Book Reviews

Dimensions in the educational theories

Science of Teaching (Pedagogy) - A philosophical Analysis on Teaching
By Rev. Dr. Camillus Nihal Fernando
Published by Godage International Publishers (PVT) LTD
220 Pages, Price Rs.650

Education helps children to actualise potentialities they possess by birth. The aim of education is to help and guide them towards their own human achievements and hence education cannot escape the problems they face.

If children are deprived of education then the society is responsible for destroying their humanity by refusing to help them develop their rational potential which naturally characterises them.

Teaching is making intelligible a subject to the other through the use of language. It is an art, especially a difficult one and the teacher is an artist.

Every art aims at some good. Education is an art and what good it aims given the situation of the present world where there is conflict of ideas with regard to all spheres of human life such as religion, politics and social value.

Views

These are views expressed and discussed in detail in the book ‘Science of Teaching’ (Pedagogy) - ‘A philosophical Analysis on Teaching’ by Rev.Fr. Camillus Fernando, B.Ph, B.Th (Rome) Post Graduate, Dip in Buddhism, MSSc (Kelaniya) and Ph. D (Rome). He was the former of the Dean of Department of Philosophy, Lecturer of Buddhist Philosophy, Epistemology, Political Science and Economics at the National Seminary of Our Lady of Sri Lanka, Kandy.

Fr.Camillus presently is the Parish Priest of St.Francis de Salle, Dalugama Church.

This book ‘Science of Teaching’ (Pedagogy) - ‘A philosophical Analysis on Teaching’ will be a useful hand book and a tool to the teachers who genuinely and seriously their profession having understood the mind set of the children who come under their wings.

What the country experience today in respect of educating their children is that they are been pushed to compete with the system to come up the ladder by any means and the ultimate product is intelligent idiots who fit for nothing and cannot meet the demands of various sectors of society.

Teaching profession

Teachers who are not dedicated to their profession but go after money by turning the teaching profession to a trade.

The teachers who turn their profession into a money spinning prostitution should take the blame for the sorry state of affairs in the respective schools, if the students were to claim that they got through the examinations they sat, successfully, not following the subjects taught within the walls of the schools but attending the tutories.

Such teachers should feel ashamed of themselves for trading the knowledge at tutories while earning a monthly salary without being faithful to their profession. They are a curse and because of them who are genuinely doing their job as a serious vocation failed to get due recognition from society.

In addition to this state of affairs there is a tendency among parents that that their children should attend tutories if their children are to be successful.

This is question of no faith in the present day teaching in the schools and the teachers who have not understood their proper role and making room for such no confidence situation should turned to their own self and do a thorough examination of their conscience.

This is very sad but that is the reality. This book will enlighten the teachers to know better what the role they should play in the present day context how to win back the confidence, they have lost.

The book is based on the work of John Locke, an intellectual giant in the 17 th century who pioneered the new science of pedagogy and psychological dimension in the educational theories. The author surveys in depth the concept of pedagogy, the theory of education in contrast to the other models and trends of John Locke and relevance of his views to our times.

The author has dealt with the subject of his dissertation under Three Chapters. The First Chapter deals with Historical Perspectives, Epistemological and Pedagogical Models in the Centric of John Locke; Chapter Two - Part i Theoretical Direct Dimension of the Inquiry; Part ii The Genesis of Human Knowledge and Formation of Man and The Chapter Three on Critical Reflection and Conclusion.

Teaching is not a mere profession but a great vocation as the future of the country The educationist have a grave responsibility in placing the right impression as moulding characters of the future leaders and citizens of this country heavily depends on the teachers who take their job serious as education is not mere teaching of all sorts of subjects, but it is something very much more than that.

Education

Education is a life long process and the Schooling is only a small but necessary part. This means that education is not limited to the school and as all leaning is in the learner and not in the teacher hence the learning does not the always depend on the services of teachers. However this view does not in anyway undermine the role of the teacher and the right of the child to have a better education in schools but what is underlined herein is

that the academic rat race of the present day is not a healthy development and its outcome would be very dangerous.

Man is born with faculties and power. Educators must keep in mind that man is not merely an animal of nature but also an animal of culture. Life is education; education in schools should give pupils a taste of good life. Unless the environment is conducive and peaceful for leaning, all advanced and well organised educational system has no meaning. At the same time one must bear in mind.

