Why We Need Someone Like Rabindranath Tagore Today

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

Rabindranath Tagore had the ability to transform a person with just words.

A poet, philosopher, thinker, artist, humanist and musician, Tagore changed the course of Bengali Literature and Indian music. He wrote his first poem when he was just 8 and released his first list of substantial poems at sixteen. We might know him as the musician and lyricist behind our national anthem, but he did you know that he composed the national anthems for Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as well?

Never fond of conventional schooling, Tagore always tried to learn differently, and convinced everyone to do so. His quotes on education are deep and profound. Today on his 157th birthday, we bring to you his most famous quotes on his thoughts on education.

Education only information? No, thank you!

“The highest education is is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence.”

Your child is not yours to own

“Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time”

Schooling needs to change

“The regular type of school is manufactory and is a mere method of discipline specifically designed for grinding out uniform results.”

We are robbing our kids

“We rob the child of his earth to teach him geography; Of language, to teach him grammar; his hunger is for the epic, (but) he is supplied with chronicles of facts and dates.”

We wish such a visionary like him was still alive, because our country needs minds like him to steer us towards a bright future.