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Laity
We can have the best discourses regarding education: that we do not wish to enter a “system”, by which we mean a rat race to determine our children’s worth at 11 years old. We can shout from rooftops that we do not adhere to the 9-year schooling, that we do not wish to subject our children to what we have been subjected to with years of the CPE. However, we have no choice but to abide by “the system”, because at the end of the day, every parent only wants what is best for the child. So come the time of results, the parent will walk that extra mile, make that extra call to make sure that the child gets the best of education.
Which pushes me to ask this question: at what point did we stop considering education dispensed by the struggling small secondary school at par with the education dispensed by the newly minted academies? At what point did we, parents become so obsessed with providing the best that we miss out on providing what matters most to children? At what point did teachers become so obsessed in churning laureates that less abled children are relegated to the backseat? At what point did our children become so self absorbed because they are used to adults bending themselves backwards for them that they do not have the will to make extra effort?
Maybe it’s time that we, parents, started inculcating in our children that they are not entitled by virtue of the efforts of their parents. That sometimes life throws a curveball and that it’s up to them to see how they can work it at their advantage. For it is not only success that determines the adult, but mostly the efforts in the face of adversity.