Petar Dunov (Beinsa Duno) about education
Contemporary school must work in accordance with child’s nature. The mission of the school is to create a new human being of love, because love provides abundance. The most important method is still the love of the teacher for the student, because thus the child’s mind, heart and will, talents and gifts, are to blossom in their complete beauty.
With love the child will plant and grow flowers, vegetables, and fruit-trees, will clean pathways in the forest and around the springs in the mountain. This will be love put in practice.
The child, who loves flowers and trees, will also love people.
The true upbringing of children is the transformation of love into charity!
“Every day a good deed is to be done.” It is good to awaken this idea in children through tales and stories, so that they start practicing it by their own initiative.
Games which develop cruelty and rudeness should not be played.
Children must be given positive nourishment for their mind, heart, and will.
Current needs of a child should not be disregarded; this is the way future ones are met. If done, childhood itself is neglected and sacrificed in this way.
If current needs are met, and conditions of a complete life abound in the present, thus the conditions for meeting future needs are established.
A child must live in a joyful environment and the process of education must contribute for this. Because joy, being a great tutor in itself, gives an opportunity for the energies of body, mind, heart, and will to blossom and become strong; inner balance and harmony are preserved; love is developed.
The first period, from birth until the 7th year is the most important educational period. Then the body takes shape. A well developed body is of great importance not only for the purpose of good health, but also for one’s spiritual progress. The most characteristic feature which we may use in education is imitation. Though this period in kindergarten it is important to exercise and develop the senses: sight, hearing, sense of smell, etc. Activities in nature should be used to get acquainted with forms, colors, lines for drawing and molding. This may become the starting point for songs, stories and games, in which gratitude for the warmth and light of the sun, birds, flowers, and beautiful fruits is expressed, and thus gratitude towards the Origin is developed.
In kindergarten a rhythmical exercise in a lighter form could be presented, by the way of simplifying Paneurhythmy. It must be applied in activities and creative work, so that a beginning for developing the will is established.
The second educational period, from the 7th to the 14th year, is a period of the feelings and the heart. Contemporary school suffers from intellectualism. It neglects the heart and will, and that has fatal consequences, because according to psychology, feelings give direction to the will.
Every activity of the child during this period must awaken living feelings: enthusiasm, joy, charity, love, compassion, etc.
On the other hand, the world of the beautiful and the artistic element must infiltrate the entire education, because during this period, the esthetical feelings are awaken and developed in the child.
Music, Paneurhythmy and excursions will also introduce joy in the life of the child.
fürthermore, all activities of children must nurture the imagination with vivid images and pictures, so that their creativity is activated, assisting the development of the mind.
The second educational period shouldn’t be underestimated, because the esthetical qualities of the child are being revived. Life is experienced in the world of rhythm and tone, in the world of artistic images and imagination, in the world of harmony and beauty.
In the third educational period (high school), from the 14th to the 21st year, there comes a great change not only in the physiological processes of the body of the adolescent, but also in his spiritual life. This is the period when mind and logical thinking are developed. During this period the youth dreams for a world of beauty, light, and harmony.
Education during the high school period must be conducted in the spirit of idealism. The connection between teacher and student is to be formed on this basis. The teacher must help the student to find answers to the questions which are on his mind, and to awaken his idealist incentives into activity, because this is the period when universal interests overtake the soul of the student.
All truths during this period must be clothed in concepts connected with science and the mental life of the adolescent. In high school the newest scientific facts must be taught, which will lead to deeper understanding of nature and life.
On the other hand, the student must remain in communion with nature through labor in the garden or the field.
Music in Education
Music is a great process of creation. Music is an auxiliary feeling that develops human abilities.
Love, the great reality of life, cannot be revealed without an appropriate musical environment. Music is one of the great methods for tuning and transforming human conditions. Through music a person may create character. Music brings peace and joy. Modern people must apply music in life as means for education.
When a song is combined with movement, it becomes alive. In the school of today songs with movement are also practiced, but in many cases these movements are unnatural.
Some laws must be followed to overcome this.
Movements must be of such kind, that they connect the child with the living nature, awakening creational abilities in this way.
