OK, confession time! Hands up those who have driven in their car and run out of fuel and had to call someone or walk a distance to get fuel? No surprise there! Then we might go further and ask how many of us wait for the fuel light to come on before we think of going to the fuel station? Others of us, no doubt the more responsible ones, will fill up the fuel tank as soon as we go below halfway — after all, the fuel station to which we go later may not have fuel and we would be stuck again. It is fair to say that it is important that we fill up our fuel when we can, in advance.
Then again, we need to ask one more question in our confession time — how many of us have filled up the tank with the wrong fuel? It is okay, no-one can see you! Let us be more specific though with this: How many of us have put diesel in a petrol car? And how many of us have put petrol in a diesel car? And which is worse? Anyone who has put petrol in a diesel car will remember the feeling as the car will be badly affected and damaged, coming to a dreadful and expensive stop, while diesel in a petrol car can be remedied slightly more easily. Either way we do not want to put the wrong fuel in.
So, it is important not only that we keep our vehicles full of fuel but also that we put the right fuel into our particular vehicle. Both these viewpoints are very relevant when it comes to education. The point of education is for our children to be filled full, or as we would otherwise put it, fulfilled. They are to be filled full to be fulfilled. It is a double desire; they need to be full full — fulfilled!
The meaning of ‘fulfilled’ has been given variously as being happy and satisfied about life, feeling happy that our abilities and talents are being fully used, that we are getting the most out of life, getting everything we want from life. In other words, when we think of the meaning of the word ‘fulfilled’ we may reflect that the word has connotations of being excited, at peace, enabled, empowered, energised but above all satisfied, content. Is that not what we would want for our children? Is that not what we should be aiming at – to make them have a deep, real, true, lasting sense of fulfilment? To fill them full?
Not many people follow such a principle though. If we are thinking of making our children full, many consider that children must be successful, powerful, purposeful, joyful even – full of success, power, purpose, joy. They do not think of fulfilment as being important. We surely want our children to be filled full, not running on empty, not waiting for warning lights to come on to tell them to do some learning. The learning is constant, ongoing, topping up all the time.
However, we need to take this analogy further still with reference to fulfilment. The ‘fuel’ that we put into children must be the right ‘fuel’, just as the fuel that we put into the car must be the right fuel for that car. If we do not do so, then, as with the car, we can cause considerable damage to the car and in educational terms to the child. Fulfilment depends a great deal on fuel-filment. Get it right, the car and the child will motor through life; get it wrong, the car and the child will grind to a halt, damaged and in need of much repair.
The fact, and the point, is this: we can put the wrong fuel into our children’s education. There is a real danger and multiple evidence that we try to fill some of our pupils with the ‘fuel’ of academics when they are quite simply not academic. Such children need to be filled with vocational or commercial courses instead of academic ones. We must use the right fuel for each child.
It is interesting that now in Zimbabwe it seems that on every street corner one of two things (if not both) are popping up – fuel stations and private schools. For the owners, it would seem, the goal is the same: to make a profit. Leaving aside for the moment that education should not be a profit-making business, there are other similarities and indeed lessons that can be learned from both. We must enable children to be fulfilled – filled full all the time but very definitely with the right fuel. Successful, powerful are not the right fuel but may follow as a result (though not necessarily).
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This article (and all previous ones) may be fulfilling, for the writer if not for the reader, if it makes people think again but the fact is we must fill up (full) next week with another one. Drive on!
