of
processes.
Whilst LTLTH draws upon some aspects of knowledge and skills, it
goes beyond this to a way of a living and being, much like education for
virtues. It goes beyond a mere understanding of facts, ability to do things,
or behavioural patterns. A simple example can be taken through any of the
commonly experienced emotions, let us say anger. One can have the full
knowledge and understanding of why one should not get angry, its ill
impact on others and oneself, and its limited ‘usefulness’ and yet still one
does get angry. Someone might have certain skills to regulate their emo-
tions, for example, deep breathing, however, if and when triggered, they
may not always be able to apply the skills. Instead, LTLTH would call for
a shift in change of living and being to more empathetic, loving, and
110 J. PATEL

compassionate ways of living and being. Similarly, in one of my reflections

I recently noted:

I was preparing for a lecture for a set of undergraduate students. I had fin-
ished sooner than I had anticipated and had at least two hours before the
lecture to eat lunch and cycle to the faculty. I was not keen on getting
another task done in the meantime and decided to slow down. As I was hav-
ing lunch, I reflected on the nature of slow living; I have known, believed in,
discussed, and shared about the benefits of slow living, but the past fort-
night had been extremely busy, such that I hadn’t had any chance to live it.
Over lunch, I was finally practising slow living just as a technique or a small
part of my daily life; it was wonderful—I became more aware of what I was
eating and, later as I was cycling, I became aware and connected to the vari-
ous chirping birds, the trees, and the way that a stream meandered through
the meadows. I felt more like myself and was closer to the present moment.
I had several insights, including for the lecture, this book, and a teachers’
community of practice that I support. However, I was quick to get lost in
my regular rushed way of living and being when I did the dishes, packed my
bag and walked through the faculty. Perhaps, I had just used slow living as a
technique (and that too arguably imperfectly) to slow down a bit, but it did
not transcend into a way of living and being.

Education for harmony is highly process-oriented and is aimed at bring-

ing about a different way of living and being 24×7 rather than over short
durations of time. Its process-oriented focus can be observed, firstly, in
terms of its conceptualisation. Regarding which, Delors (1996) fore-
grounded processes and experiences by suggesting it should involve dis-
covery of the self and others and experiences of shared purpose. Teachers
described it as entailing notions of discovery, lived experiences, building
relations, meaningful engagement, and a way of living.

A Non-dualist Approach to LTLTH as a Way of Living

Advaita emphasises non-duality and I have previously highlighted how it
is difficult to separate the head, heart, and hands and similarly it is equally
difficult to segregate the various interconnected components of the
LTLTH framework. Furthermore, in Chap. 4 I explored the role of chaos,
disagreements, dissent, and conflict within harmony. This can also be
extended to deeper ideas of spiritualism, as Suzuki put it:
 6 LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER HARMONIOUSLY (LTLH) AS A WAY… 111

If śūnyatā (nothingness) denies or rejects everything, tathatā (suchness)

accepts and upholds everything; the two concepts may be considered as
opposing each other, but it is the Buddhist idea that they are not contradic-
tory. … In truth, tathatā is śūnyatā, and śūnyatā is tathatā; things are tathatā
because of their being śūnyatā.

Therefore, LTLTH goes beyond notions of various perceived opposites,

and it is important to note that education for harmony is not about tran-
scendence of our current reality, but rather a complete experience and
flowering of humanity.
Teachers frequently championed and practised LTLTH as a way of life.
However, this raises an even more pertinent question how does one ‘live
differently’ or rather, how does one ‘live more holistically’? In my own
spiritual journey, I have always questioned “how does one really transform
one’s ways of living and being?” and found it to be extremely difficult. In
India, scriptures recognise that there are numerous spiritual paths that can
broadly be categorised into four types: dhyana yoga, gyana yoga, karma
yoga, and bhakti yoga. I have personally come to believe that one needs to
develop an understanding of all four paths at some point of time in their
own journeys. While I recognise that each of these paths lead to short-­
term spiritual experiences, I believe the real question is about how does
one live/be differently 24×7, as their natural way of living and being. I can
perhaps exemplify this from one of my own reflections of my past few
years. Within my exploration of the karma yoga, I started with the belief
that I was a nimit (medium) for a larger energy (which I tend to refer to
as existence/universe) to bring about a change in the world around, the
team involved, and myself. Luckily, I haven’t struggled with associating
the times when we experienced some modicum of ‘success’ (again I ques-
tion what success really means, but I resort to using the term to allow for
a more pertinent reflection) with it being driven by the ‘universe’/‘existence’
rather than perceiving myself as the doer. However, whenever I have
struggled and faced challenges, especially with the pandemic, or fell short
of my own arbitrary measures of success, I have been quick to lose my
internal harmony. I re-established (or found) the harmony over time;
sometimes it took a handful of moments and at other times months. I
would rely upon various tools, including reasoning, reflection, reminding
myself of being the nimit (and not the doer), meditation, and/or insights
from the meditations/the higher intellect. However, maintaining, finding,
and re-establishing (whatever we might want to call it) my sense of
112 J. PATEL

harmony required a constant conscious effort as opposed to it being a

natural way of living and being. This contrasts with my observations of
Brahmavedantji (the spiritual leader from the ashram I have spent a con-
siderable part of my life at), who truly embodied various ideas of harmoni-
ous living in his own ways of living and being. I imagine he would have
pushed me to stay engaged in the process, rather than looking at the out-
comes, questioned my narrow perceptions of what I understand as success
or lack thereof, and have suggested that perhaps even completely unsuc-
cessful attempts (including processes and outcomes) might have various
ripple effects, and pushed me not to get bogged down in moments of
paralysis. I imagine that each of us must individually explore, if and how,
we can truly transform ourselves and our ways of living and being.
Teachers called for LTLTH to be a way of living and being (both for
themselves and for their students), whereby it would not be practised for
short spans, intermittently, but rather, something that was practised every
moment. Teachers consciously tried to practise aspects of LTLTH in
their daily lives (further discussed in Chap. 9). One school administrator-
RVS
asserted that “teachers require a constant inward gaze”, while many
teachers referred to the ideas of “it has to be a way of life” and “the phi-
losophy of LTLTH has to be a living thing and should not become an
ideology”. Similarly, Lange (2004), discussing transformative learning
theories, suggested that perspectives of interconnectedness between one-
self, the wider community, and nature need to extend beyond epistemo-
logical processes (changes in worldview) to ontological ones (changes in
ways of being). This resonates with Aristotle, who suggested that living
virtuously is not a mere process of habituation, but rather a process
wherein one enjoys living virtuously. Furthermore, indigenous education
revolves around changes in ways of being by focusing on establishing and
maintaining relationships with oneself, the community or tribe, and physi-
cal place/space (Cajete, 1994). Similarly, LTLTH, as a way of life, reso-
nates with Noddings’ (2003) notions of cultures/ethos of care and
Rosenberg et al.’s (2015) cultures of compassion, where they called for
these ideas to be embedded and embodied in the classroom ethos and
various lived experiences.
LTLTH as a way of life leads to the interesting notion of “carrying
peace and harmony where they go” (JyothiRVS) and similarly a senior
teacher at RVS explained:
 6 LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER HARMONIOUSLY (LTLH) AS A WAY… 113

Now, another form of harmony could also be a state of being, rather than a
quality … because you can be in physical distress, and you can still be in
harmony. … [In the community living context] if you are in the state of
harmony, then you would not perceive things around you as disharmony,
you would start seeing the interconnectedness of things over time and you
would see this is how it is.

In this regard, peace is not seen as a momentary experience, but rather as

a state of being that one is in, holds on to, and carries with him/her.
Teachers suggested that people can embody values 24×7 to the extent that
they become synonymous with these values. This resonates with
Krishnamurti and Osho’s ideas of “Do not shake, but become shaking”
and “Do not love, be love”, while also being reflected in common lan-
guage in terms of the use of phrases like “be happy” and “are you happy?”
as opposed to “are you feeling happy/happiness?”. LTLTH as a way of life
was also captured in notions of (a) swabhavik (natural response), (b) in
“doing good without knowing they were doing something good” (Senior
teacherRVS), and (c) a sense of commitment bringing about togetherness
and compassionate as opposed to actions due to a sense of duty or respon-
sibility. For example, “the tree naturally knows when to shed leaves, no
one needs to tell it to do so, it is not doing so to put on a show for any-
one” (SantharamRVS). This idea of a natural response was also captured in
“[c]hoiceless awareness—there is no choice but to be aware; you are aware
all the time and hence, it is not a choice; there is no other way of being
that you can live by” (Senior teacherRVS quoting Krishnamurti).

A Different Non-anthropocentric Epistemology

The current educational systems are based on a modernist, consumerist,
universalist, and anthropocentric epistemology. While I have previously
already discussed the origins of the modern education system, LTLTH
calls for a fundamentally different ontological and epistemological
approach to education. For example, western approaches towards the
nature have usually entailed seeing the natural resources as materials to be
exploited for individual/societal development: forests being chopped for
their wood, mountains being mined for rocks and precious minerals, so on
and so forth. These epistemologies put the individual/society and his/
her/their interests at the forefront. These epistemologies consider others
(including non-living things, other non-human beings, and other human
114 J. PATEL

beings as different) as being objects that can be ravaged, exploited, and

polluted as they are foundationally separate from one and are there to
serve oneself. This gets transferred to other human beings and even more
easily across various divides (social, economic, race, caste, gender). This
strongly contrasts with epistemologies from the global south, for example,
indigenous communities frequently regard nature (including non-living
things like mountains, rivers, lakes, oceans, stars, planets, and moons) as
living spirits that, both, protect the human world and one should protect.
Similarly, in India, nature and the earth have been commonly associated
with being a mother, with whom the human society shares a reciprocal,
love-based bond. The anthropocentrism and ego-centrism in the modern
world is also seen in our language construction with phrases likes “I burnt
my finger” as opposed to more indigenous ways of communication, like
“my finger was burnt”, or modernist ways of communicating directions,
where colloquially one talks about turning left or right, going straight
forward, or turning backwards as opposed to indigenous communication
being based on going east, west, north, or south.
It does not matter whether the epistemologies are true or not, I do not
believe it is possible to gather rational proof to support one or the other
epistemologies. Instead, it is more important to recognise that children
brought up in educational systems and communities with different episte-
mologies will be vastly different from each other. This leads to vastly dif-
ferent people and societies, for example, in the modernised society, faced
with a plethora of adverts that drive consumerism and material gain learns
to see buying and possession of material things as the only way to bring
pleasure and joy to one’s own self. In contrast, Buddhists had walls painted
with prayers for wellbeing of all sentient beings (human, non-human, and
beyond human). Similarly, Gandhi’s Talisman was all about thinking about
the wellbeing of the ‘last human being’. Indigenous and spiritual ways of
living and being constantly see a difference between pleasure and happi-
ness; they suggest that the constant seeking of pleasure is one of the root
causes of suffering. Instead, they call for working towards more meaning-
ful forms of happiness based on inner joy, peace, and harmony.
LTLTH calls for an epistemology different from the current one under-
pinning modern educational systems. An epistemology that moves away
from the current anthropocentric, modernist, and reductionists ways of
thinking to those based on southern and eastern wisdom traditions (Four
Arrows, 2018; Macy & Brown, n.d.; Santos, 2014, 2018; Sheldrake,
2018), which are much more holistic in nature and based on ideas of
 6 LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER HARMONIOUSLY (LTLH) AS A WAY… 115

sacred interconnectedness (Cremin, 2022; Mani, 2009, 2013; The

Mother, 1977a). Furthermore, western epistemologies have frequently
been linked with and based on power dynamics, where they have fre-
quently been seen as the only singular and (ironically) civilised way to live
life. In contrast, the teachers discussed, embodied, and helped students
develop a holistic (not just pluralistic) epistemology, where various per-
spectives coexist (with not one being true or untrue), complement, and
build on each other; for example, KamalaMBK noting:

The different paths, they exist. And to work in harmony is a call to build that
beautiful weave between eccentric paths; it is the purpose of existence. And
the paths are all [equally valid and] eccentric.

Seeds for Lifelong Learning

In this section, I apply the previously described harmonious, southern,
holistic epistemologies to explore whether and if so how the framework
can be applied to education. Teachers fundamentally called for moving
away from thinking of the various components of the LTLTH framework
as pre-set outcomes to be attained through standardised linear paths and
instead, as previously explained, they called for constantly pursuing them
as larger goals of education. In this section, I specifically explore the role
of educational systems within education for harmony.

Children are Intrinsically Good

Teachers believed that students develop LTLTH through a variety of fac-
tors, including by birth, school, home, and the community (this was
encased in a nature-nurture debate). Aligning with Rousseau, Froebel,
and Tolstoy, teachers believed was that LTLTH is intrinsic, quite natural
(swabhavik), and that every child is intrinsically good. As JyothiRVS
explained:

There is goodness in the children and there is no doubt about it. Children
are there for each other, whichever manner you see that. … I think most
times it is about preserving what is already there, and not bringing things
which may obstruct that, but not to say that children are all angels [always],
but those are different things, but there is goodness in all of them, and I
think it’s more about conserving that.
116 J. PATEL

They believed that, many a time, all that was needed was actively limiting
top-down suppression of children’s ways of living and being. More
recently, educationists calling for radically different educational systems
have commented on pedagogies of no-teaching (Jinan, 2022). While such
approaches can be extremely powerful for education for harmony too, I
remain cautious in suggesting them for school-aged children. I recom-
mend that as educators we try and reduce the ‘conditioning’ that we our-
selves, parents, and the wider society may bring in and allow space for
children to flower in the inner goodness. Furthermore, practically, chil-
dren can form cliques, ostracise others, tease or bully others, be mean or
harsh to each other and at these instances teachers need to actively work
with children on LTLTH (building or preserving harmony). However,
this does not take away from their belief that children have an inherent
capacity to be/do ‘good’.
Teachers’ notions of children being intrinsically good were related with
examples of children demonstrating sensitivity and care to others (all
teachers), sharing even when they had little or nothing, and unprompted
social action (e.g., RVS children cleaning a stretch of plastic-ridden 3 km
path on a trip and opposing the school management’s decision to separate
the dining hall for support staff). Additionally, teachers also believed that,
at times, students lived more harmoniously than teachers (they were fre-
quently far more accepting, forgiving, and loving). I believe all of us, in
one way or another, would have appreciated the children’s abilities of curi-
osity, wonder, joy, acceptance, and love. During my time at some of the
schools I was also struck by their abilities of intuition, deep reflection, and
spiritual insights.

Seeds in a Non-linear Journey

Teachers believed that learning is not linear. SurojitPB, quoting Tagore,
suggested that exams and assessments can be pointless (especially even
more so for LTLTH), because of the non-linearity of learning. He com-
mented, “If you water a plant and then go and see if it has flowered, then
the plant will have failed. It will flower in its own time.” School leaders and
teachers acknowledged and appreciated that every individual (student and
teacher alike) is on his/her own spiritual journey and at different phases
appreciating that it can take time, constant effort, and, frequently, it is a
 6 LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER HARMONIOUSLY (LTLH) AS A WAY… 117

lifelong journey. While it might take time for the outcomes to show (if at
all during school years, however, I found innumerable examples of stu-
dents exemplifying this while at school), teachers believed that it was their
responsibility to support the journey. There was a strong notion of just
sowing seeds, which might flower or not. Regarding which, BarenMBK said:

It’s a starting point that teachers and schools provide and when the time is
right, in a certain situation or when certain deeper existential questions
arise, they would know where to start from. … I feel these (lived experiences
at the school) are the things without knowing ourselves, without being
mentalised they will carry them for the future. These are the seeds; these are
the sparks.

Teachers believed that these seeds flower much later in life and they shared
instances of where school alumni had grown older and started to live har-
moniously. TanujRVS explained that what matters is that teachers did what
they could, without expecting any impact, which may come immediately,
in the future, or not at all. The teachers believed that they had to follow
their own dharma.

Finally, what happens and does not happen is really [immaterial/insignifi-

cant]—some take it. It may happen with some; it may not happen with oth-
ers. One just does not know. That journey is [unpredictable] … all you can
do is give the inputs and what finally is going to come out of it is not pre-
dictable—like, I put A, B, C into this X, Y, Z should come out of this. I
think we can only say what I am putting in is the right thing, that can be
examined, but not the [outcome].

I believe that spending multiple years at schools targeting education for

harmony with teachers engaged in reflective journeys allows for students to
develop certain understanding, skillsets, epistemologies, and ways of living
and being, which they carry with them after they complete schooling. They
may or may not realise it or even practise it, but it is always with them and
should one choose to live differently much of the foundations are already in
place to support the same. Furthermore, I believe it’s important not to
expect pre-set outcomes and instead to appreciate that every individual is on
their own journey and that they will flower not just at separate times, for
they will also probably develop and flower differently (from each other and
118 J. PATEL

the educator). I believe that education for harmony is a lifelong journey and
about constantly engaging in terms of processes, rather than obtaining some
abstract knowledge, skill, or behavioural outcomes. It is an ongoing process
of learning, unlearning, relearning, experimenting, reflecting, and exploring
what living harmoniously means for themselves.

A Fine Balance Between Letting Children Be, Deconditioning

and Conditioning to a Separate Set of Cultural Norms
There is a fine balance between letting children be who they are and flow-
ering in their intrinsic goodness, actively working towards deconditioning
the ways of living and being children would have picked up from other
adults and the society, and conditioning them into a set of values and
beliefs that we as educators may hold. While I do not have a simple answer
to what one could do, many of the teachers constantly reflected on the
balance between the three: they questioned if, when, and how to inter-
vene. They were wary of shaping children into one’s own self or someone
that the teacher holds as being a ‘good student’, with SrilaMBK stating, “My
thing for students is that they become independent; they become inde-
pendent of me! You become who you are and do not become SrilaMBK”
and similarly AadityaPB, suggesting:

What Reema is doing is something that is part of her swabhav or nature and
one way of making her stop, it would be to give her an ultimatum. That way,
she would be a very different girl altogether. … The moment you tell Reema
to not do that, she would not be Reema.

Additionally, teachers and students pointed out that teaching for LTLTH
introduces “a danger where teachers can act like spiritual leaders with spir-
itual knowledge that they might impose” (alumniRVS). One senior teacher
expressed concern in this regard, stating: “Perhaps this whole idea of chil-
dren should be sensitive is something that we are imposing on them and
conditioning them with. There should be no should and should nots.”
If and when teachers stepped in, they merely drew students’ attention
to different realities, certain behaviours, and patterns. 1 Frequently,

1
For younger children more support was required while teachers frequently let older chil-
dren be: allowing them to take in what they wanted to and to reject the rest. Teachers
remained mindful to not impose (with the exception of certain non-negotiables). All teachers
held certain, albeit a small number, non-negotiables (e.g., causing no harm to each other)
and they put their foot down if and when, these were not followed.
 6 LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER HARMONIOUSLY (LTLH) AS A WAY… 119

teachers themselves were engaged in trying to live more harmoniously

and they carried this energy with them, which, in turn, stimulated the
same in children. However, it could be construed that what teachers drew
children’s attention to and their exposure to certain ways of living and
being could be a form of conditioning too, albeit with different norms!
This is where it is important to note the schools and teachers’ emphasis
on critical and postcritical pedagogy as well as that on the development of
children’s own independent and critical thinking. These can help children
overcome any unintended conditioning by the teachers. It is also impor-
tant to note and understand the cultures and ethos of these schools; all
these interactions are embedded within an ethos of deconditioning and
emancipation (even from the teachers), autonomy and autonomous deci-
sion-making. While there might be some degree of conditioning to a
different way of living and being, the emphasis on independent thinking,
autonomy, freedom, and emancipation appeared to have allowed for stu-
dents to be critically aware of this and, hence, were able to choose what
to adopt and what not to.

Conclusion
Education for harmony calls draw on Southern perspectives and requires
to be understood holistically. The chapter has demonstrated that the pre-
viously presented framework is deeply interconnected and must be per-
ceived from a harmonious, holistic, and interrelated perspective.
Subsequently, I explored how education for harmony goes beyond narrow
goals of the development of specific knowledge, skills, or character traits
to transformation of epistemology and one’s ways of living and being. I
would like to invite you to specifically explore what does education for
harmony as a way of living and being mean to you and within your con-
texts. How can/have you develop(ed) a non-anthropocentric way of liv-
ing and being? Is such a way of living and being intrinsic or does it need
to be taught? Can it be taught, and if not, then how can one support
children in developing such ways of living and being? How would you bal-
ance the importance of deconditioning children and not conditioning
them into another set of norms? Throughout the chapter, I have pre-
sented how teachers at the alternative schools adopted a similar worldview
to their own visions, purposes, approaches, and practices for education for
120 J. PATEL

harmony. They notably believed that children are intrinsically good and
frequently lived far more harmoniously than teachers, and that their role
as educators was not necessarily to change students, but rather to let them
be, to prevent conditioning from themselves/undo conditioning from
others, and to engage in transforming themselves (not just as educators
but rather as human beings).
 PART II

Classroom Practices for Togetherness

and Harmony

Lived Experiences as Teachers

Do we not already live together?
Do we not learn through the moral value and citizenship education classes?
Parrots sharing well-mannered greetings ‘good morning’ and ‘thank you’.
But do we live harmoniously?

Perhaps it’s a different kind of education that we need,

An education that liberates, frees, empowers and emboldens
From one’s ownself and societal structures.
But how do we teach without caging the bird in a new cage?

Perhaps it’s a different kind of education that we need,

An education that shapes gazelles, lions, peacocks
Something foundationally different from mice preparing for rat races.
But how can it done through a system designed to train faster mice?

Perhaps it’s a different kind of education that we need,

An education that embodies freedom, love, equity, compassion and harmony;
Shapes a different way of life; a humane way of life.
But how do we learn to internalize these values?
122 Classroom Practices for Togetherness and Harmony

Perhaps it’s through shared lived experiences with trees, birds, animals
and humans;
Shared pursuits of life-long learning for a different way of life;
Shared reflections, introspections and meditations;
That we may find the balance and holism of the yin and yang koi fishes.
~Jwalin Patel, 2020

This part explores how theories and philosophies of education for har-
mony could be translated into practices. I draw upon practices used by
several holistic educators in India and hope that these case studies will help
others to find ways to create contextually appropriate ways to bring about
education for harmony into their respective practices.
I have been intrigued by whether and how education for harmony can
be translated into praxis. However, before I delve into it there remains an
even more important question: is it the role of the school to bring about
education for harmony or is it something that parents or the larger com-
munity needs to do? In my own experience, education for harmony for me
took place at home, within ashrams, and within our housing society (where
my friends and I played outdoor games every day), while schools were a
place for academic learning, to play sports (semi-professionally), and to
become exposed to various forms of extracurricular activities. While I was
fortunate to have spent my early childhood in a school that aimed to bring
about all-round development, they, at least in my time and in my memory
of the school, trained each part of the student, rather than the student as
a whole. The stark differences between the school and experiences in the
ashrams and at home led to several ‘conflicts’, where I struggled to under-
stand how to apply my ways of living and being within the school settings.
Over the 12 years at school, I came to understand that, perhaps, it was not
the role of the schools to engage in education for harmony. While I remain
grateful for the academic training I have received through several aca-
demic institutions, my experiences running an education reforms organ-
isation forced me to question the purpose of education, the role of schools,
and the narrow visions of academic or all-round development. It led me to
seek out other, alternative, more holistic schools that engaged with educa-
tion for harmony (and that too not just as an add-on, but rather as an
integral and primary purpose of education), wherein teachers managed to
integrate education for harmony in all their practices.
 Classroom Practices for Togetherness and Harmony 123

Education for Harmony Is Caught Rather

than Taught

There has been an ongoing debate around the character and virtues educa-
tion: whether aspects of education for the heart can be taught or whether
they are caught (from peers, teachers, parents, and the wider community).
Many Indian and ancient Greek and Roman thinkers commonly suggested
that aspects of character education are not teachable. Similarly, recently a
colleague was reflecting on his discussion with a leading peace researcher
and suggested that “[aspects of peace education] It cannot be taught with
words and resolutions but rather has to be lived with examples”. Social cog-
nitive theory suggests that students develop behaviours, skills, and attitudes
by watching others around them and modelling behaviours is an important
aspect of teaching-learning processes (Bandura, 1986). Similarly, Goleman
(2006) described the phenomenon as “limbic resonance”, whereby teach-
ers’ own affective state strongly influences that of their students. Neuroscience
and social psychologists have shown that emotions, like empathy, involve
mirror neurons that help an individual “mirror” or mimic another person’s
behaviour (Gallese, 2001). For example, teachers’ own behaviour is consid-
ered to affect students’ Social Emotional Competency (Bar-On, 2011;
Gandhi & Kumarappa, 1953; Tagore, 1929).
There are a wide range of SEL, GCE, and character education interven-
tions, ranging from those that teach for the development of these aspects
through a specific subject, to those that aim to integrate these aspects in
curricula across multiple subjects and, finally, those that aim to bring about
a school-wide change by foregrounding and embedding these aspects in
the school-wide ethos. The question as to whether education for harmony
can be taught or not boils down to how we perceive it; if it’s knowledge,
then it can be taught and if it’s skills, then they can be developed. However,
if it is related to ways of living and being, then these are difficult to transfer
and, instead, need to be inculcated through facilitation, reflection, and
shared lived experiences. I understand education for harmony primarily to
be a way of living and being. Hence, while curricular interventions can be
helpful, I would call for a more holistic school-wide implementation that
goes beyond treating it as a separate subject or an add-on: one that foun-
dationally integrates the emphasis on it across its various approaches, poli-
cies, systems, and practices.
All teachers commonly held that LTLTH is mostly ‘caught’ and not
‘taught’. They generally held that students see, observe, and learn from the
124 Classroom Practices for Togetherness and Harmony

school systems and teachers’ lives and behaviours. 1 They emphasised how
they could only model behaviour, draw children’s attention to certain
aspects, and question realities, but its internalisation into their lived practices
could not be imposed or forced. The teachers further nuanced the discus-
sion on internalisation, suggesting that it might be dependent on their
receptivity. For example, in a discussion with two senior teachersRVS, one
commented, “Some students are naturally sensitive, some a little more self-
ish; school sets the environment and provides example. It is caught and not
taught; some students have the antenna wired for it.” All teachers ques-
tioned whether teaching for LTLTH only impacted students receptive to it
or all children. They generally opined that it is the latter; however, they
contended that those who were inherently sensitive would benefit more.

