Essay Sample on Artist Rabindranath Tagore

Introduction

Rabindranath Tagore is a well-known artist, play writer, poet, painter, novelist, patriot, storyteller, philosopher and educationist who was born on 8th May 1861 and he died on 7th August 1941 in Kolkata, India (Tagore, 2017). Tagore had divergent views on how education was carried around during his time. This aspect led to the development of interest in education and his contributions were great. Tagore got success as a poem in his early age. He was the genius in his work and was the rising star. He translated his work Geetanjali into English during the long sea journey to England (O'Connell, 2002). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature within the year his Geetanjali was published. Tagore, he explains that education should be a concept that allows us to think on our own, giving us the opportunity to be creative and identify ourselves. Tagore's contribution to the education sector is paramount. He believed that a student's education should be of free will and the learner should be open-minded, self-reliant, and educated in a complimentary way of learning and to have a loving spirit with themselves and others.

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Tagore believes that classes were often held outdoors and students learned best when they were close to nature (Tagore, 2002). And courses did not begin and end on specific dates on the calendar. Students continued tacking the course until both they and the instructor were satisfied that they had learned the material. A school should work with the natural curiosity of a child's mind to stimulate creativity and understanding and should introduce children to people from as many different backgrounds and worldviews as possible so that they do not grow up with the prejudice and blind spots of their elders. It should not be an "education factory" those warehouse students and teaches them in ways most convenient for adults (Tagore, 2017). He did not want to control how his students learned but give the students a way to learn and nourish the teachings in an absolute magnitude, which gave the students their imaginative cognitive learning with how they perceived the world themselves, and the teachings they were presented in a very natural free non prejudice and non education factory standard procedure.

Several supporting points are found in this critical period, the child's life is subjected to the education factory, lifeless, colourless, dissociated from the context of the universe, within bare white walls staring like eyeballs of the dead (O'Connell, 2002). We say never keep your mind alert, attend to what is before you, what has been given to you. This aspect tortures the child because it contradicts nature's purpose despite that nature is the greatest of all teachers. Adults are tyrants ignore natural gifts and say that children must learn through the same process that they learned. We insist upon forced mental feeding, and our lessons become a form of torture. This is one of the men most cruel and wasteful mistakes. Education must enable every child to understand and fulfil this purpose of the age, not defeat it by inquiring the habit of creating divisions and cherishing national prejudices (Tagore, 2002). The students can learn from one another with different cultural backgrounds and that the colour of our skin does not represent power between the students but a learning environment with one another and the information that can be exchanged between the pupils.

In his experience with the talk on illegal immigrants, he never allowed other peoples' biased information get in the way of his own opinion towards them. Sometimes it was difficult to have his opinion because things were taught to be set and stone. Tagore believed that many things that are taught should be shared in ways that allow the learners the freedom to form opinions of their own and think for themselves. When issues and information is forced upon others, they tend to block off their opinions and way of thinking. For this reason, many people aren't open-minded, they believe solely in what they were taught, in this case, hatred. Instead of allowing the knowledge he was receiving prevented him from thinking on his behalf and instead he became hateful towards illegal immigrants. He decided to look beyond the misconceptions and learn more about these individuals and accept them. If they are taught that no good comes from these people, then we automatically start to feel hate towards them. Tagore did not agree with the act of illegally entering the country; however, they are people who often come here to seek new opportunities; thus they should not be isolated or denied basic rights. Tagore explains that we should be allowed to think on our own without having others force certain perceptions upon us, creating unity and a better future (Tagore, 2017). This experience gave me an opportunity to be open-minded about everything. I've learned that when I am told something, I should look more into it and not just solely rely on what I've been told.

Conclusion

Tagore believed that a student's education should be of free will and the learner should be open-minded, self-reliant, and educated in an open way of learning and to have a loving spirit with themselves and others. Rabindranath Tagore has vast collections of stories, and he was a country lover. Tagore was a big follower of Mahatma Gandhi who believes in non-violence and truth. Even though he faces a lot of problems in his life, he stood for education until his demise on 7th August of 1941 just before India got independent on 15th August 1947. We have endeavoured to include this idea of unity in all the activities in our instruction, some educational, some that comprise different kinds of artistic expression.

References

Tagore, R. (2002). Thoughts from Rabindranath Tagore. Chandigarh: Abhishek.

Tagore, R. (2017) "To Teachers." Reading the World: Ideas That Matter, Edited by Marilyn Moller, (3rd Ed.) Norton & Company.

O'Connell, K. (2002) Rabindranath Tagore: The Poet as Educator, Calcutta: Visva-Bharati, 2002.