Educating our children

Educating our children is one of the most important tasks we have. Preparing our children for their future so that they can have fulfilling lives is a great responsibility.

We do a reasonably good job in terms of passing on the technical knowledge we have gained so far - science, mathematics, arts and other subjects taught in school. We do a much poorer job in some of the life skills that are important - opening and using bank accounts, balancing checkbooks, health and life insurance, saving for the future, retirement planning, taxes, managing credit cards, tracking our health etc - one would be surprised how many people struggle with some of these basic skills. While knowing how to solve a differential equation in calculus (or pick any technical skill learnt in college) is important, it is also important to manage credit card debt.

But perhaps we do the worst job in teaching our children how to be alive to this world. When a child is born, he is naturally alert, inquisitive, enthusiastic, and open minded. However, as the child grows, he becomes like us - an unaware adult. Surely that indicates that there is something amiss. Not only do we do a bad job, we set bad examples - we are bad examples. Because of our lack of awareness and because we have become so accustomed to the current state of affairs, we don't even realize the harm we are causing our children.

Being a new father of a baby girl, M, the question of right education is of paramount importance to me. As we awaken to the importance of awareness in our life, let us realize that awareness is critical not just for us to be really alive but it is also an important skill for us to teach and pass on to our children.

Let us continue on this journey to awareness not just for oursleves, but for our children, for their future, for the future of this world and for the future of humanity