Rudyard Kipling was a journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist, probably most well-known in today’s society for writing Jungle Book, thanks to Walt Disney whose classic film of that name has recently been re-released. The story offers a wonderful curriculum for life, as the young man cub Mowgli experiences numerous situations as he is being escorted to the “man village”.
by Tim Middleton
One of Kipling’s most well-known poems, though, provides an even more important curriculum for our youngsters today, even though it was written in 1895. It is the poem called If and it provides the perfect complete curriculum — it is a different curriculum to the ones with which our pupils are presented because, as in a previous article, we saw that the key word “if” is in the middle of “life”, so that same key word “if” is found in the word “different”. Everything hinges on that word “if”.
The poem begins with the lines “If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,” and finishes with “If you can fill the unforgiving minute / With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, / Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, / And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son.” In between there are another 11 “ifs” that will characterise the true development of a young person. It is a powerful curriculum for life.
The one major difference between this curriculum and those that we teach is the end product. It would seem that the modern curriculum is all geared to enable youngsters to become qualified, to gain entrance into university, to get a good job, to be a leader, to be a success. What Kipling seeks to point his readers to is to be a man, not to be a success — there is a big difference.
The world teaches us all to be a success — and of course, Kipling’s wording would not appeal to success “gurus” — they will say there must be no “ifs” for a successful person, only “whens”. Yet for one person to be successful, many others must fail. Not everyone can be successful — in fact, the majority of people cannot succeed. Promoting success therefore is actually selfish and divisive; it separates people and sets one against another. Is that what a country would want of its people? Is that really what a curriculum should be about? Kipling, in contrast, points us in the direction of doing what is required to be a man (or woman), which is a much higher calling than to be a success.
Of course, there are differences in opinion about what it means to be a man. “Man up,” children are told, implying they must be tough and strong — “real men don’t cry.” Michael Bassey Johnson says: “Real men don’t dance to other people’s tune; instead, they play for others to dance.” Joe Frazier, the former heavyweight boxing champion of the world, opined that “a real man don’t go around putting other guys down, trampling their feelings in the dirt, making out they’re nothing.”
Kipling provides a very different and wonderful view on how we, young and old, should “man up”. Two simple emphases may simply be noted here. Firstly, in being a man we will no longer be a boy. A child tends to be selfish, greedy, moody, wanting things only for himself, seeing things only from his own perspective. It is all about me, me, me. “I want this, I want that.” Such a description fits entirely the person who seeks to be successful — it is all about me getting to the top; it is all about what I want and will get. A successful person is selfish, is childish. No wonder we are called to be a man! We must train our youngsters to be a man, not to be a success.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
Secondly, in being a man, we are not to be a beast. Animals in the jungle look after themselves and their own; they do not care for others. They will feed off others; they will fight others. “Do to others before they do to you; gain success so others cannot gain success.” But even the leader, the success, in the jungle has their day and is cast out. Our young people are not animals so they need to live above the ways of the jungle, of always trying to be number one, to be a success. They need to learn to be a man, not to be a success.
The message of Jungle Book is similar — Mowgli, the man cub, is called to be a man, to live in the man village, not in the jungle. Our children, our cubs, are called to be true men and women, to live not in the jungle but in the world as it is meant to be. That is our curriculum.
Tim Middleton is the executive director of the Association of Trust Schools and author of the book on “failure” called Failing to Win. email: [email protected] website: www.atschisz.co.zw
