This is a piece I wrote some two years ago, a piece for my daughter before she was born. The reason I did this was because I felt that if something happened to me, I wanted her to have some idea as to who her father was, I wanted her to not be left wondering with nothing but the words of others. It is also where I began to actually connect with her, it made me think more heavily about who I am and what kind of parent I aim to be. It is also where I really started to connect with what I wrote. Perhaps there is some value in it for others too.

This is for the new tag #forthechildren

To Part Four

The Endless Conversation (part five)

The problem with this of course goes back to the issues at work. If a programmer is looking for security in their life and it appears that in most societies that security comes from material gains, one must invest where the market is willing to pay. I have always found it curious that people often expect clean air and water, reasonably priced food, education, social security etc. as a human right but will pay enormous amounts for entertainment activities. But, that is where the money is.

So, many of the world's highly trained, technical minds are working at solving the problem of what to do while waiting for the bus while others work at creating systems for marketing and delivering the entertaining activity to the user. To be fair, not all companies and programmers are doing this, but you may get the general idea of where it is headed.

Education is one of the most important tools we have to improve this world yet, in many ways we seem to be sliding backwards and the stability we seek (may not exist) is getting further and further out of minds reach. Many hands make light work, unless those hands are doing the wrong things. Education systems seem to aim more towards creating workers than creating change and institution focus points are often outdated by the time they reach the job market.

Successful school results mostly depend on a good memory recall ability (yet there was no class in memory skill development) and conformity to the institution. Creative, curious children go in, programmed machines often come out. But this doesn't matter too much of course because by slowing the shifting of traditional industry, we don't need many creative thinkers.

What we can do is sell the idea that the past was better and the culture and values it had are superior to others we have not yet developed. That way, people will fight to hold onto a golden past while pretending to be looking for a better future. History repeats, doesn't it? Perhaps this is more by design than natural law. In humans for example, history doesn't repeat in nature, your DNA is unique and will never appear again. Even if you are an identical twin.

To be fair, it isn't the fault of the institution or any individual teacher within. These institutions are ours, we created them. After many years as a business English trainer, the amount of time I heard 'My English isn't very good because my high school teacher was terrible' is near uncountable or, 'we weren't taught to be confident'. I wonder though, did any of the students learn?

Because, if one did, the teacher isn't the problem. Perhaps the teacher should consider their teaching style and accessibility issues, however what about the responsibility of the student? Are we looking to be entertained or are we looking to discover something new and valuable? Are we looking to understand the structure of what we learn or just trying to past tomorrow's scheduled test?

My first year of university I went into a macroeconomics lecture with 300 or so other students. The lecturer was from central Africa and had a very strong accent. I have to admit, I understood very little of what was said and afterwards overheard that other students had problems catching it also. Lecture two came and I entered the same lecture hall with about 200 students and with a lot of struggle, I understood a little more but still missed a great deal.

Week three, 150 students remained and we were all getting quite comfortable with the accent. She was spectacular. Her examples were real-world and practical, the information was brilliant and her presentation was enjoyable, funny, colourful and engaging. Near the end of the course, she was called away for a week or so to give a talk to the UN on the economic issues confronting Africa at the time. 150 students went on to take her microeconomics class also. Another 150 students missed out. And they never realised it.

Brilliance can be hidden within a terrible presentation and nonsense can hold gravity with a brilliant delivery. Judging a book by its cover comes to mind here. We can severely damage the quality of our information pool if we discount what is poorly packaged and inflate the value of the attractive. In many cases when we look back at where we have come from, it was the information obtained in adversity and struggle that we value the most.

This may be a bias of course as information is information, regardless of the effort taken to obtain it. If good information comes easily, be grateful. But also don't be afraid to do a little work. Self-study, investigate and ask questions. I don't think we can expect everything of value to be handed to us in a neat little package with a pretty ribbon wrapped around and tied into a bow. In fact, perhaps we should question when information does come perfectly packaged and easily digestible. As they say, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Taraz

To Part Six

Perhaps you have heard some of this before, perhaps not but it is was a point where many ideas converged and a point from which many more sprang. This was almost a year before I joined Steemit and started to write. Some of my thoughts might have changed, many have stayed the same but, I do feel like I am growing and each day, becoming a better parent than I was yesterday. Feel free to comment and add your views. I will link the next tomorrow.