Discovery of child needed for the proper understanding of childhood in the cycle of the manhood, a preparatory period of the man’s life. The propaganda carried out by John Locke introduced the notion that children are humans with their own rights, their own development and their own pedagogical needs.

New science

The author portrays that Locke’s doctrine possessed a new science of pedagogy and as the child is the focal point in education there emerged a child centered educational system and his needs and aspiration have to be taken into account in planning the modus operandi.

Each child is to be dealt with individually; children have particular traits, biases tendency of their minds. The job of education is not to shape man in himself, but to shape a particular child belonging to a given nation, a given social environment, a given historical age. In short individuality is the ideal of life.

Process of education begins at very early stage of children and hence it is of paramount importance that we place the right, correct and worthy signs in their minds so that they gain right knowledge of the world through them.

Whenever mind refers to any of its ideas to anything extraneous to them, they are then capable to be called true or false. Therefore the diversion of ideas in the right direction with reference to things in the world is the work of education.

This becomes clear when we look at the history of man. History is not a mechanical unfolding of events into the midst of which man is simply placed like a stranger. Human history is human, in its very essence; it is the history of our own being.

Attention

Fr.Camillus has taken pain to draw the attention of the reader (specially those entering the teaching profession) that education is not animal training bur education of man is a human awakening. It is to guide man in the evolving dynamism-armed with knowledge, moral values and strength of judgment.

Hence the educationists are responsible to a greater extent in preparing the minds of children for living and make them aware that they are not to submit themselves their will to Reason of others when they are young,

will scare or hearken or submit to their own Reason when they are of age to make it.

What the educators of the present day have to keep in mind is that as morality and religion are so inextricably in the mind of ordinary people and hence religion has to take precedence in any educational system.

Religion is given its due place in education as it is necessary to produce cultured and virtuous person. The final aim of education is to harmonise one’s own inclinations and affections and rendering same with his fellow men.

Aesthetic faculty

Education in the aesthetic is also important aspect as the man is unable attain the harmonious development of all his powers of natural impulses unless the aesthetic faculty is given proper training and expression.

The author comes under the shades of views supportive of his main theme and give credit to great men like John Dewey who said “education is a process of living and not a preparation for future living” and Confucius who said “living is learning”. Being a Catholic Priest he also quotes from the Encyclical ‘Solicitudo Rei Socialis’ to stress upon the role of Church in Education.

‘The social concern of the church is directed towards the authentic development of man and society which would respect and promote all dimensions of human person’ (SRS).

Fr.Camillus underscores the fact that imparting subject matter through reading, lecturing and talking is not the sole means of education. But a new type of disciplinary education develop by means of experience accompanied by straight thinking, habitual self control and the performance of socially approved good deeds.

Children must look into all sorts of knowledge but virtue and moral development and religion was to be the highest aim. Even in the education of our times should underline the importance of this aspect of development of moral character as our aim.

The author goes on pin point that educational process go beyond class room and teacher. Successful teacher does not need to compel and use force and the corporal punishment is a sign of failure on the part of the teacher.

The good teacher will teach much by example and by suggestion. A teacher should be able to convey not only the experience of things but also the causes of things why things are as they are.

Education must and should promote right reasoning in conjunction with others who have achieved excellence in some respect in their own reasoning power. In short there is no education when there is no reasoning.

Education is nothing but the man’s consciousness that is called for the development through the accumulation of the knowledge. The education should be at the forefront of this thinking process. The child grows into a man through education. There is a rough connection between education of a child and the emergence of personhood from man….man is educated by man for humanity

Communication

Language is the great conduit whereby men convey their discoveries, reasoning, and knowledge from one another. Man needs society and society requires communication. Communication is the disclosure of one’s ideas to another. Man becomes fully human and a cultural being through communication.

It is undoubtedly a good book for present and future educators and it is up to those in authority recommend this kind of books as part of extra reading to those undergoes training in the training colleges.

- Wiruma

The magnificence of nature’s own ‘catwalk’

The Glenthorne Cat and other Amazing Leopard Stories
Compiled and Edited by Christopher Ondaatje
HarperCollins, Canada,
2008 - pp. 216

It takes a man of the wilderness bent, to revel in the sights and sounds of nature and of the way it raised a wealth of life that we, naked apes, have found it uneasy to relate to. That we have to share this world with all other forms of life is something many find hard to accept; and down the centuries we have sought to eliminate thousands of species, heedless of the fact that there lies positioned a ‘chain of command’ and a global chain of interdependent life.

