Why Mother Tongue Education Beats English for Better Development? || Acharya Prashant (2024)
Video Information: 12.10.2024, Vedanta: Basics to Classics, Greater Noida
📋 Video Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
2:40 Logical Approach: "Ceteris Paribus" in Education
3:47 Importance of Perspective in Decision-Making
8:19 Racket Sports and Cultural Bias in Education
9:30 Prioritizing Greatness Over Language Proficiency
14:15 Historical Examples: Gandhi, Vivekananda, and Tagore
Description:
Acharya Ji emphasizes that the quality of education is more important than the language of instruction. He explains that if all factors are equal, learning in the mother tongue is preferable. However, if the overall educational environment, like the quality of teachers, facilities, and peer group, is better in an English-medium school, then prioritizing the child's holistic development is wiser.
He cites examples of Swami Vivekananda, Gandhi, and Tagore, who, despite receiving English education, became champions of Indian culture and language. Acharya Ji stresses that education should raise consciousness first, while language is secondary but still significant.
🎧 Listen to Acharya Prashant on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/2QmVEAAnsNE7Xs0MW0Li8Y?si=09fbcbc7c99c469b
Video Information: 12.10.2024, Vedanta: Basics to Classics, Greater Noida
📋 Video Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
2:40 Logical Approach: "Ceteris Paribus" in Education
3:47 Importance of Perspective in Decision-Making
8:19 Racket Sports and Cultural Bias in Education
9:30 Prioritizing Greatness Over Language Proficiency
14:15 Historical Examples: Gandhi, Vivekananda, and Tagore
Description:
Acharya Ji emphasizes that the quality of education is more important than the language of instruction. He explains that if all factors are equal, learning in the mother tongue is preferable. However, if the overall educational environment, like the quality of teachers, facilities, and peer group, is better in an English-medium school, then prioritizing the child's holistic development is wiser.
He cites examples of Swami Vivekananda, Gandhi, and Tagore, who, despite receiving English education, became champions of Indian culture and language. Acharya Ji stresses that education should raise consciousness first, while language is secondary but still significant.
🎧 Listen to Acharya Prashant on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/2QmVEAAnsNE7Xs0MW0Li8Y?si=09fbcbc7c99c469b
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00So, considering all the factors that learning in mother tongue develops the child much better
00:05than that learning from a non-native language education.
00:10In this case, it was English language, non-native.
00:12Being spiritual does not mean that you have to necessarily rebel against everything.
00:16Language is a wonderful thing.
00:18And I too have a special feeling for our native languages.
00:22One by one, we are launching channels in the native languages.
00:27We already have five. Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Kannada.
00:30Two more are on their way.
00:32We respect our native languages. We love them.
00:34And we see both kinds of biases.
00:36There are those who are such fans of everything that is not Indian.
00:41That they are ever ready to consume even shit, provided it is imported.
00:46And then there are those who say, you know, we are Indians.
00:49So, cow dung.
00:51The first thing is quality.
00:54The first thing is that the child should be built up.
01:01Acharya ji, after a lot of study and thought process,
01:05and after listening to various analysts and scholars and philosophers,
01:10I decided to withdraw my child from a renowned English medium school
01:15and enrolled him into a Marathi medium school, which is my native language.
01:21So, considering all the factors that learning in mother tongue develops the child much better
01:26than that learning from a non-native language education.
01:30In this case, it was English language, non-native.
01:33So, now he is in first standard.
01:36He is learning in Marathi school.
01:39So, the things which I am becoming afraid of are something like that.
01:44In that school, the facilities like there is no playground.
01:48There is some unpleasant classrooms, which I have earlier seen in the English medium schools.
01:54Then the parent crowd in that school is very behind relatively in education,
01:59means the open mind perspective.
02:02And mostly they come from the lower economic strata.
02:05And the teaching staff is average, but not very matured enough
02:10and driven by some old-fashioned social cultures.
02:15For example, they celebrated a doll's marriage in their school.
02:20And literally the students were following the marriage ceremony.
02:26So, concluding this, my question is,
02:29shall I take a tough decision that enrolling my kid again into a renowned English medium school,
02:35where he will at least get some good sports culture or disciplines.
