Welcome Back To My Space!
Hello beautiful people! It has been a while, and I am glad to welcome you back to my blog here on Hive. I just want you to know that I appreciate you taking the time to read and engage with my content. Thank you so very much.
In this post, I want to share my thoughts on the very important topic of Education.
So, What Exactly Is Education?
There are several definitions of the word, Education, but the one I quote below is so simple and straightforward that I just can't wait to share it.
Education is both the act of teaching knowledge to others and the act of receiving knowledge from someone else. Education also refers to the knowledge received through schooling or instruction and to the institution of teaching as a whole.
From the above, it is clear that education can be given or received through both formal and informal processes.
The Key Players Or Stakeholders
As someone who has been (and still is) actively engaged, or rather actively employed as an educator, I have met different people who feel the responsibility of educating a child is a responsibility meant for the school alone but I always find myself educating such people that they need to understand that the school alone is not enough. I believe that the major key players when it comes to educating a child are:
The Parents
The School
The Society
The Parents
In my career as an early childhood educator of over two decades, I have had the opportunity of helping many parents understand the foundational role they have to play to help their children not only gain academic knowledge, but also be prepared to face the world outside the safety of their home.
As a teacher, at every point in time I have different kids from different backgrounds in my class. Some are very bold and feel they have the right to bully others, while some are so timid and lacking confidence to confront the bullies.
Sometimes when I engage the kids in conversations, I realize that the issues are more fundamental than what meets the eyes. To be honest, the children may just be exhibiting what their parents/guardians are modelling for them.
You can imagine a child using some foul language when talking and playing with other children. And then another child whom the parents have trained not to use abusive language starts calling the teacher's attention so that the other might be corrected and disciplined. That clearly tells you that the child's behaviour is as a result of upbringing or home training.
In my life as a parent, I have been very intentional about training my children, consciously giving them the love and support they need to face the world outside the four walls of our home. From my first child to the youngest, I have been very actively following up on their learning process, and contributing from my own knowledge and experience. And I must add that I have not neglected the aspect of discipline in training them.
The School
The school any child attends also contributes greatly to the future of a child. It is a pity that in some parts of the world, several schools are not meeting up in preparing young people for the future.
In several developing countries, most of the public schools lack the necessary facilities to help train the young ones. The curriculum which has been in use for several decades are still being used to teach children in an age where the economy has become digital and everything is fast spaced.
Image Source
A lot of private schools are springing up, but a few of them that are world-standard schools are very expensive, and only the rich can afford afford to patronise such schools.
It is important that the academic curriculum being used by schools be reviewed and revised to include topics that deal with real life challenges and situations like financial management, wealth creation etc 😀.
The Society
Any Society that values the contribution of education to its development must endeavour to provide quality education for its citizens. This will mean good providing facilities, paying teachers well, and making scholarships available for those that qualify for it.
In many cases, educators are not well-paid in developing countries. For instance in Nigeria, teachers are among the very low income earners. There many qualified teachers make the decision to abandon their teaching career and passion for jobs that will feed them well, after all passion can never pay the bills.
In Conclusion
I want to say that it takes the collective effort of parents, schools and the society to provide quality education for the leaders of tomorrow.
Thanks for reading my post. This my entry for Day 14 of #augustinleo. The images used in this post are free-to-use images from pixabay.com