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Mother’s Action in a Class of Children Aged Seven to Nine
(Mother gave the name “Arbre Ensoleillé” [“Sunlit Tree”] to the class according to ideas expressed by the children themselves. She explained:} Page – 333 The tree is life that aspires and grows. The sun is the light of Truth. It is not the cold light of reason that helps life to grow and blossom, it is the warm and life-giving light of Truth; it is the sun, when it pours its joyful rays on the world.
(The teacher introduced activities such as doing odd jobs, gardening, making a zoo out of cardboard, observing a chrysalis, etc. The children enjoyed these activities but afterwards were reluctant to go on from there to do more “scholastic” work.}
A good beginning. It will evolve quite naturally towards more intellectual activities, and meanwhile any work that is done with care is an opportunity to learn something.
(Reply to some practical questions}
1. It is better not to lock the children up in the classroom, even to play. 2. A moment of silence and concentration is always good for all the children. But the prayer should not be compulsory. Those who want to do it will be encouraged. I suggest that you put up a notice-board in the classroom with these words written on it in large letters: “Mother is always here amongst us to help us and guide us.” Most of the children will understand, and some are capable of feeling. December 1960 (The teacher found the children turbulent, rather lazy and as talkative as parrots. She asked:) Is it like this Page – 334 because their real interest is not turned towards study?
Yes.
What can we do to obtain calm and quietness in the class and get the children to do some work?
The only effective thing is to create or awaken in them a real interest in study, the need to learn and to know, to awaken their mental curiosity.
(The teacher complained of a lack of results.}
It is only after months, and even years of assiduous, regular and obstinate effort that one can rightfully say (and even then!) that it has been useless and fruitless.
What should be done?
Compulsion is neither the best nor the most effective principle of education. True education must reveal what is already present in the developing beings and make it blossom. Just as flowers blossom in the sun, children blossom in joy. It goes without saying that joy does not mean weakness, disorder and confusion. But a luminous kindliness which encourages the good and does not severely insist on the bad. Grace is always much closer to Truth than justice.
What should be done so that Mother can act in the class?
There is nothing, no method, no process, which is bad in itself; everything depends on the spirit in which it is done. If you want my help, it is not by accepting one principle of action and rejecting another that you can have it, but by Page – 335 concentrating before the class, by establishing silence and peace in your heart (and in your head too, if possible) and by calling my presence with a sincere aspiration that I should be behind all your actions, not in the way you think that I would act (for that can only be an arbitrary opinion and therefore necessarily wrong), but in silence and calm and inner spontaneity. This is the only true way of getting out of your difficulty. And until you are able to achieve this, do your best quietly and perseveringly, according to your own capacities and the circumstances, with simplicity and without tormenting yourself. The Grace is always there with anyone who wishes to do well.
What does Mother call “persevering” where work with the children is concerned?
What I meant to say in the notebook, was that it is always preferable to continue quietly with what one is doing until an inner psychological change brings about the outer change smoothly. This is what I call persevering. January 1961 The work and the discipline are becoming slack. Is it because of a “vital strike” on the teacher’s part?
Certainly. It is a weakening of the force due to the non-collaboration of the vital which causes the slackening. Children do not live in their minds enough to obey spontaneously a mental will that is not sustained by a vital force which influences them by its mere presence, without requiring any outer expression. When the vital collaborates, my force works through it and automatically maintains order simply by its presence in the vital. Young children are not very sensitive to a mental power that is not clothed with vital power. And in order to have vital power you yourself must be perfectly calm. Page – 336 (The teacher proposed to start with the children a course of study in the subjects which interested them.}
Yes, it is a good idea. An atmosphere of friendly collaboration is always best. February 1961 A difficult period is beginning. What would be the true attitude for the teacher?
The psychic inspiration alone is true. All that comes from the vital and the mind is necessarily mixed with egoism and is arbitrary. One should not act in reaction to outer contact, but with an immutable vision of love and goodwill. Everything else is a mixture which can only have confused and mixed results, and perpetuate the disorder.
