Of Education...

Speaking of education, I gathered the following insights offered by a Westerner studying the Japanese method of learning, from the book Zen in the Art of Archery.

The Japanese pupil brings with him three things: good education, passionate love for his chosen art, and uncritical veneration of his teacher. 

I wondered what the first one really meant. So I made a list of things that mark a Japanese student-teacher relationship:

• The role of the teacher is truly great and noble... in every sense. The teacher knows each of the pupils so intimately that only he knows when exactly to 'touch' the core of the pupil. 
• The teacher is ALWAYS patient... under no circumstance does the teacher give up hope. In his great wisdom the teacher knows and makes the most of those crucial moments when a student needs to be touched. Patience... great patience, both on the part of the teacher and on the part of the student. No lengthy instructions. Merely short commands and then silent follow up. 
• The teacher demonstrates and the student is expected to practice, practice continuously. However, the student is not to exhaust himself or herself. Art is not something mastered, it is something imbibed; not earned, but experienced. 
• The teacher lets the student reach a point of desperation, a total self-emptying... perhaps the most painful part of the education process. 
• The target is not what it actually appears. The aim is far more deeper and spiritual. Completing a task or mastering a particular art is only an ordinary outcome of this actual aim. More than a physical movement, an inward movement is initiated. 
• The teacher does not teach, but merely shows the way. The student does the learning. “The instructor's business is not to show the way itself, but to enable the pupil to get the feel of this way to the goal by adapting it to his individual peculiarities.”