If people want to raise a hopeful posterity, which will carry something beautiful, elevated and new, they must place music in the foundation of education. Music must be regarded as a primary educational factor for ennoblement of human character.
Music shouldn’t be simply a separate subject occupying one or two classes per week, but must infiltrate the entire school life, the entire activity of the student. If you want to educate your little children correctly, you may wonderfully educate them by using music. Even the most obstinate and self-willed children can be educated through music.
Students must learn to capture the music that permeates the entire nature.
Some people think that working on one’s own character is achieved mainly by reading books. This is only enrichment with knowledge, and self-education is something more: it is all-embracing work on the mind, feelings and will.
Self-education means independent nurturing. On his way of self-education, a one makes numerous attempts, until he finally comes to a certain method. In this way he elaborates correct feelings and thoughts, which represent his own experience.
When self-education is discussed, the first area of work in this field relates to the body, which must be maintained in a good condition.
Among the rest of its objectives, the school must awaken in the student a desire to continually work on self-education, on his spiritual growth after graduation.
Nature and Education
For children nature is a natural, joyful, attractive and favorite environment.
Communion with nature leads to blossoming of love in the child. One cannot waken for love if nature doesn’t live in him! Nature is a great teacher, which awakens everything noble and beautiful in man. It ennobles the character, brings harmony, purity, innocence in the person, and creates conditions for love to be expressed.
Labor in nature will be a practical lesson for the child, who is taught by everything seen.
In education through activity in nature the studiousness of children will be awaken. Overcoming difficulties, the child will build up character. Senses, muscles, lungs will be exercised, thus receiving abundant material to develop imagination, memory, thoughts, feelings, and will.
The child must first get to know the physical and tangible, that which is perceived through the senses, which knowledge will serve as a starting point for the abstract.
For example: generosity may be related to the spring of water; patience -- with the age-old tree; one’s readiness to receive good with the flower bud opening for the rays of the sun, etc.
The sensible nature has put man in an environment full of beauty and variety. Everything teaches: grass, flowers, trees, light, wind, clouds, rivers, mountains and so forth. Imagination and will are stimulated to act by all of this. Nature educates man both with hardship and the harmony and beauty, which fill it.
All of this is to be applied in education. These are eternal methods, which nature applies for people, plants and animals.
The issue of eating is important, also that of breathing, and the one of gymnastic exercises is also very important. Everything in life depends on exercises. There are movements that collect, compile energy, and there are movements that diffuse energy. There are movements that are healthy, and movements that are painful.
The contemporary man, not understanding the deep meaning of life, strives for a sedentary life. This type of living is very practiced by the fakirs in India, but in this way some of their organs atrophy.
A person who doesn’t exercise will face great difficulties, because good in the world is found in that eternal and harmonious movement of the body. In a healthy body all parts are in motion. They have sufficient food, air and strength.
The human being is very complex. It carries in itself the energies of the plant and animal kingdoms, and now is influenced by the superior energies. It is the center and transformer of the energies of the sun and the earth. From scientific point of view, all muscles, the whole body must exercise. These movements must be grounded in the scientific knowledge of man and the Universe, and their interrelation. That is because the purpose and meaning of exercise is to harmonize, regulate and transform the energies which flow in the human organism. So, from this point of view, gymnastic exercises are not only amusement, but also a vital necessity, equal with breathing and feeding.
Hygiene forbids man to use negative and disharmonious words. If he goes against hygiene, he disrupts his liver. After the liver is disrupted, the nervous system and digestion are upset. Bad words in general affect health in a negative manner. If you want to be healthy, use good and positive words.
Good strengthens th$e nervous system.
Music is a method of saving and acquiring energy. Health is founded on music. As far as you are musical, you stay healthy. When you sing, illness goes away. Music gives life to all organs in the body. Where nothing else can penetrate, music can, and it acts in an ennobling manner. In the world of music there is no sickness.
Music creates in one`s heart. When a person sings, all cells in his body work more actively. When sick, a person`s vibration is reduced. Music increases it. Music is the best way to give life to a person.
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