The Pedagogical Problem

The alternative epistemology of education for harmony brings up several
pedagogical challenges that need to be considered and kept in mind as we
go on to explore potential practices that can be ad[o]apted.
First, education of the heart has commonly been proposed to be inde-
scribable, immeasurable, and deeply contextualised. This leads to difficulty
in not just describing what education of the heart (or education for har-
mony) means, but also, in observing it, let alone practising or measuring
it. While I advocate against the hegemony of testing (especially high stakes
and competitive), accountability-regimes, and valuing only that which can
be measured, I recognise that it is important to observe the development
of students to inform next educational steps. Recently, there have been
several attempts at developing quantitative, universalised measures for
various equivalents, like SEL and GCE, but these, inadvertently, end up
measuring students’ knowledge or the development of narrow competen-
cies like social literacy. I believe that the use of detailed qualitative behav-
ioural reports (by both teachers and students) can help understand
students’ ways of living and being as well as informing further educational
practice.
Second, education for harmony is focused on transformation of one’s
ways of living and being. It goes beyond narrow goals of gathering

1
While the book focuses on classroom practices, other aspects of children’s lived experi-
ences are extremely important including the school-wide environment, parents/at-home
environment, and the larger community.
 Classroom Practices for Togetherness and Harmony 125

knowledge or developing certain skillsets and instead emphasises the pri-

mary purpose of education as being about drawing on knowledge, compe-
tencies, commitments, and attitudes to inform one’s approach to life and
ways of living. This is a much larger ask than transferring knowledge or
training to use certain skillsets. It requires deep understanding of oneself
and the student, the development of meaningful relations, and deeper
engagement with the students and the educational processes.
Third, as discussed in the previous chapter, education for harmony has
been suggested to be a nonlinear process, with individuals being on their
own respective journeys and several LTLTH components manifesting
over long timespans and frequently after schooling years. This has two
implications: it requires teachers to make provisions for students to pursue
their individualised journeys, rather than expecting the whole class to fol-
low a certain set of pre-set outcomes and predetermined paths or for each
child to develop, according to arbitrary, homogenised, common set of
ways of living and being as defined by a curriculum or even the teacher
themselves. In addition, it calls for educators to engage in the process
themselves, working on their own ways of living and being as well as sup-
porting students without expecting predetermined results. The seeds of
harmonious living may or may not germinate and flower during school life.
Fourth, there is a widespread nature versus nurture debate, which ques-
tions whether harmonious ways of living and being are intrinsic or whether
they can be developed. I believe that it involves both; however, nurturing
education for harmony begs the question as to whether it is something
that can be taught or can only be caught. Furthermore, it raises the matter
as to whether it should be the role of a school to inform students’ ways of
living and being. I believe that this would depend on how we understand
education and the difference between it and schooling. Education needs
to go beyond mere schooling, where schools attempt to integrate parents,
the community, and nature into the educational process as opposed to
teaching being limited to short timespans, within four walls, with limited
relevance and application to children’s lived realities and the world beyond.

Blackbox of Pedagogy
There are several programmes and interventions that focus on content and
school-wide changes to bring about LTLTH, directing teachers what to
teach (various curricula-based interventions, including Reimers et al.’s,
2016, Global Citizenship Education; Arigatou International’s LTLT
126 Classroom Practices for Togetherness and Harmony

curricula; and SEL interventions like Social Emotional Ethical curricula,

RULER, second step, and the 4Rs). However, there has been a limited
amount of empirical research on how to teach for LTLTH. There remains
a theory-practice gap within the literature for education of the heart and
LTLT. R. J. Alexander (2001) and Hardman (2015) suggest that studying
the pedagogy is central to improving the quality of education, especially in
resource-constrained contexts. They contend that there is not enough evi-
dence on teaching-learning processes, whilst Prophet (1994) refers to this
as the “black box” of teaching and learning. This has resulted in (a) vari-
ous global development reforms skipping the ‘black box’ of pedagogy and
focusing only on access to education, (b) curricular reforms, and (c)
reduction of teaching-learning processes to transference of the learnt con-
cept, with teachers being treated as technicians (Istance & Paniagua,
2019). This book is aimed at identifying teaching-learning practices that
can be used to bring about education for harmony.
Internationally, there have been some notable efforts to frame teaching-­
learning practices for SEL. Gillies (2011) coined the term “emotional
pedagogy” as comprising teaching pedagogy, teacher behaviour, and class-
room routines that lead to the development of Social Emotional
Competency. Similarly, UNESCO (2014b) suggests teaching for LTLTH
as being dependent on teaching pedagogy (Hattie, 2009; Yoder, 2014),
teachers’ behaviour (Power, 1997), and Teacher Student Relations (Perry,
1998, Hattie 2009). Notably, Noddings (2002), with a specific focus on
education for care, happiness, and moral education, developed a four-­
component framework: (a) modelling—teachers model caring, behaviour
rather than preaching to students, or providing texts to read; (b) dia-
logue—classroom dialogue as a means of critical examination of ideas,
deep understanding of other perspectives, reflection, and teachers model-
ling care in communication; (c) opportunities for students to practise—
opportunities for students to practise care within and beyond their
classrooms, including community service opportunities; and (d) confirma-
tion and affirmation—teachers appreciating something admirable in each
student, ‘confirming’ and valuing each individual, as opposed to imposing
a single ideal of high expectation. In India, teaching pedagogy and Teacher
Student Relations (TSR) comprise two parts of the eight key indicators of
quality monitoring tools (R. J. Alexander, 2008; National Council of
Education Research and Training, 2003), while the National Council of
Educational Research and Training (2012) lists ethos, behaviour manage-
ment, pedagogy, and relation and modelling as four of the nine
 Classroom Practices for Togetherness and Harmony 127

dimensions in the framework for value education (the others include

school leadership, school-wide activities, evaluation, teacher development,
and home-school-community partnerships).
In the next chapters, I draw upon my case studies and the broader lit-
erature to explore how education could be brought about by classroom
pedagogy and ethos. This is also informed by TSR, behavioural regula-
tion, and teachers’ own ways of living and being. I explore ways in which
schools can engage other educators—including the parents, the wider
community, and nature—to transcend from being a school for young peo-
ple to being a centre of education for all, and communities for harmonious
living. I would like to draw the readers’ attention to two points as they go
through this part of the book: first, the separation of content between the
chapters is theoretical but in praxis I believe all of them would be highly
interlinked and interdependent. As AadityaPB noted, “[T]hese compo-
nents, in fact they very much go together. I would like to believe that on
certain days, at least, all these work together, even if very briefly.” Second,
I find that all the systems and practices must run through the whole school
and have to be implemented for both teachers and students. Given educa-
tion for harmony is a lifelong education goal it is applicable to both teach-
ers and students, alike. For example, if we expect teachers to emphasise
autonomy for their students, then they themselves need to be allowed to
make autonomous decisions. While this is beyond the scope of this book,
it includes several instances that exemplify this.

A Few Examples of the Outcomes Observed

I have previously described the process as being nonlinear and like sowing
seeds, which may or may not flower across multiple years. However, I
would like to point out that within the schools that I visited I observed
innumerable instances of students living harmoniously. Students regularly
demonstrated mutual care and sharing, challenged the societal status quo,
demonstrated a sense of fairness and justice, and were inclusive of every-
one around. This had become their natural way of living and being, rather
than their following a prescribed set of dos and do nots or being driven by
fear of ‘consequences’. Students frequently engaged in various social
action projects, and these were integrated into their approach to life, for
example, while on fieldtrip all the students decided to pick up waste that
was littered on the 3 km stretch of road that they were walking on.
Similarly, JyothiRVS narrated how “children quickly saw that because it is a
128 Classroom Practices for Togetherness and Harmony

continuum … you cannot really label anybody this way or that way, but
strands of all these exist in us”. They were also engaged in a deep process
of inner renewal, with several classroom discussions revolving around deep
existential discussions or reflections on the spiritual self. This was demon-
strated when students intuitively talked about the emotions and health of
trees, wrote extremely deep and insightful poems, and wrote reflection
notes on andar ka dost (the friend inside). Additionally, classroom obser-
vations picked up various phrases that students used, such as “we are all in
the same boat”, “koi ne apva ma apne khushi thay, ane juthvi lidhu toh apne
pastavo thay (we find happiness/anand in giving to others, and guilt if one
steals)”, “peace will wipe out evil”, and “life is nothing but an illusion”.
Similarly, students’ art pieces included deep fundamental ideas of harmony
of religions (a painting where various religions started from the corners of
a page and met in the centre), the Earth as a living being (a 3D model
made of pottery clay that depicted a landscape as a woman who nurtured
the people and animals living in it), and harmony between humans and
animals (a painting of a man reading seated under a tree and telling stories
to animals and birds around him; which was followed by a discussion
about how a tree, much like humans, also has eyes, arms, and a stomach).
 CHAPTER 7

Experiential Learning Pedagogies

and Practices

The schools and the teachers generally perceived that students ‘caught’
LTLTH through a continuum of harmonious lived experiences that were
embodied through the pedagogy (this chapter), classroom ethos (Chap. 8),
and teachers’ own ways of living and being (Chap. 9). These lived experi-
ences were frequently described as shared, being shaped by both students
and teachers. In this chapter, I first explore the potential (albeit limited) role
of content in education for harmony. Thereafter, I probe various pedagogical
practices that can provide opportunities for education for harmony.
Furthermore, I expand on this to develop a theory of lived experience-based
(or experiential education) pedagogy that holistically integrates education for
harmony in various processes. I emphasise that education for harmony needs
to be integrated within students’ lived experiences of the classroom, rather
than as something targeted by certain content or pedagogies.

The Potential (Albeit Limited) Role of Curricula

Increasing Numbers of Curricular Interventions

Both formal and hidden curricula influence not only what children learn
but their identities and ways of living and being. Frequently curricula have
been manipulated and shaped to assert a certain national identity and has
contributed to propagating structural and cultural violence through

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 129

Switzerland AG 2023
J. Patel, Learning to Live Together Harmoniously, Spirituality,
Religion, and Education,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23539-9_7
130 J. PATEL

excluding certain people, narratives, and ideas (NCF, 2005). And in con-
trast curricula can be made more inclusive, counter structural violence,
promote understanding of root causes of violence, and provide necessary
tools (NCF, 2005). Efforts to create more inclusive curricula that pro-
mote cultures of peace have tremendous potential.
In addition, many curricular interventions have been developed that
aim to introduce a new subject. These have included curricula interven-
tions across the various LTLTH equivalents, including Reimers et al.’s
(2016) GCE curriculum; an LTLT curriculum developed by Arigatou
International; and several SEL curricula, such as Social Emotional Ethical,
RULER, second step, and 4Rs. In India, in the last five years, notably,
there have been two large-scale SEL curricula: first, Social Emotional and
Ethical (SEE) learning (2019), and second the happiness curricula
(SCERT, 2019) along with its contextualised various equivalents. SEE was
inspired by his holiness Dalai Lama and developed at Emory University,
while the happiness curriculum draws upon CASEL and A. K. Nagraj, a
spiritual leader in India. The happiness curriculum entails a daily class
being committed to SEL and it is currently run across tens of thousands
of public schools in India. It was initially developed by the Delhi govern-
ment and a group of NGOs, having now been scaled up and replicated in
other states.
Some of these curricular interventions conceive LTLTH equivalents as
knowledge that can be transferred and/or skills that can be developed
through exposure and repetitive practice. While education for harmony is
primarily a way of living and being, it could include some aspects of knowl-
edge and skills; and would potentially benefit from a specific subject.
There would be a significantly deeper impact through a creation of an
inclusive curriculum that is integrated with various ideas of education for
harmony. It is important to note that content and curricula can provide
teachers and students a context and structure to engage with and delve
deeper into ideas of education of the heart, creating opportunities for
training specific skills. In such instances, I believe that, rather than mechan-
ically following a syllabus, leveraging various classroom-based incidents is
more desirable. Unfortunately, in our current system, if something is not
measured or emphasised in the curriculum it is ignored. It is important to
note that the teachers in these alternative schools believed that education
for harmony was the primary goal of education. While such an education
may not be measurable through objective tests or assessments, its develop-
ment can be tracked through students’ self-evaluation and/or detailed
descriptive behavioural reports written by teachers.
 7 EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PEDAGOGIES AND PRACTICES 131

Limited Relevance of Content Within Alternative,

Holistic Schools
In my study, there were a multitude of views on the importance of aca-
demic curricula for LTLTH, including it can be helpful, it is secondary,
and it does not matter. The language teachers generally believed that con-
tent was important and they leveraged it to introduce new perspectives
and bring about dialogue. However, other teachers opined that it was
secondary, and in practice, they adapted the content to weave in LTLTH
or they brought about LTLTH, despite the curriculum. Many teachers,
especially those with restrictions regarding what they taught (due to teach-
ing high school children), believed that the mainstream aspects were irrel-
evant and needed changing. Regarding which, one non-participant senior
teacherPB said:

Our curriculum does not promote us to care for our environment; they will
study [about] bees’ life cycle not of the dogs around; no history of
Shantiniketan; no map of Patha Bhavana; students cannot name the trees
around. … Maybe we need a curriculum that is flexible, that allows for
contextualisation.

There were generally no special classes or curriculum for value educa-

tion, with RVS being an exception, where they had ‘culture classes’: a
discussion space for LTLTH. There was no predefined curriculum and
instead the topics for discussion were determined by classroom incidents.
Teachers generally believed that LTLTH-teachable moments arose natu-
rally and that they needed to be aware and leverage those moments.
JoonaMGIS opined, “[W]e do not have moral science classes, which is also
not needed, honestly. We will talk about values. No, it would not be there,
it will only flow, something will happen in your class and suddenly you will
stop, and you will leave what you teach.” Teachers leveraged various lived
experiences, classroom incidents, and other content to explore and delve
into education for the heart. Higher-grade students (16- and 17-year-­
olds) regularly engaged with texts written by various philosophers; how-
ever, teachers were wary about this for younger children based on their
reluctance to impose belief systems on them. There was surprisingly little
use of Social Emotional Competency (SEC) language, a commonly rec-
ommended practice by various SEL interventions. Researchers and various
programmes recommend helping students label and recognise emotions,
while teachers (except for AnitaMGIS, who used nonviolent communication
language tools) hardly ever did so. The focus/emphasis of the practices
132 J. PATEL

was on feeling, experiencing, and living, rather than labelling. This differ-
ence in approach from the global north could be attributed to a difference
in cultures (India is a high context culture). Teachers also suggested label-
ling emotions as being very reductionist as one usually experiences a myr-
iad of emotions and reducing these to a single one can do harm. Instead,
they helped students holistically to understand how one feels and empa-
thetically understand how others feel. Moreover, teachers normally
refrained from direct instructions of dos and do nots. They did so only in
rare instances, when students would have harmed themselves or others
around them, usually through one-on-one behavioural (dialogic) discus-
sions with certain students. These discussions were used as a last resort;
teachers frequently let students be, provided different perspectives, and
helped students to be aware of their behaviour. Dos and do nots were seen
as a form of imposition, and as SrilaMBK explained, “I also am not overly
preachy, be like this or that, that’s my expectation. I would rather want to
go by children’s expectations.” Teachers, at times, provided reminders for
students to be more aware of their behaviours and the behavioural goals
that they had set. They recognised that, at times, students (and adults)
could find it difficult to self-regulate and at these instances gentle remind-
ers from others can be useful.

Stories as a Means of Real-Life Connections

A few teachers frequently leveraged content-based stories, especially for
language learning. However, JoonaMGIS and KamalaMBK weaved in stories
around science content, and they and SurojitPB, ShreyaPB, and BharatShreyas
narrated first-hand experiences to build relations and real-life connec-
tions. Teachers contended that the content-based stories had to be based
on students’ lives, include active reflection, debriefing before and after
the stories, and that the text must be related to oneself, the wider com-
munity context and other pieces of texts. The following interaction with
a senior teacherRVS encapsulates the process of bringing in content-based
stories:

What [another teacher] told me [an incident amongst children], yesterday,

it just gave me a lovely opportunity to take the story to class, but a story is
never introduced without a few leading questions. I ask them the leading
questions and then we move on to the story … [then] we explore it by con-
 7 EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PEDAGOGIES AND PRACTICES 133

textualising it. ‘So, this has happened in the life of a selfish giant, how does
it show in your own life and in the life of others who are very close to you?’.
So, that is my way of looking at the morals, you know, without directly talk-
ing about the morals. Sometimes you do not even have to lead them, when
they see selfishness. There are always a few students who catch it and then,
they say, ‘akka sometimes I see in my own life’. … And then I do some
reflective writing. It’s easy for them I think to express their feelings in writing.

Teachers contended that stories helped them to grasp students’ attention

and to discuss practical issues within the class through their reflection (dis-
tanced reflection on the story and then self-reflection). The stories were a
way of reaching the ‘students’ hearts’, allowing for content to ‘sink in’ as
opposed to students being preached at. While participatory learning was
foregrounded in these alternative schools, it was not always possible to do
so at PB, where the classroom sizes were slightly larger. However, stories
frequently brought about engagement and active participation through
‘narrative transportation’, especially when interspersed with discussions
(Sinclair, 2017).
Teachers were against using stories that were disconnected to class-
room incidents. HemaMGIS explained that “if it is presented as okay, I am
going to tell you the story and it’s going to teach you a lesson about life
and how you should lead it. Then, that probably affects how you receive
the story, but if it’s just within the flow of things or it connects to other
things that they are learning about then it’s a very natural kind of flow.”
Additionally, some teachers were vocally against explicit discussion on the
moral of the story; they believed that the students understood the implicit
meaning. BharatShreyas held:

When we tell stories there is absolutely no need for a teacher to ask the stu-
dents for the moral they have learnt. Every child takes a moral of the story.
They understood the story and started crying; that is the answer, there is no
need to explain it further. Shreyas is like this, there is no need to give morals
as the environment is such, teachers are such, and method is such that it
teaches things swabhavikpane (organically or naturally).

Classroom Pedagogies
How teachers teach rather what they teach is central for education for har-
mony. Comprehensive research has demonstrated teacher pedagogy as
being the main predictor of teaching effectiveness and student outcomes
134 J. PATEL

(Campbell, 2004; Hattie, 2009; McDonald & Elias, 1976; Sankar &
Linden, 2014; UNESCO, 2014b). Research on GCE has recommended
pedagogical practices for active participation, critical thinking, conflict
resolution, dialogue, and creativity (Hunt, 2017; Lynch, 1992; UNESCO,
2014a). A. Skinner et al. (2013) emphasised the need for the participatory
pedagogies that lead to active engagement and similarly research into SEL
has stressed such pedagogies. Yoder’s (2014) meta-analyses of SEL pro-
grammes identified ten teaching practices that are commonly associated
with its development within six domains: (a) dialogic teaching; (b) coop-
erative learning; (c) self-reflection; (d) student-centred discipline; (e)
competence building (modelling, practising, feedback); and (f)
TSR. Critical pedagogy, based on Freire’s emancipatory philosophy of
education, has been argued as bringing about GCE (Skinner et al., 2013).
It recognises individuals as being embedded in social contexts, promotes
an open dialogue towards critical reflection, understanding of each other,
as well as fostering collaboration between learners and teachers (Hooks,
1994). It emphasises learners’ ability to reflect critically and change
their lives.
In this section, I explore various classroom pedagogies, while the next
chapter explores aspects of behavioural management, TSR, and classroom
ethos. I found that teachers in the alternative schools in India leveraged a
lived experience-based pedagogy by engaging in dialogic teaching, group-­
work, project-work, self-reflection, and meditation, as well as social action.
Moreover, they drew upon an extended community of educators, includ-
ing peers, non-teaching staff, parents, community members, and nature.

Dialogue as a Means of Bringing New/Different Perspectives

High quality dialogue is at the heart of critical pedagogy and research has
demonstrated it to be essential for children’s development in both social
emotional and cognitive skills (R. J. Alexander, 2003; Skinner et al., 2013;
Vygotsky, 1986). A. Kumar (2008), extending Freire’s emancipatory and
Gandhian participatory educational approach, recommends a dialogical
education pedagogy, where learners (and teachers) not only collabora-
tively pose problems, but also work together to seek solutions to these.
Teachers frequently used dialogic pedagogies (including for academics,
behaviour management, reflection, and classroom or school-wide decision-­
making), where they prompted students, created a platform for different
voices and perspectives, challenged biases, pointed out leaps or gaps in
 7 EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PEDAGOGIES AND PRACTICES 135

reasoning, and guided discussions. Many school and classroom decisions

were democratic (further discussed in the next chapter) and involved an
active dialogue between peers and between the teacher and students. A
few teachers saw it as a form of balancing what would help students, what
a given child wanted, and what the rest of the class wanted.
Teachers frequently introduced (sensitised), explained, and helped stu-
dents in empathetically understanding different perspectives. Regarding
which, educationistMBK commented: “Should we treat objects with respect
or use as an object? We know how it’s painful to be treated as an object.”
The use of dialogues as pedagogy, albeit a time-consuming process, led to
increased student responsiveness, intrinsic motivation, onus taking, inde-
pendent thinking, and decision-making, while at the same time it also
enlivened the teachers as they found the process to be meaningful. Many
of these characteristics of dialogic decision-making are demonstrated in a
critical incident and its discussion in an interview with BarenMBK:

There were seven presentations left. I asked Amar to come and write on the
board. Amar responded, ‘I will not come’. I said come, aaja, come, come,
and write. He replied, ‘Then why me?’ I said okay, no problem. Let us do
alphabetically. Then again, his name comes first, so then another child said,
‘Bhaiya is very clever’. … Then somebody says ‘okay let us pickup chits’. So,
Riya had made some chits earlier, I said ‘okay, okay why chits?’ … I said
‘stop chits, no chits. If Amar’s name will come up in picking chits, then he
will be unhappy, because he does not want to anyway. So, no chits and let us
understand why we are doing this. What is the reason behind it? Is it to
make [put/bring] you down or up? Now I am asking each one of you, so
tell me why are we doing it?’. Everyone took turns and shared reasons. And
then, without saying anything, Munira came up to write on the board. Next,
Riya came up, next Amar came up and said, ‘I will write’.

Teachers built a platform for new perspectives, by ensuring everyone

was included, pushing students to find their own thoughts and opinions as
opposed to ‘chiming in’, actively working towards ‘group formation’
(referring to classroom relations where students listen, accept, and under-
stand each other’s perspectives), and creating an ethos of sharing, ques-
tioning, and non-judgemental respect. The dialogic process also allowed
for perspectives that the teachers themselves had not expected. For exam-
ple, KamalaMBK reported, “[Y]ou know what this boy was just saying,
‘what would happen, if firecrackers [producers] are closed down, to the
people who are making them, what about them?’”.
136 J. PATEL

They created platforms for new perspectives through silent spaces,

reflections, lived experiences, projects, stories/poems, games, and art-­
based activities. HemaMGIS suggested that the hierarchy of knowledge
must be broken down to allow for building a platform for new perspec-
tives. Teachers aimed to break down hierarchies of knowledge and create
opportunities for dialogue and learning from various experiences, of one’s
own self, other students, the wider community, and other spaces (includ-
ing nature). Teachers leveraged dialogic discussions to build connections
with real life through circle time, storytelling, and the pedagogy of explo-
ration of a text by relating it to oneself, to the surrounding world, and
then to other texts that the children had used in the past. At MBK and
MGIS, the contextualisation was inherent to the project-based pedagogy,
with teachers weaving in personal stories and dialogic discussions. Dewey
(1916) and Kolb (1984) regard critical dialogue and reflection as central
to student-centred learning as it allows for new perspectives, creating
meaning from lived experiences and transformation of one’s ways of living
and being.

