| "Bad enough that my child can't read or write./ But
do I stop worrying there?/ Why do I not worry that my child can't paint,
dance,/ Breathe, meditate or relax, cope with anxiety, aggression or
envy?/ Often is unable to express tenderness and trust?/ Why do I not
spare some concern that my child does not know who he is, or even that
he has a self to find?/ If the basic skills have nothing to do with all
this, then let's admit they have nothing to do with my child's health,
happiness, sanity or survival, but only with his employability./ Whose
interest, then, is my child's education serving?"
In order to create a world where children are empowered to develop
their sense of peace, it is essential to create a close and supportive
relationship with oneself, because we can only give to our children
those things that we already possess.
If we include the teaching of subjects like interfaith, peace and ethics
into the education system, it will enhance the child's innate ability to
make positive contributions to the well-being of peers, family and
community which in turn will help to enhance his own sense of peace and
justice. Several young students in the recent past have opted to end
their lives rather than deal with the stress disorders and
dysfunctionalities they have had to face day after day. Peace education
is a matter of attitude; it is not a set of dogmas that have to be
taught. It is the entire approach to life, nature, oneself and the other
in which are incorporated sustainable development, the issues of gender
sensitivity, identity, global citizenship, social justice and peaceful
linkages with civil society. Ethics is about life as human beings, about
relations and relationships, about living together in a common
understanding of what is good and not so good.
Harold S Kushner wrote in The Lord Is My Shepherd: "Our first
ancestors chose to be human rather than live forever. They chose a sense
of morality, ‘knowledge of good and evil', rather than immortality.
They spurned the Tree of Life, which would have given them eternal life,
in favour of the Tree of Knowledge, which gave them a conscience. As
compensation, humans were given the freedom of choice and power to
create new life. We cheat death not by living forever, but by bearing,
and educating children to keep our souls, our values and even our names
alive''.
We depend on each other for survival. In this inter-dependence every
person is meant to live both ‘for' and ‘thanks to' others. Peace
Education, in a school system, will be refracted like light through a
prism revealing all the different ways in which children can find
themselves in relationship with the world.
The time has come to rethink what we mean when we say we belong to a
parti-cular faith or tradition. Ultimately what faith, peace and ethics
mean boils down to appreciation of beauty. It is the striving for truth,
pursuit of justice and recognition that some things are good, some are
bad.
In order to create a ‘world fit for children', we should encourage our
children to imbibe a new spirituality where children make their life an
offering, by learning to sing, dance, weep and sweat life; sleep, eat,
paint, sculpt, hammer and read life; wash, iron, sow and pickle life;
compute, touch, bend and fold life; learn and play, work and rest, fast
and feast life; argue and talk, whisper and shout, swim, cook and digest
life; relax and recover life, breathe and become life but never ever
delete or mutilate life, for life is an offering; life is a prayer.
(The author is Principal, Springdales School, Pusa Road, New Delhi.)
SOURCE: Times
of India |
