“We do not raise our children alone.... Our children are also raised by
every peer, institution, and family with which they come in contact;
Yet
parents today expect to be blamed for whatever results occur with their
children, and they expect to do their parenting alone” --
Richard Louv
It was a Sunday afternoon and after a hearty meal, I decided
to sit in my verandah amongst the greenery and enjoy a nap. Just within a short
while of my settling down into the cane swing, my body started relaxing and but
my mid was alive to the sounds around when I heard, “If you don’t give us the
bat, we will call “Teacher Uncle”.
Teacher Uncle! I must admit that I love this word because that
is the name with which my young students call me fondly. Their parents and
elders also call me so, but with a slight difference; “Teacher Sir”. I looked outside and found a group of children
playing on the road. One of them, a boy, had a bat in his hand which he was
holding tightly as if someone will snatch it. The expression on his face showed
defiance and the children around were looking at him as if he had done great
injustice to them. I knew that I will be called into the scene shortly and
decided to go there myself.
He is not sharing the bat with us! On seeing me, one little boy
walked up and said, “Teacher Uncle, you
know that we are fond of playing cricket and he is the only one who has a bat.
He has finished his batting and since he got out on the first ball, wants to
take his bat and go home. It is not fair. Don’t you think so?”
Lessons by Environment and peers! I was impressed by the manner in which
the little boy spoke and in it saw an opportunity to drive home few lessons of life. I went up to the boy who owned the bat and he looked at me with
concern. I smiled at him, put a hand on his shoulder and said “imagine that you
were to bat towards the end and just before your turn came up, the boy who owns
the ball wishes to go home and you are left without batting. The bat is yours
and everyone who batted with it decides to go home without giving a chance of
batting to you. How will you feel?”. He thought for a while and said “I will
feel cheated”. What you do you think the others are feeling now? I asked. “Cheated”
he said and without waiting any longer handed over the bat to the little boy.
The larger picture! The environment we interact with and the
society we live in is ever eager to teach and offer invaluable lessons.
However, the life style we are used to, the bookish knowledge we acquire and a
feeling of know-all, be-all shuts our eyes, mind and ears to all the learning
opportunities around us. We get immersed in our own world, own thoughts to such
an extent that we are oblivious to what is happening around us and in the
bargain fail to learn very important lessons of life.
Life is a parent! I am sure that
the children would have learnt a very important lesson of life that “collaboration
and sharing” is essential for our co-existence and should do so more often with
a broad smile. Life, which is also a parent, has taught them a lesson that
sharing makes their little hearts large and with it a capacity to share whatever
little they have with a large number of people.
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