Teaching – a cooking pot and twisted tales

As the deer pants for water so does my soul pant for peace in today’s world. Each day I wear my big girl pants and get on with living in the face of multiple challenges, sometimes, unfortunately, doubled due to the colour of my skin. One topic that I find unsavoury to talk about is race and that in 2017 I have to justify myself as a human and my right to life.

I was raised by loving, upright and hardworking folks and I aim to be a good representative of my parents. Back home, we didn’t bother with the difference of skin colour and all the rampant ugliness of hate that currently swirls around.

I didn’t know that I’m black. I only knew that I’m a valuable human being and a fellow occupant of the world and it was not until I ventured away from my home country to the US and now the UAE that the true depth of the human psyche shows up in ways I never anticipated. It has been a roller-coaster ride.

My spirit is heavy at the moment and I want to keep my thoughts contained. It’s just that I’m sad that I’m raising children in a world where a good part of their childhood is now spent teaching them that they are no different nor less valuable than others, teaching them how to react if by any chance they ever run into a policeman, teaching them to walk away when someone decides to be flippant and call them ugly words. Teaching them that they must be conscious participants in life because they can make a difference and maybe change will come in their time. Teaching them things children shouldn’t be saddled with. Teaching them………it’s simply exhausting.

Jacqueline

Now we’ve got a spanking new badge for SoCS. Well done to all the participants and thank you, Linda, for today’s prompt ‘pant.’

When we analyze the state of things and how it appears that norms and values, respect and everything have been eroded, it also occurs to me that as adults, parents, custodians and educators of the young ones under our care, we are equally failing in passing on these expected values, right norms, respect and all that is deemed to constitute a responsible human onto these young ones.

Behavioural skills, social norms and beliefs are learnt and they do not grow on trees. They are acquired through constant teaching and emulation. A child is only radicalized through the teachings of an adult or someone in a position of respect. A child is equally taught respect from early days!

The younger generation did not wake up spoilt! Not at all!

We the older generation loaded them with ammunition like kegs of gunpowder and it takes just a strike of a match for them to combust.

They watch and learn from us, add their own individuality and whatever the end result turns into is a product of that.

In essence a child is a by-product of his/her upbringing and society.

We should therefore hold ourselves 90% responsible for the spate of violence, moral decadence, loss of respect and every other vice that rears up its ugly head in today’s World.

We should not lose sight of the fact that we wield a lot of authority in helping these young ones form, therefore we should exercise it in the right manner.

A lot of times, when I take a look today at the my own life cycle, it does not fail to occur to me that the tenets which I have held mostly onto are those ones inculcated in me in my formative years and I daresay that those tenets are the ones that kept me from sinking, even when I furiously dug pits that could have caved in on me. “When a child is raised in the way that he should go, when he grows, he will not depart from it.”

Let me share a couple of African proverbs for today, and bid you a good day.

”When the nanny goat eats grass, it’s young ones watch her mouth and imitate.”

”If a child shoots an arrow that reaches the top of a tall palm tree, then it must be that an elderly person carved the bow and arrow for him.”

”The instruction of a child in youth is like engraving on a stone.”

”When a mother hen has been caught and killed, her chicks become easy prey.”

Once again, Chape thank you for inviting me to the quotes challenge. I shall extend the same courtesy to these awesome bloggers:

Danny

Maria Jansson

Jennifer Calvert

Kind regards,

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