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Page 1 of 2 Mid-week Inspiration, I admire the power of slogans. They have such a way of making us all less rather than empowering us to be greater. Boys don’t cry!, Men never quit!, …the world is full of them. They’re easy to say, easy to repeat and easy to influence. Most of us are echo chambers for slogans of prejudism and marketing. We have someone else’s priorities rattling around in our heads. Our day begins, plays out and ends with a continuous stream of media invasion.
For the average North American silence is the enemy. To actually think for oneself is no longer necessary. We enter a situation, any situation and just let the media programming we have already ‘downloaded’ kick in. I have known a few people in my life who would respond to virtually every situation with a media line. The first word would be from a movie, advertisement or radio television slogan of some nature. A short exposure left me wanting to ask them if they actually knew how to think for themselves. I watched a wonderful and highly recommended documentary this week called “Paperclips”. In the movie a teacher commented on his shift from imposing his brand of education on his students to actually teaching them to think for themselves. What a refreshing notion. I know I had a couple teachers like that in my life, they were the wonderful exception. But a trend to supportive education is not up to the teachers; if we want our children to be able to think we as parents have to start the process. And that process starts when we start paying attention to what and how we are teaching ourselves. Now, there is a new idea! We have all been through a system that taught us first that we don’t teach ourselves. We have been taught to let others teach us. If I’m interested in worms and it is math time in the classroom I guess I won’t be learning about worms. Unless I am a very rare eight year old who’s going to forego afternoon video games and TV for the opportunity to do a little extracurricular studying, I’ll instead be getting more advertising about what the world knows I want. No, unfortunate or not, it takes the ones who can, to set the example for those who are incapable. Parents first and all other adults, are capable and must take the leading role in determining, not what our children think but, how they think.
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