Sir Christopher Ondaatje (and this is the only paragraph in this review in which I shall ‘Sir’ him) is not only a magnificent writer but a storyteller who holds a fascination for the ‘big cats’ - what with our own leopard that Christopher is, shall I say, over-familiar with.

I have not as yet had the good fortune to meet him and I guess we are poles apart - but he lives in my mind as a lank, hard-muscled adventurer with questing eyes and a no-nonsense approach to all about him.

May be I’m way out, for who can make any sort of estimation of a person who has never crossed my path? But in his recent communication with me, I have found warmth, concern and understanding.

It was some time ago that I read and reviewed his novel ‘The Man-Eater of Punani’, but I could not take in his other works until, glory be! he sent me a copy of ‘The Glenthorne Cat and Other Amazing Leopard Stories’ - an enthralling compilation he had also edited.

As Dr. John Hemming, historian, explorer, and former Director of the Royal Geographical Society has said: “Surely this is the only anthology of leopard stories ever produced... an absolute triumph!”

Looking at the back cover of the book, I finally saw Christopher: lean and well-built, palm fronds sagging low behind him, wearing a slouch hat and as informal as you please.

This compilation carries four ‘cat stories’ by Christopher, and as for the rest, he has chosen well. There is Anna Kavan, Jim Corbett, Sir Samuel Baker, Henry Storey, Honore de Balzac, Kenneth Anderson and Carl E. Akeley.

Before I attempt this review, I want to tell Christopher and you of an 1897 book published by Seely & Co. London, titled ‘Nights with an Old Gunner and Other Studies of Wildlife’ by C. J. Cornish.

It’s funny how I keep picking up books that people say they have not even heard of, but everything about this book aside, there is a fascinating account of “the making of a paradise” in which Cornish tells of the sanctuaries that could be prepared for all ‘ferae naturae’ of England.

He reminds that that was what the Greeks, borrowing a Persian world for a Persian institution, called a ‘paradise’ - parks of great size, “filled with all kinds of trees and all varieties of beasts... lakes and streams, and were often walled... with the animals never molested, becoming absolutely fearless of man.”

Well, we are not without our ‘ferae naturae’, but sadly enough, they have become the haunts of terrorists who are certainly the basest breed of the beasts. However, just to remind Christopher, it was King Henry III who granted the Charter of the Forest and its definition delightfully put in the language of those times:

“A forest is a certain territory of woody grounds and fruitful pastures, privileged for wild beasts and foules of forest, chase and warren to rest and abide in, in the safe protection of the King for his princely delight and pleasure... and also replenished with wild beasts of venerie or chase, and with great coverts of vert for the succour of the said wild beasts to have their abode in.”

Let us now turn to ‘The Glenthorne Cat’ and listen to what has been said about Christopher:

Dr. Rita Gardner, CBE, Director, Royal Geographic Society: Leopards have fascinated Christopher for most of his life since he saw his first cat in the Yala Game Sanctuary in Ceylon in 1946..... Like Richard Burton, he too has an insatiable restlessness and a quixotic, sometimes unfathomable, character akin to his beloved leopards... wildlife enthusiasts and hesitant explorers alike will find this an intriguing read. What an adventure! What an experience!”

Christopher on Christopher: (launching into his first story of the Glenthorne Cat): All my life I have felt that the wilderness of this world is never that far away. From the freedom of my early childhood in Ceylon to the stuffy boardrooms of the Canadian business world, I have sensed the nearness of the wild in nature and in people too... (and)... I have been able... to set out to reach it... I grew up in the Exmoor countryside around Glenthorne. This is Lorna Doone country (and) of all the Exmoor superstitions, the most famous, feared and ridiculed is the Beast of Exmoor...”

And so the story begins - the encounter with the old Revd. Halliday, whether ghost or astral being, and the story of his nephew who secretly married a girl of an aristocratic Kandyan family, on the Glencairn estate of Bogawantalawa. The girl feared that she would turn into a big cat if sexually aroused, for her ancestors had originally been conceived of cats.

