Peoria High School - Crest Yearbook (Peoria, IL)

Page 6 text:

You know, it is so nice just to be very quiet, to sit up straight with dignity, with poise-and that is as important as it is to look at those leaf- less trees. Have you noticed how lovely those trees are against the pale blue of the morning sky? The naked branches of a tree reveal its beauty, and trees also have an extraordinary beauty about them in the spring, in the summer and in the autumn. Their beauty changes with the seasons, and to notice this is as important as it is to consider the ways of our own Iife. K rishnamurti Education, unfortunately, in our schools, is chiefly concerned with the accumulation of the knowledge of facts from books to pass exams, to go to college, and to get a job. A job is important, but the true purpose of education must be to help one understand the whole process of living by independent thinking, generosity, and charity. Our life is not a fixed state, but rather a continually changing process, This is especially true in our time of radical change within our environ- ment. lt is the process through which we search for a good life, whether it be a home, car, and financial security, or a job as a social worker. This process of living has changed direction in recent years. lt no longer means marriage and children for many women and the accept- ance of the paths that our parents followed. Achievement and wealth are still desired, but with added dimensions-awareness of' other peo- ple, their thoughts and feelings, and of our environment, a trend towards openness to all our experiences and emotions which leads to the oppo- sition to the hypocrisy of people and institutions, a greater trust in our- selves and our constructive potential, and a trend towards community, especially important in our society which becomes increasingly more dehumanized and alienated. Our schools must provide an atmosphere in which these dimensions can flourish. One of the main difficulties in education is the emphasis of making us mere technicians, in the midst of this technology we forget that we are human beings capable of caring and loving, which means we are filling our hearts with things of the mind. A life filled solely with technology can have little meaning. Knowledge and technology are useful, but without love, it is destructive. There is something vast and immeasurable beyond the mind, a love- liness which the mind cannot understand. In that immensity there is an ectasy, a glory, and the living in that, the experiencing of that, is the way of education. Krishnamurti Thus, in this book we present, along with the factual record of the year, some thoughts concerning the other side, the one dealing with the human thoughts and feelings which we experience during the year, in hopes that it will cause someone to be more aware of others, their potential and their creativity, and the ways of his own life.