Peer- and Project-Based Learning as the Core Teaching/

Learning Process
Srila’sMBK first response to the question of how she brought about LTLTH
for children was two words: “group work”. Group activities engage stu-
dents in practising and embodying cooperation, compassion, together-
ness, and sensitivity. There were many group-work based activities in all
the schools: groups of students came together to participate and lead an
activity, rather than just large group activities wherein they were passively
spoken to. These ranged from group work within for a single session (also
usually cross-curricular in nature) to those that spanned several months
and to those that brought together children across grades (e.g., at MBK
students frequently collaborated on several months-long projects, sports
classes, and shared meals). In addition, the boarding schools also had vari-
ous student clubs that engaged students in group-work outside school
hours, and group-work involving the whole school (e.g., students leading
school-wide decision-making and assemblies, whilst another notable
example included all students at PB creating a large mosaic work of art by
sticking small pieces of coloured paper together). This led to a sense of
collaboration, sharing, and oneness.
 7 EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PEDAGOGIES AND PRACTICES 137

The teacher’s role took the form of facilitator, who helped students to
decide on a common project; created a collaborative ethos; leveraged dif-
ferent students’ interests, skills, and past experiences; managed behaviour
within and between groups; and set classroom routines. Teachers opined
that project-based learning required them to build strong teacher-student
and student-student relations, conduct ‘group formation’ activities,
observe and understand the children, as well as slowly guiding them out
of their comfort zones. During project-work, teachers were most actively
engaged during the planning phase, where they helped students plan out
the project, school-wide activities, and social action that could be inte-
grated, discussed the academic areas’ students wanted to cover, developed
a timeline, and outlined objectives for a given day (usually done for
younger or hyperactive children). Post the completion of planning, teach-
ers took a more backseat role in the project, with students directing it and
the former only intervening intermittently and focusing more on chil-
dren’s behavioural and emotional development.
Student autonomy and a sense of onus (further discussed in the next
chapter) underpinned the projects and peer-work. The projects at MGIS
and MBK were decided upon by students, which, in turn, meant that all
teaching-learning content and the mode of teaching-learning were decided
by them. At MBK, children discussed the skills, character traits, as well as
the physical and mental development aspects they wanted to work on.
This arrangement led to MGIS being able to hold two-hour long classes,
with the students remaining engaged and on-task! The projects led to an
integrated holistic education that transcended compartmentalisation of
subjects. They often involved interaction with the wider community and
were integrated with social action. Projects and student-work generally
ended up being presented to other children within the class, members of
the school (including non-teaching staff), and at times published as books
(at MBK and RVS). These contextualised projects with real-life implica-
tions made the educational processes meaningful. AnjuMGIS suggested:

[First, the projects build independence] and children are doing projects that
they would like to do. Secondly, to arrive at a state of peace and happiness
you would need to do things that are meaningful and purposeful. If there is
no meaning, if whatever I am doing serves no purpose, what’s the point
of doing it?
138 J. PATEL

Meditation, Reflection, and Introspection Embedded

in Educational Processes
Teachers frequently called upon student to ‘go inwards’, self-reflect, medi-
tate, feel/embody silence (physical and mental),1 and referred to a need to
‘respond not react’. MBK, PB, and RVS spent extensive amounts of school
hours, with school-wide moments of silence, prayer, and meditation at the
start (PB, MBK, RVS, and HemaMGIS) and end (MBK) of the day. The
schools also practised daily walks to see the sunset (RVS), silence before
meals (RVS), and class-based moments of silence before the start of a class
(AnonymousRVS and AadityaPB). Herzberger (2018) emphasises the impor-
tance of silence and the silent mind especially for transrational education.
It is important to distinguish being quiet from silence; the former is a
physical act of being quiet, while the latter involves physical, mental, and
emotional calmness, allowing one to go beyond the mind and to connect
with oneself and others more intuitively or spiritually.
Teachers also tried to bring meditative practices to their teaching pro-
cesses by engaging in visualisation (HemaMGIS and AnonymousRVS), slow-­
writing/slow-thinking (visiting monkRVS), birdwatching and nature
appreciation (SantharamRVS, ShreyaPB, and non-participant teachersRVS and
PB
), writing reflective poems (SantharamRVS), and breathing practices when
class energies became too high (JoonaMGIS and AnonymousRVS). Teachers
frequently commented that while they used certain techniques, they aimed
to transcend into the intrinsic value of meditation, rather than just the
instrumental. Regarding which, one school administratorMGIS suggested,
“Meditation has to be integrated, but [in other schools it] seems to be
used as a technique to manage classroom behaviour or for creativity”.
Silence, meditation, or reflection was not just practised for short spans,
but was embodied through the day, which resonates with Lees (2017),
who when researching Summerhill School (an alternative school founded
by A. S. Neill in the UK) found that children were frequently allowed to
hang about, chill out, and do “nothing much”, with these ideas being
embedded in the whole school all through the day.
There was constant discussion on the length of meditation or the silent
spells: some were short (less than 5 minutes, e.g., at the beginning of a
class or before meals), while others were longer (30–45 minutes, e.g.,

1
Note that while a few teachers called for students to be silent, most of them called for
them to embody silence or be silence, instead of the physical act of being silent.
 7 EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PEDAGOGIES AND PRACTICES 139

daily walks to see the sunset, and occasional visits to the samadhi). Teachers
discussed whether the use of set times for meditation had become mechan-
ical or if they played the role of a reminder to be silent and reflective all the
time. They saw the latter as the long-term goal; however, the former was
important as well. That is, the set times were seen as riyaz (repetitive prac-
tice; usually associated with Indian music) that helped students hone med-
itational skills and experience deeper meditational states. Some students
appreciated these practices, seeing them as the best time of the day and
sought to come back to school post-vacations for the silence (informal
discussions with studentsMBK and RVS). As a participant observer at the schools
there were some instances when I felt as if ‘silence descended’ across the
whole school. In one of my ethnographic notes about RVS I observed:

Silence literally immediately descends on the assembly. The students go

absolutely quiet. And there is a feeling of silence and deeper connection that
I sense. Perhaps it’s to do with the mood/state I am in. Or maybe, the larger
space offers this to everyone.

While in another, at PB, I noted:

Many parents and students come early, and students keep playing around.
But as soon as the assembly starts, they become [silent] and as soon as a
small group of students start singing there is literally pin drop silence. This
once again felt like a form of sacred silence that descends and engulfs every-
one. At no point does a teacher ask them to not run or play around, or to be
quiet. It seems to be a more natural way of being, where there is not an
imposed seriousness of silence.

Lees (2012) differentiates two forms of silence: a weak one, where stu-
dents in traditional schools are silenced and forced to be quiet, in contrast
to a strong silence, where children have the freedom to be quiet or to
choose not to do so. The schools emphasised the latter, as they believed
that silence does not need to be enforced as short-spanned practices, but
rather has to be felt, embodied, and ‘developed from within’. This reso-
nated with the schools and teachers’ beliefs in students’ autonomy, not
imposing on students and letting them be. From my experiences at the
schools, we need to extend this form of strong silence to a form of sacred
silence as a deeply embodied form of silence that also extends beyond
one’s body and mind.
140 J. PATEL

Teachers also emphasised self-observation, reflection, and introspec-

tion, claiming that these required the students to silence their minds, set-
tle emotions, distance themselves from the self, and be still/silent. These
practices allowed for consolidation and internalisation of values and con-
version into lived experiences. There is a certain resonance with Bonnett
(2009), who emphasised that moments of silence, withdrawal, reflection,
and self-awareness, while not requiring dialogic discussions with the other,
can help one experience one’s own humanity. While such moments can be
enriched if lived as shared lived experiences with others, they do not
require others and might prevent imposition (conscious or subconscious)
from others. Introspection was brought about in diverse ways: classroom
council meetings (AnitaMGIS, JoonaMGIS, and HemaMGIS), dramatics as a
means of promoting group introspection (AnitaMGIS), one-on-one or
group introspective dialogue (most of the teachers), reflection journals
and diaries (oral/written; JoonaMGIS, JayanthyMBK, KamalaMBK, SrilaMBK,
and AnonymousRVS), and discussions after projects (all teachers). Teachers
used critical incidents, quotes, poems, their own observations, and/or stu-
dents’ comments/appreciation/complaints about one another as prompts
for introspection. There was a subtle nature of it being self-directed,
whereby the teacher only provided a prompt and questioned, if something
was true or not and then, the rest was explored by the child. Teachers
leveraged the presence of other students in the reflective process as ‘others
are a mirror’. For example, AnjuMGIS suggested:

In those moments they reflect and there are also opportunities for children
to give feedback to each other. I might be thinking that I am a very sympa-
thetic listener, that I am such a good worker, but my classmates might tell
me you are impossible to work with, because you really do not follow the
deadlines, so we find it very difficult to work with you. … Children, like
anybody else, would have a self-image and mostly it’s a distorted image and
because it’s coming from fewer perspectives. So, one of the strategies we use
in the class is to get to know the self [from the others’ perspective].

Teachers put forward a couple of nuances to introspection: it should not

be used as a firefighting tool after a critical incident, but as a form of regu-
lar introspection (AnonymousRVS) or as a constant ‘moment to moment’
practice (TanujRVS). Additionally, they suggested that introspection was
not about the metacognitive awareness of what one thinks, but rather
about why and how one thinks, behaves and lives, and be/becomes. This
 7 EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PEDAGOGIES AND PRACTICES 141

form of introspection allows for an extended understanding of one’s ways

of living and being and allows for the potential for transformation.
Furthermore, BarenMBK contended that it should be embodied and involve
emotional connection as opposed to being just intellectual, reasoning
based, or involving metacognitive engagement:

She is becoming too much mentalised; it is not living. The child has to con-
nect to what the child is doing. … No, it has to be living; it has to be feeling.
The more it is feeling-oriented that much it helps, because feelings remain
long, while thinking and talking reasoning out evaporate very fast. If you
have felt something negative, you will not go for it again.

Engaging Students in Social Action (as a Form of Education)

Teachers and schools promoted student social action. Teachers themselves
were engaged in many social action projects (these are further explored in
Chap. 9), and students frequently joined in and/or set up their own proj-
ects. As previously discussed, the projects often involved interaction with
the wider community and social action. Regarding which, KamalaMBK
commented:

Every project must have it (social project at the end). [We should] not just
[teach] science without social purpose. How can technology improve the
lives of people? This has to be an ongoing project in every school. The chil-
dren have to go on innovating, there is no point in saying ‘I wish I had
electrical drill’. It’s so difficult to drill, see how hard it is when the person
has to do it by himself. How would you make a cheaper functional electric
drill? When there is no electricity how will the drill work?

The students engaged in a range of social action projects both within and
beyond schools. Within the school this entailed cleaning it, feeding and
caring for animals, waste segregation and recycling, manure production,
water and electricity conservation awareness drives, as well as student-­
based movements for the equality of support staff. Outside school stu-
dents ran/were involved in awareness campaigns (waste, education,
women’s health, pollution, bringing about electoral awareness), awareness
films (use of leather), rural improvement drives (fundraising and making
wells), street plays, community radio shows, living with and helping farm-
ers, unprompted student-driven cleanliness efforts, as well as making and
selling products (calendars and diaries) to fundraise for NGOs and during
142 J. PATEL

natural disasters. These social action initiatives helped transform awareness

into action and created lived experiences embedded in reality. These led to
their understanding different lifestyles and being more compassionate.
AnitaMGIS commented:

We took a walk and I feel that every step they were looking at how am I
responsible or what change can I make. What impact do my choices have on
the lane outside of my house or in my home; so, I call this as compassion.

Various scholars have emphasised engaging students in social change.

For example, Bourn (2022), Sharma (2018), and Shor (1992) have argued
for the foregrounding of students’ involvement in social changemaking,
while Battistoni et al. (2009), Celio (2011), and Wade (1997) have called
for their engagement in various social service and service-based learning
activities. These ideas have also been emphasised by the various Indian
thinkers, who fundamentally believe that education should inspire stu-
dents to create a more socially just world, not just after completion of
schooling, but also during their educational journeys. For example,
Gandhi and Kumarappa (1953, p. 32) noted:

Whilst Sir M. Vishweshwarayya has emphasized one grave defect of our

present education which places exclusive emphasis on literary merit, I would
add a graver defect in that students are made to think that whilst they are
pursuing their literary studies, they may not do acts of service at the sacrifice
of their studies, be it ever so small or temporary. They will lose nothing and
gain much if they would suspend their education, literary or industrial, to do
relief work, such as is being done by some of them in Gujarat. The end of all
education should surely be service.

Underlying Approaches to Teaching

Embodied Learning (for Both Academic Education

and Education for Harmony)
We commonly learn to live (and learn) within four walls through a narrow
focus only on the mind, fragmenting our ways of knowing, limiting them
to those based on reasoning, and separating one from the others and the
larger world. I have always pondered, in such a system, how do we learn
to connect with the human, non-human, and the more-than-human?
 7 EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PEDAGOGIES AND PRACTICES 143

In the East, heart, head, body, and soul are not seen as separate, but
rather as very much interwoven, being deployed to conceptualise and
communicate. As Gandhi (1968b) noted:

[Human]2 is neither mere intellect, nor the gross animal body, nor the heart
or soul alone. A proper harmonious combination of all three is required for
making of the whole [human being]3 … they constitute an indivisible whole.
According to this theory, therefore, it would be a gross fallacy to suppose
that they can be developed piecemeal or independently of one another.

In contrast to Descartes, AnjuMGIS suggested that “Indian philosophy

speaks of Advaita; it speaks of non-duality [and how the mind, body and
soul are all interlinked].” The conceptual separation of the head, heart,
body, and soul gives us tools to talk about each of them. I find this inter-
connectedness to be deeply common-sense based; for example, it can be
exceedingly difficult to cognitively focus when one is not feeling well, the
body is tired, or if the ‘heart is not in the task’. In the West, Rene Descartes
ushered in an era of rationalism, with “I think therefore I am”. However,
modern day sciences, including neuroscience, have highlighted that cog-
nition in and of itself is deeply embodied with the mind being integrated
with the sensorimotor systems (Barsalou, 2007), physically interacting
with an object leads to a response in the brain (and thinking about the
objects also leads to a similar response). Many peace and holistic education
researchers, along with several eastern thinkers, have advocated against the
segregation of a human being, divides within the human society, and
anthropocentrism. I believe that in the eastern thought Rene Descartes’
proposition would be rephrased to “I feel therefore I am” or better still “I
am because I am”. Also, some Eastern thinkers might take an issue with
the anthropocentrism in such statements and might instead rephrase it to
“I am because we are”. Over the past two decades, several thinkers across
the world have noted the importance of moving beyond rationality to
post-critical and/or transrational theories. The transrational philosophy
attempts to recognise, value, and integrate several ways of knowing and
being, including the rational, embodied, and spiritual aspects (Cremin
et al., 2018; Echavarría Alvarez et al., 2018). They draw upon Eastern
thought not simply to reject rationality, but rather to combine the diverse
ways of knowing, being, and living dynamically (Cremin, 2018; Cremin
et al., 2018; Dietrich, 2013, 2018).

2
The original quote used the word “man” instead.
3
The original quote used the word “man” instead.
144 J. PATEL

Teachers recognised that learning happens through the whole human

being: the body touches and responds to things around, the heart and
emotions are affected by events, people, and memories, and the soul is
potentially linked with the nature and others around; whilst the mind is
also being driven by curiosity and intuition. Teachers frequently promoted
‘slowing down’ through activities like ‘slow observation’ and ‘slow walks’
as a means of creating space for more embodied and transrational learning.
Over the centuries, various practices like yoga, chanting, meditation, tai-­
chi, and fasting have been used as ways of connecting to the soul, healing
the body, calming the mind, learning, and transforming one’s ways of liv-
ing and being. Various scholars—including Jinan (2022), J. P. Miller
(2010, 2018), R. Miller (1991), Neill (1960), Rogers (1979), and Yoder
(2014)—have called for the embodied education of the whole child.
Similarly, in peace education literature there has been a noted shift towards
integration of the various aspects, with Cremin (2016) suggesting novel
approaches to such education that integrate the body, mind, heart,
and spirit.
Teachers, resonating with Macedonia (2019), noted that education is
very multisensorial; students are constantly learning through seeing things,
visualising things in their minds, touching various objects, manipulating
objects, moving around, listening, speaking, smelling, tasting, feeling, and
intuitively sensing. At PB, all classes were conducted under trees (the
classrooms were only used when it rained), while at RVS teachers fre-
quently used various teaching-learning spaces, including those under
trees, on the sports ground, and in the forest. These were seen as spaces
where real learning took place (the role of the nature on the campuses is
further explored below). At all schools, learning took place through being
in the real world and interacting with the community. I made a noted
observation/reflection:

SurojitPB was telling a story about birds to the class. … As usual, during such
story telling sessions students have a lot of freedom to listen, scribble, close
their eyes, look around, and potentially daydream. [I decided to focus on] a
boy who was apparently not listening; he seemed to be looking around and
not necessarily following the story. … [After a couple of minutes, he] com-
mented “Surojitda even the birds are listening to the story”. (Classroom
observations of SurojitPB)
 7 EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PEDAGOGIES AND PRACTICES 145

Interestingly, I had probably lost touch with what the story was really
about, despite being a participant observer and listening intently. The
child’s comment helped me realise that the story was about birds. And in
actuality there were so many birds around us; interacting with each other
and potentially with all of us too. Perhaps the boy was following and really
understanding the student; while I was the one who was distracted.
Music and art were recognised as an integral part of education and were
strongly integrated into all projects at MBK and MGIS, while at PB and
RVS they were seen as part of the main curricula; PB recognised them as
a way of life. Tagore, the founder of PB, believed that in developing an
aesthetic sense, this would eventually lead to harmony. SurojitPB opined
that “one who truly understands poetry can never be dishonest, because
he has a different sensitivity”. Music and art were integrated into daily life
through projects, public art displays, and special classes. I frequently found
students singing or rehearsing as they walked around the campus. Teachers
suggested that music and art helped calm the mind, connect to one’s
heart, understand one’s own self, develop a distinct perspective, empa-
thetically connect with others, bring together people irrespective of differ-
ences, and develop an inner silence. There was a constant notion that
mind develops through hands. For example, SurojitPB suggested:

Through arts, painting, music, dance, woodwork … it is not about the final
performance, but [the journey or] the process. It allows space for the mind’s
development. It creates a different kind of mind (creative, observant, sensi-
tive). Mind develops through hands.

There was a strong focus on everyday experiences of beauty, stillness,

and feelings of connection with the human and the more-than-human;
this resonates with the spiritual ideas of recognising beauty around us and
living a beautiful life (thinkers, like Eckhart Tolle, Confucius, and other
Buddhist and Indian thinkers have repeatedly called for learning to see the
beauty in everything). Teachers emphasised recognising, valuing, and con-
necting with the beauty of the environment and seeing it in ‘small things’,
like dew on flowers, grasshoppers, and butterflies. A visiting alumniRVS
commented on the intricate features of a nearby hill, while many students
frequently commented on trees, hills, sunsets, shadows, snakes, and birds,
with phrases like “[L]ook, how beautiful is this tree!”. This appreciation
of beauty around us leads to a very different way of living and being; I
believe it moves students from an anthropocentric, extractive ways of liv-
ing and being to more humane, sustainable ways of living and being. I
146 J. PATEL

doubt a person who inherently values and sees the beauty in trees would
waste wood, not reuse, and not recycle it. Similarly, the recognition of the
beauty in diversity leads to deep-rooted valuing of every living being in the
community (irrespective of all kinds of boundaries) and prevents certain
community members or living beings from becoming invisible, being ill-­
treated, being treated as objects, or being taken for granted. Similarly,
seeing beauty in everything around one also went beyond seeing beauty in
living beings, non-living things, and/or phenomena to include beauty in
ideas and perspectives. There was a constant emphasis on recognition and
appreciation of different perspectives and ways of life as equally ‘valid’ and
transcendence of dualities and dichotomies. For example, ShreyaPB noted:

It’s like the idea of seeing the beauty and harmony in diversity, seemingly
diversity seems to be very chaotic, everyone is so different, so many different
viewpoints.
I think nature gives you that example—nature in front of you might
just—these mango trees, it’s not proper, but if you properly analyse and
critically look into it, then every leaf has a proper place. So, it might look
chaotic, but there is a pattern.

An Extended Community of Educators—Peers, Community,

Nature, and the Wider World as Educators
Mass education systems frequently adopt a banking like model, whereby
teachers merely transfer knowledge that they hold. In contrast, histori-
cally, all living beings have always been learning over many millennia
through a variety of ways of embodied learning within the world (Jinan,
2021). Learning happens 24×7 and is a natural process, while academic
learning is optional. The teachers recognised that there are numerous
sources of knowledge and ways of learning (including nature, the world
around, other living beings, students themselves) and believed and lever-
aged everything around them as educators. Teachers not only recognised
the need for, but also supported and created spaces for students to learn
from their parents, community members, the wider world around them,
and their own deeper selves (through reflection, introspection, and medi-
tation). Their roles as educators notably changed from that of teachers
who were torchbearers of knowledge to those of facilitators of learning
who created conducive environments and supported students (while pro-
moting students’ freedom to decide what and how they wanted to learn).
And for most teachers their roles had further transformed to those of a
 7 EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PEDAGOGIES AND PRACTICES 147

co-learner wherein both the students and the teacher were engaged in a
shared journey of learning from each other and everything about them. At
different times, teachers adopted roles of facilitators or co-learners (but
never the role of the torchbearer/holder of knowledge). They believed
that children have deep and meaningful insights and wisdom, frequently
more than that of the teachers themselves (some examples were provided
in Part II), and teachers frequently took inspiration/learnt from these
insights.
There was a strong appreciation of the home environment: teachers
aimed to build a coherence of educational vision between the school and
the parents (at times home environments and parents created a contrast-
ing ethos, with some pushing for competition and/or excessive focus on
academic learning). However, at times, schools leveraged the parent body
and engaged them in the children’s educational processes by bringing
them in to give talks to the whole school, as volunteer educators as well as
involving them in planning and setting up of various festivals and events.
Some of the teachers actively brought in and promoted interactions with
community members; examples included accounts of interactions
with shoemakers, waste-pickers, school support staff, mechanics, crafts-
men, musicians, and activists. They believed that not only did the com-
munity members hold deep embodied knowledge, but also helped
introduce other equally valuable forms of knowledge and ways of know-
ing. Furthermore, there was a strong recognition of the indirect, and both
conscious and subconscious impact of the wider society in which the
schools were based. Teachers recognised that various marketised, capital-
ist, anthropocentric cultures have become predominant in society and
these influence students through advertisements, popular media (news,
films, TV series, WhatsApp forwards), and various discussions within com-
munities beyond the school. Teachers aimed to moderate the impact by
building awareness of these and engaging students in dialogue and ques-
tioning about the modern ways of living and being. For example, ShreyaPB
pointed out:

They are very much into this rat race. [It is brought in via] entertainment.
Everybody is much more like jeelo apni zindagi (live your life). That is also
fact; the advertisement you see and the TV you see. The ads coming on the
TV are very materialistic. The fairer you are, the more powerful you are. Fair
and lovely ad. Gender [based stereotypes] are coming into the ad.
Materialism is coming [into the ads]. The more you have, [if you have] a
Fossil watch, the better you are. So, the brands are coming in.
148 J. PATEL

Nature as an Educator
Nature was frequently thought of as a carer and educator for both teachers
and students; they regarded it as being non-judgemental, loving, and car-
ing. Nature helped both students and teachers to remain calm, feel a sense
of peace and harmony, and feel connected to oneself and others. Teachers
and students commented on how nature helped one feel connected to
oneself and the wider world, helping one to appreciate the miniscule
nature of the self and one’s problems as well. Students frequently com-
mented that the time with nature was some of the best times in their day.
An alumniRVS commented:

That old tree. It must have been here for far longer than I have been, and it
will be there after me. Similarly, that mountain—it is quite huge. It allows
you to see that you are quite tiny.

Patel and Ehrenzeller (under review) find that nature can act as a peace
educator through building a sense of inner peace and wellbeing, building
positive nature-student relations, and bringing about an understanding of
the wider world, as well as supporting the development of skills, non-­
anthropocentric epistemologies, and harmonious ways of living and being.
Similarly, teachers suggested that nature was an educator. Nature was fre-
quently suggested as having its own harmony; for examples, teachers sug-
gested that trees know when to shed leaves; they follow ‘rhythms of
nature’, and an internal system of discipline. Immersion in nature led to
the development of non-anthropocentric and ecological epistemologies
and ways of living and being, where students were intrinsically sensitive,
mindful, and calm.
The perspective of nature as an educator fundamentally moves away
from modern educational practices, where we learn to study about the
world as an object of study, instead of partnering with it to learn about
oneself and the world or building meaningful relations with nature.
Krishnamurti and Tagore frequently emphasised the role of nature; they
suggested that it intrinsically builds an ethos of harmonious living
(O’Connell, 2003; Thapan, 2001). Tagore held that developing a close
affinity to nature would build sensitivity, empathy, and a feeling of oneness
with the world around (Tagore, 1929), while Krishnamurti stressed its
role in being human: “If you lose touch with nature, you lose touch with
humanity. If there’s no relationship with nature then you become a killer;
 7 EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PEDAGOGIES AND PRACTICES 149

then you kill baby seals, whales, dolphins, and [human beings]4 for gain,
for ‘sport’, for food, or for knowledge. … You probably are not related to
anything, to your wife or your husband; you are much too busy, gaining
and losing, with your own private thoughts, pleasures and pains”
(Krishnamurti, 1982).
Classes (RVS and PB) were frequently conducted under trees, with
projects (all schools) revolving around the trees and birds, whilst MBK
students had produced multiple books on nature. There were several
instances when animals walked into classes at PB, while snakes and other
animals were commonly found in RVS. The schools are situated within
forests and/or surrounded by nature. This brought about a deep immer-
sion, where students lived with nature all the time, leading to an intrinsic
way of living and being in harmony and in connection with it. This starkly
contrasts with various modern approaches to building connections with
nature, including studying about nature or short excursion visits into for-
ests, farms, and the natural environment. Notably, one of the secondary
data collection schools highlighted the importance of purposelessness
when spending time in nature—the school was situated in a farm and stu-
dents were free to wander purposelessly across the farmlands, and in the
orchards, they took students for repeated purposeless weekly walks up the
same hill, and they have been taking students for 2–3 weeklong, yearly
visits to the same forest. All of their interactions with nature are purpose-
less, that is, without a pre-planned objective, itinerary, or list of things to
do. In my short time at the school, I noted that the children were genu-
inely very happy. The city-based schools (MGIS and MBK) did not have
as many opportunities to interact with nature; however, the teachers fre-
quently sought opportunities to integrate nature into their lessons or held
classes in places where students could experience it.
Notably, many schools aimed to adopt a nature-based approach to their
systems, pedagogies, and processes as opposed to modern educational sys-
tems, which are inspired and shaped like machines. For example, this
involved things like democratic decision-making processes, approaches to
organic and nonlinear development, freedom to follow individual devel-
opment trajectories, emphasis on cooperation rather than competition,
and a move away from various commonly utilised assessment practices.
This resonates with Cremin’s (2022) call to rewild education, whereby
nature-based ways are embodied and embedded within schooling systems.

