Relevant Education of Children:
Adults of the Future Community
Meaning and Purpose
This explains why we need to speak of relevant education, which tends to be always positive and constructive apart from being beneficial to everyone involved and concerned. Children need a kind of education that would enable them to develop the maximum of their full potential. They need to be prepared to live in a better world than the one they found. After all, children are merely the adults of the future world community.
It is neither fair nor appropriate to prepare children to live in a community of our past or even of the current one. The challenge of both parents and teachers is to foresee, with as much accuracy as possible, the kind of future our children would want to have. This is rather simple to figure out. Our children want to live in peace and security by all means. In their subconscious, they want to be healthy both physically and spiritually. They yearn for happiness, which comes in part through their experience of fairness and justice.
Besides, children would want to live in a world where they could move from one place to another freely and with no hindrances whatsoever. They want to feel, like Roman philosopher Seneca stated some 2,000 years ago, that the whole world is their country, their native land. They do not want to be divided and compartmentalized, as adults of the future world community. Quite a few nations have already taken gigantic steps in this direction.
To quote an instance, the European Union took a great step in the right direction when a group of European nations decided to move toward a political union through the total elimination of boundaries. For example, Germans could move to Italy and work there, like it was an integral part of their native land, with no hindrances whatsoever. As a result, the fear that one nation of the union could attack another nation of the same union is virtually out of question. It is very much like the situation in the United States . The idea that one state would eventually attack another state would be ridiculous.
Character and Personality
Education of children deals primarily with the development of their character and personality. The subject areas they learn should serve merely as a means to this end and not the other way round. This would require the development of a philosophy, which views reality as a world of humans that are completely interdependent. Besides, such a philosophy should view truth as anything that would make people genuine members of one global community. Moreover, such a philosophy should view good as anything that is beneficial to all people without exception. In addition, such a philosophy should view beauty as one's full dedication to humanitarian causes.
In essence, this is the philosophy of peace, harmony, and serenity, which is a sine qua non condition for prosperity, progress, and stability. If we were to train our children to become self-sufficient and to respect the right of others to be self-sufficient as well, the temptation for control and dominance over others would become remote. Over the centuries, we have experienced plenty of wars and suffering simply because people tended to live in isolation from each other in groups or cliques. In most instances, governments went as far as to prohibit their people from socializing with people of other nations to this very day.
Such isolation was often promoted by those in charge. Usually, they were political leaders of all sorts. This explains why so many nations lived in suspicion of each other that often instigated wars unnecessarily. In our education we have to concentrate on imbuing our children with virtues. We need to help them replace greed and selfishness by generosity, pride by humility, roughness by kindness, arrogance by prudence, impetuousness by patience, and the list goes on and on. Besides, we need to train our children to lead a simple life by trying to have in life the absolute essential in a way as to instill in them complete detachment from the material things that surround them.
If we were to give a rapid glance at history we would soon discover how the happiest people on earth were always those who were virtuous and who were detached from the material things of this world. By detachment from material things we do no mean to avoid material things by all means. We simply mean that we should not make our happiness and satisfaction in life dependent on them. Rather, our happiness and satisfaction in life should be completely dependent on the full development of our character and personality through the practice of virtue.
Peace Education at Work
Both parents and teachers must use each subject area offered in schools not as an end in itself but as a means to a further end: world peace, which begins with the individual self. Let us illustrate this by a couple of examples. Let us take, say, the traditional way of teaching history and geography. The teacher of history simply teaches the events of history, nothing more and nothing less. At the same time, the teacher of geography teaches about mountains, lakes, rivers, and political boundaries of nations, among other items. This is what we mean when we say that the teachers teach a subject area as an end in itself.
When the education we give to children is oriented toward peace, toward the creation of a new world community that is characterized by peace, we need to go a further step forward in the teaching/learning process. For example, the teacher of history, after having presented all the facts the students are expected to learn, the teacher could bring to the students' attention that the future history of this world is entirely in our hands, in their hands as a matter of fact. This way, the teacher may add saying: During World War II, some 50 million people lost their lives. It there were to be a World War III this time it is likely to be nuclear and in that case some 250 million would lose their lives.
