Realising the GNH endeavour
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| Particpants watching a documentary before the PM’s address |
Educating for GNH 24 January, 2010 - School
principals are the most important and powerful means through which GNH
values can be instilled in classrooms and schools, said Prime minister
Lyonchhoen Jigmi Y Thinley addressing the school principals on January
11.
Lyonchhoen spoke for almost four hours and at the heart of
his speech, he explained the rationale behind bringing all principals
together on an educating for GNH workshop. “You are the most important
factor to realise this endeavour,” he said to about 227 principals and
lecturers at the Paro College of education.
“This effort will not result in an additional subject or more work load but in a mindful establishment of a conscious framework with which you can teach the existing curriculum and also promote the values of GNH,” said Lyonchhoen.
GNH is all about living basic human and societal values, said the prime minister. “It is simple and I think all of you know what GNH is, at a subconscious level,” he said. “I hear wonderful stories of schools generously serving their communities, protecting the natural environment, and using positive rather than punitive discipline to create harmony.”
Most of the principals were from the six eastern dzongkhags. Some of them were getting restless after hours of being seated while most were jotting down what the prime minister had to say.
Lyonchhoen urged the principals to use meaningful examples to inject and inculcate GNH values. “Initiate environment friendly schools or zero polluting schools. For instance, ask students not to carry plastic bags to schools,” he said while citing various means with which GNH values could be brought in schools, pillar-wise.
On preservation and promotion of culture, he said teachers should make children contemplative. “Get them to think. Take students to offer butter lamps and also teach them the significance of such days.”
Lyonchhoen, stressing on GNH outside the classrooms, advised the principals to use picnics and camping to build bonds, comradeship and leadership. “Class and house captains in schools should be selected through elections so that children understand democratic process,” he said. “These are all simple things which you have been doing but you must now do it with greater consciousness and seriousness.”
A prepared text of Lyonchhoen’s speech, which was not delivered at the workshop, was later distributed among the participants. Before Lyonchhoen’s address, all participants watched a documentary – Students Full of Life – featuring a Japanese teacher and his first grade students.
The prime minister also urged principals to set up a baseline or indicators to assess the discipline problems, school fights and cases of substance abuse. “We have to set indicators to see whether such cases have decreased or increased in the schools,” he said. “Our challenge is that schools do not produce selfish economic animals who are only motivated to succeed at the cost of relationships, environment and family.”
Children must also learn that material goods do not define their identity, said Lyonchhoen. “I have heard of children not allowing parents who drive scooters to come to the school parking,” he said. “We have to convince the children that what parents have has nothing to do with who they are.”
Lyonchhoen, at the end of his speech at around 10:15 pm, said that if Bhutan is able to create an enlightened society, it would be because of the teachers, school principals and educators more than anyone else.