4
The original quote used the word “man” instead.
150 J. PATEL

A Lived Experiences-Based Pedagogy for LTLTH

I have come to realise and appreciate many different forms of knowledge
and to fundamentally recognise lived experiences as the greatest form.
Various Indian thinkers, notably Krishnamurti (2000) and Tagore, pro-
posed that experiences equal knowledge, that different people have differ-
ent experiences, and that they construct their own knowledge. This
resonates with Jinan (2021), who has been extremely critical of knowledge
as solely transmitted through written works and thus has called for observ-
ing and fully experiencing the world around one as a means of understand-
ing it. Similarly, teachers commonly held that education for harmony
resulted from students’ lived experiences of living harmoniously. They
believed that values are inculcated through processes and lived experiences
as opposed to normative, value judgements, or prescriptive statements,
like ‘honesty is a good value’ or ‘be honest’. SurojitPB, referring to both
students and teachers, suggested:

The teaching of the Ashram [Patha Bhavana is frequently also referred to as

an ashram] is to live life fully and wholly. So, it’s a way of life. It’s not only
then a few things. … It’s the way you are living. Everything becomes part of
your education. It is just because everything helps you to grow up.

This resonates with various proponents of experiential education.

Dewey (1938) was a strong advocate of experiential and participatory
education, emphasising “the importance of the participation of the learner
in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning
process”. Similarly, Freire (2005) emphasised lived experiences as a way of
learning and praxis (and student participation) calling for “reflection and
action directed at the structures to be transformed”. Additionally, Rogers
(1979) in Freedom to Learn asserts the need for meaningful, relevant expe-
riences to be embedded within all educational processes and for experien-
tial learning to be self-initiated and participatory. In peace education,
Reardon and Cabezudo (2002) recommend a “pedagogy of democratic
engagement”, which is participatory, experiential, inquiry-based, and
aimed at challenging societal hegemonic structures of silencing and
oppression. Similarly, J. P. Miller (2010, 2016), a strong proponent of
holistic education, describes it as involving integrated education of the
mind, body, and spirit through experiential education. The focal schools’
teaching-learning practices resonate with Kolb’s (1984) 4-stage model of
experiential learning, which integrates ideas of experience and reflection
 7 EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PEDAGOGIES AND PRACTICES 151

from Dewey and Freire. Their learning practices (academic and LTLTH)
involved: (a) concrete experiences of opportunities for dialogue, stories,
and further reflection; (b) reflection on incidents, experiences, and their
own responses; (c) abstract conceptualisation, where students conceptu-
ally explored behavioural patterns, trends, unexamined responses, beliefs;
and (d) students actively experimenting with and working towards adapt-
ing their ways of living and being. It is important to recall that students
also charted and planned out non-academic, behavioural, and LTLTH-­
based outcomes that they wanted to work on.
Students’ experiences of harmonious living included various home- and
school-based experiences (content, pedagogy, school ethos, TSR, behav-
ioural management routines, and teachers’ ways of living and being).
SrilaMBK, much like other teachers, suggested, “Children see how teachers
behave and they grasp things as these are lived experiences that they live”.
Similarly, AtulRVS held that students seeing teachers trying to live harmoni-
ously lead to them LTLTH:

The Steiner school had nothing, but the students saw the challenges and
they learnt something subtle—a group of people who wanted to make a
change were making it, despite the adversities. They see that you are trying,
and you are doing your best. … Children see how teachers behave, how they
get along, when the school is being inclusive with eating together and also,
when it does not happen and when people are treated differently.

The diverse nature of the schools and classrooms, with students from
different social emotional backgrounds, cultures, religions, socioeconomic
status (SES), nationalities, states (language backgrounds), interests, and
genders led to lived experiences of togetherness. While AadityaPB expanded
upon this by saying, “[W]hen you look at the composition of the [non-­
residential students] you have the professor’s daughter, and you have a
fourth-class staff, peon or messenger’s children. They actually share the
same space, they learn the same things from the same teacher, they grow
up together right from Ananda Pathshala, and they do make a bond,
which is lifelong.” Teachers emphasised that whilst diversity was impor-
tant, having supportive inclusive practices (as a form of ‘active inclusion’)
was even more so, especially for the economically weaker students.

If you do not have strategies to support inclusion, it’s not going to happen.
It’s not sufficient to, let’s say, do what the government says as positive
152 J. PATEL

action … you cannot just create a quota, this whole thing about reservation.
If you are going to create quotas without support: [without] people looking
at each other and listening to each other, accepting each other’s point,
understanding each other’s points of view, then inclusion is not going to
happen. (AnjuMGIS)

Additionally, teachers were vocally against all forms of labelling and

streaming, believing that the false boundaries of ability-groups created a
competitive environment, led to internalisation, were based on arbitrary
measures of learning, were reductionist, and hence against the core phi-
losophies of living together. Even ‘positive’ labelling was perceived as
harmful to the person labelled so, as it pressurises one into meeting arbi-
trary standards, builds a false sense of self, and lacks an understanding of
anityata (impermanence), while indirectly telling others that they are not
‘good’. All schools had students with special needs and were generally
against (except RVS) labelling students with a syndrome (e.g., ADHD);
they treated students as individuals, seeing everyone as individuals with a
different set of needs. At RVS, the labelling was driven by the parents;
however, the teachers treated children as individuals with unique needs.
It is pertinent to note that such lived experience-based pedagogy differs
from ‘learning by doing’, in that teachers perceived that learning for
LTLTH happened 24×7. The experiential education through the school
ethos and lived experiences at school went beyond short-term activities
and programmes (like community service-based programmes). Community
service-based programmes have championed lived experiences through
off-campus community service, providing holistic opportunities for social,
personal, civic, and academic learning (Celio, 2011; Conrad & Hedin,
1982); however, they make up a small part of a child’s lived experience.
Instead, lived experience-based pedagogy includes participatory processes,
classroom lived experiences, as well as engaging students in challenging
power dynamics and hegemonies within and beyond the classroom (Freire,
2005; Kester, 2007; Reardon & Cabezudo, 2002). The teachers strongly
emphasised the role of (classroom and school) ethos and the school-wide
conditions, which resonates with recommendations for educators to cre-
ate school-wide ‘conditions’ for SEL development (Brackett et al., 2019;
Greenberg et al., 2017; S. M. Jones & Bouffard, 2012; Oberle et al.,
2016). Similarly, in peace education, Page (2008) highlighted the impor-
tance of exploring the structural or cultural violence in schools (e.g., direct
 7 EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PEDAGOGIES AND PRACTICES 153

or indirect compartmentalisation of knowledge into subjects and of stu-

dents into age, ability, or social class).

Conclusion
Translating education for harmony into praxis has its challenges. While
curricula are important, they have limited relevance to LTLTH. Rather
than developing a specific subject, I advocate for its integration into every
subject, within pedagogy, classroom ethos, and the students lived experi-
ences (further explored in the next chapter). Throughout this chapter, I
have explored how teachers leveraged a lived experience-based pedagogy
as a way of bringing about ‘education of the whole child’ through embod-
ied and integrated education of the head, hand, and heart. Teachers com-
monly used several pedagogical tools, including dialogic teaching,
peer- and project-based learning, meditation, reflection, and social action,
in order to build a continuum of lived experiences of harmony. It is impor-
tant not to consider the pedagogical practices suggested here as prescrip-
tive suggestions or to use them with a tick box approach; I present them
as a case study to demonstrate how teachers used these practices to bring
about education for harmony, with their practices being underpinned by
their philosophies and commitment to this end. I would like to invite you
to explore and respond to the following questions: do you think LTLTH
can be taught, caught, or is it a bit of both? What pedagogical practices
(could) bring about education for harmony in your respective contexts?
Can you share an incident (in your own life or those of your children/
students) that brought about education for harmony? PS through my sev-
eral reads of the now completed book, I realise that education for har-
mony can seem quite daunting; however, in reality it seemed to be a lot
easier, more natural, and more organic than the modern education sys-
tems. While the excessive theorising and articulation of process can make
it appear daunting, in actuality, with some reflection and practice, any-
thing but education for harmony can be far morechallenging.
 CHAPTER 8

Continuum of Harmonious Lived

Experiences Through Classroom Ethos,
Behavioural Management Routines
and Teacher Student Relations

The previous chapter raised the question about how LTLTH can be
ingrained in students’ lived experiences (as a continuum across time and
not just temporarily through momentary experiences, interactions, and/
or content). As I reflect upon my own childhood, I believe some of the
aspects that moved me to live more harmoniously were related to my rela-
tions with various adults (including parents, teachers, and community
members in the ashram) and the ethos of the ashram. The ashram ethos
was based on ideas of autonomy, self-exploration, community living and
this shaped underpinned all the interactions in the space. Unfortunately,
the ethos of the schools that I went to as a child was in complete contrast.
In this chapter, I first take a deeper dive into exploring the ideas of educa-
tion for harmony through a continuum of (shared) lived experiences.
Thereafter, I explore the contribution of classroom/school ethos and TSR
to the continuum of experiences. The school ethos and TSR in alternative
schools highlighted the importance of autonomous decision-making. I
end by exploring the latter’s role in building a sense of freedom, agency,
and onus.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 155

Switzerland AG 2023
J. Patel, Learning to Live Together Harmoniously, Spirituality,
Religion, and Education,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23539-9_8
156 J. PATEL

A Continuum of Lived Experiences

Lived experiences create learning opportunities (e.g., students’ interac-
tions with each other and the teacher; engagement with content; and
engagement in dialogue, projects, social action and field trips, and outside
learning spaces and activities). This links to the idea of the ‘teachable
moment’, where teaching-learning takes place when students are ready.
BarenMBK believed that such moments lent themselves to education for
harmony, and when they arose, he aimed to not be disruptive (by stopping
all other activities), but rather he subtly embedded teaching/learning for
LTLTH. Similarly, TanujRVS held that “whenever a group of people come
together, group dynamics come into play; there is bound to be power
play.” He further opined that it is important to wait for the right moments
and to not make a huge hue and cry when they occur.
Teachers strongly believed that LTLTH must be integrated into all the
lived experiences of both the student and the teachers. They perceived
LTLTH to be long term, with non-linear objectives, which allow for indi-
vidualised learning paths and journeys and reduced expectations of pre-­
determined outcomes. This way of perceiving teaching-learning practices
as lived experiences that span across spatio-temporal boundaries contrasts
with typical research and practice focused on individual teaching practices
and activities. There is a certain resonance with Aristotle’s Eudemian
Ethics (ethics for human flourishing or literally translated to ethics of ‘well
divinity/spirit’) where Aristotle (2000) referred to happiness and virtues
as something that is not momentary, but rather much like a way of life;
“[virtues] will be in a complete life. For one swallow does not make a
spring, nor does one day; similarly, neither does one day nor a short time
make us blessed or happy.” Lived experiences also underpin Noddings’
(1986, 2002, 2003) care theory, wherein natural caring (for intimate oth-
ers and others that one is not directly connected with) is an embodied way
of living and being (over ethical caring), stemming from experiences of
being cared for and lived experiences resulting her framework of strategies
of care (modelling, dialogue, practice, and confirmation). Similarly,
Charney (2002) suggests care can be taught only through lived experi-
ences and school ethos, whilst Cardona (2017), in her book titled The Very
Process of Living Together Educates: Learning in, from and for Co-operative
Life in Rural Malta, holds that the lived experience of community living
educates and brings about LTLTH.
 8 CONTINUUM OF HARMONIOUS LIVED EXPERIENCES… 157

A Classroom Ethos of Harmonious Living

Caring School Ethos

The schools and all their members engaged in building a school-wide
ethos for harmonious living. Teachers frequently suggested that due to the
non-linearity of LTLTH it could not be preached, taught, demanded, or
expected, but rather a teacher should try to create an environment/ethos
of harmonious living within the class/school. This ethos was created both
by teachers themselves trying to live harmoniously (further discussed in
the next chapter) and through classroom cultures, practices, and routines,
as well as TSR: “[T]he culture in the classroom is important for any organ-
isation, any space and there I set my culture … they will feel the lack of
being judged, which a child needs. I do not want them to feel judged”
(AnitaMGIS). Students sensed this and frequently appreciated the school
ethos even long after leaving the schools. Teachers created a caring, lov-
ing, trusting, free, and inclusive ethos, which led to a noted positive affect
in students towards each other and the teachers. This was expressed
through smiles, hugs, physical embraces, active engaged open discussions,
and meaningful (lifelong) connections.
All schools emphasised valuing, respecting, and treating children as
equals; this ethos led to children living harmoniously swabhavikpane (nat-
urally). This notion of equality was not restricted to just the classrooms,
for it also ran across the schools to all members, including the support
staff. Students not only noticed the inclusive ethos but also appreciated it.
For example, students at RVS appreciated that everyone, including sup-
port staff, ate the same food with them and that everyone was equal. This
fundamentally led them to respect and treat everyone as equals swabhavik-
pane. Several teachers commented on how students did not waste food,
did not throw waste, engaged in active sharing and inclusion, took up
social action, and so on, despite not being instructed to do so.

A Sense of Onus and Collective Responsibility

Schools generally created a democratic environment (further expanded
below). They had several student-run committees that ran club-based
activities, whilst also contributing to school-wide decision-making and
these democratic notions of choice were also embedded in everyday activi-
ties. For example, AadityaPB held a poll when there were multiple correct
158 J. PATEL

answers to a puzzle. Moreover, throughout the fieldwork there were mul-

tiple discussions and polls, where students weighed in decisions like the
content they would like to learn through the year, the next steps in a
project, and various school-wide decisions. This, and other factors, con-
tributed to a strong sense of connectedness (McNeely et al., 2002), where
students felt included and developed a sense of belongingness and onus.
This is exemplified by one of Srila’sMBK comments, “There is no hierarchy
here—two children sit in the principal’s seat and proudly asked what do
you want?”. There was a powerful sense of onus and collective responsibil-
ity (as opposed to “I do not care” or “it’s your problem” attitudes). The
schools promoted and maintained an environment of collective responsi-
bility, where students and teachers, alike, felt responsible for the school
and each other’s wellbeing. KamalaMBK said:

To me school is a place where a collective is being built … it’s the spirit of

collective effort, which is what I think is the difference here. It’s everybody’s
problem, you know, or the children are not going [home] on time, where
everybody is concerned about it or the fact that my group is using bad lan-
guage or somebody in our meeting … we all are sharing and being collec-
tively worried about what is happening.

This sense of collective responsibility was strongly associated with the pre-
viously described ideas of commitment within the sense of purpose
dimension.

Cooperation over Competition

The school and classroom ethos promoted cooperation (as opposed to
competition). Teachers actively tried to ‘keeping competition away’ as
they put forward cooperation, with a senior teacherMBK commenting that
“[c]ompetition is from the west, but in India we have sarve bhavantu
sukkhina (may everyone be happy)”. This was reflected in their practices,
where the schools did not have exams before high school and promoted
cooperation and group-work. All the schools were pushing against the
examination systems and MGIS, MBK, and RVS used qualitative report
(behavioural) cards for children. AnjuMGIS explained:

We went so far as to even remove marks from our report cards, because giv-
ing marks is a system of violence, because you are judging, but to give
 8 CONTINUUM OF HARMONIOUS LIVED EXPERIENCES… 159

­ualitative feedback is maybe support[ing] your child to do better …

q
another student told me is, that ‘you know we grew up not being competi-
tive, because you never gave us marks, because nobody was a 80% or a 60%
or a 40%. Everybody was good [at] certain things and they were not very
good [at] certain things, so that was okay because [there was] always some-
thing you are good at.’

During the fieldwork, I heard about a competition only once; RVS had
conducted a competition, a few years ago, to save water during a local
drought. Competition was understood to lead to self-centrism (“Me first,
mine first, I first” ~BarenMBK), isolation, animosity, and poorer wellbeing
(of both high and low performers). This would inevitably lead to compari-
son in other aspects of life (material possessions, like mobile phones and
bags or physical appearances) and a sense of ownership (as opposed to
notions of onus, responsibility, or trusteeship), which was considered the
antithesis to the goal of building communities. Competition was also usu-
ally frowned upon, because of its arbitrary nature and weak association
with learning and evaluation of learning. Instead, some teachers
(AnonymousRVS and JayanthyMBK) argued for perfection and excellence.
Meanwhile, TanujRVS tried to reduce notions of competition to build the
right relations with the work and where the process became an intrin-
sic reward:

So that [sense of wellbeing] for me is important, because competition can

make them lose their sense of well-being easily. Then, outward yardsticks
become more important than their inner sense. For example, if I were to
give a test, now then, they might do well, but it does not mean that they are
learning well. … So, the whole thing about connection with the subject,
relating with the subject and certain way of understanding the subject … it
shouldn’t just resort to just learning of techniques.

An Intangible Impact of the Space

Additionally, there was a strong notion that the physical space had some-
thing that was intangible and had an incredible impact on children. At
MBK this was referred to in terms of the place carrying a sense of calm and
related to the nature and ashram around, whilst at RVS it was related to
the surrounding nature and at PB it was associated with the nature around,
the physical space, and the art-based ethos. The places generally carried a
sense of calmness and a deeper form of silence. I believe that this was
160 J. PATEL

brought about by the various participants in the schools and their own
ways of living and being, by the nature around, and potentially by the
physical space in and of itself.
Teachers’ own ways of living and being (further discussed in Chap. 9)
are incredibly important to education for harmony and the school-wide
ethos. I strongly believe that their ways of living and being were impacted
by the physical environment around. Teachers frequently commented on
the intangible effect that the physical environment had on all stakeholders;
for instance, JayanthyMBK suggested, “In the physical space there is the
reverberance of that living [harmoniously], because these diyas [teachers]
are actively living it … once you are committed 1 to it, you are committed
to it”. Similarly, recently I had a similar experience that I noted down in
my autoethnographic diary.

Recently, before one of my postgraduate lectures I went to the room early.

I sat down, pulled out my laptop, after going through my notes and I
decided to quiet my mind. I put aside any presession anxieties, connected
with my spiritual self and brought my whole self to the session. As I was
doing this a few students walked in, I greeted them and continued with my
own practice (with my eyes open). They continued their ongoing conversa-
tion and unbeknown to me, at some point, they went completely quiet. It
must have been several minutes and then, another student walked in and
commented on feeling a sense of sacred silence. The phrase immediately
struck a chord, and I was reminded of my experiences at the schools, where
I had felt a sense of sacred silence engulfing the school.

The school campuses were frequently surrounded by nature, and as

previously described, this acted as a peace educator by helping promote
wellbeing and at times teaching concrete concepts, skills, and ways of liv-
ing and being. However, I believe that the impact of nature went beyond
and it affected the school-wide ethos bringing about a sense of peace and
harmony. In an interaction with an educationist, he referred to a tree on
the campus as being samadhisheel (in the state of enlightenment and can
help others reach enlightenment). Furthermore, three of the schools were
also associated with spiritual activities and had dedicated space for prayer
and meditation, which at times also contained relics and objects from
spiritual leaders (these were mostly frequented by various adults in the

1
The original quote, in both the instances, used the word “given” instead of “committed”.
 8 CONTINUUM OF HARMONIOUS LIVED EXPERIENCES… 161

school and/or surrounding community members). Teachers frequently

suggested and believed that these relics also had an impact. Similarly, the
art-based, reflective, and expressive ethos at PB was suggested to impact
on everyone around. The various paintings, sculptures, and sounds of stu-
dents singing and humming and of musical instruments had an impact on
everyone in the school. SurojitPB pointed out that, whilst there might be
things that children or teachers may not understand, they can still have
an impact.

Tagore’s songs, they may not understand the implications of all the words
when they listen to them. Even this painting on the other side of the wall,
it’s not that we always see that. But it’s there in the ambiance, in the envi-
ronment. They all somehow or other help in building yourself, in discover-
ing yourself, and the whole nature. … This place is a living being. So, it’s
there all around you and all around you and it’s not only the people who
you meet. The place itself is there and it creates a kind of ambiance.

It is difficult to articulate the impact of the physical space and I believe

that it must be experienced from a transrational perspective (rather than a
purely rational one). Perhaps we can find simpler examples from our own
lived experiences; some of the more relatable examples that I can think of
from my own experience include the impact of organised desks/work-
spaces, visits to areas of national beauty, and walks in cemeteries.

Equal, Caring, and Loving Teacher

Student Relations

TSR Mediate the Impact of All Other Processes

TSR have been suggested to be significant to all learning processes, with
Hattie’s (2009) meta-analysis ranking it as the 11th (out of 138 influ-
ences) most important influence affecting student learning; Pianta (1999)
suggesting it as underpinning the development of cognitive and non-­
cognitive abilities in students, including social and emotional skills; and
Jaffe et al. (2004) calling these relations as the fourth R of education
(along with Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic). Similarly, at-home and
in-school relations are considered to underpin SEL (Eisenberg, Valiente
et al., 2010; Jones & Bouffard, 2012). Moreover, positive TSR are widely
162 J. PATEL

agreed to bring about a warm, positive, trust-based, and safe emotional

climate that supports the development of student outcomes, motivation,
self-esteem, and confidence (Baker, 2006; Hamre & Pianta, 2001; Pianta
& Stuhlman, 2004).
TSR play a significant role in education of the heart. Battistich et al.
(1997), Noddings (2002), and Goodenow (1993) argue that students,
through their attachment, use relations and behaviours of others around
them to learn behaviours and build worldviews and attitudes. Teachers
held that the relations with students underpinned the impact of pedagogi-
cal processes (Chap. 7), the continuum of lived experiences, and school
ethos and teachers’ own ways of living and being (Chap. 9). Mutually car-
ing, loving, and respectful relations mediate and allow for these various
aspects of the classroom and school practices to impact on the students’
ways of living and being, with AnjuMGIS suggesting: “[T]eacher-student
relationship is heart of it, if you are scared of your teacher, then obviously
there is no happiness per se” and senior teacherRVS sharing, “So, for me,
[TSR] is another important thing; more than the subject or anything.
Once that relationship has grown and developed and then it’s a beautiful
learning process for both.” Teachers held a strong internal belief that ‘life
is to be related’ and relations are what makes life more enjoyable and
meaningful. Alumni often kept writing letters or returning to the schools,
while ex-students who moved schools or cities frequently had their parents
call up teachers.

Deeply Understanding a Child

Strong TSR (and alternative pedagogies like autonomous learning) are
dependent on teachers developing a deep understanding of children.
Teachers were mindful of children’s personal lives and home backgrounds:
parents, grandparents, and friend circles. Teachers had developed a deep
understanding of each child: their likes and dislikes, needs, attitudes, men-
tal and emotional states, fears/apprehensions, levels of sensitivities, behav-
ioural patterns, and internal dynamics between students. For example,
HemaMGIS narrated:

This year Sagar said ‘no, I do not want a helper’, but he actually likes it. He
likes having someone help him and look after him, but he does not want to
say it. I said that we won’t have any one person be Sagar’s helper, but as with
everything else, whoever sees he needs help has to go and help him.
 8 CONTINUUM OF HARMONIOUS LIVED EXPERIENCES… 163

Teachers believed and constantly remembered that children are chil-

dren; SurojitPB noted, “Child is a child is a child is a child is a child” as a
main mantra. Similarly, teachers across schools were mindful of students’
age, behaviours, and not to judge a child. KamalaMBK explained students’
behaviours and her patient responses as, “Can you use the mouse on the
screen? His English was being translated by these kids [his classmates were
trying to put the mouse on the monitor]. Those are children that’s why
they are there” (KamalaMBK). Similarly, a senior teacherRVS narrated:

“Akka, you do not seem to be carrying anything you are so normal”, he

asked me. I said it’s because I know that your arrogance and rudeness come
out of certain immaturity, so why should I be angry with you? A time will
come when you will understand this, so I choose to be patient with you.

The constant remembrance of children being children was reflected in the

teachers’ patience, beliefs of non-linearity, and the TSR. Teachers recog-
nised that students held fundamental existential questions and that notions
of the soul or the spirit were not just for adults. For example, AnjuMGIS
stated, “[F]undamental existential questions are there no matter what the
age and we underestimate the fact that children also are dealing with these
existential questions”, while JyothiRVS held, “[C]hildren are quite aware of
it, in fact, in some of the conversations one has with them I think they
have innate wisdom in them [and hence we must nurture/protect it]”.
Teachers used a variety of tools to understand children deeply, includ-
ing meaningful (non-academic) interactions with children, home-visits
(MBK and MGIS), parent-teacher meetings (all schools), and parental
engagement during school functions (all schools). For example, at PB,
parents frequently joined in for morning assemblies, weekly meditations,
and weekly poetry evenings, while at MBK, parents frequently joined in
daily assemblies, meditations, festival celebrations, and volunteer teaching.
Teachers at the residential schools believed that most of the student under-
standing happened through observing and participating with a child out-
side the classroom, while at MGIS and MBK a lot of this informal space
was created within the classroom through the project-based pedagogy.
Teachers drafted detailed behavioural reports on students at MGIS, MBK,
and RVS (and this not only helped break stereotypes, but also nudged
teachers to observe and deeply understand each child), and partook in
teacher discussions on student interests and behaviours (RVS scheduled
meetings twice a term, whilst at MGIS and MBK this happened through
164 J. PATEL

informal discussions). The detailed reports allowed teachers to humanise

the process and profoundly understand the child as opposed to labelling.
Whilst the teacher discussion meetings led to exploring different perspec-
tives across different teachers, who shared different relations with an indi-
vidual child.
Teachers found labelling a child problematic for several reasons, includ-
ing understanding that labels are reductionist, life is dynamic, behaviours
are especially anitya, and the need to understand the ‘whole child’. The
non-judgemental TSR and deep concern for the child allowed for the lat-
ter to ‘open up’ and share their lives with the teachers. Students frequently
shared ‘secrets’ with them. The deep understanding of the child is cycli-
cally linked with the ‘laagani’ (love)-based relations (next subsections).