At this stage, the teacher may add stating: In the event of a nuclear war the chances that you have to live the age of your parents, far less the age of your grandparents is small. If you want to live a long life you need to become involved right now as to make the possibility of a World War III remote. What would you propose relative to the kind of involvement you need to have? And let the students come out with their own ideas that would be moderated by the teacher. This applies to geography where the teacher could go a step forward to demonstrate that the geographical boundaries of nations are artificially created by human beings and they do not amount to anything. This could then be illustrated by examples.
In this regard, parents and teachers need to make sure that our children not only do understand the geography of the world but especially how the boundaries that divide countries have been artificially formed. For example, the teacher may bring to the attention of students that west Poland was East German before World War II. The people living there are of German origin and many still speak their native language German. Here the teacher may ask: Does it make sense that while these people living in west Poland are Germans, the world views them as Poles who must travel with a Polish passport?
Improved Educational Approach
At this point, the students begin to understand that, in a way, this does not make much sense at all. At this time, the teacher may proceed to show that what people should be proud of is not that they are English, Germans, Russian, Chinese or Americans, among other nationalities. People should be proud of their character and personality. They should be proud of the fact that their respective life makes a difference, that as a result of their presence the world is becoming better and the hope for the future is becoming brighter. After all, the future of our earthly community depends on the kind of education our present children are getting right now.
This means that a relevant education is of paramount importance. We need to keep in mind that by relevant we do not mean merely the usage of modern advanced educational technology. We mean a kind of education that would eventually develop the maximum of one's full potential properly and effectively. In this process, there should be a moral responsibility to make the students feel that they have the capacity to create their own world for the better and the worse. Hence, the children need to be given the opportunity to become more directly involved in the solution of problems that surround them and in the prevention of most or all of such problems.
Besides, our schools need to put top priority on seeing to it that our children develop positive and constructive attitudes toward anything they come across or encounter. To this end, they need to learn how to turn a crisis into a good opportunity with determination. They need to understand that every person is like a coin with two aspects: the bright and dark side. Our educational task is to enable the children understand themselves the way they are molded up by mother nature and to accept themselves as such accordingly. They need to learn to preserve their good qualities and to keep their handicaps under control.
It is unfortunate that in many countries the education children consists of mere indoctrination to create citizens that are subservient to the nation. We cannot make our children function in society like buttons in a machine of coke, like robots that could be manipulated with ease. This explains why former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin said: Give me a child until it is eight and it will be bolshevist for ever. And Jesus of Nazareth compared a child to the trunk of a tree saying essentially the following: If the trunk of a tree is straightened while it is growing, then the tree will grow straight; but if the trunk is developed curved, then to straighten it after the tree is grown, you will eventually break the trunk ending up destroying the tree.
Importance of Peace Education
The only good and valid education we could procure to our children is one that is based on peace, which begins with the individual self. The Romans used to say: Nemo dat quod non habet ¡V you cannot give anything unless you have it first. If children are allowed to have peace germinating in their heart, then they can share that with others and both their lives and that of others is bound to become more positive and constructive. History shows us that good and evil have at least one thing in common. Both are capable of spreading faster than anticipated. What is nice with peace education lies here. Everyone is a winner and no one is a loser. Everyone is bound to feel comfortable and not the other way round.
The pity in this regard lies in the apparent fact that quite a few have a misconception of peace education. They tend to interpret it as an ideal that is merely based on wishful thinking, which is not the case at all. Peace education provides our children with the opportunity to see things into proper perspective from as many angles as possible and not just from one single angle. It enables them to resort to peaceful means through dialogue, patience, persistent effort and perseverance. It is an education that firmly believes that you can catch more flies with honey. Instead of resorting to war, where everyone would end up to be a loser, they resort to diplomatic means, where everyone would end up to be a winner eventually.
It is quite obvious that children are entitled to a relevant education that is geared to meet their present and future needs. The knowledge that is acquired should not to be viewed as an end in itself but rather as a means to a further end: world peace, which begins with the individual self. This way we will be in a position to provide to our children the best gift possible, namely, the ability to live in a peaceful, stable, progressive and prosperous world community.
Charles Mercieca, Ph.D.
President, International Association of Educators for World Peace
NGO, United Nations (ECOSOC), UNDPI, UNICEF, UNCED & UNESCO
(Dr. Charles Mercieca is a member of the Honorary International Development Committee for Federation of World Peace And Love) |
