Social Disaster : 2.The Student Teacher Relationship

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Social Disaster : 2.The Student Teacher Relationship

 

 

 

The ideal student is someone who never ties of learning new things either about worldly 

The ideal student is someone who never ties of learning new things either about worldly or spiritual matters. It is not enough just to be curious-to learn in depth, a student needs to have a real respect for the knowledge they are earning. The reality of student life is that there are many things to interfere with the students’ enthusiasm to learn. The student’s disillusionment can be summarized into four different groups: loss of sense of responsibility towards their own sense of hnman dignity; loss of sense of responsibility towards the sense of human dignity of others, loss of sense of responsibility towards a fair economy and loss of respect for the environment.

 

 

 

The reality of student life is that there are many things to interfere with the students’ enthusiasm to learn.

Loss of Respect for Pne’s own Human Dignity

 

- Erroneous Core Values: Students who have not been on the receiving end of good tuition by their teachers in accordance with the Six Directions regarding the importance of refraining from the Four Defilements of Action, will fail to see the importance of keeping the Five Precepts. They will be more interested to act according to their Erroneous Core Values and the power of the defilements in the mind. They tend to idolize those who please themselves and make fun of those who are good mannered or who follow the regulations as weak or cowardly. Those with such erroneous core values are harmful both to themselves and to others. If teachers do not properly practice their duties towards such students, their erroneous core values will worsen-especially for those who have already had bad experiences at the hands of their own parents. As for students who have acquired positive core values from their parents, if their core values are not enhanced by their teachers, when exposed to the erroneous core values of their friends at school, their previously positive core values will diminish and finally disappear altogether. Although their knowledge and knowhow increases as they become more learned, they will turn this knowledge to immoral ends-becoming more dangerous even than the unschooled, in accordance with the saying, ‘knowledge in the hands of an evil person, is a dangerous thing’.

 

- Speaking out against spiritual wisdom: The unwholesome speech of students with erroneous core values is revealed in many ways. Besides lying, sarcasm and insults, they like to argue that spiritual values are only hearsay despite having on know ledge of the subject. They may see those who practice spirituality as old-fashioned, outdated or superstitions. Such accusations may be persuasive to the easily-led or those whose own core values are vague.

 

- Harmful application of knowledge: Instead of using the acquired knowledge in constructive ways, students with erroneous core values, use such knowledge to create mischief. Chemistry students use threaten others when there is a fight. Some metalworkers make ‘fighting – stars’ of the sort seen in Chinese movies or else the skeleton keys they need to steal cars from the public parking lot.

 

 

 

Those with such erroneous core values are harmful both to themselves and to others.

Loss of Respect for Others’ Human Dignity

 

Loss of responsibility towards the sense of human dignity of others means that if teachers or lecturers fail to inspire the students by their example of ethical living, students will have no feeling of responsibility towards the human dignity of others or towards society in general. Consequently they may exhibit:

 

- Being selfish and face-saving: Students tend to be selfish and face-saving because their minds are biased. They acknowledge no sense of justice-seeing no necessity to be just or reasonable. They think only of their own interests and that of their ‘sidekicks’. Even the thoughts they have about their ‘sidekicks’ are really just extensions of their own selfishness. These sort of core values can only occur because they are not taught by their teachers to value the importance of justice or because they have been treated unjustly  by their teachers before. All these factors cause conflict between students and conflict between students and teachers as well as conflicts the students may experience outside school;

 

- verbal manipulation &boastfulness: Under the power of the erroneous core values and thinking only of their own interests, students find ways to gain advantages for themselves, such as manipulating their friends and teachers by flattery. At the same time they boast and exaggerate their abilities to gain trust and support. They may also be opinionated and argumentative.

 

-  Aggression against rivals: Under the power of erroneous core values and prejudice, these students and their cronies think they must conquer rival gangs every time, no matter what ends they have to go to.

 

 

 

They may see those who practice spirituality as old-fashioned, outdated or superstitions. 

Loss of Respect for Economic Fairness

 

Loss of responsibility towards the sense of economic fairness means that if teachers fail to instill self-discipline in their students, the students will have no sense of responsibility towards a fair economy, specifically by:

 

- Spending beyond their means: Involvement with the Roads to Ruin means that pocket money is no longer enough. Instead of feeling guilty and refraining from Roads to Ruin, driven by erroneous core values, they seek income in problematic ways such as borrowing from friends or making money from gambling, drug trafficking, stealing or being lured into prostitution.

 

- Habitual telling of lies: Because their spending always exceeds their budget, the necessity to find money to pay off debts and to afford addictions to various forms of  Roads to Ruin, means these students constantly have to lie to their parents for money. They make up excuses to explain their overdue debts to the lenders. They ‘tell tales’ to their teachers to justify absence or unfinished homework.

