By Acharya Pashupati Steven Landau& Rainjiita Raffaella Simonetti

There has been an explosion of Educational Apps in the last years. There are more cell phones in the world now than there are people. Is this a problem? Let’s look at it rationally.

The educational apps clearly help people learn, achieve better scores on tests, cut down fewer trees, and engage concentration better than classrooms and books. They also risk diversion to non-educational sites, Internet addiction, and social isolation.

What to do? It all depends on what type of human we want to create. P.R. Sarkar, the propounder of Neohumanistic Education, wants to create Sadvipras. Who are Sadvipras? They are spirituo-moralistic persons who want to develop a just society for the benefit of all, including the animals and plants and the planet. They are persons who are neither laborer, warrior, intellectual nor mercantilist, but a combination of all those. They are leaders, either behind the scenes, or up front in the limelight.

How to create Sadvipras? The apps can be useful, no doubt, not only in didactic learning, but also in telling stories and creating games that develop bravery, compassion, rationalistic thinking, and other values that lead to superlative personalities. In addition, children and adults need to develop on the spiritual, mental and physical planes. Accordingly, sports, social interactions, outdoor activities and nature walks are necessary, along with internally focused activities like yoga and meditation, music, martial arts and dance. These would be started at an early age, in preschool, and led up right through University and on into continuing adult education for life. Hundreds of Neohumanistic schools exist now in the world, and all are encouraged to learn about them.

Sarkar has other applicable principles, based on his revolutionary Progressive Utilization Theory (PROUT). Among them are these, drawn from his book Ananda Sutram.

“There should be maximum utilization and rational distribution of all mundane, supramundane and spiritual potentialities of the universe.” The educational apps, with the help of people and an organizational planning that has at heart the dissemination of knowledge,  will make education available to anyone with a computer or cell phone, and that is currently mostly anyone – about 80% of the world’s population.  It’s just a question of price and distribution.

“There should be maximum utilization of the physical, metaphysical and spiritual potentialities of unit and collective bodies of human society.” The educational Apps can help develop multiple skills in various fields, including meditation, music, martial arts and more.

 “There should be a proper adjustment amongst these physical, metaphysical, mundane, supramundane and spiritual utilizations.”  Teachers and staff may lose their jobs because of the need for re-training in apps use, or because the apps replace part of the need of the in-person teacher. This is already happening with COVID 19. Hence the necessity for re-training and helping displaced workers find alternative employment with living wages.

 “The method of utilization should vary in accordance with changes in time, space and person, and the utilization should be of progressive nature.” Here, we are encouraged to be fearless in adoption of new technologies. Educational Apps certainly qualify.

Here is another aspect.  In the school context, where learning usually takes place in a group class. It is the teacher and the people present who determine the “learning environment.” In this environment, Educational Apps are just tools – along with books, laboratory instrumentation, media documents and other materials. The educational Apps do not remove the teacher’s potential to shape the student’s relationship to the subject of the study, or to the means used to study. Let those who guide learning keep alive the inspiration to reach that higher state of consciousness to which knowledge can lead. This way, the Apps return to be a means and not an end. 

(The authors Acharya Pashupati Steven Landau MD FAAFP  Greensboro, NC  USA  has helped found 3 Neohumanist pre-schools, taught college and medical students and  trained yoga teachers. He can be reached at [email protected] or +1-919-868-4729 via Whatsapp.  Rainjiita Raffaella Simonetti lives near Parma, Italy, and works as a teacher of mathematics and science in the public secondary school. She is a yoga teacher for children. . She can be reached at [email protected] or +39 333 4335651 via Whatsapp)