"We may never be strong enough to be entirely nonviolent in thought, word and deed. But we must keep nonviolence as our goal and make strong progress towards it."-- Gandhiji
My own definition of violence in the context of education is;
"Using more force than what is required while teaching is violence."
Ideally there must be no force needed to teach things. However, we don't get children (other than
our own) to teach when they are just born. At every stage we, as parents and teachers, put a bit
extra force than what is needed to teach something because it is slightly easy to enforce something (because we are bigger than them) than to make them learn through curiosity and interest.
This strategy would gradually increase their force threshold for learning. Next time we have to use slightly more force to achieve the same results.
Force comes in two forms; punishment and reward. The fear of exams and the reward of joining
good colleges resulting in hefty pay packages are both forces to push children to learn. My view is, this force is a form of violence.
A truly non-violent teaching involves invoking curiosity and generating interest. This I think, has to be at the core of our value system.
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