(Extract from one of the teacher’s letters:} It seems that it is merely mental impulses that are making me act, and that they miss the mark. That is why although I intervene very little, I feel that it is still too much, because it is not the real thing. And I think I have learnt from You that true calm is much more effective than any external intervention. It also seems that if I am going through an experience, perhaps the same thing may be true for the children, and in fact we are going through this experience together, we have embarked on the same boat; the Divine alone knows its meaning and its outcome.1
The problem is more far-reaching than it appears at first sight. It is in fact a revolt of the vital forces of the children against all discipline and all constraint. The normal ordinary method
¹Mother underlined this extract and wrote in the margin:” This is correct.” Page – 337 would have been to expel all the undisciplined children from the school and to keep only those who are “good”. But this is a defeat and an impoverishment. If, by transmitting the inner force, in absolute calm, one can finally control this revolt, it becomes a conversion and a true enrichment. That is what I want to try and I hope that it will be possible for you to go on collaborating with my action. And now that you have understood not only what I want to do, but also the mechanism and the process of this action, I am confident that we shall succeed. We must expect relapses and not be discouraged by them. Vital forces, especially in children whose reason is not very well developed, fight desperately before accepting the light and allowing themselves to be converted by it. But success is certain in the end, and we must know how to endure and wait.
(The teacher prayed for light, love, flexibility and all that is necessary in order to collaborate with Mother’s work in the class.)
All this is constantly with you. Remain open and let it work.
1Mother underlined this extract and wrote in the margin: “This is correct.” March 1961
(The teacher planned to let the children work in groups. Should she form the groups herself, according to their standards, or should she let the children group themselves according to their affinities?}
Let the children group themselves according to their spontaneous sympathies.
Does calm in the teacher necessarily bring about calm in the class, that is to say, “a quiet atmosphere where each one can work according to his own rhythm and Page – 338 capacities, without noise or restlessness, without impatience or laziness…?”
If your calm is integral, that is, both inner and outer, founded on the perception of the Divine Presence, and unchanging, that is to say, constant and unvarying in all circumstances, it will undoubtedly be all-powerful, and the children will necessarily be influenced by it and the class will certainly become, spontaneously and almost automatically, what you want it to be.1 April 1961
(The teacher thought that a liking for work and the joy of working should be developed in the children. Mother replied:}
You are quite right in everything you say about the school, the class and work, and I fully approve the effort of organisation that you want to make.
(Mother also sent these two messages to
the children
If one does not love work, one is always unhappy in life.
In order to be truly happy in life, one must love work. July 1961
Some Other Messages of Mother to the Children of This Class
My dear children, love work and you will be happy. Love to learn and you will progress.
1From the time of this message, calm was definitively re-established in the classroom. Page – 339 (The children decided with their teacher on a programme for the year: to speak in French, to read correctly, to write French without mistakes, to count properly, to understand arithmetic problems, to learn how to add, subtract, multiply and divide. Mother replied in the class notebook:)
My dear children, I have read your letter and I agree that it would be very good if by the end of the year you knew all the things that you have listed here. But there is one point on which I want to draw your attention, because it is the central point and the most important one: it is your attitude in class and the state of mind in which you come to school. To benefit from your daily attendance in class, you must go there with a sincere will to learn, to be attentive and concentrated, to listen to what your teacher tells you and to work quietly and seriously. If you spend your time shouting, fidgeting and upsetting everything like unconscious and ill-mannered children, you are wasting your time, you are wasting the teacher’s time and you will learn nothing at all. And at the end of the year I will have to say that you are bad students and do not deserve to move up into a higher class. You must come to your class with the will to learn, otherwise it is a waste of time, because even if only one of you misbehaves all the others will be disturbed. So this is the decision I want you to take: to be good, quiet, attentive, and to work hard. This is what you must promise me to do in this notebook. And when each of you has written, with all his goodwill, then send the notebook back to me so that I can give you my blessings. Beginning of 1961 Page – 340 (The children do not sit up straight and their handwriting is bad. Mother wrote :}
It is no more tiring to hold yourself straight than to hold yourself badly. When you hold yourself straight, the body grows harmoniously. When you hold yourself badly, the body becomes misshapen and ugly. It is no more tiring to write neatly than to scrawl. When your work is neatly written, it is read with pleasure. When it is too badly written, it cannot be read at all. To do with care all that one does is the basis of all progress. 1961
The days pass, the weeks pass, the months pass, the years pass and time fades into the past. And later on, when they have grown up, those who no longer have the immense advantage of being children regret the time that they have wasted and that they could have used to learn all the things which are needed to know how to live. March 1961 Page – 341 |