Evoking Familial Bonds

Teachers were generally considered to be like older siblings, friends, par-
ents, or grandparents, depending on their age and the grades they taught.
Teachers at MBK, RVS, and PB were called bhaiya, da, didi, aka, or di
(local equivalents of brother/sister).

I love them and I see them as my own children. I also see them as my
friends. It’s not that I do not scold them, but … well they even accept that
scolding, like your own sons and daughters. (SurojitPB)

SurojitPB further narrated a story about the difference between a teacher

and a mother’s reaction to a child telling him/her a story about how ‘a
dog was chasing two man’; the teacher would correct the grammar, while
the mother would laugh with the child. KamalaMBK took it beyond an
emotional feeling to a way of life, where she believed in the oneness of
humanity

Is there a difference between my own children and the children I work with?
I do not see it? I see the same struggles and I see the same sorrows, but only
they live in another house and that is because my society is divided into
houses, but one day that too will go.

Students, at times, had a stronger bond with the teachers than their par-
ents. There were certain teachers that students sought out to share inci-
dents, experiences, ‘secrets’, and stories from their personal lives. For
 8 CONTINUUM OF HARMONIOUS LIVED EXPERIENCES… 165

example, students from across the school came to speak with ShreyaPB
whenever they got a chance. Additionally, a senior non-participant teach-
erPB spent a lot of time with residential children, and when ill, they fre-
quently sent messages to ask him to visit them. Relation building happened
inside and outside the class, especially during non-formal activities (shared
meals, story-telling sessions, trips, sports, and student clubs). These non-­
formal spaces afforded opportunities to build a different kind of relation,
where teachers became co-participants (e.g., joining in while cooking,
baking, or playing a sport). These relations lead to an ethos of mutual
care, love, and respect (further discussed in the next subsection).
There was little hierarchy and children frequently commented on teach-
ers being a part of their group or like them. Teachers regularly (a) joined
students in cleaning activities, extra-curricular periods, and at lunch time;
(b) used words like we, us, and ours, rather than I, you, mine, and yours;
(c) explained that we all are one/‘each other’s family’; and (d) shared their
own limitations, mistakes, and errors. Some teachers also consciously
explored and participated in students’ areas of interest (songs, cartoons,
games). Students saw KamalaMBK to be much like themselves. Many of her
observations, comments, and suggestions were phrased like the children
themselves would have phrased them. On her part, she consciously used
different language when interacting with students of different ages and
was mindful of their sensitivities, for example, specific children or specific
topics that children were sensitive to. Similarly, other teachers (JayanthyMBK,
BarenMBK, and non-participant teacherMBK) also noted that she became like
a child when with children and that “KamalaMBK didi has a very motherly
figure; she can scold and laugh, she has that in her” (BarenMBK). A few
teachers also pointed to ‘a line’ of closeness that should not be crossed.
This stemmed from the view that students should not be overpampered,
become too attached to the extent that it harmed the child or their peers,
take teachers for granted, interfere too much in children’s personal lives,
and impose one’s own aspirations and beliefs on the child. Several teachers
(due to personality types) were not as close to students as some of their
peers and they questioned whether close relations were necessary.
However, they had all established mutual care and respect-based relations,
which became central to LTLTH.
166 J. PATEL

Care, Love, and Respect-Based Relations

Trust, care, love, and respect formed the basis of most of the relations.
Teachers cared deeply about students. They were aware of their emotional
states and catered to their needs when students felt ‘low’, ‘left out’, angry,
not heard, had lost confidence, struggled with project completion, or
sought attention. BharatShreyas suggested that laagani-based relations
helped establish and maintain a deep sense of care. All teachers suggested
that such relations underpinned all the teaching-learning processes. They
had a sense of unconditional love, which they asserted as being linked to
(a) the teacher-student relation being like a parent-child relation; (b) one
must do what is right for a child; or (c) ‘children are children’. Notably
during a secondary data collection visits a school leader suggested that
when making educational decisions (be it classroom-based or school-­
wide) one must let the love for the child guide the processes. While teach-
ers at another secondary data collection school suggested that if one loves
the child then it will ensure that all other educational principles and phi-
losophies will be followed; it will ensure that the children are kept at the
centre rather than visions, principles, and curriculum that the teachers,
philosophers, or the state/nation call for.
Teachers respected children as individuals, frequently empathising with
them and avoiding treating them as objects, judging, or ordering them to
do something. HemaMGIS stated, “[R]emember that thing [is] so much
[ingrained] in my mind that right from birth how children are treated like
objects and that kind of callousness with which we treat the younger peo-
ple”. Teachers suggested that respect is integrated and manifested through
small things, including listening and valuing children, looking into their
eyes while speaking to them, wishing good-morning, and not comparing
children. This led to a school-wide ethos of collaboration, mutual respect,
and student autonomy. Teachers treated students as adults: they stated
facts rather than giving judgemental responses, consciously avoided
embarrassing students, preferred one-on-one discussions after class, were
inclusive, and respected diversity. They were mindful of children’s back-
grounds, individuality, individual differences, the child’s right to not
engage, and possible mood changes. Many teachers let students be, if they
did not want to participate, were disengaged, or disruptive, later helping
them to catch up when they reengaged. For example, Baren’sMBK students
joined the prayers, disengaged, and reengaged, much like the natural ebb
and flow of a river and he did not force them one way or the other (he later
 8 CONTINUUM OF HARMONIOUS LIVED EXPERIENCES… 167

explained that in the previous year certain children were continually active
in the classroom prayers and this year others were more active). Additionally,
they perceived students as equals and aimed to learn how to live harmoni-
ously from students (to be more accepting, loving, and forgiving). This
prevented “saviourism” and hierarchies and ensured that both teachers
and students remained co-learners.
Teachers drew a distinction with having a love/care-based relation with
children and doing things to expect love/respect from them. Teachers
were careful to not appease students. As TanujRVS explained:

Love from children and the respect from them are by-products. … This is
not something you have to work [towards] or I do not look at it that sense
and that’s a wrong way. … Otherwise you just end up doing things to
appease. That’s indulgence and I would say that’s not the right approach.

Teachers differentiated between a good teacher and an appeasing one.

Senior teacherRVS commented:

This kid asked me ‘do not you want to be popular, like so and so teacher’. I
said ‘listen, if by doing what is right by you, it gives me popularity fine, if by
doing something right by you and I become unpopular that is also fine. So,
if my doing right to you is going to bring anger into [you] I am fine by it.
Later, you will realise I am not going to overindulge you. I am not going to
say nice things to you all the time.’

Teachers did not mind being firm or putting ‘their foot down’, but they
remained mindful of children’s needs as well as being respectful and tried
being strict without being angry. Students frequently commented that the
teachers were fair and even asked them to be stricter. For example,
AnitaMGIS contended:

Children are mature even at this age, knowing that: father gets angry,
mother gets angry, and teacher would also gets angry. I feel included in that
you can also get angry; that’s it. They are not asking you to get angry, they
are giving me permission. ‘I understand, if it needs to be done, then we are
okay, because we accept that you are teaching us, that’s all.’ [But] They
expect me to be fair.

AnitaMGIS further explained how the depth of the bond and the fact that
the children and teacher had gone through a lot allowed her to ‘hak thi
168 J. PATEL

bolvu’ (speak with the right to) and that it was taken in the spirit of the
relation (much like that with a friend/parent) as opposed to being seen as
authoritative.

Warm and Safe Classroom Environment

Teachers created a safe, warm environment through their relations, non-­
judgemental acceptance, and the ethos of autonomy and collaboration.
They believed that safety ensued due to acceptance of a person for who-
ever they were. There was a belief in intrinsic motivation and student
autonomy, where students did something, not because a teacher told them
to (or because of rewards/punishments), but rather because they were
intrinsically motivated to do so. Students were comfortable speaking with
teachers about personal lives and problems. They generally did not feel the
need to hide or lie; they recognised that there might be ‘fair consequences’,
but these were seen as just and never harsh. Additionally, students were
uninhibited in voicing their opinions to the teachers when they were
bored, disengaged, or if they thought the teacher had erred. Teachers
believed that all students needed to be actively included and cared for.
SurojitPB suggested:

School is a place where they socialise. If you reject them, they have a kind of
emotional storm, kind of emotional shock, because they feel that they have
been rejected by the society and social institutions.

Teachers frequently motivated and appreciated students across various

non-academic purposes, especially attitudes, participation, and internalisa-
tion of LTLTH, which led to a warm environment. Teachers focused on
building students’ self-esteem (‘feeling good about oneself/the subject’)
and frequently motivated them. However, they remained careful with
praising students (if and when they praised someone, they also praised
other children; either as a group or individually). For example, in instances
when teachers praised students’ work, they appreciated one skill or another
including drawing, observation, academic writing, academic understand-
ing, and so on. They also sought to ensure that students did not do some-
thing for the sake of being praised, but rather for the intrinsic satisfaction
from the process. Teachers strongly emphasised that rewards can be a false
yardstick and instead they hoped for their students to do what they did
because of the internal satisfaction. JyothiRVS (like TanujRVS) nuanced the
discussion and questioned the role of praise and rewards:
 8 CONTINUUM OF HARMONIOUS LIVED EXPERIENCES… 169

When I worked in England, there was this constant demand on me to praise

children. I had teacher observations, and they would say I have to encourage
the students, and their way of encouraging is ‘well done’ and ‘good job’. I
think you can appreciate without all that. … [Why do we say] even very
inane comments like ‘have you been a good boy?’ I do not know why you
would put that moral construct on them at a very young age. It is tremen-
dous moral pressure on them.

All teachers were generally very wary of rewards (and even more so for a
carrot and stick approach), holding the view that these generally harm
both those rewarded and those who are not. Rewards can lead to false
comparisons and competitions, harming everyone involved in the process.
Teachers believed rewards to be very arbitrary: in terms of who set the
criteria for them, what the rewards are, and who receives them and who
does not. Furthermore, they emphasised that each child was on a different
educational trajectory and rewarding some of them based on arbitrary
criteria (or those set by others) was unjust.

Autonomous Behaviour Management

Freedom and Autonomy as the Basis of Intrinsic

Behaviour Regulation
The schools embodied an ethos of freedom and autonomy, which was a
powerful behaviour management strategy that led to higher student
intrinsic motivation, responsibility, and onus taking. The levels of freedom
extended to and beyond “[students’] right not to participate” (SurojitPB)
and “the freedom to be [who you are] and to choose what you want to
learn” (AnitaMGIS). Teachers saw externally imposed rules as meaningless
and unsustainable, preferring students to become more responsible and
find an inner discipline for themselves. KamalaMBK proposed that this kind
of freedom leads to a sustainable impact and underpins LTLTH:

So, building oneness is looked upon as something that will be imposed from
top and that is done in school’s uniform, assembly, bells. We all do the same
homework; we all have to get the same marks. It is kind of a numbing
­equality. It’s not diversity, it irons everybody’s differences out and that is
very comfortable. In that we are one, but the minute such people are given
freedom, then all the convolutions start to form and there are fights and
opinions there is ignorance there is intolerance. So, I feel that oneness is not
170 J. PATEL

something that will be built by imposition. It has to come by building each

individuals faith and trust in being themselves and adjusting to the others …
building genuine mutual respect in each person.
The more restrictions you place, the more people want to break them. …
I do not want to go about in that way, because we can always place restric-
tions, which will be more like, you know, somebody dictating things from
the top, but rather, it should come from within. Maybe I can tell them that
hereafter do not eat certain things or do not bring certain things, but unless
they realise the importance of it, they will do it just for me, but they won’t
do it for the sake of [itself]. They won’t understand why, they may not feel
part of the movement. So, I think they need to realise it fully for themselves
to do it. I do tell them something, but then I do not insist that it
should be done.

All the schools are built around philosophies of freedom, indepen-

dence, and self-governance. In the mid-twentieth century, at RVS, teach-
ers and students were free to pick the subjects and teachers/students who
they wanted to work with (Thapan, 2018). Whilst that level of freedom
does not exist anymore, there was still a substantial amount of it. Students
had the freedom to decide whether to attend class (all schools); what to
wear (all schools except PB); the curricula (MGIS and MBK); which parts
of a project to contribute to (MGIS, MBK, and RVS); project timelines
and deadlines (all schools); which skills, character, and physical qualities to
develop (MBK); and multiple ways to approach a question. Some exam-
ples of student freedom are demonstrated by classroom incidents of stu-
dents being free to sing as they worked in Shreya’sPB classes, different
groups following different plans to complete a project in MGIS, students
going for a walk in Joona’sMGIS class, when they did not feel engaged, and
MGIS and RVS students deciding classroom norms and routines. Students
frequently reported that there was a lot of freedom at the various schools,
and it was one of the reasons that they attended. At RVS, unlike the other
three schools, students had a highly structured day (although there was
freedom within each timeslot), but the degree of structure was an ongoing
dialogue within the teaching body.
Teachers’ beliefs and values underpinned their commitment to student
freedom; for example, SurojitPB commented, “At all times teachers have to
keep in mind that each child is an individual, they need to be respected,
and there needs to be freedom”. There was a commonly held belief across
all teachers that they developed students’ interests and then allowed
 8 CONTINUUM OF HARMONIOUS LIVED EXPERIENCES… 171

freedom and flexibility to explore or not explore a given area. The teachers
focused on building student onus and the processes as opposed to the final
target. BarenMBK said:

‘You do it now or do not do it now’, whatever, the child should take the
responsibility. Give them the sense of responsibility and at the target time, if
they have not done it, then you can see it in their face, they are not feeling
good. If they are interested, then they will do it simply because of
their interest.

However, there were times when students lost intrinsic motivation mid-
way and at these points teachers engaged in dialogue to reassess the pur-
pose, current interests, and new directions.
There was a strong understanding that freedom must coexist with
responsibility and inner discipline (self-governance or ‘atma shakti’).
BodhirupaPB commented that seeing discipline as confinement of the soul
is a limited perspective and that she perceived no contradiction between
freedom and inner discipline. She suggested that they were integrally
linked, like two sides of a coin and that freedom was incomplete (and not
possible) without inner discipline. Freedom was not seen as just an exter-
nal freedom, for teachers perceived freedom as also from oneself, one’s
emotions, and unchecked reactions. Teachers consciously worked towards
building student responsibility, which was seen through a community-­
based lens, where an individual was responsible for their self, others
around, and the physical surroundings. They extended students’ responsi-
bility from regulating their own behaviour to helping regulate that of their
peers. This, at times, took the form of elected (on a rotation basis) moni-
tors or supervisors; however, more frequently teachers placed emphasis on
everyone, taking the responsibility for the physical environment, the class-
room ethos, and classroom behaviours. Similarly, Krishnamurti (2000,
2004) described freedom as not plainly doing what one wants, but rather
being informed by the interconnected world around oneself and then
making decisions that do right by everyone. For example, at RVS while
individual freedom would have meant students could eat leisurely over
multiple hours, however, they recognised that if they did so, various sup-
port staff members would have to wait for longer. Therefore, children
often didn’t linger in the dining hall once they completed their meals; in
some instances, teachers or peers would remind others and students did
not feel as if their freedom was being curtailed and/or they were being
172 J. PATEL

imposed upon. Across the fieldwork I observed a range of student atti-

tudes to responsibility taking, linked to individual differences in students,
ranging from completing a role because they had been assigned/elected
to students going out of their way to help the school environment/peers
or doing something because they perceived it to be the “right thing to do”
(this understanding of right thing to do was based on a broad intercon-
nected awareness of the people and surroundings around them). Teachers
usually got involved through dialogue if and when students became hier-
archical or didn’t demonstrate a sense of community onus and responsibil-
ity to explore the underlying reasons and introduce new perspectives.

“Student-Centred” Behaviour Management Strategies

Many behaviour management strategies involved autonomy, with students
developing their own set of rules and regulating each other’s behaviours.
The teachers reminded students of the rules or drew their attention to
their behaviours and then let them self-regulate. All schools had school-­
wide student committees, which informed decisions ranging from menus/
movies to watch to adapting school policies (boarding schools had a wider
range of committees). Some students democratically set up classroom
rules, discussed their logical consequences, and helped implement these.
Students commonly developed new behaviour management strategies and
suggested these to the teachers. These rules at MGIS took the form of a
classroom poster, whilst at RVS they led to a discussion. This contrasts
with practices used by half of the teachers, who claimed that rules did not
have to be explicitly written down, but rather must be embedded in the
way of life. Regarding which, BharatShreyas said:

Everyone says Namaste to each other when they meet in the morning.
No-one has told anyone to do so; there are no written rules for it. … They
say Namaste to others, throw waste in the waste bin, but it’s never been
written anywhere. Everyone does it, the rule is established by every-
one doing it.

ShreyaPB expanded on this, asking:

Can students take self-responsibility, or do we need rules? Do we need to

run after them, or can they run after each other, or no-one runs after anyone
as they all see the importance of what they do?
 8 CONTINUUM OF HARMONIOUS LIVED EXPERIENCES… 173

This difference in the use of explicit rules is highly contextualised; how-

ever, there are very different approaches that can bring about education
for harmony.
Students frequently regulated their own and their peers’ behaviours.
Teachers built a forum for peer regulation through previously described
routines, like dialogic reflections, democratic rule-setting, council meet-
ings, and introducing new perspectives. Students frequently developed
new routines to manage their peers’ behaviours, including counting down,
use of actions and sounds to ask everyone to settle down, as well as elect-
ing monitors and supervisors. There were several notable incidents: super-
visors frequently wrote and reported themselves when they could not
self-regulate, students changed their seats by themselves when they felt
they were becoming disruptive, and two students in one of Srila’sMBK
classes expressed that they had discussed whether their behaviour was
‘really disruptive’, concluding that they had disrupted the teachers and
other students, and therefore, they had resolved to try and change. At
times there were generally logical and fair consequences of students’
behaviours, many of these pre-decided by the students themselves.
Students came up with logical, ‘meaningful’/‘thoughtful’ consequences;
however, at times, they went ‘overboard’ (especially younger children),
and teachers stepped in to provide a perspective on the harshness of their
position. Teachers were generally against various forms of punishment due
to their strong belief in student freedom as well as intrinsic discipline and
motivation. There were instances where teachers implemented the pre-­
determined consequences, but they remained respectful and mindful of a
child’s perspective. A noted example was from the pilot study, where
BharatShreyas asked children to give him a chit that they were passing
between themselves and at the end of the class returned it to the child who
had passed it, without opening it. He later explained that students play a
game where they pass chits, and he just wanted them to discontinue it
during the class.
At times, there were tensions about certain school-wide rules. This led
to multiple discussions, where teachers explained the rules and students
discussed them where they apparently made no sense to them. However,
most of these tensions came from national or societal contexts. For exam-
ple, RVS was forced to put limits on areas students could visit (it is a large
open campus in a valley) due to the increasing presence of relatively
unknown people (many colleges and construction sites had come up);
RVS had installed fences around the school, because of a national order
174 J. PATEL

for children’s safety; and at MBK, students were told not to visit an old
building that was under a legal dispute. These discussions, while dialogic
in nature, ended with some degree of imposition; however, some teachers
themselves were wary of some of the rules.
The subsection title suggests a dichotomy between teacher and student-­
centred learning: terminology that was used by the teachers. However, the
use of this terminology is a remnant of various teacher training discourses
or as Alexander (2008) suggested, they are an imposition of western
‘child-centred’ pedagogy on non-western contexts. In practice, they tran-
scended this dichotomy, with the classroom behaviour management
involving a constant interplay and interaction between the teacher and the
students.

Balancing Teachers’ Freedom and Needs

Cultures of freedom must run through the whole school; they cannot just
be limited for students and not apply to teachers. While systems of auton-
omy for teachers are discussed later in the next chapter, it is important to
note that, within classrooms, both teachers and students had their indi-
vidual freedoms. Teachers frequently stated their own needs and when
these were not met, they would discontinue teaching and let the class
settle down or wait until the students regulated theirs and their peers’
behaviours. One of these needs was their own wellbeing and most of the
teachers refused to raise their voices. There were several instances when
teachers’ needs were not met, and they would just sit down or go for a
short walk. Notably, Srila’sMBK students were not able to cooperate, and
she decided to head out of the class and into the ashram for her own medi-
tative practices. She returned after 1.5 days when the students had reflected
on the classroom incident, resolved an internal conflict, and had figured
out a plan on how to work together. Once this was done, the students
went and spoke to her about the same and the classes resumed as normal,
with neither the students nor SrilaMBK holding onto the incident. Teachers
at MGIS and MBK frequently stepped out of the class when students were
too hard to handle. They did so to either (a) regain control of their emo-
tions, for example, “that’s okay I am get upset and that’s allowed; it’s
okay … [but] first that you control yourself. I do not care how much
[upset or angry you maybe], you go for a walk, and I often do that. I take
a round and come back” (AnitaMGIS); or (b) allow time for the students to
calm down, reflect, and settle down.
 8 CONTINUUM OF HARMONIOUS LIVED EXPERIENCES… 175

Teachers believed that within the freedom, at times, they had to put
their ‘foot down’. They did not shy away from ‘putting their foot down’
when they perceived harm to other students, when a student ‘speaks
down’ to another, or when a child was being excluded. Additionally, at
times there were certain non-negotiables based on the teachers’ own well-
being or philosophy, such as not raising their voice or requiring a certain
level of engagement. They frequently commented, “[D]o I want to be a
nice teacher, or do I want to be a good teacher?”. Teachers generally were
quite moderate and calm when responding to students. Examples of such
included stating something was not okay (especially in cases of potential
harm to peers), insisting on something, stepping out of the classroom, or
having students reflect on an incident. A senior teacherRVS explained:

I believe in taking the middle path, I believe in being the best of their friends
and when it comes to, I can also be quite a task master. … There is a fine
balancing between discussing and explaining vs saying something that is
unacceptable as being unacceptable (children ‘walking over others’). … So,
sometimes you have to be that straight, with compassion.

Children also appreciated teachers for their fairness and ability to be strict
when needed. They realised that sometimes they were driven by emotions,
and it might require a little firmness. For example:

The children want her to be firm, but still loving (much like with AnitaMGIS
they wanted her to be strict and fair). Children respect her even when she
raises her voice; they say ‘it makes sense to us; we understand her and why
she raises her voice. She does not go beyond.’ (Field notes from discussions
with Srila’sMBK students)

Conflict Resolution
Conflicts in any community are inevitable and the same is the case with
any school. These conflicts can arise between students, teachers and stu-
dents, as well as the management and students. It is essential that the
conflicts are resolved through empathetic dialogue and mutual under-
standing (Herzberger, 2018; Krishnamurti, 2000). While it is easy to
sweep issues under the carpet or to exert power to get back to work, unre-
solved conflicts frequently lead to many other issues. Herzberger (2018)
emphasises that conflict resolution processes should be underpinned by a
176 J. PATEL

sense of commitment to each other, each other’s wellbeing, and the

community.
Teachers across the schools actively sought conflict resolution interven-
tions, including one-on-one conversations, small group discussions,
theatre-­based resolution (AnitaMGIS only), council meeting practices
(MGIS only), and/or reflective practices. Reflective practices, as discussed
in the previous chapter (and council meetings at MGIS), were regarded as
central or as ‘the nucleus’ of LTLTH. Council meetings usually involved
every child getting an opportunity to appreciate another child or raise a
concern and the opportunity for other child(ren) to respond. The rest of
the class actively listened, weighed-in, and helped decide next steps (stu-
dents had official roles of moderating, chairing, and note-taking). The
teacher remained present but did not get involved unless required. These
conflict resolution practices allowed students to become aware, get a dif-
ferent perspective on their behaviours (‘others act like mirrors’), and out-
line actionable next steps for the whole class (as opposed to just the
individual). For example, in Hema’sMGIS class, students complained about
a child who constantly ‘irritated’ others; this led to a council meeting
wherein the students decided to not react and help the child become
aware and self-regulate whenever he ‘irritated others’. During these prac-
tices, teachers focused on deep understanding of an issue and not laying
the blame on each other. In order to do so, BarenMBK carried out reflec-
tions only after a couple of days, once students had stopped blaming and
started actively listening to each other.
Teachers proactively engaged during the classes; they constantly
observed students, remained aware of arising conflicts, looked for behav-
ioural trends and any unexamined comments, stepped in to help students
regulate their behaviours, and looked for teachable moments for
LTLTH. They were extremely observant, aware, and mindful, frequently
picking up the minutest of student responses and reactions. For example,
TanujRVS narrated:

Responding makes a good teacher. One of the things of a good teacher is

that they are actually very alert in the classroom as to what is happening.
They’re seeing things rather than assuming. They are not caught up with
creating order or discipline, and so on. So, you watch, and you see where
you need to intervene and think how you do it?

