Re-visiting how we take education for granted.
Education is a necessity, we all agree right? When we discuss our needs and wants, we scale it as a need, we set aside a considerable part of our life towards our pursuit of it. We spend a good amount of our income, investments and savings to ensuring that we get all of it’s accruements. We leave no stone unturned when it comes to education, especially in Africa.
Yet…
How many of us are as hands on as we ought we should be concerning our children’s educational needs? Or as passionate as we are discussing politics on facebook? The irony is that we dedicate so much of our resources towards ensuring that our children get the best that education has to offer but have an indifferent attitude towards it.
The irony is that education touches every sphere of our lives, true education, not the empty meaningless pursuits of papers that we engage in. Real education changes lives, pervades mindsets. It’s how a man like Malcolm X was able to overcome the negatives of his life to become the Prince hailed all over the world. He educated himself, he didn’t go to any school but devoured books hungrily and listened to others teach. He gleaned around him for lessons and shared the knowledge that he acquired.
But you see, in our jet age, education isn’t sexy, it isn’t glamorous, it’s isn’t bae! (what does that word mean anyway?)
Education is actually more relevant than ever however, it will give us the tools to solving our problems in our world, it will unite us if we let it. Read the story of how Signapore as a nation overcame it’s obstacles to become a world class nation, and you see immediately that they used Education to achieve the strides that they have.
Just yesterday, I heard a conversation between two soccer fans about their soccer idol Lionel Messi who had a conviction in tax evasion just this week and they were lamenting this fact. It made me recall conversations with my students over the years about the relevance of a sound mathematics education; mastery of numeracy and the other mathematical skills I strove so hard to impart to them. They always whined and complained about how unimportant it was to the real world, I wished that I could see their faces as this news broke, because I had always told them that being in charge of your own finances was a must, and it was easy when you had a strong comprehension of numeracy. Computation and numeracy is the basic foundation of a sound mathematical education.
Education is more than sexy, y’all, it’s a life saving, you see! Ensure your mind stays sharp, brush your skills up always and never stop learning. Your life could depend on it!
© Tola Salau 2016. All rights reserved.