Top 3 Foes of a Child

1. Parents
2. Teachers
3. Media
(This post will deal with top one only, more on it later)
Parents top the list of Biggest Foes of a Child. Hands Down ! No Debate ! No ifs and buts !

Paulo Coelho, one of the finest author of our time was send to mental asylum by his parents just because he wanted to pursue his unusual dream of being a writer. (Read full story at : http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2011/01/21/on-a-mental-institution)  & Shakespeare's teacher thought he was simply useless.


Pick up story of any leader or any person you admire or anyone who really inspires you - look at his life. Almost, Always - Parents are the first one to label a kid's dream as "useless" , "stupid" or "impractical" - later these labels will be reinforced by the Teachers. Not only her dreams but also her own self, her individuality, her very nature is demeaned and belittled almost every single day by Parents at home and Teachers at schools.

Worst news ? Both of them are not aware of it and they think they are doing it for the benefit of the kid and because they "CARE and LOVE" the kid.

I've tried a simple experiment at my school and neighborhood which really is unbelievable. I'd observe any kid and try to make out the personalities of his/her parents. Alternatively, I'd observer the parents and try to make an outline of personality of the child.
To my amazement, except one or two odd cases (which can also be explained) - the judgement is quite accurate.

Mother of a child who was very possessive of his/her things - was herself very possessive of her car and lipsticks.

Father of a very short tempered, violent boy used to beat the child and her mother quite often.

An 8 year old girl who'd never listen to anyone and always try to speak had just exactly similar mom.

Life is full of such example, take a pause and look at your own life. Chances are you are living a life that is 80% your parents, 20% rest of it. Hard to accept, but that's how everyone lives. The rest 20% is quite often influence of peer, media, friends etc.

People quite often argue that even the positive traits are transferred from parents and teachers to the child. True , but all that is borrowed & not a self experience will soon breed hypocrisy and conflict. By mid life or even earlier these positive traits fall off or if they remain - they remains as an automatic response not a conscious choice.

We need to create individuals. A child deserves to live his/her own life without any - ANY INFLUENCE. Any responsible and intelligent parent and teacher will try to influence the child - LEAST. (assuming that no influence at all, is quite impractical)

Let the child flower as she wishes to. Parents who really love their child would understand this and try to help kid become individual and independent. True educators will try to undo the damage of parent's conditioning and spark the fire of true individuality again in the kid

[caption id="attachment_79" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Three biggest enemies of a child"][/caption]

while avoiding any kind of influence on the child's mind.

 

Only such a child is capable of becoming a true human being capable of loving, capable of saving our planet earth, shunning mediocrity and violence and live a fulfilled life. Otherwise, he'll be just like us.

Problems of Education

The problem of education can be broadly classified into two – Qualitative and Quantitative.

Quantitative Problem of Education:
This is the problem mainly because of poor, unintelligent economic and political policies. Due to unequal distribution of wealth and resources across the world, children of poor population cannot afford education. Millions of children grow up sacrificing their childhood to livelihood because of such unfair economic struggle. Thankfully, a lot of work is being done on this part by many responsible governments, non-profit organizations and motivated individuals.

No Child Left Behind, Compulsory Education, Universal Education, Education for all, Right to Education, United Nations' MDGs and Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (India) are some examples of various efforts to solve the “quantitative problems” of education.
However, given the sheer population (almost 80% of world is poor) of disadvantaged children – these initiatives hardly meet the purpose and much more work needs to be done.

[caption id="attachment_69" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Education faces two key problems, both needs to be addressed ASAP"][/caption]

Qualitative Problem of Education :
If we really keep working towards solving the first problem of education with initiatives like Millennium Development Goals, we are quite hopeful to solve the problem largely in a decade or two. However, looking at what the educated lot is doing with the world and how are they living, it seems the overall problem will just get bigger.

This is why, the second – quite often neglected problem of education is “Qualitative problem of Education.” The figure summarizes the concept of two types of problem in education.

Qualitative problem deals with improving quality of education by first carefully defining “quality” itself. A wrong definition of “quality” would just make things worse. For e.g. if we mean “marks or grades” by quality, we might just do no good but more harm.

Qualitative problems in education should follow rational, scientific and unbiased newer approaches. The first step would be to identify and acknowledge the problem of quality in education and then finding innovative solutions.

Why are the so called educated lot so greedy, so unhappy and addicted to sensations ? Why are they creating products and services that harm our environment ? Why are the so called leaders creating more and more imbalance in our economy and society ? Why are we so violent, so sexual and so frustrated race of human being ? Given the current situation, can we be sure that this generation was rightly educated ?

Qualitative solutions should deal with all these questions.

World needs solution to both Qualitative and Quantitative problems of education, if we wish to create a better future.