Bringing her to Exmoor did not solve anything, but one late evening the couple made passionate love. She wanted him as much as he wanted her and had waited long to have her. Was it an orgiastic danse macabre? Quivering as they spent, she screamed and ran out into the night and was never seen again. But had she left claw and pugmarks around the house. Was she the Glenthorne cat? There were territorial claw marks on trees that lined the path to Glenthorne. The girl from Bogawantalawa was never seen again but a large black cat roams Exmoor - not one but others too. Had the girl found her true mate?

Every story in this book is as wild as the heroin-addicted Anna Kavan’s ‘sleeping partner’ - a wild leopard that come to her room at night to sniff at her, then lie down beside her, large, handsome, velvet-pawed, filling her with his natural odour of sunshine, freedom, moon and crunched leaves.

Jim Corbett was one of the favourite ‘Jungle Jims’ of my boyhood. I remember how Christine Spittel Wilson recalled meeting him on a voyage to England. She was a young girl then. Jim’s story of the ‘Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag’ takes me into familiar territory for, over 20 years ago, when in India, I visited Kadarnath and understood what the people told me of the mighty meeting of waters - the Mandakini and the Alaknanda - to form the Ganges.

The hunting of the man-eater is given in robust detail and sadly enough, it had to be an old, yet wise leopard, grey at the muzzle, no whiskers around its mouth, who killed because it had to eat, to live.

Christopher gives us a chapter from Sri Samuel Baker’s Eight Years Wanderings in Ceylon. I need hardly dwell on this because Baker’s story of his agricultural endeavours in Nuwara Eliya are well known - as wellknown as the antics of his drunken farm supervisor. Baker tells of leopards in Ceylon and of an estate boy who had died of cold and starvation and was buried... but leopards had dug him out of his grave and devoured him.

‘The Kantalai Leopard’ by Henry Storey is found in W. T. Keble’s Ceylon Beaten Track - one of the Christopher’s favourite books. The story of firing a single-barrel rifle at a leopard cub that scampered away unhurt, brought out the Kantalai leopard, bent on punishing those who dared try to kill her cub. The attack was launched on Storey and an old Kapurala who accompanied him. The leopard was killed, but not before it had severely mauled both men.

I will not dwell on Christopher’s next story, ‘The Man-Eater of Punani’, but suffice to remind that his was a safari into the deadly heartland of the Tamil Tigers and guerrilla-infested jungle, walking the way of ‘Kuveni’ the leopard who had haunted his boyhood, who had killed at least twenty villagers in Punani, to listen to an old man’s story.

The old man wore a divi niyata-pota - two leopard claws for protection. Oh yes, he had seen Kuveni. She was no leopard but the queen of the Yakkas, who had seduced Vijaya. But she was a witch and could transform herself into a big cat, and she laid on the unfaithful Vijaya a divi dos - a curse on all his race. We can still see the stuffed carcase of this man-eater in the Colombo museum.

Balzac’s ‘A Passion in the Desert’ gives us a startling story of a French soldier who seeks shelter from the scorch of the Egyptian desert by creeping into a damp cool cave, only to find it the den of a panther, and he male, and she female, fell in love with each other. He even called her Mignonne, and they played with each other until the day he unwittingly hurt her and, as he says: “...a glace, a word, and exclamation is all sufficient... I don’t know how I could have hurt her, but she suddenly turned on me in a fury, seizing my thigh with her sharp teeth... I imagined that she intended to devour me and I plunged my poniard in her throat... In the desert there is all, and there is nothing... God is there, man is not.”

“Black leopards,” as Christopher says, “have been seen and shot in the jungles of... the Kerala region and also in the Sinharaja rain forest of Sri Lanka. In his “The Riddle of Lewa Downs” he tells of the black leopard on the northern foothills of Mount Kenya. An intriguing story to be sure, for the Masai Taraiyo wanted most of all that the beast be killed. For Christopher, it was good luck to get film footage of the animal, but to Taraiyo it was necessary that the leopard who roamed Cave Hill be shot. It is evil and should be killed. If you do not kill it and use the oil from the body to rub on the children, then they will be sick... Darkness has ears and you will soon understand that he who has a sharp mouth conquers the world.”

This is the beauty of this book. There is so much Christopher tell us. It may be, to those who race through it, a sort of ‘catwalk’ of magnificent beasts, but there is also a mingling of cultures, religions, esoteric beliefs, attitudes and yes, even magic!

Congratulations, Christopher. You have reminded us that in relation to the lordly big cats, we remain nothing but the low life of creation.

Carl Muller

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