Is our educational system really working to promote positive progress?
The problems we are faced with today are the results of unethical leadership. Our business and political leaders have had the best education, yet many would sacrifice human wellbeing end the environment for the love of money.
Growing up in Soweto, near Johannesburg, South Africa has taught me to value “ubuntu,” or “I am because we are.”
Ethical problems can only be solved if the leaders are humanistically centered, have a love of nature, and agree not to enrich themselves unethically. This is the call to all leaders in the world to understand the purpose of life, which has been outshone by the illusionary world of money.
Who would hurt others for personal gain?
- Political leaders who caused or are still causing human suffering.
- Businesses and business people who promote harmful products that are of danger to human health for the love of money.
- People who oppressed my ancestors by making them to feel inferior because of their pigmentation.
Now, almost everyone in the list above had an opportunity to go school to acquire education. So, is our educational system really working to promote positive progress?
I am lectured by highly educated people who can’t even manage their own lives. Medical Doctors who preach that smoking is harmful and yet they smoke like there’s no tomorrow. Problems like global warming are the result of an education system where people studied how to manipulate nature irresponsibly.
Such severe problems as global warming and poverty are ultimately the result of our ignorance of our own essential nature, which is universal and the source of infinite energy and intelligence. The ignorance of one’s own self is the basis of all the problems, shortcomings in life.
Scientists have provided some obvious technical answers. Global warming is caused by greenhouse gas emissions and the solution to the dilemma of global warming is to reduce emissions via improved technologies, policies, and regulations where necessary. (One of the most recent ideas in the U.S. along these lines is a change in the federal tax code to encourage the use and development of alternate energy sources by corporations).
The solution to all the challenges is to have a system of education that gives completeness to the curriculum so that students coming out of the educational institutions will be fully developed and completely responsible citizens. Students must be brought up in the values of life, which is developed in higher awareness and understanding.
I learned to value ubuntu growing up helping my grandmother in her garden. Our education system fills our brain with knowledge, but not our hearts with compassion or love. Ubuntu is the pillar of all morality, peace and development. Our education system must develop the mind, spirit, and body of a student.
Photo: Flickr
Dumisani-
There are thousands and thousands of American technology workers that use the word “ubuntu” every day in relation to a particular version of collaborative open-source software. I bet very few of them have ever thought about the word’s origin, or why it was chosen for that name.
Thanks for this!
Very good post. You might be interested in reading some work of Fethullah Gulen. I’ve read his book “Towards a Civilization of Love & Tolerance”. This might be a good start: http://www.loveandtolerance.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=category§ionid=10&id=25&Itemid=70
I’m not a Muslim btw, I just really like his holistic vision on things.
Absolutely. This is a hugely important but often ignored aspect of the argument entire. We do not value the earth in our daily lives because we have become terribly separated from her both physically and philosophically. Global Warming should act merely as a carrot designed to attract peoples attention to the real issue – that of our continued disrespectful relationship with the earth. It amounts to a huge loss in the story of the Human Experience. Repairing that relationship so that we can reap the rewards is the true goal of any environmental movement. Teaching our children about the greatness of the earth and their place within that greatness is an important fundamental step in building a way of life that celebrates and respects her.
What went wrong? where are you?
i am a Ghanaian,i happen to have an organization that is trying to champion positive education in the entire country.
you will shock the kind of questions this our so called political leaders ask when ever the youth is trying to do something positive,they ask questions like they are talking to their wifes.some times i cry for the young once cos the education in Africa is not the best for the future leaders of Africa.what can we do to change it?if you have an idea please share it with me.i really appreciate everything about this page
GOD BLESS YOU ALL
Senyo.
I think the world would be a better place with more people like you.our education system fills the mind with only kwowledge and not the true sense of being,it should not make us to earn a living but also to be responsible citezens with good moral values.
I like the word ubuntu ‘i am because we are’.people today should be reminded of this concept because they have lost their true sense of being .our education system makes us to think like whites and forget about our moral virtues.we as black we are grounde beings people who have knowledge of what it means to be a person