In plain words
So this highest ideal is the third point. You must not make much of petty matters at all. You must teach the students that, first of all, they must have a great ideal. They have been saying this very thing in Telugu. ‘Rather than chase and strike a lame fox, strike a fine tiger, even if you miss your mark,’ they said. Our low ideal is like striking such a lame fox. Even if we miss our mark, we must keep to great ideals. We must teach this to children right at a tender age.
Next, the fourth is a balance. Balance means we must go on keeping things even. A small example. There is water in this vessel. For all this water to go, you need not bore holes all around it. One small hole is enough. Little by little all of it empties out. What does balance mean here? You have an interest in some subjects. If you do not pay proper attention to the remaining subjects, there is a chance you will fail. So, if you get high marks only in the subject you like and fail in the one you do not like, you fail altogether; you cannot win success in it. Even if you get good marks in six subjects, if you get low marks in one subject and fail, it is a complete fail. So one subject is enough for us to fail. Whatever subject we have no interest in, we must grow just as much interest in it too. We must develop a liking for it and get high marks in that too. This is what is called the even vision. You must go on studying while developing evenness towards what you like and what you do not like. Only then is there a chance for our skill of intellect and the unfolding of our mind to grow in us. We must go on teaching such balance to the children.
Next, the fifth is memory. Do we not have this memory? We do. We must add some interest to this memory. Many think they must get a class. He holds the book in his hand. He puts his eyes on the letters. He reads with his mouth. But the mind is not there. So first, together with the eyes, the hands and the mouth, we must bring this mind into one. This is how we must study. When we put it into this memory with the interest that we must pass in this, we are sure to get a class. A small example. When they read textbooks, they say they do not remember. Even what we read an hour before, we forget an hour later. Yet these same children, when cinema songs come on the radio, remember every one of those cinema songs. If they see ten films, the songs of the ten films stay in their heads. What is the reason they cannot remember even two lines when they read a textbook, yet remember cinema songs? There is interest in the cinema. There is no interest in this textbook. So we must develop this memory and this interest to some extent.
Next, the very last, the sixth. This is very important. Method. How must we develop this? How are we to follow it? We go in for examinations. First we must find out how the examination is done. In the examination, writing is what takes place. But what are the students doing? They are reading for the examinations. This is reading; that is writing. So the two are at odds. What is read cannot serve for writing. There is no use in reading what is to be written. So you must start writing the important points of the textbook in a notebook right away. If they keep writing down the important points all the year, they will be able to win success well. More than that, things that are not understood when read are understood when written. When we practise what we will write in the examination, the student passes this examination.
If we teach the students all these six kinds of ways, there is no chance at all for any student to fail. So, first, we must grow a strong longing and interest in the students. Second, they must keep measuring themselves, to some extent, against the best. Third, there must be a great ideal. Fourth, an even outlook must be formed. Fifth, memory. Sixth, they must prepare in keeping with the way the examination is written. If teachers make students mindful of things like these, the students will not only win success and so prosper, but bring a lasting solution to this field of education. Students are not following this procedure. At examination time they read, drink tea, and drink, and drink, keep awake all night, put what is inside the book into the head, and come away after emptying all that is in the head in the examination hall. Once the examination is over, they know nothing. They get the degree, but the qualification that goes with that degree they do not have. If such people in their turn have to tell students anything, they again have to keep reading from the book as they tell it. Teaching done in this way does not last at all. Your life itself must turn into a book. Only then does one put one's experience into the form of action. In this action we must find the easy way. All our Bal Vikas teachers must understand these six things well and try to put them into practice.