An Open Letter To Teachers.. Don’t Kill That Kid’s Hope For The Family Institution.

By Carolyne Gaithuma

Have you keenly listened to some of the poems that our children are taught in school?

I have seen some that have been circulating on WhatsApp and others that were presented during the just concluded kindergarten ‘graduation’ ceremonies. Many of those that are about parents depict the mothers different from the fathers.

I wonder what the teachers have against the fathers because most of the poems I have heard are about absent, alcoholic dads while the mothers are hardworking, ever present and caring. I recognise the fact that most of the subjects addressed by the children’s presentations are a reflection of the reality on the ground. However, what can we do to change the narrative, if we want to, if we desire to?

Let’s take an example in personal life. If you are broke in reality but desire to be rich. Would talking about how broke you are motivate you to action or would constantly talking and thinking about how rich you can become motivate you to action? Obviously, constantly keeping in mind where you want to be will motivate you to take positive action.

Now back to the poems about that the irresponsible, alcoholic absent dad. If we are constantly seeing images, hearing rhetoric about the status quo, we will be stuck there. I believe enough has been said about why we are in a bad place as far as the male father figure in society is concerned. If we are truly committed to making a change in society for the sake of our children, we need to move to the next step.

The next step is engaging ourselves in what is possible, what should be happening, what we desire to happen. If we hear messages of the dream that we have for our society long enough, it will take us from frustration and despair to hope and positive action.

(See Also: Bringing Out Your Child’s Best In Education And In Life.)

I think the reason why we are seeing more of the sad stories of the reality repeated is because we have given up hope so the only thing left is for us to continue repeating to ourselves the predicament that we find ourselves in. We have forgotten that there are very great men out there who are ever present to their children, who are imparting great spiritual values to their children and who are even taking up the role of mentor and role models to the fatherless children. When are we going to give them some airtime? Isn’t that what our children need to see and hear even if it’s not happening in their homes? This will revive hope in them that even if my parents are not like that, I have a choice to be the best for my children. If we do not tell them or show them the ideal, all they can become is what they are seeing and what the teachers are teaching them in the form of these poems.

Children are the leaders of this generation so we need to be very careful about what operating system we install in them. We can uninstall whatever disempowering software installed by the reality they see and live by giving them possibilities of what could be, so that they have something great to desire. We should never under estimate the power of hope. If the reality is not what we desire, let’s teach them our dream.

 Our Guest writer is an Intuitive transformational life coach based in Thika and Nairobi.