We send our children to school for hours on end and expect them to learn math, science, language and all manners of things without realizing that learning happens naturally. We know that guidance is required, skills are taught but learning is innate and natural. We are born with the desire to “know” and “learn”. It’s an instinct. This is why traditional school systems have been failing our young learners. Simply due to systematic expectations and ordinary education.
Our children are inventive, creative, imaginative with boundless energy and so many unhinged talents and strengths. Creative genius is the single, untapped global resource that is found in early childhood. We view our children as blank slates that need to be taught how to feel, think and create when they are born with unimaginable powers and incredible intuition. Why are limiting them by comparing them to others their age? Why are we desiring them to formulate ideas at the same rate and pace as others? Why are we forcing our children to become “normal” or “standard” when they are born to shine and burn with a fire that is unique and much needed in this world?
We are disempowering their natural tendencies towards greatness by limiting their access to the learning they need to be the optimized versions of themselves. Any traditional setting that is designed to manufacture learning in a large group setting with a collective goal is flawed and will eventually cause a series of traumatic self-esteem issues in our children. Fact is, we are all unique and we were all born to this world for a purpose. My strengths are not yours and your weaknesses are not mine. We must develop the urgent sense of awareness so we can stop the system from trying to make our children believe that they are “less” than others. Johnny does not learn math as quickly as Ted and Ted has no idea how to build a paper airplane as well as Johnny. We know that the world needs Johnny and Ted because one might end up as the engineer who designs the futuristic aircraft with the other.
All we seem to discuss lately are limitations. Disorders, therapies, accommodations, medicine and all other interventions that are targeting our child’s sense of self and falsely promises a redemption and restoration to “normalcy”. What is normal? Why is our definition of intelligence so depleted? Who is setting these guidelines and why are we so enamored with the idea of normalcy?
Has society forgotten that the true leaders, innovators, scientists, visionaries were NOT normal? They exhibited a brazen element of courage to blaze a trail that is unexplored and unintended. Normalcy may lead to a stable job with benefits but DIVERGENCE leads to excellence.
It is time we take a moment and reflect and gauge our own sense of fulfillment and happiness in what we are doing at this very moment. A few lucky ones are working the job of their dreams and pursuing their passions. The rest of us are weighed down by bills and financial responsibilities that compel us to work jobs just to pay expenses. How many of us have deferred dreams, vacations and purpose-driven missions because we simply must do what we must do. It is what it is…. right? WRONG!
This does not have to be the reality for our children. We, as parents, do everything in our might and power to assure a better life for our children. The irony is, we are training them to be exactly like us. To grow up in a word that is abscessed with ubiquitous ideologies about a false pretense and denotation of success. Personal success is being driven by your purpose. Purpose-fulfillment is the fundamental, key ingredient of a successful and contented life.
If we don’t stop our incessant need for our children to be like everyone else, they too, will end up working a job they abhor to pay bills. We need to focus. We need to pay attention to their proclivities, tendencies, passions and strengths. Our role as their parent is to celebrate them and allow them to manifest their own future through drowning them in love and acceptance.
Sit with your child and ask them questions about what they enjoy. Observe which activities bring genuine excitement and a pull of a smile from their lips that touches their eyes. Reflect on the person you wish you had become and abandon your idea of what you desire for them because you didn’t achieve those things that made you happy. This is their future. This is their life which they will continue on well after we are gone and delivered our mission to be their parent. What are teaching them? That math is the single ingredient they will need to succeed? That writing an essay will be their saving grace?
Why are so academically focused and maniacally attempting to produce children who are like everyone else? Why are we so emphatically denouncing the idea that children need freedom to explore, learn and develop their skills at their own pace and not at the command of a hierarchy?
I write this with much hope in my heart! I have witnessed the incredible breakthroughs that can occur if learning becomes more natural for children. I established my own learning environment that sought a way to expel all the prerequisite ideologies of education and integrate the holistic methods of coaching and mentoring. We are at the helm of a new world and there are a multitude of agendas that our children will have to battle. Inspiring future leaders cannot happen in a system of compliance. Allow them to understand that they have a voice and a choice. After all, they are the ones who will be running our countries, heading our research to cure disease, innovating new projects that will connect us in different ways, inventing new ways to travel and possibly teleport! The incredible creative genius of children is the single, untapped asset of our time… now that we know this, shouldn’t we honour it? Foster it? Cultivate it?
Please, I urge you, if your child is different, seek out a different way of education for them before they give up on school and learning altogether. Before they deceptively form a vilified sense of self and quickly decline into the abyss of depression and anxiety. Children should LOVE learning because it’s innate. As such, we need to provide them with the opportunity to learn at their own pace and engage their personal strengths.
Sylvia Badwi
Principal | Visionary
smartignani 