As humans, we tend to settle into certain opinions without challenging it through the consideration of the implications of said opinions, or the arguments of other viewpoints on the matter. After all, it is far from difficult to form an opinion on a matter, being that it is usually simply a gut feeling or reaction
Category: Adult
There Has to Be a Better Way
In today’s intense political climate it’s easy to imagine the seven billion people on this planet as unrelentingly opinionated candidates in a universal debate. We are the candidates, the earth is our stage. Our egos inveigle us to cling on to our own beliefs and views and encourage us to transform the voices of others
Why bother with education?
What was the point in that project on Tibetan Buddhism I put so much effort into at 15? I’ve never been to Tibet, worked beside a Buddhist colleague or been called upon to identify a prayer flag at short notice. What was the point in that physics A-level my friend had to work so hard
Distinct individuals
“Nobody Realizes That Some People Expend Tremendous Energy Merely To Be Normal” – Camus. The above phrase is by Albert Camus, a French philosopher in the 20th Century (1913 – 1960), extracted from Notebook IV in Notebooks: 1942 – 1951. My Initial Impression My initial impression of the phrase is that it is an allegation
Power of the mind
Education is one of the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals); it can also be leverage to achieve all other SDGs (including gender equality and human rights) if it is targeted at broadening the minds of students. Preparing students for working life is disastrous New research divulges that in the nature of mankind, man is prone to
The Recalcitrant Powers
Struggles have been an inseparable part of human existence. Man’s initial struggle was to survive in unaccustomed nature. But soon, greed, intolerance and power led to the struggles which made the history chapters bleed. In the tales of useless plunders and meaningless wars, the emergence of saviors was a silver lining. Saviors are not necessarily
Artificial Stretch marks
What does it mean to test a man’s character? People say the eyes are windows to the soul, and even with that supposed advantage, it still does not seem enough to understand the capabilities, identity and intentions of a man. To understand a man’s character, our minds and souls would have to be even further
The power of Power
‘Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power”- Abraham Lincoln What ordinarily should be a national mourning turned to a day of joy, with citizens dancing and celebrating unashamedly on the streets, the city of Lagos, Nigeria went agog at the news of the Nation’s
Children’s Books that both Comfort and Confront us as Adults
Author C.S. Lewis contributed greatly to children’s literature, both through his much loved Narnia series and his commentary on children’s books. Lewis championed children’s stories, but in a society that now has access to a nearly endless stream of stories at the click of a button, do adults still need to revisit the books of
Create your own normal, or let normal create you
Have you ever walked along a busy road and thought: If just one person had made one different decision, if the climate had been just one degree colder thousands of years ago – everything could be different. So easily we get caught in our world. All the rules of life, and the norms we burden
Consumer Protection in Education
Some careers like law and engineering require precise information and analytical skills that take many years of academic preparation to learn. Other careers, like teaching, administration, and the arts require a balance of practical knowledge and broadminded awareness of the history and breadth of this world that we inhabit. Rather than focus on in-class academic
The role of education
The role of education should be to broaden students’ minds rather than just preparing a student for working life. It is worth noting that we have a great number of working people who have no relevant knowledge since they were employed on merit of their school certificates. I have seen many people who are working
Disguises nobody realises
The dictionary definition of “normal” is defined as “according with, constituting, or not deviating from a norm, rule, or principle.” The meaning of the word “normal” that our society is accustomed to does not vary as much from it either. “Normal” is a word our society created; it indicated a group of people who are
To Be Or Not To Be Normal
As societies evolve over time, so also do the norms, traditions and customs that guide them. We are the results of millennia of glaring and subtle changes in human behaviour and the ever-evolving laws that guide it. What we label conventional and acceptable has progressed through epochs, through different eras and periods, picked up in
Broad Or Bust
The time for choosing education as a means to an end is over. We have little choice but to employ education as a means to broaden the minds of students. In the context of this discussion, the term ‘education’ refers to the process of giving and receiving systematic instruction, especially in a school or university
To Just Not Stand Out
Normal. Before we can look at the energies expended by individuals in the pursuit of normality, we must first look at what constitutes normal. Check any dictionary definition of normal and you’ll find a variety of descriptors; most commonly occurring, average, natural. The list goes on. But we are dealing with human beings, every one
Normal or “Normal”
Normal. This six letter word seems to be a simple word, but it is not for certain souls. What defines a person as normal? By following a set of rules or social norm which has been accepted as correct, passed down by the previous generation? Or is it merely in the eye of the beholder?
Education As A Prime Mover Towards Change (Life) And Development (Mind)
It’s like choosing what to dress for a day, looking at the mirror from different angles, questioning and answering is it good or the best? As for the education, it aims for the good as its best. Education is one of the prime movers of many civilized societies towards real change and development, whether to
Defining One’s Best Normality
Triggered by Albert Camus’s quote that: “Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”, I wonder if the quote is completely true. Come to think of it, Camus was born 1913 and died in 1960 which means that this issue has been brought to light around a century ago. Rather than
Nurturing the Broaden Horizons of Students
Let’s ask ourselves: “why education”? Why do we spend so many years in the educational system when there are other available options? Flash to the past, Benjamin Franklin, one of American’s most respected and well-known entrepreneurs, inventors etc improves the quality of American life with his work. He founded the famous University of Pennsylvania and