Bringing Out Your Child’s Best In Education And In Life.
The matatu is packed to capacity and some old men at the
back seat are complaining about the lack of space and how they need a slim
person to fit in between them because the seat has to fit four people. This
conversation makes me give them my attention and so when their next
conversation starts I am all ears.
It is back to school and so the sight of many school going
teenagers is what gets one of the men to start a conversation about exam
cheating. The men discuss about the corruption involved in exam cheating and
the measures the government is taking to combat it. Their discussion also
involved the difference between the Kenyan education system and Japanese and
Chinese education systems. According to the men, the Kenyan system should be
changed to empower talents and gifts instead of replacing them with grilling to
pass exams.
This discussion by strange old men brought to me to the
questions, why are children cheating in exams? Isn't the pressure to pass exams
too much for them that they feel the need to do whatever is possible to pass?
What are we educating them for? As we send our children back to school this
term, what are we expecting from them at the end of it all?
When my children started school, I was of the opinion that
children go to school to learn different subjects, pass exams so that they can
achieve their dreams through their desired careers. That, I believe, is what
most parents send their children to school for. Even when adults go back to
further their studies, this is the thought process that they hold.
After surviving depression and getting a fresh start at
life, I looked back and realized that life is not about getting a great career
and acquiring as many material things as possible. I have been there done that
and I was not fulfilled. Even your dream career cannot give you fulfillment if
you do not see the connection it has with your life purpose. We are all here to
fulfill a certain purpose in life and we only get fulfilled when we believe we
are on the path of destiny.
We were all born with unique abilities, talents and
passions. These are what God equipped us with to help us accomplish something
with our lives on Earth. If only we would nurture them, they have the potential
of giving our lives direction and momentum towards our life purpose. So what
should we be educating for? School should be a place where children are exposed
to many opportunities of finding out what they are good at. When it is
discovered that they are good at something, they should be encouraged to master
it.
Our current education system educates for the workforce. It
has therefore given rise to generations in pursuit of money and this has
created a very corrupt country. How happy would we all be if our work was what
we are passionate about? What if to top it up we believed that our work is what
we are on Earth to do to help humanity be more representative of God? We would
be very fulfilled, peaceful and loving. A human being was created to live a
fulfilled life and so whatever promises fulfillment, he pursues with all his
might.
It is therefore paramount that as you take your child back
to school, ask yourself why you are taking them to school. This will increase
your involvement in their learning process and you will begin to exert pressure
to school management to give your children what they need to fulfill their life
purpose. This is how our education system will change. You might not have much
of a say in what the curriculum entails, but you can influence how it is
delivered.
You need time with your child and they need to experience
different activities and places to increase their chances of connecting with
their passion so ask the school why they are having holiday tuition. Your child
needs rest so ask why the homework they are getting does not even allow them to
leave the house. Your child needs their strengths reinforced and not their
weaknesses insisted upon so ask why they have to be the last to leave school
after remedial classes feeling so inferior.
Many of us completed school and went into the careers that
we desired, got the salaries that we dreamed of and we were happy. After a
while, what we were doing started feeling like it is not fitting into the
bigger picture and right there we created side hustles to pursue our passions.
Some of us were overwhelmed by the passion and we quit our day jobs, others are
still hanging on while others have not even asked themselves the question of
why am I here.
Do your children a favor and save them from the rat race.
Education takes up the largest chunk of a child’s life so if you are not
involved, you are missing out on the making of your child. Be a mentor to your
children and give them as many opportunities to discover their passions and
when they do find them, help them pursue them with all their heart. The money
always comes. It is attracted by passion and action.
Our Guest writer is an Intuitive transformational life coach based in
Thika and Nairobi.
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