13 is not an object of education. They have their own status in education. Human
being is creative, so education must encourage human being to be creative. Second, human being is inseparable from the society since they are social
creature. To conclude, UNESCO states that education must prepare human being for their society including its social structure.
Education is not an instant way to make a full human being. Education is a learning process. During the process, teachers and students are transferring
knowledge. It is not merely the teachers who transfer his ideas or knowledge to the students. It is both sides transferring knowledge one another. One of the
theories of learning came from experiential learning. Kolb 38 states that “learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation
of experience ”. The process emphasizes on the process of adaptation and learning
as opposed to content or outcomes. Thus, Kolb regards knowledge as a transformation process, being continuously created and recreated not as an
independent entity to be acquired or transmitted.
B. Biography of Rabindranath Tagore and His View of Education
In this part, the study presents two things. The first is biography of Tagore. The second is Tagore’s view of education. It is presented as follows.
1. Biography of Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore, a teacher and a poet, was born in Calcuta on 6 May 1861. He was born in a wealthy Brahmin family. He was the youngest child in the
14 family. His father, Debendranath Tagore, was a leader of Brahmo Samaj, a
religious sect in Bengal which was based on Hinduism as laid down in the Upanishad. His mother, Sarada Devi, died when Tagore was very young. His
family was a gifted family that has many talents and was genius. As we can see, his brother Dweijendranath, Tagore’s eldest brother, was a philosopher.
Jyotirindra, his other brother was an amateur artist and known for his drawing. The third brother was the first Indian to enter Civil Service. Then, his nephews,
Abanindranath and Gaganedranath were the Great Twin Brethren of Bengali. Thus, Tagore lived and grew up in the house of India renaissance.
On his personal life, Tagore was a loyal man. His wife was Mrinalini Devi Raichaudhuri. Tagore married her in 1883 and moved to East Bengal. He had two
sons; they are Rathindranath Tagore and Samindranath Tagore, and three daughters; they are Madhurilata Tagore, Mira Tagore and Renuka Tagore. In
1941, Tagore died on his eighty. He never remarried after his wife passed away in 1902.
As a Bengal Poet, Rabindranath Tagore wrote most of his poem in Bengali language. But, some of them have been translated into English. At the age of six,
he studied classical poetry of Kalidasa. Thompson 4 said that he had been the representative man of his time, in touch with fullness of his intellectual heritage.
He was able to combine the style of great Sanskrit Literature and good diction. As a teacher, Rabindranath Tagore had various education backgrounds.
When he was a child, he was educated by some tutors and variety of schools. He described his family as the product of a confluence of three cultures: Hindu,
15 Mohammedan, and British. Those three cultures enriched Tagore’s view.
However, much of Tagores ideologies came from the teaching of the Upanishads and from his own beliefs that God can be found through personal purity and
service to others. He stressed the need for the new world order based on transnational values and ideas, the unity consciousness. He studied history and
culture in Bengal Academy. He travelled to England in 1878 in hope of becoming a barrister. He studied law at University College London. However, he left
University College London and was back to India in 1880 for the reason that his father had arranged his marriage to Mrinalini Devi Raichaudhuri. Though he had
various formal educations, there was not any place for his real education. Thomson 6 states,
“his real education came, not from the desultory and experimental
alternation of tutor and school… but from the whole circumstances of his life
”. Through his thought, education could be obtained through many ways and
the freedom of mind. He founded a school at Santiniketan Abode of Peace. His school was built in 1901. It was an independent school since the school never had
much money for the low fees. The government did not pay attention to this school. However, the school grew into an international university, Visva-Bharati,
in 1921. Thomson 35 states that “this school was founded for his thought that
his country seemed to him so broken and scattered, that the first need was to give it some centre where it might concentrate
”. So, the school uses both imaginative and innovative system of education. He combined the western and eastern
philosophy at this school. Even Satyajit Ray, an alumnus of Santiniketan, said: PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
16 I consider the three years I spent in Santiniketan as the most fruitful of my
life…. Santiniketan opened my eyes for the first time to the splendorous of Indian and Far Eastern art…Santiniketan made me the combined product of
East and West that I am. At this school, where he wrote many of his works, Tagore tried to combine
traditional Indian culture with Western ideas. All the children contributed significantly to Bengali literature and culture. His writings influence the students
and teachers of the school and lead the school to ta ke a major part in India’s
social, political and cultural movement. As one of Indian hero, Tagore fought the freedom of India through his own
way. It was different from his friend, Mahatma Gandhi, who fought the freedom of India through political movement. He struggled for the freedom of India with
his poems, novels, short stories, plays and songs. His works helped the Indian to gain
their independence
by burning
their spirit,
as stated
by http:www.terebess.huenglishtagore4.html accessed on Monday, May 20 2008
As a multifaceted genius and renaissance man par excellence, he not only carried the literature and arts of Bengal, virtually single-handedly, to
dizzying heights of creativity, but, by his inspiring words, his lyrically unequalled songs, his unstinting support for the cause of Indias freedom
during a long and turbulent phase of her history, he lifted Indian culture and the Indian psyche to an unprecedented level of revitalization.
2. Tagore’s View of Education
