Education

In a way, people have to be educated when they are young and open to suggestion. It is also a time in their lives when they would otherwise be least able to make a financial contribution. However, for education to be most successful, the pupil must want to learn. I and all my school friends loved school, but I knew just as many who loathed it.

There is an old saying: ‘When the student is ready, the teacher will appear’. I have found this fitting throughout my life. However, it implies that you cannot teach someone who doesn’t want to know and this seems true to me as well, which is a good argument for giving adults a second chance.

They may have been too stupid, arrogant or distracted to learn when they were young, but come to regret it in later years when they have tasted life and realise how important an education is.

I think my father fell into one or more of these categories. He was a young teenager during World War II and learned little at school. However, in the Fifties and Sixties, he went to night school to study to become a Site Agent and later became a director of several national building firms like Minter’s before founding his own company.

My point is that he allowed himself to be educated the second time around, but not the first. Isn’t it that way for all of us? We allow people to teach us things and they can’t, if we won’t let them.

The fact is that the teacher is always there, but it is only when the student is ready to receive education that he becomes aware of the teacher, who has been standing by waiting for the pupil to come to his senses.

These are just my opinions, I can’t see that there is anything we can do about the situation except to always keep an open mind, remember that we don’t know everything and bear in mind that the guy over there that you consider to be a total plonker may just be the next person to add to your education.

It is impossible to judge another unless you know him or her thoroughly.

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All the best,

Owen

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