Live to learn or learn to live?

Mr. Simon Lee

 

 

The world is changing rapidly – on one hand teachers strive to tackle challenges in the current environment, for example, the pandemic, the digital savvy age etc, yet on the other hand, teachers also have to be aware of and anticipate what kind of environment the world will be drifting towards, so as to pass on knowledge and values that fit the needs of the future world to our children. To me, this is the essence of education - to allow students to recognise, understand knowledge and values, be them academic, professional, cultural or moral in nature, and also to utilise these knowledge and values to create other new values.

 

I believe that students have to make use of their knowledge to create something meaningful in order to fully understand it. The lack of enthusiasm leads to the lack of creativity, that is why I always try to create a positive hype in class so that students are motivated, my teaching approach will also be adjusted based on the level of enthusiasm of the class.

 

“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”

Albert Einstein

 

Nevertheless, other than knowledge acquisition, character building and habit development are just as important – these two do not necessarily come in sequence, on the contrary, they always go hand in hand and tend to influence each other. As a child, when you are trying to develop a habit, very often you are shaping your own character as well. Therefore I believe the phrase should be “Live and learn”, rather than “Live to learn” or “Learn to live”.  

 

Namibian elephants are known as one of the toughest animals. They pass on their survival skills by shared knowledge and learning to remember locations of food and water in order to survive in the desert. We are yet to know what our children will be able to achieve in the future but it is important for us to equip them with the “characters” which can help them face the challenges in the 21^st century and beyond, this is just as important as the survival knowledge elephants have. Let me conclude this article with a quote from Mahatma Gandi because I think he said it best.

 

“The path is the goal”

Mahatma Gandi