http://beta.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article47027.ece
Following is an excerpt from the link above:
Need for creativity in classroom
The former President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, writes:
I was happy to see the article “I only want to enjoy my childhood, ma” by Inumella Sesikala (Open Page, Nov. 8). I liked the article very much, which is a dream of every child. Creativity of children has to come out from the classroom. Some of us had such opportunities. Our children should go to primary school only at the age of six. Till then, we have to promote creativity of the children with great teachers and an innovative classroom environment.
Yesterday, when I was reading the book Spiritual Intelligence, The Ultimate Intelligence by Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall, I came across the poem, “ The Student’s prayer.”
“The young son of a Chilean biologist, Umberto Maturana, became unhappy at school because he felt his teachers were making it impossible for him to learn. They wanted to teach him what they knew, rather than drawing out what he needed to learn. As a result Maturana wrote “ The Student’s Prayer”, of which this translation is an abridged version. It perfectly expresses the spiritually intelligent individual’s response to the conforming pressures of parents, teachers, bosses or the crowd.
The Student’s Prayer
Don’t impose on me what you know,
I want to explore the unknown
And be the source of my own discoveries.
Let the known be my liberation, not my slavery.
The world of your truth can be my limitation;
Your wisdom my negation.
Don’t instruct me; let’s walk together.
Let my richness begin where yours ends.
Show me so that I can stand
On your shoulders.
Reveal yourself so that I can be
Something different.
You believe that every human being
Can love and create.
I understand, then, your fear
When I ask you to live according to your wisdom.
You will not know who I am
By listening to yourself.
Don’t instruct me; let me be.
Your failure is that I be identical to you.”
I thought, there is a connectivity among young hearts even beyond ocean — “I only want to enjoy my childhood, ma” and “The Student’s Prayer.”
Here is the link for the article Rev. Kalam refers to : http://beta.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/article45377.ece
Ironically, I happened to watch an episode of Ramany Vs Ramany Part-II yesterday which deals with the same subject.
Ramany & Ramany have a girl child (about 4-6 years old). Mr.Ramany wants her to be a tennis prodigy and wakes her up at morning 5:30 to go to the tennis class. Mrs.Ramany wants her to be a Bharatanatyam dancer and makes her attend the classes right after her tennis lessons. The kid loses her sleep and is very unhappy. Both the parents want their child to achieve what they couldn’t. I'm not blaming them for what they want. This is always the case with Indian culture. We want our children to be what we couldn’t be.
But do we realize that our children have their own minds? Do we forget what we wanted to do in our childhood? No, Out of our extreme obsession for our children, we force them into things that we wouldn’t have wanted to do ourselves in our childhood.
I quite often see obsessive parents who don’t even let their infant cry for a minute. My belief is that when an infant cries it could be because of any number of reasons, but nature has instilled this process so that the child who is fed all day doesn’t have to do any exercise. This is not some random exercise, but the ‘Ohm chanting’ itself manifested. The sounds ‘Aa’, ‘Oo’ and ‘Um’ are the only sounds that one can produce without using the tongue, which is universal to any culture or language. Any basic sound from a child or an animal is based on these 3 sounds and pronouncing them often enhances the child’s physique and energy. oh, pardon me.. I don’t want to see your child crying for some half an hour or so. But, do let it cry for a few minutes before you tend to it, so that it can do some basic exercise :-) . But don’t take my words on the face value, I’m no expert. Please do consult an expert.
So let me finish with what happens in the comic episode I mentioned above. The child doesn’t wake up one day for the tennis class. It’s already late for the tennis class and Mrs.Ramany wants her to go straight to the dance class. Mr.Ramany calls the doctor and he shows up with a box (that contains only chocolates). The doctor says that this is a regular complaint for kids and wakes the kid up by making her smell the chocolate. Then he asks her what she likes, “Tennis or dance?”. But the kid says that she likes neither and wants to do “drawing”. Finally, the parents learn what they wanted to and the child watches them happily. :-)
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