Learning is Sacred: A call to reclaim the spirit of Education

Our universities today are becoming more like factories than places of growth. There is a relentless obsession with fulfilling credit hours, sticking to academic calendars, and measuring productivity in numbers. But real education doesn't happen inside spreadsheets. It happens in the quiet moments of discovery, in the trust between teacher and student, and in the comfort of an environment that nurtures curiosity instead of crushing it.

Teaching requires stamina—not just mental, but emotional and spiritual stamina. A teacher’s energy is not just in their words; it's in their presence, their body language, the way they walk into a room and ignite a spark in students’ minds. That spark cannot exist if the teacher is exhausted, drained by overloaded schedules and institutional indifference. And that spark cannot catch if students themselves are weighed down by pressure, fear, and fatigue. A burnt-out teacher standing before a burnt-out class isn't education—it's a performance where no one remembers the lines.

Educational institutes—many of them—have become toxic spaces. They burn through faculty and students like fuel, without ever asking what kind of fire they’re lighting. The emotional toll is enormous: constant fatigue, anxiety, and the slow erosion of confidence. Learning requires a soft inner space, and we’re hardening it with stress, deadlines, and the noise of meaningless metrics.

True learning can only unfold in a space of comfort and trust. There has to be a cognitive alignment—a shared rhythm—between teacher and student. That cannot be mandated or managed. It must be cultivated. And when that space does open up, the classroom becomes something far more than four walls. It becomes a sanctuary. A temple. A place where, in the middle of a discussion, both student and teacher pause—because something real has just been discovered. In those moments, you feel goosebumps. Not because someone has recited a perfect answer, but because you've stumbled into insight together.

Sometimes, a teacher asks a question they’ve asked a hundred times before—but this time, a student gives an answer so fresh and intuitive, it changes how the teacher sees the subject. That’s the magic. That’s the reciprocity. That’s the essence of learning: to be changed by each other’s thoughts.

And yet, in Pakistani classrooms—and many others like them—students look like laborers. Carrying heavy bags, dragging themselves from class to class, checked in physically but completely disconnected mentally and emotionally. They are not invited to think; they are trained to comply. The physical burden is just the beginning. The real tragedy is that we have normalized intellectual passivity and emotional disconnection in a space that should be alive with wonder.

Learning is sacred. And when something is sacred, you don’t rush it. You don’t commercialize it. You don’t make it mechanical. You approach it with humility, with presence, with love. Because education is not just about passing exams—it’s about expanding the mind and awakening the soul.

So let us stop mocking the process by reducing it to quotas and time slots. Let us restore the spirit of learning by first making our institutions places where people can breathe, reflect, and truly connect. Let the classroom be a space where hearts open, ideas bloom, and lives begin to change—not just academically, but emotionally and spiritually too.