(Published Online: 29th January 2008)
Preamble
This is a subject I am especially passionate
about. I have written about it previously, but some weeks
age I heard about a teacher in a school who said something
that really upset me, to kids she was teaching that I decided
to do this additional feature on it.
Let me start
this way: What do YOU hope to achieve by sending your
KIDS to school? Do you aim to make a status statement each
time your kids step out in their pretty school uniforms, board
their air-conditioned bus to head to/return from their classy
school? Or is your intention to have them EQUIPPED with the
knowledge, attitudes and skills needed to make a success of
their OWN lives adults?
I hope the latter is your preference.
But going by what I see daily out here in our society, I see
a pre-occupation on the part of parents with "creating
impressions", and keeping up with the Joneses. So many
parents proudly announce they are sending their kids to the
"best" schools in xyz area.
Unfortunately, high fees and pretty school
buildings do not guarantee your child a quality EDUCATION.
And please note that by education I do not mean acquisition
of the ability to score all A's in the final school certification
exams. Being educated goes way beyond that. It includes being
conversant with what it takes to do more than just survive
in the real world.
"Let early education be a sort
of amusement. You will then be able to find out the natural
bent" - Plato (346 BC).
Kids Are Not Afraid To Show Surprise/Excitement
When They Discover NEW Learning
Also being educated in my opinion involves
having the understanding that there is nothing wrong in allowing
yourself to "act excited" and "be surprised"
when you discover new learning! And that is what makes kids
so special in my opinion. You see they are so willing to BELIEVE
what they are taught and they rarely act UNEXCITED when they
do.
A quick example:
My kids once discovered a butterfly pupa hanging in the corner
of a wall in the compound, and all came screaming into the
house to tell me and my wife(and drag us out to see it). Prior
to that time they had only been seeing caterpillars(butterfly
larvae) which seemed to drop on to the ground from the next
compound which was filled with tall grasses. And I had been
using a set of colored pictures illustrated flip charts to
show them the life cycle of butterflies and other insects.
So they had seen pictures of the pupa but NEVER seen a live
specimen - until that day. And they did not hide their excitement.
On another
occasion, after pestering us futilely to get them a
pet cat, my kids teamed up to use wet sand to mould the a
cat (or more accurately, something they meant to look like
a cat!). They then sent me and my wife reeling with laughter
when they informed us that since the Bible said we were all
made from EARTH/SOIL they intended to pray to God to turn
their sand statue cat into a real-life version they could
keep as a pet. We told them this was unlikely to work, but
you should have seen ho vehemently they argued that it would.
We were particularly glad they did not
succeed, because the resultant live cat would have been so
grotesque, and its looks would probably have caused visiting
friends/relatives to have nightmares :-) LOL!
But let's
not lose sight of the point being made - kids have
so much capacity to BELIEVE and to display such belief and
WONDER without embarrassment. Any schooling they are exposed
to MUST be checked to ensure it does not KILL this quality
in any child. The problem is most schooling systems out here
teach kids to be the opposite of what I have described above.
Do you think kids who behave like those
mentioned above will have difficulties describing the life
cycle of a butterfly if they are ever asked, after having
had these experiences? Not likely. And that's because research
has shown clearly that people tend to learn best/recall more
successfully what they are taught when the learning they undergo
is experiential(i.e. practical/experience based and therefore
real-world relevant).
When Learning Is Fun, Learners
Look Forward To It
But what is even MORE pertinent is to
note how giving kids an exciting learning experience stimulates
their thinking and makes them become VERY interested in learning.
In other words, kids who enjoy their learning will not be
bored - neither will they need to be forced or coerced to
study daily(You will not believe they way my kids keep coming
to me with books and pictures on the things they learn about
daily which I and my wife try to show them examples of in
real life).
And that's where I come to the matter
of the teacher who (reportedly) told the kids she was teaching
that they should not watch "Tom & Jerry" cartoons
because the cartoons make kids act like they are "retarded"!
Incroyable!!! (like the French would say). Wonders will just
never end. That's what you sometimes get when you send your
kids to schools without checking for the quality of manpower
such institutions have.
Do You Know Who Your Kids' Teachers
Are?
Which is why I ask these questions: WHO
ARE YOUR KID's TEACHERS??? Do you know them? I mean have you
met them in person? Do you have an accurate assessment of
what they can offer your kids?
Our society is failing its kids because
the BEST of us are too busy trying to stay the best, and are
willing to spare little or no time to pass on what we know
to the next generation. We therefore end up leaving that VERY
important teaching job to the "less than best" rest
of society. The quote below captures this point quite well.
"In a completely rational society,
the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would
have to settle for something less" - Lee Iacocca,
Chairman & CEO, Chrysler Corporation
I know it does not sound nice, but it's
true! Remember that sometimes people who settle for teaching
jobs are those who have looked without success for what is
considered by the majority to be "better jobs"!
At the risk of exaggerating, these kind of people tend to
be "frustrated" and in certain cases could transfer
their frustrations in many forms to the kids they have to
teach.
Also sometimes these people are generally
not up and doing in improving themselves, and so tend not
to be in touch with latest developments/trends, plus lack
insight into the true nature of certain things e.g. Tom and
Jerry cartoons. Yet they are the ones we leave our kids with
for eight (8) or more hours daily!
I know for a fact that Tom and Jerry
cartoons do wonders for the imagination of kids - and the
many adults(like me) - who watch them. I can remember watching
that cat and mouse cartoon series without getting bored from
well before my tenth birthday, and have NEVER once been bored.
And I certainly never suffered any negatives effects from
watching them. So where did that teacher get her ideas about
the effect of the cartoon series on kids from???
"The value of a liberal arts
education is that it trains the mind to think"
- Albert Einstein
Summary
The best gift you can give your child
is the ability to think for him/herself. Make sure you send
him/her to a school that does not "kill" that instinct/ability.
Don't let the wrong teachers make your child a thinking pigmy.
Don't let them make your child what Robert Kiyosaki called
a "mindless parrot" or robot. Get actively involved
in your child's formal schooling - and education today.
"Education has produced a vast
population able to read, but unable to distinguish what is
worth reading" - George Macaulay Trevelyan, 1942.
Final Words
By way of interest, the expression "Thinking
Pigmy", is NOT original to me. I came across it in a
book by Colin Wilson titled "The Occult" Copyright
1971, Random House Inc. (New York & Canada).
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