Guiding Light: The Teacher Is A Sculptor

A sculptor wields the chisel and the stricken marble grows to Beauty…

So runs an old poem. The art of sculpture is indeed fascinating: with his chiseled touch, the sculptor hews a living shape out of old, lifeless stone, shaping, moulding, carving a thing of beauty out of cold marble. 

The educationist and philosopher, Bertrand Russell, makes a very interesting observation about ‘individuals’. He says that an individual is rather like a billiard ball – which only knows how to collide with other billiard balls! The point he is trying to make is that too much of ‘individualism’ only sets men on a collision course against each other. A man who believes in his own individuality will find it difficult to cooperate with others and work with them for a common goal. Therefore, our spiritual teachers believed that true growth comes from moulding personality rather than just individuality. 

When young people from diverse backgrounds come to your class, many of them are yet to develop a sense of individuality. Teachers first need to give them this sense of individual worth and dignity. But if we stop at this stage, our work will not be complete: an individual is likely to remain rigid, self-opinionated and self-centered for life– a billiard ball, ready to clash with other billiard balls. 

Maybe this is what is happening in this so-called age of LPG – an age of materialism, sought to be achieved through Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation. We are ready to stress our rights and fight for what we feel is our due. But we lack social responsibility, civic awareness and emotional maturity. 

These qualities can only come from the development of personality – and therefore, I emphasise the teacher’s role as a sculptor who shapes and moulds the individual into a wholesome personality. 

Growth is not just physical expansion or even intellectual expansion, but spiritual growth, through assimilation of values – only then does thecold, lifeless marble become alive, beautiful and striking! The ‘individual’ learns to devote his excess strength, knowledge and power, to servethe nation, to serve other people, to serve the world at large; he ceases to be self-centered. He becomes service-centred! 

This is the most important task before teachers today: sculpting, shaping, moulding our youth into socially responsible citizens; making them good human beings imbued with the virtues of sincerity, commitment, dedication, service and sacrifice. 

(September 5 is celebrated as Teachers’ Day.)

Dada J P Vaswani is a humanitarian, philosopher, educator, acclaimed writer, powerful orator, messiah of ahimsa, and non-sectarian spiritual leader