02:41There is a phrase in logic.
02:44It comes from Greek, Latin, I don't know. It must be from Greek.
02:47Mostly they come from Greek.
02:49Ceteris paribus.
02:51Okay.
02:52Heard of it?
02:53Never.
02:54Those from an economics background would know of it. What does that mean?
02:58All things remaining equal.
03:01Only if everything else is equal, then this conclusion holds good.
03:11Yes, a Marathi medium school is better than an English or French or Russian medium school.
03:19Only ceteris paribus.
03:22If everything else is equal.
03:24If there are two schools, one is Marathi medium, one is English medium,
03:28and they are equal in all other respects.
03:31The only difference is the medium of instruction.
03:34One is English, one is through Marathi.
03:37Only then the Marathi school is preferable.
03:39Yes.
03:40Basics of logic, sir.
03:44That completes my answer.
03:47Yeah.
03:48You used the word perspective.
03:50What does perspective mean?
03:51Perspective means to keep a thing in its proper place.
03:55To know the place and size of a thing in the macro context.
03:59That's perspective.
04:01You are seeing just one thing.
04:03The medium of instruction.
04:05You are not seeing the size of the playground.
04:08You are not seeing the cultural biases of the teachers.
04:11You are not seeing 70 other factors that are operational.
04:21How can you come to a valid conclusion?
04:32Same thing I find with many people who say,
04:35I am pulling my kid out of the school and will prefer homeschooling.
04:40Homeschooling has these many advantages.
04:42Yes, all those advantages are there.
04:48If you can give all the advantages of the regular formal kind of schooling
04:54at home as well,
04:56then homeschooling is preferable compared to the formal schooling.
05:02But can you give the other things at home?
05:05Do you have a lab at home?
05:06Do you have a playground at home?
05:08Do you have 200 other kids to give him company at home?
05:13Do you have discipline at home?
05:18You do not have these things at home.
05:20You are considering just one thing that has maybe a 5-10% weightage.
05:24And you are forgetting all the other things that have 90-95% weightage.
05:29What kind of rationality is this?
05:35Being spiritual does not mean that you have to necessarily rebel against everything.
05:46You don't have to be a professional rebel.
05:53You don't have to make it a point to compulsorily go against the crowd.
06:05If you do that, neither you nor I are entitled to wear these shirts.
06:13Because that's what all the commoners do.
06:15Let's be special.
06:17Let's put our socks on both these arms.
06:23And our undergarments on our chests.
06:28We don't have to necessarily go against the flow.
06:32We don't have to necessarily go with the flow either.
06:35We have to logically see what is best.
06:42What is the intellect for?
06:45This too is some kind of a cult.
06:54Militating against everything that is contemporary or prevalent or modern.
07:02Everything.
07:04Obviously, the contemporary things or prevalent things, they come with their share of inadequacies and harms.
07:19So you have to see how to navigate through it.
07:24To minimize the harm and maximize the benefit.
07:27You can't summarily reject everything that is modern or contemporary.
07:35It's not as if the modern civilization is just totally debauched.
07:40It has its own share of merits, sir.
07:43And let's acknowledge that.
07:45I am a great parent. I do not allow my kid to watch TV at all.
07:51I don't concur with that.
07:53You have to be discreet.
07:58See what can be allowed and see what cannot be.
08:01See what is good for the kid, see what is not.
08:04And leave a few things to the child's discretion.
08:15I do not allow the kid to play these modern European sports.
08:20He will only play Kabaddi and Kho-Kho.
08:23Kabaddi is a great sport and India has been doing well in that.
08:27We acknowledge that.
08:30But we also know the benefits of racket sports.
08:34And racket sports in India do not come to us from tradition.
08:39Be it badminton or tennis or squash or table tennis.
08:47They come to us from abroad.
08:52You know medical research proves that if you want to really live healthily,
08:57racket sports are the best for that.
09:02Why just rubbish everything that belongs to this age?
09:15Just as everything cannot be accepted in total,
09:20similarly everything cannot be rejected in total.
09:25Vivek, discretion.
09:32Yes, I would want the kid to be a great man fluent in his native language.
