Education for Secured Future
“I Touch the Future, I Teach.” This famous quote by Christa McAuliffe has inspired me many times. Education is the only entity in the entire cosmos which has power to cultivate, shape and secure our future. But a question looms large in my mind and it haunts me again and again. Is the present education system securing our kids’ future? Is it enough? You all will agree that the answer is a big NO. It is not enough. The present education system is not securing our future. If it were so why is there so much of pain, agony, distrust, failures, distress everywhere.
Education can build secured future for children. Security is nothing but Self-confidence, passion and power to be better, courage to face the adversity and move ahead, perseverance, continuous effort and patience. Our present education system only aims at churning out some expected secured results during examination or to secure some career. But it barely secures our life. Our life can only be secured when we get right kind education. Now the question is what is the right kind of Education?
The right kind Education has four aspects – Knowledge, Understanding, Action and Contribution.
The first aim of Education is to provide us with Knowledge, we need to know: Who am I? What I can achieve? Where am I? Where I can go? We need to know about ourselves and the world around us. We need to have perception which can help us to see deeper and find the cause of things happening around us. We also need to know the impacts of the action.
The second most important aim of Education is building Understanding. Ask to yourself, “Is my education helping me to understand myself, the world around me?” “Is it giving me a kind of clarity, focus and purpose which I need to pursue a secured life?” Ignorance is dangerous but merely knowing is not enough. We need to build understanding.
The third most important aspect of education is Action. We are living in a knowledge era. We may know about numerous things and even we understand them but unless we put our knowledge and understanding into action, our education remains useless. Education must teach us How to interact, behave, communicate and act with ourselves and the world around us. We need to do what is expected from us. Right goals, right planning, right strategies, right attitude and right Action is the key to success in life. Right education helps to move things, to create, to solve, to resolve, to reach, to regain and to attain. It helps us realize our potentials and helps us channelize it so that we can perform.
The fourth dimension of education is Contribution. Unfortunately, this fourth aspect is completely missing in our present education system. It is Lost. We have forgotten that our life is interdependent, co- related and co- existential. With the money of the whole world, we can still be unhappy, discontented, and incomplete. With all our knowledge, we are no good unless we are able to make contribution in others life. When we affect others’ life in some positive sense, add value to lives, it becomes contribution.
Contribution is like a fragrance of a blooming flower; it is the fragrance of our existence. It must be the fragrance of our education. Our education must teach us to enrich others’ life. It must teach us to cooperate and coordinate in human evolution. We need to contribute not only to our fellows and friends’ life but to the entire existence. We need to be sensitive towards our nature so that we can think about a secured future.