 

-  Involvement with illegal livelihoods: Lacking self-discipline in  spending, as these students never have enough to spend, they solve the problem by turning to illegal professions such as theft, stealing money from public telephones or cash dispensers, selling drugs, gambling and prostitution.

 

 

 

They acknowledge no sense of justice-seeing no necessity to be just or reasonable. 

Loss of Respect for the Environment

 

When teachers lack self-discipline and don’t fulfil the minimal responsibilities to their students as prescribed by the Six Directions, the fourth sign of harm will be that their students will lack any sense of responsibility to the Six Directions and to the natural environment this being expressed in two main ways by the student’s behaviour.

 

- Lacking responsibility for their duties in the Six Directions: especially lacking a good interaction with the social groups in each of the Six Directions, will misbehave in at least three ways:

 

- Lacking human relations: Students who are not taught to value and respect the people around them tend to be self-indulgent, self-centered, lacking consideration towards others, ignoring seniority or the fact that someone might be their teacher. They may be neither gentle nor grateful, In brief, they lose the ability to get along with others. This kind of behaviour will become habitual and will become engrained as yet another kind of erroneous core value;

 

- Foul-spoken: Because they do not care about others’ feelings and lack respect, they speak respect, they speak out against others without consideration when they disagree with anything. Even when there in a good reason to listen, they will still cause an argument in order to have the last word. Furthermore, they will gossip maliciously about others and spread recriminations. This type of behaviour is certainly an obstacle to the reformation of human nature and society alike.

 

 

 

 They may also be opinionated and argumentative.

- Aggressiveness against others: Because they are self-centered and do things to please themselves, they are furious when anyone stands in their way. They may physically harm that person either directly or indirectly. Such students learn to behave like mafia since they are young. When they grow up they will have traits of full-blown gangsters, trying to stay above the Law.

 

- Lacking responsibility for the natural environment: these kind of students will misbehave in at least three ways:

 

- Not caring about preserving the natural environment: All knowledge, vocational or spiritual, must be learned. No one is an autodidact or is a born genius. Students who are not is an autodidact or is a born genius. Students who are not taught to value the matural environment will have no idea of their duty to preserve it, whether it is their immediate environment (such as their house, school or street) or the global environment (such as rivers, forests and mountains). Students who lack understanding of environmental issues, besides shrugging off responsibility for the environment, might destroy it just for fun and because of their erroneous core values. When they become adult, such habits may lead to an even more serious environmental destruction causing disaster to the nation and the world.

 

- Protesting about any duties in conservation of the natural environment: The most obvious example of such protest is that students who refuse to take their turn to clean up the classroom. Obedient students might take their turn, because they fear to be reproached, but do so unwillingly. The more stubborn ones, besides not helping friends to clean-up the classroom, might convince their friends that the job should be left to the janitor. Any school or any classroom, might convince their friends that the job should be left to the janitor. Any school or any classroom with such student, will find it difficult ever to become clean and tidy. However, if teachers go beyond their teaching duties, mingling with their students, to show them the necessity of taking joint responsibility for keeping the school clean, the students will help keep the school clean without protest;

 

 

 

Loss of Respect for Economic Fairness

- Vandalism: Because they do not understand the importance of preserving the natural environment, and fail to see it as their duty, these students not only fail to keep the school clean, but also add to the filth. They spread litter, write graphiti on the classroom and restroom walls and carve obscenities on the desks-all out of fun or simply to vent their negative feelings.

 

These kind of students, when grown up, tend to destroy things when angry, or destroy the natural environment, without feeling any guilt.

 

Summary of Social Problems Caused

 

Problems originating from the forward direction can be summarized under two headings:

 

Manifest youth problems: Very obvious problems amongst the youth these days are student violence, drug addiction and hanging out in “dens of vice” – together with underage prostitution activities.

 

Covert youth problems: Less obvious than the first category of problems for teachers are the problems caused when teachers lack sufficient self-discipline to fulfil their responsibilities to the students. The pvert youth problems in turn are the symptoms of this neglect. Children with the worst luck are those who come from households who already have problems. If parents have done little to fulfill their duties to wards their children, when the children are entrusted to teachers who also have no sense of responsibility, their chances of acquiring virtue are almost completely crippled neither parents nor teachers have managed to be the good examples the children need to acquire an understanding of virtue. Thus instead of blaming the young people, we should be seeing how to inspire both parents and teachers to cooperate in taking a more responsible role in the child’s virtuous upbringing.

 

 

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