For many teachers, their proactive behaviour and awareness of students’

behaviours and activities extended beyond the classrooms; they had a
 8 CONTINUUM OF HARMONIOUS LIVED EXPERIENCES… 177

strong sense of onus and saw themselves as responsible for the whole
school, remaining aware of things happening outside the class.
Conflicts between teachers and students were rare as teachers were
mindful of their own behaviours and remained sensitive to students’ needs.
Any arising conflicts were resolved through previously described practices;
however, at times, other teachers would come in to help moderate. This
allowed both teachers and students to openly share and express their expe-
riences and needs. There were issues that led to conflicts between students
and the school management (described previously, e.g., fencing at RVS
and installation of cameras at MBK) and these resulted in extensive and
repeated dialogic discussions. Many a time the issues were such that there
was limited flexibility in what could or could not be done but the sessions
allowed for a space to voice (shared) disagreement and understand reasons
and context underpinning decisions.

Conclusion
Both curricula and pedagogical practices can contribute to education for
harmony, but education for harmony needs to transcend beyond a given
subject or activities across multiple subjects to a continuum of lived experi-
ences across the day and time at the school (and hopefully beyond). This
form of a lived experience of harmony has to be underpinned by the school
culture and ethos. These are actively built and rebuilt by everyone in the
school and the culture informs and is informed by relations and structures
of power. This chapter has presented case studies of how a few alternative
schools co-construct the continuum of lived experiences of education for
harmony through caring, loving, freedom-centric, inclusive, collaborative,
and dialogic school ethos, TSR, as well as effective governance/regulation
(school, classroom, and student) processes. I invite you to explore and
share, in your given contexts, what can be done to co-create a continuum
of lived experiences of (active) harmony? What kind of school cultures,
ethos, and within school relations can bring about education for harmony?
How can these be developed? How can we build a sense of intrinsic
responsibility and inner discipline for all children? What are the potential
limitations of autonomous behavioural regulation and how can these be
overcome?
 CHAPTER 9

Teachers’ Ways of Living and Being: Teachers

as Reflective Lifelong Learners
of Harmonious Living

Indian thinkers have frequently emphasised LTLTH and its various equiv-
alents as being caught rather than taught. They believed that teachers’
ways of living and being impact on those of their students. Therefore,
education for harmony cannot be taught through lectures, but is rather
caught through shared lived experiences. BarenMBK suggested that pursu-
ing LTLTH as a set of pre-set processes is superficial and that it must be a
deeper pursuit that stems from a teacher’s way of life (and a different phi-
losophy of education and LTLTH).

Other schools and institutions aspire to become like Mirambika, and they
come to us and say we will do this and that, but they lack the core. What we
do does not matter, but how it is done and where it comes from is impor-
tant. For them it comes from the mind; for us it comes from the soul.

Gandhi noted, “Education of the heart can only be done through the liv-
ing touch of the teacher”. This resonates with my own experiences as well,
where Brahmavedantji’s ways of living and being touched me and became
seeds of transformation. I hardly attended any of his talks or read his
books, but his behaviour, approach to life, and loving and compassionate
relations not only showed me a different way of living and being, but also
inspired me to find ways to transform myself.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 179

Switzerland AG 2023
J. Patel, Learning to Live Together Harmoniously, Spirituality,
Religion, and Education,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23539-9_9
180 J. PATEL

Furthermore, several scholars (including Noddings 2002; National

Council of Education and Research Training 2012) have called for teach-
ers modelling behaviours. However, teachers in the study suggested a
more nuanced understanding of the word ‘modelling’. They noted that
students easily see through masks, if and when teachers are superficially
trying to behave differently in front of the students. Instead, the teachers
called for teachers to actively try to live differently and harmoniously, not
just model behaviours. They needed to make a genuine effort to embed
behaviours that they hoped to model in their ways of living and being.
Teachers trying to live together was understood to be much deeper than
modelling; for example, a senior teacherPB suggested that “it has to be a
way of life. Teachers need a sense of vision and need to believe in it.” They
believed that they could ‘carry’ peace or emotions into class. A senior
teacherRVS reflected:

Maybe a teacher carries silence into the room, yeah, teachers can carry qui-
etness into the room and that’s something that they bring with themselves.
And students feel that, and it becomes a live experience.

In this chapter, I discuss the importance of teachers’ philosophy for

education, teachers’ commitment to LTLTH for both themselves and
their students, and ways to support teachers in their journeys of education
for harmony. Finally, I propose extending our understanding of schools as
spaces for transferring academic knowledge to those of ashrams/centres of
lifelong learning for all.

Teachers’ Philosophy of Education

Teachers commonly discussed the importance of their philosophical
stances to education. SurojitPB suggested, “Perhaps the ideologies need
to be at the back of teachers’ minds [constantly]”. These philosophies
(including their perceptions of the purposes of education, their teaching
process beliefs, and their understanding of how children learn to live har-
moniously) directly or indirectly influenced their teaching. SurojitPB fur-
ther explained that, whilst pedagogies are skills that one can be trained for,
it is more important to build the ‘outlook’ of a teacher. Many of the phi-
losophies have been discussed in Part I of the book; here, I focus on teach-
ers’ sense of commitment to LTLTH. Many teachers strongly emphasised
that education for LTLTH was their primary goal of education and were
 9 TEACHERS’ WAYS OF LIVING AND BEING: TEACHERS AS REFLECTIVE… 181

strongly driven by their vision for the purpose, and a desire to live differ-
ently (more harmoniously), to work with children and shape a more com-
passionate society. However, a few teachers questioned if there should be
a purpose of education (especially one defined by teachers, parents, or the
nation). Such teachers were notably put off when I first asked them about
their vision for education. Instead advocated for a bottom-up approach
where students lead (resonating with previously discussed ideas of
Educere-ing) and educators practice ‘mindful purposelessness’, where one
consciously attempts to not be driven by their own visions (and rather by
those of the child).
In either case, both sets of teachers were strongly committed to their
visions and approaches to education. AnjuMGIS suggested:

It is a commitment when they come here. They are following a passion,

because they say that they want to teach, and they want to be in a different
school, and they are excited about this kind of the thing.

While TanujRVS commented:

Passion comes from a different source. [In] more standard kind of school,
some may love teaching and they just love being with children. In a school
[like RVS] the source [of passion] is life itself; wanting to understand life
and wanting to understand basic questions of life, which have been put over
the years.

This resonates with Sen (2005) and Frelin and Fransson’s (2017) ideas
of commitment and responsibility, where teachers pour all their time,
energies, and effort into supporting students and working towards their
wellbeing and best interests (Hansen, 1998; MacBeath et al., 2020). This
commitment aligns with Noddings (1986, 2013a) and Valli’s (1990) rela-
tional ethics of care, where care is privileged over rationality. Teachers, at
times, described teaching as their Dharma (duty). This notion of commit-
ment was also described by Krishnamurti, who frequently discussed the
need for “educating the educator” (Krishnamurti, 2013), where he
described a true teacher as being rooted in self-knowledge and committed
to transforming him/herself as a human being and practising ‘critical
looking’/‘choiceless awareness’ as a form of self-discovery (Krishnamurti
& Martin, 1997), with this commitment being underpinned by a strong
182 J. PATEL

moral passion and responsibility to establishing a ‘good society’

(Krishnamurti, 1993, 2013).
The teachers were committed to LTLTH not just for their students,
but also for themselves. Most of the teachers commented on joining the
respective schools to explore a different way of living and being for them-
selves: one without negative emotions, like fear, ego, and jealousy. The
teachers’ willingness to be learners makes them ‘take the journey with the
child’ and helps build more equal relations. This learning ability also
requires teachers to be open-minded, understanding, exploratory, and
engaged in experiential learning. While opportunities and systems for
teachers to question, discuss, and share their visions and purposes of edu-
cation are critical to the development of the sense of commitment, the
space for reflection, introspection, meditation, and social action is critical
for teachers engaging in learning to live harmoniously for themselves.

Teachers Living Harmoniously and LTLTH

(Learning to) Living Together Harmoniously as a Way of Life

Building on the idea that LTLTH is primarily caught, teachers’ own ways
of living and being become quite important. For example, BharatShreyas
believed:

It is through our vaani (speech), vartan (conduct) and vyavhar (behaviour)

that we are able to teach. Vaani, vartan and vyavhar, these three have a
direct effect. If I am teaching a wonderful lesson and a child raises his hand
and I say [acts as if telling the child to put his hand down], all three are
gone. Vaani, vartan and vyavhar have a major effect.

Similarly, teachers living harmoniously was seen as essential to students’

LTLTH, with AnitaMGIS asserting:

Our duty is to touch the life of the child in some way and that comes
through learning to live together. That I am taking the onus to live together
with them for this year. If I am able to live with even the naughtiest, most
mischievous, or most problematic child then they will also learn.
 9 TEACHERS’ WAYS OF LIVING AND BEING: TEACHERS AS REFLECTIVE… 183

Teachers commonly lived harmoniously as a way of life for themselves.

They frequently embodied various components from the LTLTH frame-
work (Chap. 5) and this underpinned the various teaching-learning pro-
cesses as well as all the various interactions (inside and outside the
classroom). They were committed to LTLTH for themselves as much as
they were for their students. There were innumerable references (>400)
coded for teachers living harmoniously as a way of life (Table 9.1 sum-
marises some of these).
Teachers strongly believed that, first, they must try to live harmoniously
as a way of pursuing their own lives not just instrumentally (so students
would learn to do so), but also intrinsically (because of the value they
themselves placed on the way of living). Krishnamurti (2013) emphasised
teachers’ need to have a fiery desire to understand themselves and should
pursue learning to live harmoniously as ‘live enquiry’ for themselves. He
suggested that sustained aspiration and effort would transform teachers’
lives, making them lifelong learners and forging equal relations with stu-
dents (Thapan, 2001). Resonating with this, BarenMBK suggested, “[O]ur
aspiration is to have psychic education or living from the soul and that is
lifelong goal. We are not here to achieve it, but we are just here to walk on
that path.”

Conscious Effort to Learn to Live Together Harmoniously

While teachers embodied various aspects of LTLTH, they believed that it
was more important for them to consciously try to (learn to) live harmoni-
ously (rather than actually living harmoniously 24×7, which was seen as a
near impossible task). For example, SrilaMBK noted: “The day I stop learn-
ing and growing inwards I will stop coming to the school”. There was a
constant sentiment that LTLTH requires one to work consciously on one-
self and all teachers shared an inner conviction to changing themselves. In
order to do so, they were frequently engaged in dialogues, sessions where
they read spiritual texts, meditation, as well as regular and constant intros
pection/reflection.
Teachers consciously trying to live harmoniously was seen as the key
driving force for students’ LTLTH. They worked towards consciously liv-
ing harmoniously, being non-judgemental, and respecting every child as
an equal; these led to harmonious lived experiences for students and, in
turn, LTLTH. As AnjuMGIS suggested:
Table 9.1 Summary data of teachers living harmoniously
Domains

Discovery of the Self Discovery of Other Discovery of the World

Dimensions Awareness “What I have come to accept about myself is “Even if you are never going to “I am not Congress; I am not BJP; I have
and that I am not that fast” (HemaMGIS). acknowledge that I did it, I know you my own ideology. And that ideology
under­ “We will have to negotiate amongst ourselves, know that I am wrong, but you just do stems from a sense of equality”
standing if we cannot handle it, we will be honest” not want somebody to shout at you” (KamalaMBK).
(JayanthyMBK). (AnitaMGIS).
“Sometimes it gets emotionally
challenging, frustrating, but one has to
remember that children are people too
and if one remembers one’s own
childhood, then you realise that there is
no point in getting frustrated” (senior
teachersecondary school).
Empathetic “At times I do not mind going down … All teachers demonstrated patience, care, “Do things for the sake of that thing
and caring because I cannot always remain joyful and sensitivity, and love for students (these rather than for yourself, for presenting
relations happy. At times we will definitely fall down” have been previously discussed); yourself in a way, for how it might appear
(BarenMBK). however, they did not shy away from to others, for the outcome, but for the
‘putting their foot down’ when needs beauty in the process” (teacherRVS).
be. “[there are no constraints or enablers].
“I want to be like a nice teacher, or do I They are [situations/factors] I have
want to be a good teacher?” (AnitaMGIS available. They do not enable, they do not
and Senior teacherRVS). in any way discourage me, but they exist,
and I try to work around them the best I
can” (KamalaMBK and SrilaMBK).
Sense of Teachers aspired to live harmoniously as a way Teachers were driven by their philosophy “I am blessed that I am not poor, hungry
purpose of life. of education and a sense of responsibility or ill-clothed, but there are so many
“At some point, you know you reach a stage in (stemming from notions of around me who are, and as long as they
your life, where you do what you think is right commitment). are I am also poor; I am also ill clothed
or what is required without letting all these and I’m also hungry, so I have to feel that
other things influence you” (HemaMGIS). pain and I cannot wish it away”
(KamalaMBK).
 Domains

Discovery of the Self Discovery of Other Discovery of the World

Dimensions Change in “See, I am not going to learn in one day. We Teachers were very mindful of the child’s “There is nothing like a good teacher,
perspective do not learn in one go” (AnitaMBK) perspective. because the moment you say there is a
“Arun might change, [he] might have a good teacher, then it also means that
complete turnover a few years from now, there is a bad teacher” (SrilaMBK).
you never know, because I have seen the “In everyone’s personal lives I find
most difficult children change into difficulties and challenges and life is
beautiful human beings by the time, tough. It’s just being human and
they go to class 9 and there are very, understanding that he also has, the parent
very sober and nice children that turn will be having … everyone has some
into monsters” (Senior teacherRVS). difficulty” (AnitaMBK).
Compassion The teachers demonstrated and discussed the Teachers had a keen sense of justice that Several teachers (KamalaMBK,
(-ate action) importance of patience, non-reaction, and drove their actions within and beyond SantharamRVS, TanujRVS, ShreyaPB, and
non-judgement with themselves, students, classroom. BarenMBK) were involved in various social
parents, and peers, to the extent that this level “Peace is not the absence of war, but action projects outside the school, while
of self-governance is also expressed as presence of justice” (AnitaMGIS). BarenMBK, AnitaMGIS, JoonaMGIS, HemaMGIS,
kindness. and SurojitPB were active in school-based
“You should be yourself; you shouldn’t community activities. These are further
become someone else” (AadityaPB). discussed below.
Meaningful “The day I am close to my inner being there “The overall goal is to be kind. It’s my Most of the teachers naturally took
engagement comes a different tone in the class. prayer that I will be kind in class, just community and school-based
Finding and connecting with your own psychic help me to be kind” (AnitaMGIS). responsibility as a form of commitment
being is the most important thing you can do as and deep engagement.
a class teacher” (Expert teacherMBK). “The whole thing is to move towards
“In this whole six months maybe once or twice bringing this greater goodness into the
it has happened to me … during these 20–25 world to counter the sorrow, and
minutes I try to bring, as I said, contagious unhappiness” (KamalaMBK).
vibration, I try to remain connected”
(BarenMBK).
186 J. PATEL

A compassion part comes in looking at a human being as a human being, as

somebody worthwhile, somebody worthy, somebody who has some contri-
bution to give to the world and when we bring that non-judgmental eye on
the child, then all those pressures that the child must be feeling, whether
coming from parents or peers or anybody begin to fall away. So then, that’s
the way to discover your true self; that I have something to give, and I have
something to contribute. 1

Teachers engaging in a constant, conscious process to learn to live differ-

ently allows for shared lived experiences between them and students of
learning to live harmoniously. These shared conscious attempts, experi-
ences, and processes of harmonious living bring about LTLTH.
There is a resonance with Aristotelian ideas of lived experiences and this
opens the findings to the paradox of moral development. The paradox
states that given that a child in the formative years has limited rationality,
intelligence, virtues, and experiences of harmonious living, they would
struggle to live harmoniously as children and would probably also have
limited development over time (Haydon, 2009; James, 1986; Peters,
2015). Aristotle’s solution to the paradox was based on teachers being
moral exemplars (Curren, 2007), which has its own limitations, especially
if teachers are expected to be their best selves all the time. However, the
teachers extended this and their solution to the paradox was based on not
seeing harmonious living as a binary; they understood that everyone’s lives
have instances of harmonious living and at some or other times one of the
students, teachers, or community members would live harmoniously
offering others a shared lived experience. Additionally, teachers believed
that LTLTH does not require their living harmoniously, but rather it
requires them to have a fiery desire to do so, pursuing LTLTH as a living
enquiry (to keep learning) and making conscious efforts to do so. The
imperative word in the discussions was try: “[T]eachers have to try to live
together harmoniously”.

1
Please note that the teacher used the phrase something to give/contribute; resonating
with non-modernist ideas of education, where education isn’t extractive but rather facili-
tates/helps one to bring about a social change.
 9 TEACHERS’ WAYS OF LIVING AND BEING: TEACHERS AS REFLECTIVE… 187

Supporting Teachers’ Journeys of LTLTH

An Ethos of Harmonious Living, Autonomy, and Reflection

for and by Administrators, Teachers, and Students
The school systems helped build an ethos of freedom, collaboration, dia-
logue, experiential learning, and collective responsibility of the school for
both teachers and students. These strongly aligned with schools’ vision for
education and over the years had created a school-wide ethos for these
aspects. For example, the schools held an ethos of oneness, where teachers
perceived each other as a part of a community/family engaged in similar
pursuits and focussed on a common vision, with ShreyaPB commenting:

PB is a community; it’s not become secluded. It has a very inclusive character

and an informal sense of being together.

Ethos of Harmony
School administrators and teachers commonly believed that any vision for
children must be ‘through and through’, embedded and embodied by the
school and held for all its members. This aligns strongly with Noddings’
(1992) recommendation that “school administrators cannot be sarcastic
and dictatorial with teachers in the hope that coercion will make them care
for students … the likely outcome is that teachers will then turn attention
protectively to themselves rather than lovingly to their students”. The
school environments embodied Southworth’s (2000) call for conditions
that empower teachers: autonomy, being valued, trusted, listened to,
belonging to a collegial environment, with space for creativity, initiative
taking, innovation, and pursuing what one values (LTLTH). The ethos
can be seen as an extension of school connectedness (McNeely et al.,
2002), where, like students, even teachers feel cared, valued, and included
in the school community. School leaders were compassionate towards
their teachers and held a strong belief that the teachers were also on their
own journeys of finding themselves. Their teaching styles and philosophies
of teaching/learning were constantly evolving, and the evident systems of
dialogue, reflection, and freedom allowed for continued exploration.
BodhirupaPB said that she had faith in her colleagues and that, even if they
were not convinced by the foundational philosophy today, in time, through
experience, experimentation, and dialogue, they would become so. Whilst
this shared ethos of harmonious living was built by all the members of the
schools, a core group of teachers believed in an alternative vision for edu-
cation and LTLTH as being central to the process. Furthermore, there
188 J. PATEL

was a strong sentiment that a school is created by the individuals within it

and that the role of the management and leaders is to build a system that
helps tap into the potential of all its individuals by building a supportive
system around them. Herzberger (2018) calls for and attempted to
develop cultures of transrationality within RVS through non-hierarchical
and non-authoritarian systems allowing for the possibility of individuals
and the school being informed by the sacred.

 thos of Autonomy and Freedom

E
Teachers frequently commented that if there was one tenet that the schools
held, then it would be freedom: freedom for teachers to explore what and
how they wanted to teach and for students to explore what and how they
wanted to learn. The schools had systemically weaved in freedom, in terms
of freeing teachers from external pressures of the state and the parents
(e.g., teaching certification requirements, curricula, parental pressure),
challenging and freeing teachers from their past experiences of mass edu-
cation, and freeing them from the schools’ own structures. This freedom
allowed teachers to explore their own styles, experiment, try out different
projects, and completely ‘come into their own’. Teachers weighed in on
school-wide policy discussions and usually these entailed lengthy discus-
sions. JyothiRVS suggested that discussions often involved ‘10 teachers hav-
ing 10 different views’.
There are many nuances to the teachers’ freedom that need to be con-
sidered. For example, their freedom also necessitated regular teacher dia-
logue and decision-making processes for common community-wide
decisions. This highlighted the importance of basic structures and support
within the freedom, such as timetabling, school philosophy, vision, and a
diverse list of skills that students needed to develop within a given time
span. This was also supported by schools actively building and promoting
a strong sense of responsibility and trusteeship. Additionally, AadityaPB
suggested that the freedom must come along with capability develop-
ment, for if one does not know what to do and does not have the capac-
ity/desire to experiment, then that person would revert to following
predefined materials with only tokenistic changes.
The following extract from an interview with AnjuMGIS demonstrates
multiple aspects of a freedom-filled school ethos:

Freedom, that’s given, not given [but] it’s there and it’s equally there for
teachers too and it’s the whole ensemble. I think you cannot have controlled
teachers and expect freedom for the kids, it’s a culture that you create, so the
 9 TEACHERS’ WAYS OF LIVING AND BEING: TEACHERS AS REFLECTIVE… 189

teachers have freedom in terms of which projects they want to do, when
they want to do it, sometimes also what classes they want ….
Sometimes you need a teacher with particular competences in a particular
group. Then, we discuss with the teacher saying, ‘listen, we know you want
to be in this group, but that group might need you more’. [If] somebody
says, ‘no I want to be with this group, because last year I started this project
and I know where it’s going and I was not able to complete it’, then we will
negotiate, ‘alright let’s do one thing you go into this class by rotation. …
They are happy, we work out there is a lot of dialogue, so that freedom I feel
is something which is a culture otherwise, I do not think it will percolate ….’
By and large they have a great deal of autonomy; there are many things I do
not come to know at all. Like, you are going to France next month? All right
you decided the dates, oh great! There are things that I do not know, and
they do everything.

 Supporting Dialogue, Experimentation, Collaboration,

Reflection, Introspection, Meditation, and Social Action: Integral
Support for Learning to Live Together Harmoniously
The schools’ ethos was developed and maintained by non-hierarchical
structures, supporting systems and processes that foreground autonomy,
dialogue, experimentation, reflection, and social action. These led to
teachers being driven by an internal commitment, sense of onus and
responsibility (further described in next subsection), and they “put all
their heart and love into their children” (JayanthyMBK).

 ialogue, Collaboration, and Experimentation

D
All teachers frequently collaborated with each other to resolve issues they
faced, to discuss students and their behaviours on projects, and to run
cross-curricular modules for students. Teachers frequently learned from
each other, describing the best practices of their peers that they were try-
ing to emulate (especially teachers at PB and MBK and AnitaMGIS and
HemaMGIS), guiding each other, and seeking each other’s guidance.
AnjuMGIS pointed out:

See, when you are talking about collaborative work, the teachers have to do
collaborative work for the projects. The one teacher cannot teach everything
in that project, because you are not an expert in every part. … I mean, you
have to create the culture [of collaboration], if the teachers do not experi-
ence it, it will not percolate to the kids. We have created the structures for it
190 J. PATEL

also, because we said that it’s project work and the teachers have to
teach in teams.

There was more collaboration at MGIS and MBK compared to RVS

and PB due to the complete reliance on project-based pedagogies at the
former two schools. Albeit, at RVS and PB there were other opportunities
for collaboration due to the residential aspect of those schools.
Teachers frequently commented on the need for coherence of vision on
the purposes of education. They appreciated that people could be vastly
different from each other, have different opinions and perspectives, but
still be like-minded in their aspirations to live harmoniously for themselves
and bring about education for a different way of living and being. Further
building on this a senior teacherRVS commented:

Teachers need not just coherence, coherence is an ideological level, but

cohesion where everyone are not just thinking ideologically but are also
cohesively working towards it.

At times, teachers in RVS and PB commented on the lack of coherence,

suggesting that many a time the efforts were reduced to individual efforts,
rather than concerted ones by all working with a given child (within a
given school year or later through the rest of the child’s schooling years).
Teachers explained that this had to come to be the case owing to their size;
however, there was a core group of teachers who held the school’s vision
and that this slowly spread to others. At MBK, there was a strong coher-
ence in the vision for education (regular teacher dialogue, introspection,
and extremely selective recruitment), whilst at MGIS the regular teacher
workshops brought a sense of coherence of vision, which allowed for sys-
tems of organised chaos to bring about LTLTH.

 eachers Involved in Reflection, Introspection, and Meditation

T
Many teachers engaged in regular reflection through diaries, introspection,
reflections with peers or family members, discussion meetings, and/or
school-based systems of reports. Reflections spanned from how a given class
went to the teachers’ own spiritual, emotional, and mental states of being.
All teachers were engaged in active reflection to improve their practice (criti-
cally reflecting through various perspectives, planning the immediate next
steps, and exploring what they could do differently). ShreyaPB stressed that:

You have to be self-critical; you just cannot say I am right. … There is noth-
ing called the right process; it changes depending upon the child’s psychol-
 9 TEACHERS’ WAYS OF LIVING AND BEING: TEACHERS AS REFLECTIVE… 191

ogy. The entire things change so fast that you just sit there and say what I
did was wrong.

Additionally, reflection as form of improvement was also seen as some-

thing that happens constantly as a way of being and living. For example,
“[W]hatever you do you have to be mindful—what message you give—
what do they take up”, SrilaMBK or as TanujRVS explained:

And that continually watching [of] how you are in that space, you know,
with the children and your behaviour. So, being very much aware of that
helps you to move. Yeah, and it’s a journey, it’s not that you reach your
destination, it’s a journey. So that makes this whole thing light, otherwise
this can become heavy also.

