Post-Covid, Parents, teachers, and School Management must deliberate on how to make up for children’s lost connectivity with Nature.
Destiny can Derail Our Speed
Life goes on in strange ways. Not everything works the way one plans. Each of us may have different experiences which testify to this unpredictable phenomenon of life. I had such an unexpected experience this morning.
I usually drive in my resident country at an average speed of 100 km/hour. I personally prefer to move at a faster pace than the others. Incidentally, today morning my car suffered a breakdown when I was heading to this venue. Finally, I had to hope on to a vehicle whose average speed was only around 20 km/hr.
Our pace of life is not always in our control. Fate plays its own games to derail our speed and ambition. The Covid pandemic affected the pace and style of humanity in unimaginable proportion. We adjusted our relations, education, income, work and play to adapt to the Covid-bruised ecosystem. The inevitable simply became avoidable. Paradoxically, we also learned many lessons outside the classrooms and textbooks. We realized the value of relatives and neighbors in a different context.
Nature first. Textbooks Second
Now that the dreaded contagion has almost ended, our children are back to the campus classrooms. Let them freely roam the hills and climb the trees in and around the campus. Education is embracing the God-made Nature first. Kissing the man-made textbooks can come later. Divorcing Education from Nature is a crime against the little souls who are eager to learn. Nevertheless, the sights and sounds of Nature are the primary sources of human knowledge.
Children ought to release their energy playing in the open-air campus. The pandemic has stifled them from this God-given right. Hence, parents, teachers, and the School Management must deliberate on how to make up for this lost freedom and sanction for our children.
Summarized from Mujeeb Jaihoon’s talk at the Hill Top Public School (Maravanchery – Malappuram – Kerala) on March. 16 2022
