THE EDUCATION OF OUR HEARTS

 



“I have never let my schooling interfere

with my education.”

Mark Twain

 


One of the things parents will never be able to give their children is the fire in the belly… That one thing, the kid has to ignite on its own. But, if you ask me, ‘How’… I can only say, “I don’t know’.

Yes, all that I know is, that the kid has to ignite it on its own…

What is common – and quite natural – for parents to do is to give their kids a better education, together with better privileges… a better living condition, better facilities, better everything. The thought process of the parents, by and large, is this: “I had to go through a lot of struggles in my life… I was deprived of all the privileges… but, I do not want my children to go through similar struggles… I want them to provide with the best possible privileges.”

And, that’s what my grandparents did to my parents, my parents did to me and my brothers, and we have done to our own children, and our children will do to theirs…

But then, the ‘struggle’ has its own value, its own role to shape our characters… Education that comes from schools and colleges may not prepare us to deal with our ‘struggles’ in life. On the contrary, it may  make our ‘bones brittle’… Well, I just put it metaphorically!

Our hearts and minds need a different kind of education to toughen us in life… While ‘the best of things’ that we parents are trying to provide to our children come from our good intention, we should remember, that having ‘the best of things’ need not necessarily make our kids ‘the best kids’… Sorry to say this: It may even douse the fire in their bellies!

“The best education,” I have always said, “is the education of our hearts.” And, this education takes place independent of what we get from our schools and colleges. It takes place when we sensitize ourselves to our surroundings, when we look at our privileges and how millions out there are deprived of them… It takes place when we look into our selfishness and greed… It takes place when we look into our envy, apathy, hatred and prejudices… It takes place when see how our religious, political and ethnic superiority makes us behave like tyrants… when we see how we claim our Gods and Deities to be the only true ones…

So, even if our schools and colleges – including our religious schools - try to sensitize us to the education of our hearts, I still think, the kid gets it independent of all this…

Remember this old story?:

 

THE BLACK BALLOON


 

“In a small town, there was a balloon seller. Whenever his business was down, he would attract little children by sending up in the air colouful balloons, filled with helium. One day, a little Black girl asked him, innocently, pointing to a black-colour balloon, ‘Sir, does this balloon, too, go high up the way red, pink, blue, yellow and other-colour balloons do?’”

By now, you and I know what answer the balloon seller would give to the little girl… He lovingly answered: “Yes honey, the black balloon, too, goes high up just like other-colour balloons do. Remember, it’s not the colour of the balloon that takes it high up, it is what it contains inside.”





The fire in the belly is one such content… The Great Balloon Seller (high up there) has already infused within each ‘balloon’ the helium of life. I think, the greatest education takes place when the kid wakes up to this truth…

 

GERALD D’CUNHA

 

Pic’s: Pixabay

 

Video: Britain's Got Talent

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