Several teachers pointedly used reflection to challenge and question the

purpose of education and its practices, for example, “No-one knows why
they are teaching maths—they are because that is how it is”. AtulRVS and
KamalaMBK questioned, “[I]s there a certain quantum of humanism in
what I am trying to teach?”, whilst SurojitPB said:

Teacher training programmes need to focus on the purpose of education;

questioning what is happening, the relevance or meaningfulness of it … we
haven’t really got to think about a lot of this and questioning. There are so
many other things that we blindly follow, like the syllabus, exams, and it’s
nice to question them, but teachers that are supposed to be the most rational
beings do the most irrational things by just following many irrational things.

Many teachers constantly reflected on whether they were able to bring

about meaningful education and how they could do this better. For exam-
ple, teachers at RVS commonly questioned their own practices inspired by
Krishnamurti’s prompt for teachers to shape fundamentally different stu-
dents and not just ‘mice’ or ‘faster mice’.

They [students] remain mice—tame, domestic mice … here we are, nearly a

thousand students in our schools and we do not seem to be able to produce
one gazelle or one lion or even a big elephant. Why is this? (Krishnamurti, 1985)

This reflexivity along with intrinsic commitment to a holistic education

fuelled regular and constant discussions (both on classroom and on school-
wide practices and policies) and experimentation, keeping the pursuit of
education for harmony a live enquiry (and not something that had a fixed
blueprint).
192 J. PATEL

Teachers’ Social Work and Spiritual Journeys

Teachers were strongly driven by and engaged in either social or spiritual/
inner transformation. The freedom to do so was essential for the teachers;
these were the major reasons for them joining the school (either to experi-
ment with education as a form of transforming society or to experiment
with a different way of living and being). I frequently saw teachers as
either sadhaks (spiritual practitioners) engaged in their spiritual journeys
or social changemakers engaged in other social action projects within and
beyond the school; they were committed to and actively pursued what
mattered to them.Those driven by a desire to contribute to/serve/uplift
society suggested that other pursuits of life are not as meaningful as help-
ing to make the world a more beautiful place. KamalaMBK explained:

And highest in priority is the desire to [help the] society, to work with chil-
dren, to change the world we live in. I feel that it’s important for me to put
education of the heart as the core for whatever I am doing.

They hoped to contribute to the society through education as a form of

social change, indirectly through the children one taught and through vari-
ous social action projects (within and beyond the school; further described
below). These resonate with Giroux and McLaren (1986) and Giroux’s
(2010) ideas of teachers primarily being responsible for engaging students
in transformative work and that this, in turn, helps students to understand
social ideologies, find a voice, and act to bring about social justice. Teachers
were involved in several social change initiatives within and outside the
schools (summarised in Table 9.2). Some believed that systemic changes
were required, while others hoped to bring about a change through small
changes or ‘doing one’s bit’. They also engaged with and inspired students
to partake in similar initiatives within the schools.

Table 9.2 Teachers and their social action engagements

Teacher Social action project(s)’s description

BharatSF His wife and he coordinate an on-campus orphanage.

AnjuMGIS Coordinating and implementing large-scale teacher training
programme for other schools affiliated with Central Board of
Secondary Education (including tribal schools); the school is engaging
its teachers in training other teachers around the country in pedagogies
like generated resource learning, toy-based education, and activity-­
based learning.

(continued)
 9 TEACHERS’ WAYS OF LIVING AND BEING: TEACHERS AS REFLECTIVE… 193

Table 9.2 (continued)

Teacher Social action project(s)’s description

AnitaMGIS Actively integrated social action initiatives into the school projects,
volunteered at the centre for environment education, and was involved
in one-off teacher training for external teachers. Additionally, she is
currently involved in other large-scale teacher training efforts.
HemaMGIS Actively integrated social action initiatives into the school projects.
Used to run a school and a reading library before joining the school.
Additionally, she is currently involved in other large-scale teacher
training efforts.
JoonaMGIS Actively integrated social action initiatives into the school projects and
was involved in a teacher training initiative before joining the school.
BarenMBK Contributed to the ashram and coordinated and conducted multiple
1–2 weeklong residential teacher training workshops for science, sports,
English, and mathematics for teachers from villages and NGOs.
SrilaMBK Contributed to the ashram and conducted vocational training.
KamalaMBK Coordinated the Delhi Science Forum to promote public engagement
in scientific advancements, conducted teacher training in a village in
Ramgarh, actively engaged in composting at schools, was exploring
several village-based cooperatives that aimed to conduct rural
development through community-based interventions, and conducted
vocational training at the ashram. In the past, she had helped with the
National Curricular Framework (NCF) 2005 and ran an eco-club for
multiple Delhi-based schools to promote students’ appreciation of
nature.
SantharamRVS Involved in ornithology, was helping to set up and run the Rishi Valley
Ornithology Institute, and was actively involved in various school-­
based and region-based birdwatching trips and research.
TanujRVS Actively involved in a Gujarat-based orphanage school and was actively
involved in developing mathematics learning materials and kits for
NGOs and the Rishi Valley Rural Education Centre.
SurojitPB Involved in directing plays written by Rabindranath Tagore.

All teachers commonly read, reflected, and were inspired by spiritual lead-
ers’ books, talks, or lectures; however, one set of teachers was deeply
invested in their respective spiritual journeys. They did not perceive that
they were there to ‘serve the society’ (while a few hoped that the children
would go on to change society), but rather they believed that ‘working
with children’ and working on one’s own self was far more meaningful.
They used the spiritual leaders’ ideologies to push and challenge
194 J. PATEL

themselves and their practices. They had weekly reading circles, where
they explored works from the spiritual leaders, and held reflection meet-
ings, where they reflected on their own spiritual journeys. Their own spiri-
tual practices commonly contributed to teaching practices influencing
planning and pedagogy, TSR, and helping them LTLTH. For example,
BarenMBK commented:

Vipassana has also helped me (become more flexible), because it gives me

time to relax. Once I am at peace and relaxed when I sit for meditation, then
the thoughts come flowing like a film; what is to be done and what is not to
be done, clearly.

 lat Hierarchies: Equitable and Humane Leadership

F
The school leaders actively experimented in developing school-wide sys-
tems to empower teachers. They helped them explore different perspec-
tives, built their confidence in themselves, supported them in learning and
experimentation, as well as creating systems for reflection and dialogue.
School leaders generally knew all the teachers very well in relation to their
personalities, behaviours, eccentricities, and backgrounds. Many of the
school leaders were actively engaged in the school, including regularly
teaching classes. They were frequently inspirational and models for teach-
ers, who frequently commented that they felt heard, valued, and respected.
For example, AnitaMGIS shared:

Compassion expected first from the teachers has been at first given by [the
school leaders]; it starts from the top. We can go and tell them anything that
we are going through. I am not a blind follower; I am still saying it, that he
has these saintly qualities through which he feels the sadness you can feel,
that he feels your pain. … He will sit with you, if you are facing problems. …
‘What’s missing here, have you taken them out, given them a break, have
you integrated?’. So, there is a lot of handholding and freedom to meet
and discuss.

School leaders aimed to build a flat hierarchy and were very easily acces-
sible. All teachers had a powerful sense of onus (next subsection) and
drove changes within the wider schooling system. Leaders consciously
broke down definitions of power structures and if labels were needed,
then they were just to distinguish roles, though everyone was equally
responsible for the school. Many a time, teachers and coordinators dele-
gated work to school leaders, and school leaders were accountable to them
as well. For example, AnjuMGIS (the school leader) narrated:
 9 TEACHERS’ WAYS OF LIVING AND BEING: TEACHERS AS REFLECTIVE… 195

I am going to her (another teacher) as a teacher. [She would say] ‘Anju you
need to give me the dates for this and this, when are you taking this aspect’.
[I would say] ‘okay when do we do this, to whom is it going to go and
what’s my deadline? Can you help me with this and how do I fill up these
forms and things like that?’. Anytime she would call the meeting we would
all be there. I would attend it as teacher and I would respect her, because she
knows things about the whole programme.

One senior school leaderRVS contended that there is always going to be a

power dynamic, because one can hire/fire a teacher. However, other prin-
cipals suggested that there are different kinds of power and that they did
not work from a place of power, because of their position, but rather
aimed to build ‘soft power’ through the teachers’ trust and respect in them.
All schools had an ongoing dialogue about the level of structuring and
support. Schools as a space were not seen as structured and crystallised,
but rather as continuously evolving and in flux, depending on the context,
people, and the ongoing experimentation. Teachers were against “mechan-
ical systems” that have no “organicity”, “spontaneity”, or “space for inti-
mate human relation and connections” (Aronson, 1961). Those at PB
described the school as an organism and not an organisation, holding that
any attempt to turn it into an educational factory was bound to fail. MBK,
a much smaller school, embodied ideas, systems, and processes based on
constant dialogue, reflection, and collaborative decision-making, where all
teachers came together to adapt structures on a regular basis (daily, if nec-
essary). MGIS believed in an unstructured, and dynamic chaotic system;
they believed that the process was more important and did not want teach-
ers to follow predefined procedures; however, a few teachers found it to be
overwhelming at times. While other schools, albeit larger, had more struc-
tures (RVS and PB needed a hierarchy given their organisational size and
their residential school natures). RVS had a lot more structured systems
relative to MBK or MGIS: freedom was woven into what and how things
took place within the broader structure (despite Krishnamurti being
opposed to any kind of structuring and institutionalisation). PB had devel-
oped informal structures (not put in place by the management, but that
had evolved over time). Teachers at both these schools expressed the view
that the system might have become crystallised, mechanical, and needed
reviewing. However, RVS teachers also appreciated structures of reflec-
tion, dialogue, and behavioural reporting. To summarise, it is important
to strike a balance between having certain supportive structures and
196 J. PATEL

allowing significant teacher autonomy; a few systems for dialogue, reflec-

tion, communication of core philosophies, support (when challenges were
encountered), and documentation of the outcomes of dialogues can be
beneficial. I posit that, while smaller school sizes are ideal (both for teach-
ers and for students), bigger schools also have a potential for LTLTH,
albeit of a different kind, with separate set of systems and processes.

A Powerful Sense of Onus and Responsibility

The ethos, along with the schools’ supporting systems, helped teachers
develop a strong sense of onus. The school administrations trusted,
respected, and appreciated teachers’ sense of it. They saw themselves and
the teachers as being engaged in a project as peers. Teachers in all schools
joined the schools as a partner, with the aim of experimenting with diverse
ways of teaching/learning and being. At all schools, teachers were actively
involved in school policy decision-making and initiated independent proj-
ects. There was a keen sense of collective responsibility, with all teachers
being aware of things outside their classrooms and stepping in as and
when required (from leaking taps, aligning students’ shoes so others do
not trip over them to helping students regulate their behaviours). Teachers
felt responsible for the whole school and stepped in whenever anything
was amiss (rather than passing it off to a designated person). They believed
that it was their responsibility to do so, while others explained that the
school was like one’s home and if something were amiss, one would
instantly act.
Teachers had a strong sense of onus and collective responsibility. These
stemmed from a Gandhian sense of trusteeship as a non-violent form of
ownership. They frequently commented, acted, and believed that they
were responsible for the school, children, and the school’s vision. This has
widely been suggested as being important for educational processes, lead-
ing to intrinsic motivation and commitment (Pierce et al., 2001; Struckman
& Yammarino, 2003). In many instances, school leaders did not need to
delegate responsibilities, for teachers took these up themselves and at
times also delegated responsibilities to school leaders (MGIS and MBK).
This resonates with Frost’s (2017) recommendation of non-positional
leadership as a form of teacher empowerment.
Teachers who developed a sense of ownership commonly expressed and
communicated what they found meaningful (Pierce et al., 2001, 2003)
and also had a strong sense of agency (Ketelaar et al., 2012). In
 9 TEACHERS’ WAYS OF LIVING AND BEING: TEACHERS AS REFLECTIVE… 197

accordance with Metcalfe and Greene (2007) and Vähäsantanen et al.’s

(2008) description of agency as control over one’s actions and being able
to be true to oneself, teachers had developed a sense of agency, challenged
precepts, actively experimented, and attributed results to themselves as
opposed to external factors (Marshall & Jane Drummond, 2006), which,
in turn, led to the development of a strong professional identity (Beijaard
et al., 2004). Schools commonly asked teachers to challenge, ‘think for
themselves’, and experiment. The sense of agency extended to a collective
form, where teachers as a group felt responsible for the school, its mem-
bers, and, accordingly, supported each other. M. W. Apple and Beane
(1999) suggested that such collective agency is possible due to an environ-
ment that promotes ‘open flow of ideas’, faith in each other, and collective
capacity. Additionally, the systems of dialogue and collaboration were
paramount for mutual inspiration, improved practice, and collective
agency (Frost, 2017; MacBeath et al., 2020).

Schools as Lifelong Learning Centres, Ashrams,

and Communities for Harmonious Living

The schools understood and appreciated that education for LTLTH

should be a lifelong pursuit (for themselves and students), with education
(for both teachers and students) and living/being seen as inseparable.
Similarly, Cajete (1999) contended that indigenous education should be a
lifelong process bringing about harmonious living through reflection and
introspection of experiences and participation in the community. The
schools were designed as learning spaces for everyone, rather than just as
a school. RVS is housed on a larger campus named the Rishi Valley
Education Centre, MGIS was designed as a centre for learning, MBK (and
MGIS) runs various teacher training courses and workshops, and PB has
an integrated university and school. SrilaMBK commented, “The purpose of
the school is to begin teachers’ journeys … this place is a Utopia for learn-
ing [for everyone]”. The centres were places of learning through experi-
mentation and experience (rather than teaching), and in some cases,
teachers and administrators commented that they actively ‘chased out
teaching’ so both teachers and students could learn together. The spaces
are free and collaborative learning ones, where teachers are frequently
engaged in their own experiential learning: experimenting, maintaining
notes, reflecting, theorising, and dialoguing with each other (Kolb, 1984).
198 J. PATEL

All schools engaged teachers in experiential learning, (peer) observation,

dialogue, reflection, and reading groups. There were several learning
opportunities, ranging from workshops, inviting visitors, continuous pro-
fessional development, dialogic meetings, and collaborative projects that
involved learning from students as well. At MBK, all teachers were required
to learn and develop a new skill (music, dance, sport, weaving, wood/
bamboo work, further education courses and degrees, etc.) over a couple
of years and then pick up another one once they relatively mastered the
previous one. This learning process helped teachers build confidence, self-
esteem, as well as understanding students’ perspectives and struggles.
Teachers at MBK and RVS consciously and constantly worked on them-
selves and tried to live harmoniously.
The schools were commonly referred to as home, safe space, communi-
ties, collective living experiments, ashrams, or sacred spaces of transforma-
tion. Teachers at PB and MBK referred to the schools as an ashram (a
space for spiritual learning/exploration or ‘ground of self-realisation’).
The schools were more than just learning centres, for they were spaces for
learning ways of being/living life differently, ‘fully, and wholly’. Regarding
which, TanujRVS suggested, “In a school source (of passion) is life itself,
wanting to understand life and wanting to understand basic questions of
life, which have been put over the years”. KamalaMBK commented on the
school being an experiment in collective living: “To me school is a place
where a collective is being built, and to me that is important. Learning
together. … Because so many children come together and so many adults
come together, it is a collective space for sharing and exploring, experi-
menting.” MGIS teachers also commented on the schools becoming com-
fort zones or home-like, where they stopped being work places, but
instead were spaces where one was safe, comfortable, and had a sense of
ownership. MBK, RVS, and PB teachers commented on there being a
strong sense of community or ‘one family’, where teachers, students,
administrators, and non-teaching staff were connected, sharing relations
of equality and mutual respect.
Krishnamurti (1981) suggested:

Surely, [schools] must be centres of learning a way of life, which is not based
on pleasure, on self-centred activities, but on understanding of correct
action, the depth and beauty of relationships and the sacredness of life. …
These places exist for the enlightenment.
 9 TEACHERS’ WAYS OF LIVING AND BEING: TEACHERS AS REFLECTIVE… 199

Teachers had joined the schools looking for different ways of living and
being for themselves and different ways of education. Schools aimed to
maintain and promote this lived enquiry of the teachers.

Conclusion
Education for harmony is fundamentally dependent on the educators and
their own ways of living and being. This chapter has highlighted that the
teachers were deeply committed to education for harmony as an aim for
both their students’ and their ownselves. They were engaged in conscious
meaningful journeys of transforming their own ways of living and being,
both within and beyond the school. I would like to invite you to explore:
what does education for harmony mean to you? What would a school of
the future emphasising education for harmony look like? How would you
go about transforming your own ways of living and being? How do you
develop a fiery desire to keep the enquiry a live one? For me, writing this
book has been a process of transformation and I am hopeful that it helps
do the same for you. Furthermore, the chapter took a deep dive into the
ethos and systems of dialogue, collaboration, reflection, introspection,
meditation, and autonomy that can help shape and support teachers along
this journey of education for harmony. I would finally like to invite you to
explore: if and how we can go beyond seeing schools as spaces for educat-
ing young people to a space where a community of people are engaged in
a joint exploration of education for harmony? And what are the ways to
proceed such that the processes include everyone in the school communi-
ties, including students, teachers, parents, administrators, non-teaching/
support staff, and the nature around the school?
 CHAPTER 10

Provocations, Reflections, and Call to Action

How do we build lived environments for peace education?

Where life is lived in the spirit of collective onus;
Where teachers and students are coparticipants in a shared learning journey
Where the inner child survives in every teacher and every student-teacher

Perhaps it is through infusing daily process with harmony;

Teachers with a fiery desire for a different way of life;
Classrooms with the fragrance of laughter, free spiritedness, and compassion;
And with schools that embody the ethos of experiential learning.

Perhaps these are not schools but are ashrams;

Where everyone partakes in learning to live differently;
Where relations are forged through shared experiences and exploration of
new interests;
Where the spirit of exploration, creativity and freedom becomes the soul of
the place.
~Jwalin Patel 2020

This chapter concludes the book by summarising the key contributions.

Primarily, the chapter is a call to action, where I call upon the reader to
take onus and to reflect for themselves, contextualise the various frame-
works and to adapt, rather than adopt, the ideologies and pedagogies in
the book, explore other alternative educational visions from their

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 201

Switzerland AG 2023
J. Patel, Learning to Live Together Harmoniously, Spirituality,
Religion, and Education,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23539-9_10
202 J. PATEL

contexts, build their own visions for education, and act upon these visions.
The chapter also includes a few epistemological considerations that have
underpinned the book and that I hope the reader will hold onto as they
engage in developing their own visions and practices. Finally, I also recog-
nise that schools and teachers trying to adopt LTLTH can find it an all too
radical shift; to aid the process I also highlight a few kernels of practices
that can help them experiment and get started on their own journeys.
The educational research subfields of LTLT, GCE, peace education,
SEL, and EI would benefit from these empirical findings on ideologies
and practices for LTLTH. I believe that the book’s propositions and
frameworks are extremely relevant to academics, masters, and undergradu-
ate students from both education and development studies, as well as to
PGCE (teacher training) students. Furthermore, the findings could also
guide teachers, school leaders, teacher trainers, and policymakers in bring-
ing about education for LTLTH.

Concluding Notes
In this book, I question the vision, philosophy, approaches, practices, sys-
tems, and impact of the modern, mass education system and instead call
for a very different education: one for togetherness and harmony.
Throughout the book, I have drawn upon various Indian and interna-
tional thinkers, experienced educators, and school leaders for a sacred
form of integral education of the whole person (for both teachers and
students).
Notably, I have brought together various voices, experiences, and prac-
tices from the Indian context to build an interconnected 2D framework
for LTLTH. The framework is a call for engaging in processes of discovery
of the self, others, and the world, each of which has six dimensions of
awareness, empathetic and caring relations, sense of purpose, change in
perspective, compassion(ate action), and meaningful engagement. The
proposed framework is neither an exhaustive nor a complete exposition of
all possible means of understanding LTLTH and should not be utilised as
an evaluative framework, but rather as a way of helping practitioners and
researchers in exploring and better understanding education for harmony.
Furthermore, all models are a simplification; they break a continuous
whole into components (albeit interacting) and reduce lived experiences
into a few words. I hope that the reader takes the onus of contextualising
the model to their own setting, exploring various indigenous and
 10 PROVOCATIONS, REFLECTIONS, AND CALL TO ACTION 203

precolonial visions of education, and recreating the whole by seeing the

interconnectedness between components within simplified frameworks.
In practice, whilst Delors et al. (1996) suggested that education for
LTLT happens through the inclusion of certain subjects (history, geogra-
phy and philosophy, history of religions), the findings have provided evi-
dence that education for harmony is brought about through a continuum
of (shared) lived experiences (of harmony). Therefore, the pedagogy goes
beyond bringing about a content- or skills-based education to lived
experience-­ based (project-based, dialogic, embodied, and experiential)
teaching-­learning practices, equal and caring TSR, autonomous behav-
ioural regulation, harmonious classroom and school-wide ethos, and
teachers consciously (trying to) learning to live together harmoniously. It
is important to note that education for harmony is a holistic vision for
education for everyone, including students, teachers, school administra-
tors, and potentially parents. Therefore, the schools were referred to and
structured as communities or learning centres that promoted life-long
learning (about a different way of living and being) for everyone.
While this book focused on classroom settings, I must emphasise the
importance of school-wide ethos, home environments, and the wider
community in bringing about an education for togetherness and harmony.
These are beyond the scope of the current book though I hope to con-
tinue exploring these in my other work.

A Few Epistemological Considerations

In hindsight, as I reflect upon the book, I find that it both embodies and
advocates post-critical, transrational, holistic, and non-anthropocentric
ways of knowing, being, and living as opposed to many of the current
anthropocentric, modernist, consumerist, and reductionists ways. I rec-
ommend that the reader keeps these in mind as they rethink their own
philosophy and approach to education.
While I have highlighted the many limitations of the current education
systems, I must note that there are many positives as well. Similarly, while
I have drawn upon visions of education proposed by thinkers from the last
century, we must remain acutely aware of the limitations of education dur-
ing that time. Education for harmony neither calls for one to completely
discard all the present practices, nor is it being romantic about the past.
Instead, it is inspired by visions and calls for an alternative that has been
proposed by thinkers throughout time (including in the present and in the
204 J. PATEL

last century) to propose an integrated and more holistic vision and prac-
tices. In the book, I have adopted a post-critical and transrational approach
that, while valuing the rational, also integrates the emotional, embodied,
and spiritual aspects (Cremin et al., 2018; Echavarría Alvarez &
Koppensteiner, 2018). It is not a rejection of rationality (Cremin, 2018;
Cremin & Archer, 2018; Dietrich, 2012, 2013, 2018) and instead aims to
bring the various aspects together into an integrated whole. The book is a
post-critical and holistic inquiry into alternative approaches that are cur-
rently being used in various schools.
It is important to note that much of the modern education has devel-
oped interesting ways to develop the mind and these are all relevant and
important. I do not advocate against the development of the mind, but
instead call for it to be based on a non-anthropocentric epistemology
allowing for a deep critical understanding of interconnectedness, innova-
tive, and creative thinking, as well as problem-solving to tackle the many
twenty-first-century issues that have been created by modernised way of
thinking, living, and being. I do, however, caution against the (narrow
focus on the) development of a fragmented, violent, and a colonising and
a colonised mind and instead call for transrational and holistic approach
for the development of the whole person who is situated within the
larger whole.
Through the book I also incorporate a ‘holistic epistemology’, one that
actively aims to understand the interconnectedness, interdependence, and
the whole. I advocate holism across approaches to life (understanding of
the links between the harmony within and harmony in the larger society),
epistemologies (non-anthropocentric), educational philosophy (emphasis-
ing the importance of educating the whole person), educational systems
(calling for systems to run throughout the school for every stakeholder),
educational approaches (understanding education as a continuum of lived
experiences rather than a single subject), and educational practices (pro-
moting embodied and experiential learning). Furthermore, education for
harmony is embedded in a strong non-anthropocentric approach. It fun-
damentally calls for the awareness and understanding interconnectedness
and interdependence across the world (human, non-human, living, and
non-living).
 10 PROVOCATIONS, REFLECTIONS, AND CALL TO ACTION 205

A Call for Reflect(act)ion

How Can One Bring About Education of the Harmony: It Seems

like a Complete Reform?
I realise that while education for harmony might appear as nothing short
of a radical whole school-wide reform, a comprehensive shift can be time-­
intensive, overwhelming, and sudden. Instead, I advocate a multi-stepped
and multi-tiered approach (Lane et al., 2010, 2012) to building holistic,
school-wide LTLTH interventions. One could begin with simple strate-
gies, followed by stand-alone kernels of practices to be transferred across
contexts (Embry & Biglan, 2008; Jones & Bouffard, 2012); the use of
integrative practices that bridge divides like those between subjects, stu-
dent ages, spaces, and so on; the pursuit of individual developmental tra-
jectories for different students; and, finally, building a continuity of
experiences for all students through the ethos.
I believe that in reality we cannot take a one-size-fits-all approach.
Instead, every teacher and school (community of teachers) would need to
(collaboratively) reflect on their vision for education, understanding of
education for harmony, as well as systems, processes and practices to bring
about education for harmony (for both teachers and students).

