Growth !

I recently was asked the question "Can a tree see ? "

What do I mean by looking? seeing? When somebody asks you that I immediately say yeah, i can see red color, I can see this house etc.... but the tree cannot see. it has no eyes!
Recently I posted a mail to all my friends in the US asking them as to how are they all doing ? Everyone of them answered back saying they bought a house in san jose, they have moved their job, they moved away from the bay area, how hectic is the work, their nature of work etc etc... but that was just information . Even if that person calls me and talks to me tomorrow I would n't remember these details and i wouldn't know where he lives or where does he work.
See we are all seeing only externally. what about the internal growth. the growth of my BEING, who am I is the question that needs to be asked over and over?
A tree on the contrary is always doing that. Its focus is completely internal and focussing on how strong it can become. It is least bothered by its external movements. It always wonders about what is going on inside itself.
As human beings we need to grow more internally than externally. now-a-days external growth is attributed to which company you work, your remuneration, how busy you are, how many cars you own, which mobile you carry and how many hours a week you work, where did you go for vacation, this has become our life . so naturally when somebody asks us how are "YOU" doing we start ..... This is what we are passing on to our children BEWARE ! This is our todays way of living created by us for us.

Even I used to get restless when I didn't have any work in the day, felt I was useless, good for nothing, unproductive etc etc....I used to cry ... but when questioned, is that what i want to do, is that what is life , is that what my being all about ..... i got many answers. Why is it so hard to be quiet? Why is so hard to be disconnected from all this ? Why is it so hard to be not like everyone ? (yesterday manasi tells me mamma why didn't you give me egg , i would have developed a taste for it and I wouldn't have felt like an odd man out " ) Why was it so hard to do nothing et all but still be happy and contended like a child ?

Recently when i had gone for an interview for maithilis school, one point that was raised appealed to me a lot. saying " We are not used to living in silence". How true I thought. Why is it so hard to be with oneself. when we are alone, we turn on the TV, radio, or call somebody? also how hard it becomes to lead a retired life later when you are not used being with yourself all the time. I keep wondering when i see my mother or father in law how hooked on they are to the TV. They get very defensive when you raise that point. very delicate issue. I wonder why are they again getting on to the loop . why are they disturbing themselves with the emotional ups and downs the TV takes you through . They also entice the young ones. ( I have become the bad person in this scenario.) why is that they say what else we have to do ?

I am not saying people stop working and sit at home doing nothing. of course once in a while thats good for you and your spouse, what I am focusing is take time to reflect on yourself . What is that makes you come alive ? What is that draws you ? What are your views, beliefs, thoughts, faiths, feelings about things ? how is that helping you or not helping you ? take stock of all these things . understand yourself, your being. How will you do all these ? By watching yourself more closely, by observing your reactions, responses to things , situations and people.

By living this kind of life we are passing on the same to our children. They have come to believe that having a laptop, driver, maids, i-pod, vacations out of india , etc etc are the way of life. They compare themselves with other children having the same as we live in the same kind of environment. In birthday parties the games played are like, which program is telecasted on which channel , a kid who can tell this quickly gets the prize, birthday parties are to be celebrated in pizza hut , food should be ordered according to the taste of the children although why not it be total junk, we call it love for our children. The other day my children were out on a sleep over in one of their friends house and the host ordered pizza and soda and she was very happily telling me that I let the children have complete blast. They had lot of fun she said. Soda! I wouldn't approve of that .She was saying we should do this more often. I wasn't sure about that . So when your child is 16 will you have a beer bash for your teen? Why not ? Thats fun for him then ? Is drinking soda and eating junk fun for children ?

I have observed that Whatever the child does to the environment is accepted as long as he doesn't disturb the parents talk . We call that freedom ? what is freedom without responsibility ? its total chaos within the child and outside the child. The parents say I don't want to talk to him in front of everyone as I know how the child would react . what are we doing to the child and ourselves ?
I have also observed that parents let children watch TV as much as they want and eat as much junk as they say they would not listen and also question freedom. Then as a parent if you know something can be harmful to the child in the long run would you let the child do it, what is your responsibility as an adult then ?
you know, we are a confused lot. our ancestors were atleast clear. Now we don't know the balance . In the name of love to our children we are giving them totally distorted messages . The children are going to grow up to be confused and not sure about themselves. We as adults need to re-look at ourselves and our way of living. Unless we do that it is not possible to impart values to our children .

Learning Netwrok conference

This december I got a chance to attend a conference on learning . Nearly 95 people attended the conference from all over India. People who are doing different kinds of work related to education were present. The questions raised and discussed were something like :

• How do you teach maths?
• How should language be taught?
• Role of Arts and crafts in curriculum?
• Relevance of Social Science in our curriculum( today's text books.)
  
• The way science should be taught in schools
• Adivasi education
• Role of different organisations in bringing a change in main stream education
• Why alternative education ?
  
• Exams and their significance , their impact on children.
• Understanding children behaviour
• Probing the children with the right questions. Questioning as an important part of class room interactions.

The energy was enormous and the passion with which people were doing their job was contagious. All these was being thought, worked and addressed by NGO's in rural setups. Looks like we should start sending our children to schools in these setups where the teachers and the organisations is thinking beyond he present day setup of main stream education. People who are involved in this network are thinking seriously about education and what it means to them.

Today our current main streams are very busy producing machines than human beings" thats what they are saying. Our main stream schools are getting our children ready with one particular skill. But is that enough? Do you call that education for which we are paying nearly a lakh per annum. What is that you want the schools to be doing ? Somewhere we have lost the whole purpose of education.
I feel its time we stop and assess what is the role of we parents in this? Are we questioning the school authority or are we equally ignorant and pushing our children into running this marathon. Very serious question to be asked by every parent today.