Beware of Long Post :D
Effiong was not made for school all he wanted to do
was play football, but his father won't let him play, he was meant to be a
doctor in this life and cure his father arthritis. So while he stared blankly at the huge textbooks his father had procured from the
kind second hand book seller, Effiong dreamt about Kanu, Maradonna and all those
great men who chased around a little ball to put in a hole. One day he skipped school and was playing with
his friend on a dusty field where the village people dried clothes on the weekends,
one man walked up to him and told him he was a good player and asked to see his
father. After much resistance from the parents and a few consultations with the
local prophet, he was allowed to go ahead to play football. He finally made it nationally
and internationally earning money and happiness he never imagined for himself.
His father would have preferred a rich doctor but he made do with a rich footballer
after all money is money.
Adia always knew what she
wanted to be, "superstar lawyer" the village people called her as she
was always running up and down with books. She was going to be a lawyer. her
mother had already told all the people who lived on their street. Even the
Agidi woman had started calling he mother Mama Lawyer. In her spare time though, Adia loved to draw,
she drew pictures of her cousins. If her mother found out she will shout about
how they are distracting Adia who could
be preparing for government exams. Her father loved her pictures and drawings
they came to her so naturally, but her mother will warn him not to encourage that
stupidity in their child. So she went on to write the bar exam twice (as any
self respecting person should lol) finally got called to bar. She hated the
courts, hated the briefs, the long droning on and on about legal matters, she
rolled her eyes when people referred to her as a learned colleague she didn't care for all that
work. So she went on to draw for people, took her time to learn in her spare
time fun things like graphic design and all those art related things she truly
loved and could finally live her legal job onto her dream job at 37 doing what
actually made her happy.
"schools tend to suppress creativity by trying to make all of us perfect using one method of measurement"
I watched an old TEDTalks video on youtube by a British educator Sir
Ken Robinson. He was talking about how schools tend to suppress creativity by
trying to make all of us perfect using one method of measurement. That's kind
of what happened to some of us in our homes growing up. In the strive to have
perfectly adjusted children, who grew up to be doctors and engineers, some of
us who were not inclined toward any of that were made to feel like the extras
in class and at home drawing back the truly brilliant from getting to their
destinations on time. Some parents reminded the slower kid about how fast their
brother or sister was.
These are not unique stories of my generation
of Nigerian children. Being constantly told there was something wrong with you
when you couldn't excel in the holy trinity of subjects English and Maths and Science.
We were groomed from very young ages to concentrate on the subjects that mattered.
Don't be "too" creative in order not to appear odd, don't ask too many
questions, do as you are told. those
were the mantra of the age.
"What new things are we doing now to make sure that our children are better equipped for a future they can envision."
All that has changed, what they ended up
doing was creating children who found it hard to cope or adapt as the world
changed. Some of us did so well under all these strictures, do this and do that
we were superstar kids. Passed all the right subjects and read the right
courses, even graduated into the right and acceptable jobs, but we had no other
skills besides those. So when the world
changed and maybe due to retrenchment or a lack of job satisfaction we had to
move on, we lost what it was that identified us. We were no longer superstar
baby because the superstar job we used to identify ourselves no longer existed.
What new things are we doing now to make sure
that our children are better equipped for a future they can envision. Of course
not all kid are going to create the next great Nigerian work of Art or
literature or be a successful entrepreneurer. Some of us were meant to walk the
straight and narrow, climb career ladders in establishments and retire with a pension
and a list of old work colleagues, but life is shifting exponentially away from
that kind of structure. At some point we
will need to know how to handle our own shit, pay our own taxes, run our own
businesses from our dining tables or be open to paying someone to do it for us,
that's what business managers are for.
In Nigeria, we still measure people by their
jobs, big man from the oil company or the ministry. Oga with the big pay cheque.,
madam from the parastatal and that's okay because not all of us will quit our
jobs and follow our dreams and we have to understand that wanting to follow a
clear career path is an ambition and a dream in itself.
My whole point is let's not kill the dream. Don't
tell your writer daughter that she should find something productive to do, don't
tell your tailor son that what he loves is for women, don't scone your son who
loves to take pictures or cook. Instead train and encourage the things that
make our kids individuals and different as long as they are adding value to
their society and are good people, there is nothing that you will lose.
While I am of the strong opinion that basic
education is of the utmost importance, I also believe that we should foster creativity
just like we foster literacy, so that we build individuals who will be able to
provide innovative and creative solution to the problems that the regular way
has created.
Idea Source https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
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