A Child Educated Only At School Is An Uneducated Child!

A CHILD EDUCATED ONLY AT SCHOOL IS AN UNEDUCATED CHILD!

“I never let my schooling interfere with my education”- Mark Twain

Schools is not a substitute for life education. There is more to life than just going to school.  Your education is a compilation of life’s experiences and exposures. There is a lot more to learn in life than just what they teach you in school. A child’s foundation begins at home. Good morals, values, manners and character all begin way before they even enter school. To educate means to develop the mental, moral, spiritual and social capabilities of a child.

There is a lot to learn from Japan and South Korea. In Japan and South Korea, there is neither a typical syllabus nor any exam in the primary schools. Up to fourth-grade, students are taught etiquette, manners, how to be humble towards elders and the history, and other details about their country. The school kids both in South Korea and Japan in their primary school years learn their mother tongue only. Once they come out of the primary school years, they begin to learn English alongside their own language and are exposed to basic vocational training. In these countries, exams are given least importance. Learning and character top the priority list. Students usually do not have homework. Teaching and learning are completed in schools and students are left to practice their creative skills at home.

As a parent, if you wish to give your child an unusual edge in life, you will have to look beyond the walls of the conventional schools and give them life training that is beyond school. These include:

#1 TEACHING THEM GOOD MORALS AND CHARACTER: Theodore Roosevelt once said, “To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” You cannot hope to build a better world without improving individuals. Now more than ever, educators shouldn’t teach just content, they must also teach morals, ethics and cultivate empathy and mindfulness in every student. Character and value-based education fosters the development of moral and ethical citizens by teaching them good values. Educators have special roles to play in creating kind, compassionate citizens with a strong moral compass. Reno Omokri, once said, “Good manners will open more doors for you than good looks and good books.” You will never rise above the limitations of your character. I have come to a diagnostic conclusion that the greatest of all human problems is the character problem. There is no amount of skills and degrees that can substitute for character. Sometimes, you need character, not just the acquisition of degrees.

#2 NOT ALLOWING THEIR SCHOOLING TO HINDER THEIR EDUCATION: Most of the skills that will help a child survive in life are not found in the classroom! Albert Einstein once said, “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.” Most schools don’t teach children to think or to be creative. Creativity and ‘thinking’ skills are only found in the way a child interacts with life’s challenges and disappointments. We must endeavour to give our children ample time to do other things that are not school’s home-work and assignment. Their vacation periods must not be studded with academic activities alone. Let them travel, learn a new skill, go to orphanage homes, and do some volunteering activities.

#3 GIVING THEM A PLATFORM TO BE THEMSELVES: Banksy said, “A lot of parents will do anything for their kids except let them be themselves.” The greatest gift parents can ever give to their children is to provide them with a platform to be themselves. Parents are meant to nurture the uniqueness in their wards. Allow them to make their own mistakes and learn from it. Be a good and empathic listener to your children. Do not dominate conversations when you are talking with your children. Give them the platform to express themselves. We must allow our children to fully live and experience life. We must prepare them emotionally to live independently of us. Refusal to create a platform for their independency may cause them to cling to insecure ‘anchors’ that are detrimental to their future. Don’t criticize them, instead, help them to create new attitude, mentality, and approach to issues.

#4 HELPING THEM NURTURE THEIR GIFTS AND TALENTS: Benjamin Greene once said, “The biggest atrocity of all is to indoctrinate our children into a system that does not value their creative expression, nor encourage their unique abilities”. Any education that does not teach us to discover, nurture and develop our gifting and uniqueness is a waste. Every child is uniquely gifted. Our work as parents is to nurture the individuality and uniqueness in our wards and not to beat them into the shape or picture that we have in our minds. We are responsible as parents to help our children discover their gifts, unravel their hidden talents, and help them fire up their passion. The world is in a dire need of kids that can solve problems with their gifts and talents. We have the responsibility as parents to nurture their uniqueness.

#5 FINDING A MENTOR THAT CAN HELP THEM: Every child needs someone he/she can look up to. Children are in a dire need of models and mentors. Zig Ziglar once said, “A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could”. What a child will ultimately grow up to become is a deep reflection of the values passed down to him/her from the parents and mentors. Children don’t need critics; they need models and mentors.

#6 GIVING THEM EXPOSURE IN THEIR AREAS OF ABILITIES: The greatest form of disability is not knowing our abilities. We should discern our children’s areas of strength, their unique abilities, and help them build it. We should give them the exposure that is needed in those areas. When we discover a child’s ability early and help them build it, we give them a unique edge in life.

#7 MONITORING, NOT MANIPULATING THEM: The greatest parental sin and abuse is to manipulate our children to live a life that is not theirs. As parents, we must prepare our children for their future instead of using them to correct our own past. Wanting our children to be who we should have been is a waste of who they are. Instead of manipulating your children, celebrate their uniqueness; the easiest way to destroy their uniqueness is not to celebrate it.

#8 NOT SKIPPING PROCESSES FOR THEM: The process validates the products. Don’t help them skip difficult processes; it is actually part of what is meant to form them. You can’t help your child skip the basic process of life and expect them to live a fulfilling life. What many parents fail to realize is that the more we help our children avoid facing their own challenges, the more we make them unfit for the future. I have come to observe that over-parenting or excessive interference of parents in the experiences of their children is gradually turning them into an ‘endangered species’. The core responsibility of parents must be to prepare their children to function as independent adults in the society. We must stop short-circuiting their process of growth and churning up emotionally stunted children to the society. Parent should stop helping their children to ‘buy’ their way to the top. We must imbibe in them the culture of paying their own price to get to the top. Over protective parents raise over dependent adults!

Our work as parents is to nurture the individuality and uniqueness in our wards and not to beat them into the shape or picture that we have in our minds. We are responsible as parents to help our children discover their gifts, use their unique abilities, unravel their hidden talents, teach them morals and help them fire up their passion. The world is in dire need of kids that can solve problems with their gifts and talents. Many parents already have a script that they want their wards to fit into for their own selfish interest. They obsessively try to control their children and dictate how they are supposed to live their lives. These parents want to live their lives through their children, neglecting the fact that those children have their own lives to live. As parents, we must prepare our children for their future instead of using them to correct our own past.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Children are the greatest natural resource in the world. Our God-given job as parents is to develop those resources to their greatest potential”- Ben Carson