Misguided Solution

This article reflects on a discussion with a pretty lady, a couple of years back; few weeks after her marriage was made official. According to my once in a while sister, her mother keeps calling her after her marriage, reminding her to cook for her husband and other things deserving of a wife to do in her home. ‘Why? Mummy doesn’t trust you or she just wants you to get it right?’ I retorted. ‘I don’t even know. I have told her to stop worrying and that my husband and I are fine but she won’t budge.’ She replied. This was what started our conversation and insight into the lapses we have now in our social and family life education.

The average Ghanaian in our age spends more time in the classroom (formal education) than on any other life engaging activity.

So to say, out of the average 50 active years one spends on earth, averagely, 25 – 35 years of it is spent in the classroom or better still on formal education. The mother in my earlier narration worried because she felt her daughter had not received enough home training and family life education before she got to the marital age so we cannot blame her. How many people even receive any these days, to even say that some ladies now only go back home to learn how to cook and do other chores just months to their marriage ceremony. Gone were the days a lass is trained to be a lass right from childhood and this training is intensified and the scope broadened during puberty and adulthood. Supposedly, this training is on how to be the wife of a husband, the mother of children, the care-taker of a home and most importantly, how to be all of this at the same time.

I wouldn’t think that the mother acted out of proportion, but was just reacting to the current situation that has taken hold in our society. It’s no news now that lots of ladies start learning how to take care of the home after they have accepted a marriage proposal from a suitor. Much emphasis is placed on the formal education so much so that a parent in our time will prefer their children not nearing the kitchen and chores but spending all the time with their books. All the children are told is, learn, learn and learn hard so you become this and that for me in future.

So to say, ‘In as much as we copy civilization and good things from the outside world, let us do well not to discard ours that are helpful to our society and culture. We have left out the very strings that hold the cords of our relationships, marriages, families, organizations, institutions and societies and the focus now is on tuning the peg so hard to get a good music. How do we make good music then with loose strings? I have come to realize per my little experience that the very vital things I learn, I learn subconsciously and consciously, but outside the classroom or any structured form of education. Our social structure has broken down because society has more ‘book knowledge’ than ‘common sense’. Families are collapsing, friendship ties are hard to build and keep, partnerships are no go areas and general human relations are rotten because some sort of education vital to the positive growth of the society is disregarded.

One wonders why someone will have all the degrees and experience in their field of work but cannot manage his home. Yes, what is doing the magic is, that premium is not put on home training. Society these days is also built on the principle – ‘everybody for himself; God for us all.’ An effort to get money on one’s side is now rated above all effort to get people. You ask yourself why a ‘reputable person, looked up to by the youth and children in our Ghanaian society cannot manage his social life as much us he manages what brings him money and fame. Why motivational speakers and preachers have problems with the same things they preach and teach is worrying.

Interviews are conducted day in day out and the certificates are the 90% determinants for a chance to showcase one’s abilities. Education never ends− people struggle to upgrade themselves in schools; get their degrees, masters, professional certificates and what have you. And this is because institutions recognize ‘the papers’ even if the knowledge acquired is not required in the position in question. I ask if it is the certificate that fills the position and gets the work done or it is the personality behind the certificate that makes the certificate worthwhile. Our motivational speakers are helping now with the five, ten, eleven, twenty and the one hundred and one ways to be successful but most of these nuggets end at the seminars and in the books. Why? Most of these things come through practical lessons in life. They are habits that are acquired through lessons from our daily life experiences, that are not necessarily part of ‘classroom syllabi’ but become character when a positive posture is maintained.

These things we hear aren’t strange because the exposure of real life gives us the opportunity to acquire these nuggets but because the focus now is on book knowledge, we ignore most of them along life’s journey.

I should let you in on a word in season from a servant of God recently. “I know you read quite a lot and you must have read a couple of books about guys, relationships and marriage. That is an added advantage but note that your guy is not necessarily that guy being talked about in the book so do not box him into those characters in the books. Your guy is a new character you have to study and know like you are to write a book about him too.” This was on the jovial side but you can agree with me that this is real sense. Apparently, we suffer from this too, especially, those of us who have done ‘a little reading’. I cannot side with Alexander Pope any better on his words, “A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.” This is a word of caution to those of us on the ‘literate’ side. We think we know from the little we have read and so, it is just difficult for us to listen and learn from someone we feel haven’t read as much as we have.

Learning is good and as long as we are alive, let’s not give up on learning. The unfortunate thing is if we feel the only thing worth learning is from a book or the stage of a classroom. Believe me, the very vital things to move us forward as a people are in personal development which comes not purely through the formal education but greatly by the experiences we have with people, society and situations and how we positively learn from them. This brings to memory a conversation with a senior citizen and a colleague on Ghana’s leadership crisis and climaxing on President Obama’s controversial statement of Ghana needing strong institutions and not strong men; we were able to dissect this statement that by that statement, he meant strong personalities filling positions in institutions and not ‘strong institutions’ as in structures. That is to say, for us, Mtn is not Mtn because of their yellow painted buildings but the way customers, clients and employees perceive them because of the services they render them respectively. As well, when Ghana Commercial Bank is mentioned, it is not their structure that comes to mind but how they do what they do. The same is with Golden Tulip, GPHA, GIHOC distilleries, VRA, ECG, UT Bank, to mention but a few.

We should have a look at this again, that in as much as we want intelligent and rich people to fill our homes, churches, institutions, public offices and government positions, let those raising people now; those who are planning to raise someday and those who will definitely raise a child tomorrow do well to impart into generations now and to come, characters that will complement the intelligence and wealth we seek in our society.