‘Kernels’ of Best Practices

Whilst I propose a systemic and holistic school-wide approach, I also high-
light potentially scalable ‘kernels’ (Embry & Biglan, 2008; Jones &
Bouffard, 2012) of teaching-learning processes that can be transferred
across contexts and have a potential impact as stand-alone practice, albeit
limited. These could serve as a starting step to a multi-tiered approach to
adoption of a school-wide approach (some of these are described below).
However, I would caution the reader while using these scalable kernels;
that they should not be perceived as ad hoc or the only practices for the
following reasons: (a) education for harmony is based on a continuum of
lived experiences; (b) there are innumerable differences in the micro-­
contexts (different children, environments, and teacher backgrounds),
which necessitate different practices; (c) doing so can lead to consequen-
tialist and utilitarian approaches to the kernels, whereas education for har-
mony follows a nonlinear trajectory; and (d) prevent the possibility of
perceiving the kernels as a prescriptive framework.
206 J. PATEL

The classroom-based kernels of practice could include the following:

(a) student (interest)-driven learning processes; (b) student autonomy and
self-regulation; (c) dialogic discussions; (d) project-based learning; (e)
collaborative team-based exploration (including peer learning); (f) oppor-
tunities for social action; (g) meditation/prayer, reflection, and introspec-
tion; (h) extended time in nature through nature walks; (i) embodied
pedagogies; (j) spaces and time for (school-wide) shared activities (meals,
prayer, sports, projects); (k) spaces and opportunities for informal teacher-­
student interactions; (l) warm and safe classroom environments; (m) dem-
ocratic peer-based behaviour regulation (e.g., rule-making, council
sessions to resolve conflicts); and (n) the use of behavioural reports over
assessments as a means of deeply understanding a child.

An Invitation to Walk Your Own Path

Recently, in order to build an agroforest, I was visiting a plant nurs-

ery. I have been visiting this nursery for several years, but for the first
time I ran into one of the co-owners. He shared that he hadn’t com-
pleted his schooling but was very well educated in all senses of the
word. As the conversation evolved, he shared that he didn’t agree
with the modern education system and its practices and had decided
to deschool his children. Subsequently, he had joined a community
of parents who had set up an alternative education system for their
children. He touched upon many different key themes from the
book, and it appeared that the community that he was a part of
embodied many of these ideas. For a moment, I was stunned; I
found that I didn’t have too much to add to what he was sharing,
and that his experiences and reflections were spot on. I remember
thinking to myself perhaps the only way to truly understand educa-
tion for harmony is for each of us to walk our own paths.

I believe that there can be no-one-size-fits-all solution or a blueprint for

education for harmony and instead it is up to each one of us to question,
reflect, and explore what we understand by education, how we envision its
purpose, and how we practise the same. It is up to each of us to build our
 10 PROVOCATIONS, REFLECTIONS, AND CALL TO ACTION 207

own understanding, contextualise suggestions, and flexibly adapt to any

given child that one works with. This can also be seen in the recommenda-
tions from Krishnamurti who strongly advocated against a blueprint and
refrained from suggesting any given practices. Instead, he called upon
teachers constantly to question and reflect for themselves. Furthermore, I
believe that while this book can be an interesting read, education for har-
mony cannot be understood through the transfer of content-based knowl-
edge/understanding. Instead, it has to be experienced and lived.
Resonating with the reflection in the boxed text above, I believe that one
can develop a unique, original, and genuinely deeper understanding of
education for harmony through engaging in a journey of (self/community-­
based) discovery.
I call upon you to explore, reflect, and develop your own visions, phi-
losophies, process-oriented approaches, and holistic educational prac-
tices. How can we go beyond instrumental education for academic
knowledge or development of narrow set of skills, to an education for
thriving and flourishing of the child, and even better still to an education
that foregrounds and supports the flourishing of all beings on the planet?
I recommend starting with questioning and reflecting for yourself and
thereafter engaging in dialogue with others who may help provide a dif-
ferent perspective, question your stance, and help build a more nuanced
understanding. And finally incorporating the ideas into your own prac-
tices. You might find reading books like this, watching short documenta-
ries, or visiting alternative schools interesting and helpful, but I would
caution against trying to replicate/duplicate anything that you see. For
practitioners, I believe that some extended deep immersive stays in alter-
native learning spaces can lead to a shift in epistemology and way of living
and being, which can be extremely valuable. However, once you develop
a different epistemological approach, I doubt if long visits to schools
with a similar epistemological stance would help and at that point it
would be important to implement your practices, experiments, and
develop your own pedagogy. For policymakers and school leaders, I
believe that the challenge lies in shaping an alternative epistemology,
empowering, and supporting teachers, and not imposing a one-size-fits-
all solution.
Finally, I would like to invite you to share your own journeys and
practices. I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences. I invite
208 J. PATEL

you to share your insights, stories, and practices on www.empowereduca-

tors.in, a website that I hope will engage various readers and promote
sharing, networking, and hopefully future collaboration. The website will
also act as a resource for public good compiling resources, providing
examples, and proposing recommendations from people around
the globe.
 Afterword

Om Shanti and Greetings of Peace.

Congratulations to Dr Jwalin Patel for bringing out this book on
Education for Harmony. Laying the foundation of a harmonious world is
both the biggest need and the biggest challenge of the present times.
Exploring visions, approaches, and practices to take it into the classrooms
is a worthy endeavour that merits kudos.
Education has the potential to become the lens which shows diversity
as strength at a time when mutual differences are perceived as a weakness.
In that direction, sensitising the young and impressionable minds of stu-
dents to imbibe the values like understanding, acceptance, empathy, and
co-operation is the key to create and sustain harmony. This book looks
well set to achieve the objective of driving unity and mutual respect as
individuals and as communities. So, I am certain it will not just be consid-
ered as another source for learning, but its readers will be inspired to
embrace the wealth of knowledge and information to manifest harmony.
The well-researched content, as well as the sequential, structured, and
focused approach, will prompt the reader to explore ways to make learning
an interesting and valuable experience. The broad spectrum of classroom

Brahma Kumari Shivani practitioner and teacher of Rajyoga Meditation at

Brahma Kumaris

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 209

Switzerland AG 2023
J. Patel, Learning to Live Together Harmoniously, Spirituality,
Religion, and Education,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23539-9
210 AFTERWORD

examples makes it easier to understand and relate to the concepts, terms,

and contexts of harmony and peaceful co-existence in real-life situations.
Thank you for bringing your experience and expertise in creating this
book. It should be a rewarding experience for readers to maintain a per-
sonal sense of harmony and to be in sync with others, along their journey
with the book and live a more meaningful life.
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 Index1

A Attitudes, 15, 65, 66, 70, 75, 76, 95,

Acceptance, vi, 70, 71, 73, 86, 94, 108–110, 123, 125, 158, 162,
116, 168 168, 172
Active communities, 57 Aurobindo Ghose, v, 1, 19, 26,
Active democracies, 57, 75–77 30, 35–37, 39, 44, 45,
Active harmony, 57, 74, 75, 177 47n5, 58, 87
Active peace, 57, 74 Autonomous decision-making, 32, 52,
Advaita, 105, 110, 143 70, 119, 127, 155
Aesthetic peace, 62, 63 Autonomous behaviour
Affective empathy, 86 regulation, 2, 9
Anityata, 152 Autonomous decision-making, 32, 70,
Anthropocentric, 12, 13, 17, 32, 88, 119, 155
113, 114, 145, 147, 203 Autonomy, 2, 9, 18, 31, 39, 52, 54,
Appease, 167 70, 86, 119, 127, 137, 139, 155,
Appreciate and celebrate diversity, 166, 168–172, 174, 187–189,
23, 24, 96 196, 199, 206
Arbitrary separation, 7, 15, 17, 106 Awareness, vi, 2, 8, 28, 37, 38,
Aristotle, 29, 109, 112, 156, 186 41, 42, 64, 84, 86, 87, 89,
Ashramites, 23, 24, 54 92, 99, 105, 108, 140–142,
Ashram(s), 3, 14, 23, 25, 54, 112, 122, 147, 172, 176,
150, 155, 159, 174, 180, 197–199 202, 204

1
Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 233

Switzerland AG 2023
J. Patel, Learning to Live Together Harmoniously, Spirituality,
Religion, and Education,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23539-9
234 INDEX

B Compassion, 12, 14, 15, 20, 24, 32,

Badheka, Gijjubhai, 19, 30, 31, 37, 41, 45, 59, 66, 71, 73, 84–87,
36, 39, 45 89, 92, 93, 95–99, 105, 106, 108,
Behavioural management, 134, 112, 121, 136, 142, 175, 194
151, 155 Compassion(ate) action, 2, 8, 84,
Belonging, 47, 62, 70, 71, 95, 187 97–98, 202
Bigger picture, 95 Competition, 21, 93, 98, 147, 149,
Blackbox, 125–127 158–159, 169
Confirmation and affirmation, 126
Conflict, v, ix–xi, 21, 27, 28, 31, 38,
C 58, 59, 61, 73, 74, 76, 85, 110,
Caring about, 95 122, 174–177, 206
Caring for, ix, 29, 95, 141 Conflict resolution, 37, 61, 66, 74,
Case study, 4, 33, 122, 127, 153, 177 75, 80, 87, 134, 175–177
“Caught,” 123–125, 129, 153, 176, Conscientization, 28, 96
179, 182 Consciously trying, 3, 9, 183
Celebration of differences, 96 Consequences, 127, 168, 172, 173
Change in perspective, 2, 8, 84, 89, Continuum of lived experiences, 2, 9,
95–97, 105, 202 153, 156, 162, 177, 204, 205
Character, 36, 108, 109, 119, 123, Cooperation, ix, 21, 38, 69, 74, 93,
137, 187 99, 136, 149, 158–159
Character education, 1, 37, 57, 108, Co-poesis, 63
109, 123 Critical pedagogy, 32, 119, 134
Child is a child, 163 Cultural violence, 63, 70, 75, 96,
Choiceless awareness, 85, 113, 181 129, 152
Coexist, 5, 96, 99, 115, 171
Coexistence, 26
Cognitive empathy, 87 D
Collaboration, 9, 53, 65, 134, 136, Dalai Lama, 36
166, 168, 187, 189–199, 208 Deconditioning, 70, 87, 97, 118–119
Collective, 6, 27, 62, 64, 85, 88, 158, Democratic, 22, 61, 66, 75, 135, 149,
197, 198 150, 157, 173, 206
Collective agency, 197 Democratic decision-making, 149
Collective responsibility, 62, 157–158, Descartes, Rene, 105, 143
187, 196 Dewey, John, 28, 29, 32, 38, 39, 52,
Commitment, 7–9, 24, 45, 57, 59, 62, 75, 96, 136, 150, 151
73–76, 94–96, 99, 113, 125, Dharma, 24, 69, 94, 117, 181
153, 158, 170, 176, 180–182, Dialogue, v, vii, 4, 9, 53, 74–76, 87,
189, 191, 196 88, 107, 126, 131, 134–136,
Community living, 3, 9, 15, 88, 99, 140, 147, 151, 156, 170–172,
113, 155, 156 175, 183, 187–199, 207
 INDEX 235

Dimensions, 2, 8, 32, 63, 80, 84, 85, Empathetic and caring relations, 8, 89,
87, 89–99, 103, 105, 106, 127, 93–94, 202
158, 202 Empowering, 207
Discovery of others, 61, 83–87, 89 Epistemology, 3, 12, 22, 23, 27, 39,
Discovery of the self, 2, 8, 28, 61, 82, 41, 96, 102, 113–115, 117, 119,
84–86, 89, 99, 110, 202 124, 148, 204, 207
Discovery of the world, 84 Ethical caring, 29, 93, 156
Dissent, 74–76, 110 Ethics of care, 181
Diversity-based oneness, 36, 73, 96 Ethos, 2, 9, 25, 58, 72, 107, 112,
Divisions, v, 17, 20–22 119, 123, 126, 127, 129, 134,
Domains, 2, 8, 62, 84–89, 96, 103, 135, 137, 147, 148, 151–153,
106, 134 155, 187–189, 196, 199,
Dualities and dichotomies, 95, 146 203, 205
Eudaimonia, 29
Eudemonic wellbeing, 70
E Experiences of shared purpose, 28,
Ecological, 3, 7, 13, 22, 148 61, 86, 110
Education for inner flowering, 1 Extended compassion, 84, 98
Education for wholesome human
being, 1
Education of the hand, 8, 70, F
105–106, 153 Fiery desire, 183, 186, 199
Education of the head, 3, 8, 70, Flat hierarchies, 194–196
105–106, 153 Fragmentary, 17
Education of the heart, v, vii, 1, 7, 8, Fragmented, 2, 3, 7, 12, 17, 18, 20,
27, 35–37, 57–61, 63, 67–73, 23, 26, 27, 75, 104, 204
67n1, 79–82, 102, 104–106, Freedom, 18, 22, 26, 29, 31, 36, 37,
124, 126, 130, 153, 162, 51, 52, 54, 58, 69, 70, 76, 80,
179, 192 87, 97, 119, 121, 139, 144, 146,
Education of the spirit, 1, 35, 149, 155, 169–175, 187–189,
36, 41, 71 192, 194, 195
Emancipation, 22, 26, 28, 32, 36–38, Freire, P., 20, 21, 28, 29, 38, 52, 75,
41, 58, 73, 76, 80, 119 77, 93, 96, 105, 134, 150–152
Embodied, 8, 18, 32, 39, 41, 63, 112, Fröbel, Friedrich, 30, 38, 115
115, 129, 138, 139, 141–147,
149, 153, 156, 169, 183, 187,
195, 203, 204, 206 G
Emotional intelligence ability model, 64 Gandhi, M. K., v, 1, 19, 20, 26–28,
Emotional intelligence (EI), 7, 28, 60, 30, 35–39, 42, 44, 45, 47n5, 49,
62, 64, 67, 75, 82, 84, 85, 98, 52, 58, 73, 75, 76, 80, 85, 87,
108, 202 88, 98, 105, 123, 142, 143, 179
Emotional intelligence mixed model, 64 Gandhi’s Talisman, 114
236 INDEX

Global citizenship education/Global Interdependence, xi, 26, 32, 37, 73,

Citizenship Education (GCE), 1, 86, 95, 106, 204
7, 28, 57, 60–63, 65, 67, 80, 82, Interdependent, 32, 87, 106, 127
84, 108, 123–125, 130, 134, 202 Intrinsic motivation, 31, 135, 168,
advocacy approach, 63 169, 171, 196
cosmopolitan approach, 108 Introspection, vii, 4, 122, 138–141,
Good life, 22, 29, 62, 109 146, 182, 183, 189–199, 206
Greene, M., 28, 96
Greene, M. J., 197
Group-work, v, 53, 134, 136, 158 K
Kelavani, 57, 67
Kinship, 36, 38, 41, 94
H Knowledge, ix, x, 2, 8, 12, 20, 21, 28,
Habits, 8, 39, 76, 108–110 32, 39, 58–60, 65, 67–69, 85,
Happiness curricula, 46, 59, 108, 130 94, 96, 108–110, 118, 119,
Harmony, 1, 2, 4–9, 11–13, 20, 23, 25, 123–125, 130, 136, 146, 147,
26, 29, 32, 36–39, 42, 44, 54, 55, 149, 150, 153, 180, 207
57, 58, 60, 67, 73–75, 77, 79, 80, Krishnamurti, J., v, x, 1, 17, 19, 20,
82, 84, 85, 87–89, 94, 97, 98, 26–28, 30, 35–39, 42, 44–46,
102, 104, 107–130, 133, 142–146, 47n5, 50, 52, 58, 70, 74, 76, 85,
148–150, 153, 155, 156, 160, 87, 88, 92, 97, 113, 148–150,
173, 177, 179, 180, 187–188, 171, 175, 181–183, 191, 195,
191, 199, 201–207, 209, 210 198, 207
Hedonic wellbeing, 70
Holistic, v, vii, 1, 3, 4, 7, 12, 16, 19, 20,
22, 23, 25–27, 29, 32, 33, 36, L
39–41, 47, 49, 54, 55, 57, 59, 60, Labelling, 17, 95, 132, 152, 164
62, 67, 69–70, 74, 80, 82, 88, 93, Larger family, 88
95–97, 99, 106, 109, 114, 115, Learning centres, 9, 50, 197–199, 203
119, 122, 123, 131–132, 137, Learning to live in harmony, 88
143, 150, 152, 191, 203–205, 207 Learning To Live Together
Harmoniously (LTLTH), 2, 9,
60, 73–77, 79–120, 123–126,
I 129–131, 136, 150–153,
Impermanence, 152 155–157, 165, 168, 169, 176,
Imposing, 16, 118, 126, 139, 207 179, 180, 182–183, 186, 187,
Inequity, 12, 17, 19, 33 189–199, 202, 203, 205
Inner discipline, 86, 97, 169, 171, 177 Learning to live together (LTLT), 1,
Integral education, 3, 7, 27, 41, 53, 2, 7, 14, 28, 42–45, 57, 60–63,
54, 70, 80, 202 65, 67, 73–76, 80, 82–84, 86,
Interconnected, 3, 7, 8, 12, 17, 22, 25, 87, 102, 104, 106, 107, 125,
32, 38, 53, 63, 75, 80, 84, 85, 87, 126, 130, 182, 202, 203
97, 103–120, 171, 172, 202 Liberation, 22
 INDEX 237

Live enquiry, 183, 191 N

Lived experience-based pedagogy, 2, Narrative transportation, 133
134, 152, 153 Nature vs nurture, 125
Lived experiences, 2, 4, 8, 9, 16, 18, Negative peace, 37, 73
19, 23, 39, 72, 73, 76, 87, Neill, A. S., 30, 30n7, 138, 144
102–104, 107, 110, 112, 117, Noddings, N., 29, 32, 93, 95, 96, 99,
122, 123, 124n1, 129, 131, 136, 112, 126, 156, 162, 180, 181, 187
140, 142, 150–153, 155, 179, Non-anthropocentric epistemology,
183, 186, 202–205 39, 41, 113–115, 148, 204
Non-describable, 81–82
Non-duality, 99, 105, 110, 143
M Non-judgemental, 93, 135, 148, 164,
Many peaces, 143 168, 183
Mass education, 6, 13, 21, 30, 31, 44, Nonlinear, 8, 104, 116–118, 125,
146, 188, 202 127, 149, 156, 205
Materialism, 7, 23, 147 Non-positional leadership, 52, 196
Materialistic, 12, 15, 22, 23, 147 Nonviolent communication, 131
Meaningful engagement, 2, 8, 16, 75, Normalisation, 74, 76
84, 89, 98–99, 105, 106,
110, 202
Meditation, vi, vii, x, 6, 8, 9, 24, 52, O
54, 66, 85, 86, 111, 122, 134, Objectification, 6, 23
138–141, 144, 146, 153, 160, Onus, 18, 97, 102, 135, 137, 155,
163, 182, 183, 189–199, 206 157–159, 169, 171, 172, 177,
Miller, J. P., vi, 32, 66, 74, 88, 94, 99, 182, 189, 194, 196–197,
109, 144, 150 201, 202
Miller, R., 22, 144 Opportunities for students to
Mindfulness, 28, 37, 45, 66, 92, 95 practise, 126
Mirror neurons, 94, 123
Modelling, 9, 123, 126, 134, 156, 180
Modern education, 2, 6, 12–23, 25, P
35, 40, 40n3, 44, 55, 88, 113, Paideia, 29
153, 204, 206 Patience, 163
Monoculture, 18, 18n2, 107 Peacebuilding, 31, 63
Montessori, M., 30–32, 30n7, 39, 49 Peace education, 7, 28, 44, 45, 58, 62,
Moral commitment, 57, 61 63, 75, 80, 88, 105, 123, 144,
Moral education, 40, 64, 126 150, 152, 202
The Mother, 19, 26, 27, 30, 36, 37, Peer learning, 87, 206
39, 53, 58, 71, 80, 81, 115, 164 Piecemeal efforts, 8, 80, 103, 104, 106
Multifaceted identity, 93, 95 Plato, 29
Multiplicity, 87 Pluralistic, 8, 96, 104, 107, 108, 115
238 INDEX

Positive peace, 37, 63 Satyagraha, 42, 74, 76

Post-critical peace, 75 School connectedness, 187
Praxis, 6, 62, 77, 122, 127, 150, 153 Self-centric, 13, 17
Project work, 134, 137, 190 Self-centrism, 3, 7, 63, 159
Propagate social inequity, 17 Self-reflection, 61, 76, 133, 134
Punishments, 63, 168, 173 Self-transformation, 29, 97, 106
Purposeless, 149 A sense of onus, 97, 137, 157–158
Sense of purpose, 2, 8, 70, 84, 89,
94–95, 158, 202
R Sense of responsibility, 94, 171, 188
Radhakrishnan, S., 19, 26, 36, 37, 58, Sense of purpose, 2, 8, 70, 84, 89,
60, 77, 96 94–95, 158, 202
Reductionist, 12, 18, 22, 23, 32, 40, Sensitivity, 86, 87, 92, 93, 116, 136,
95, 114, 132, 152, 164, 203 145, 148, 162, 165
Reductive, 13, 17 Separation, 7, 15, 17, 73, 74, 103,
Reflection, 4, 6–9, 13–19, 23–25, 28, 106, 127, 143
29, 38, 50, 54, 85–87, 110, 111, Sewa, 97, 105, 106
116, 122, 123, 126, 128, Shared lived experiences, 2, 9, 107,
132–134, 136, 138–141, 144, 122, 123, 140, 155, 179,
146, 150, 151, 153, 173, 176, 186, 203
182, 183, 187, 189–199, 206, 207 Skills, v, x, 8, 9, 14, 15, 28, 40, 40n3,
Reflexive, 32, 61, 76 51, 53, 54, 58–60, 62, 64–67,
Replicate social inequity, 19 69, 70, 83, 85, 87, 106,
Responsibility, 8, 27, 28, 37, 61, 75, 108–110, 118, 119, 123, 130,
80, 86–88, 95, 97, 99, 113, 117, 134, 137, 139, 148, 160, 161,
157–159, 169, 171, 172, 177, 168, 170, 180, 188, 198,
181, 182, 187, 189, 196–197 203, 207
Rewards, 32, 159, 168, 169 Social action, 8, 23, 24, 54, 76, 88,
Right relations, 37, 41, 87, 93, 97, 106, 116, 127, 134, 137,
105, 159 141–142, 153, 156, 157, 182,
Rogers, Carl, 30, 144, 150 189–199, 206
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 30, 115 Social conditioning, 36, 37, 74
Rules, 68, 97, 99, 169, 172–174 Social Emotional Competency (SEC)
language, 131
Social Emotional Learning (SEL), 1,
S 7, 28, 40, 45, 46, 49, 57, 60, 62,
Sacred, vi, 88, 96, 97, 115, 188, 64–67, 75, 80, 82, 84, 85, 98,
198, 202 108, 123, 124, 126, 130, 131,
Sacred silence, 6, 139, 160 134, 152, 161, 202
Safe classroom environment, Social inequity, 12, 17, 19, 33
168–169, 206 Social justice, 9, 14, 26, 31, 37–38,
Samaya, 94 41, 74–76, 192
 INDEX 239

Social mobility, 17 Transformative, 32, 57, 67, 112, 192

Social violence, 70 Transrationality, 188
Sociocultural violence, 17, 74 Transrational peace, 63
Socrates, 29, 30, 108 Trusteeship, 97, 159, 188, 196
Southern epistemologies, 115
Sowing seeds, 98, 117, 127
Spiritual, vi, vii, 1–4, 7, 14, 16, 19, U
22–30, 32, 36–37, 40, 41, 47, 53, Umbrella-like term, 80, 104
54, 57, 59, 61, 63, 70, 73, 84, Understanding a child, 162–164, 206
85, 99, 102, 111, 112, 114, 116, Unity, 12, 26, 36, 38, 58, 74, 80, 96
118, 128, 130, 143, 145, 160,
183, 190, 192–194, 198, 204
Steiner, Rudolf, 30, 30n7, 151 V
Stories, 15, 128, 132–133, 136, 144, Values, 3, 4, 11, 14, 21, 23, 28–31,
145, 151, 164, 208 35, 40, 47, 59, 61, 65, 71, 77,
Swabhavik, 71, 113, 115 80, 85, 86, 92, 96, 99, 107,
Swadharma, 94, 95 108–110, 113, 118, 131, 138,
140, 143, 146, 150, 170, 183,
187, 209, 12, 121, 127
T Violence, x, xi, 13, 17, 18, 37, 58, 63,
Tagore, R., v, 1, 19, 20, 26–28, 64, 70, 74, 75, 86, 88, 96, 129,
35–40, 42, 44, 45, 47n5, 49, 51, 130, 152, 158
58, 73, 76, 87, 88, 94, 94n1, 95, Virtues, 29, 108–110, 156, 186
97–99, 105, 116, 123, 145, 148, Virtue’s education, 57, 109, 123
150, 161 Vivekananda, S., 36, 38, 39, 44
“Taught,” 16, 19, 20, 30, 39, 119,
123–125, 131, 153, 156, 157,
164, 179, 192 W
Teachable moments, 107, 156, 176 Warm classroom environment,
Teachers’ behaviour, 126 168–169, 206
Teachers’ social work, 192–194 Ways of living and being, vi, 2–4, 8, 9,
Teachers’ spiritual journey, 192–194 12, 13, 16, 24–26, 29, 30, 39,
Teacher Student Relations (TSR), 2, 9, 54, 58, 60, 61, 67, 74, 75, 98,
107, 126, 127, 134, 151, 155, 102, 103, 106–119, 122–125,
157, 177, 194, 203 127, 129, 130, 136, 141, 144,
Teacher voice, 2, 82, 84 145, 147–149, 151, 156, 160,
Togetherness, 2, 4–6, 11–13, 25, 63, 162, 179–199, 203, 207
67, 73, 79, 82, 93, 102, 107, 108, Wideawakeness, 28, 96
113, 121–128, 136, 151, 202, 203 Will to act, 95, 105
Tolerance, 37, 61, 63, 73, 86, 96 Wisdom, ix, x, 20, 21, 41, 99, 108,
Tolerating diversity, 24 147, 163
Tolstoy, Leo, 30, 115 Wonder, 5, 7, 17, 24, 116