The Relevance of Reverence in Education
Rephrasing Ayn Rand’s famous quote,
“When you see that education is done, not by consent, but by compulsion — when you see that in order to get education, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing — when you see that money is flowing to those who have degrees but not to those who are really educated — when you see that men get richer by street smartness then by intellect, and your education don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you — when you see rote learning being rewarded and curiosity being punished — you may know that your society is doomed.”
If we want to create a fair/inclusive society we need to ensure that our education systems and parenting are designed for that. If we just do that life will flow freely (I am not saying it will become “saral”, I am saying it will become “sahaj”), otherwise we will end up creating a society with a web of confusing and complicated rules/laws/systems designed to catch and reprimand people who have gone off track. As they say prevention is always better than cure.
The big question then is, why don’t we do enough in that direction?
Well, I don’t have an answer to this question except my own experience to share. If 6 years back God would have come down in layman’s clothes and told me what all is really required to make this happen, I would have laughed at HIM for being a hopeless idealist. Maybe someday, I think, I actually laughed also for it looks like that God decided one day to extract revenge. And then my journey started. It took almost 1.5 years, around 200 hours and 5 young children aged 7 to 12 years to get me to a point where now almost every parent/adult I interact with, most probably, brands me as a hopeless idealist. They say life is a circle and I always thought they are just referring to Earth going around the Sun in circles ☹
Anyway… the simple thing I have learnt from those 5 children is that the solution is such a no-brainer, that it makes no sense to majority members of a specie, which has been for some unaccountable reason given the largest brain. Well, in my case I was just plain lucky (or unlucky in practical terms) to get stuck with those children in a way that I had to deal with them with a certain amount of “reverence” and that did the trick. It brought me to a point where I was left with no choice but to completely reformat my thoughts on education (and in the larger context on living a life). So, my simple advice to every adult out there is that if you want to change the world, in whichever way you want, then just do one simple thing,
Deal with children with reverence — younger the child, more the reverence.
“Education begins the moment we see children as innately wise and capable beings. Only then can we play along in their world.”
- Vince Gowmon
Try doing that sometime and see the magic unfold. Let me warn you, like all roses in life this one will also come with its thorns.
About DreamNobel
DreamNobel is an education initiative to engage in a way that “independent thinking” and “empathy” becomes an integral part of student’s personality. We have developed a unique and revolutionary science course whereby a kid can be taught broadly all the Science subjects (Physics, Chemistry, Biology & Geology) in an integrated manner, through a unique story and rationalization led pedagogy. The following are our social media handles: Twitter, Instagram, Medium, LinkedIn. If the thought posted here resonate with you, then please follow us to reach out to a wider audience.