09:42A great person fluent in his native language.
09:45But what if it comes to a choice between greatness and fluency in native language?
09:50What would you pick?
09:53What if it comes to this?
09:56That he can either be great in consciousness or he can be fluent in the native language.
10:02What would you pick?
10:03Obviously greatness.
10:09Language is a wonderful thing.
10:11And I too have a special feeling for our native languages.
10:17One by one we are launching channels in the native languages.
10:24We already have five.
10:26Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Kannada.
10:32Two more are on their way.
10:36We respect our native languages. We love them.
10:39But that does not mean that you don't have to benefit from what is not native.
10:50Nativity is fine.
10:55But truth is above everything else.
11:03Are you getting it?
11:05Yes, we all love our native foods, our staple diet.
11:10Who does not?
11:12But that does not mean that I will not have a look at Mexican cuisine or whatever.
11:19Continental or Italian, Thai, Japanese.
11:29I have a look at everything.
11:32One cannot be biased either side.
11:40And we see both kinds of biases.
11:42There are those who are such fans of everything that is not Indian.
11:51That they are ever ready to consume even shit provided it is imported.
12:02And then there are those who say, you know, we are Indians.
12:10Unfortunately, in India, the ecosystem, the educational infrastructure in the native languages is pretty weak.
12:22Not that schools don't exist. They exist aplenty.
12:28But as you pointed out, the quality of teachers, the quality of the crowd, all that is a bit abysmal.
12:38And there is no obligation on you to make the child suffer due to your linguistic biases.
12:51Today we have the biggest Hindi language channel.
13:01Must be in the entire world, right?
13:03Entire world.
13:07I have had an English medium education throughout.
13:10You hear of those schools where kids are penalized for speaking in the native, the vernacular, right?
13:27I come from such schools.
13:32And obviously I do not support Anglicization of the mind.
13:49But I also probably know that my English medium education has contributed to what I am currently doing.
14:01So that's a curious thing.
14:04This world's largest Hindi language channel probably could not have come without my English medium education.
14:16So many of the great poets, think of Agye for example, their education was in English.
14:24And they went on to become stalwarts in the Hindi field.
14:32Think of Gandhi, a coat pant donning barrister from London in South Africa.
14:45And he becomes the Hindi heartland's Mahatma.
14:49When he went to Champaran, he didn't even know the Bihari language.
14:59Bhojpuri was spoken and written in the Kaithi script.
15:08And Gandhi knew neither.
15:12And he is a Gujarati returning from abroad.
15:16And see where he begins his mission.
15:19In Bihar.
15:21His education abroad helped him do great things in the Hindi heartland.
15:33You don't have to stick to Hindi and Hindism to do good to the Hindi people.
15:44You don't have to stick to the Marathi language to do good to the Maratha homeland.
15:55And you can even be a great Marathi scholar without having studied in a Marathi medium school.
16:07Obviously, if you get a Marathi medium school that is almost at par with the standards of an English medium school,
16:21then you must definitely opt for the Marathi school. Definitely.
16:25But if the difference is too large, then we cannot be unjust to the kid.
16:35Swami Vivekananda is a Bengali icon.
16:46Did he receive his at least higher education in the Bengali medium? No, he did not.
16:56And today he is revered in Bengal particularly because his education enabled him to go abroad and do great things there.
17:07Had he known only Bengali, would he have been able to achieve the feat that he did in Chicago in 1893?
17:25And obviously his hold over the Bengali language was awesome.
17:38Nehru too had an exclusively English education.
17:43But you listen to him speaking in Hindi. He used to call it Hindustani.
17:48You listen to him speaking in Hindi and there is such fineness.
18:07The very pride of Bengal.
18:15Immaculate English.
18:18And which language did the Gitanjali appear in? Bengali.
18:35You know to get the Nobel it had to be translated so that they could understand.
18:48The first thing is quality.
18:52The first thing is that the child should be built up.
18:57The first thing is that education should be able to raise consciousness.
19:02The language comes after that.
19:07The medium of instruction comes after. It is very important.
19:11But it is not the first thing. The first thing is consciousness.
19:15The second thing is language.