Mirza Yawar Baig – Raising A Generation
AI: Summary ©
The importance of role models in education is discussed, including the challenges of being a role model and the importance of privacy and lack of autonomy in schools. The speaker emphasizes the need for teachers to show compassion and leadership to help students find value in learning and achieve their goals. The speaker also discusses the crisis in South Africa and the importance of educating children on the values and ethics of education, particularly in regards to the age of children who are born in poor educational systems. The importance of high quality schools and giving children opportunities to learn and work with their hands is also emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa salatu salam ala MB mursaleen Muhammad Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. This livan kufuor Catherine cassara mavado Allah tala in Allahu Allah ekata who soluna Allah and nebby yeah you Allah Dena amanu sallu alayhi wa sallam outta Lima Allahumma salli ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala Ali Mohammed Kama salata, Ibrahim Allah,
Majeed Allahumma barik ala Muhammad Ali Muhammad Guevara, Mr. Oliver,
my dear brothers and sisters, it's a great pleasure and honor to be here to speak to you. I was asked to speak about education, and especially about the responsibility of parents and teachers towards their children and students. So let me begin by asking you asking you have a question.
Who is your role model?
I want you to think of a person and don't realize that because you know, and I know that if in fact, a solo solo solo was the role model of Muslims, we would not be in the mess that we are in. So I want you to think of a role model somebody that you know, or knew personally.
Can I see a show of hands? How many of you is that role model? A parent or a teacher?
You know, as this question to you, and I asked this question across the world, wherever I speak to audiences like this, comprised of parents and teachers.
And I've never till today, across the world, across cultures, across religions, across nationalities and races, I've never yet had more than 10% of the population, putting up their hands to say that their role model is either a parent or a teacher. Now, what does that mean? It means that for 90% of the population, the role model is neither a parent nor a teacher, not only how tragic is that, because the two roles which have the maximum face to face time with students and children, our parents and teachers, yet, those students and those children do not take the parents or the teachers as role models. It's a very important serious question that we need to ask ourselves and say, What
is it that's happening with us that our children do not see us as role models? Let me ask you a final question in this in this series, if your children were sitting here, instead of you if your children meaning your biological children or your students if they were sitting here? And if I asked them the same question, I said to them, think of a role model, and put up your hand for those who that role model is a parent or a teacher. If I asked the question, do you think they would put up their hand thinking of you?
I'm not disputing that.
But the question I want to ask you is, for those of you who put up your hand, and those of you who did not put up your hand, the question I want to ask you is, how do you know?
If you think that your child sees you as a role model, and would put up his or her hand, if asked that question, or for those of you who think that your child does not think of you as his or her role model, the question I'm asking you is, how do you know? Because that which is not supported by hard data, is only a belief and that belief cannot be trusted? So the first and foremost question for you to think about and reflect on is that how do I become a role model for my child? And how do I do that in a way where I'm sure about that my child sees me as a robot,
by an association with schooling goes back to 1958 when I was enrolled in St. George's primary and nursery school,
as an inmate, and from there in 1961, I was shifted to Hyderabad public school, from where I graduated in 1972. So I am from the class of 1972.
several decades later, I became the correspondent of the Arunachal on Higher Secondary School in Theravada, near marthanda. The school had 1200 students and 75 teachers. And in a period of three years, we took that school from being one of the worst to being one of the top three schools in the state of Tamil Nadu.
That's a long story. And that, along with many other long stories is in my book, the book is called it's my life, and it costs in India all of 230 rupees. So I sometimes tell people that I wrote that book when I was 60. And now 62.
I say, I tell people
That
the value of two of 62 years or 60 years of life is 230 rupees.
Subsequently, in the years, and as I speak into today, I'm also advisor to the Association of Muslim schools in South Africa and in the UK, between home there and almost close to 200 plus schools in South Africa and UK. So my
experience with teaching and school administration is at many different levels.
Now, I use the term inmate for a reason.
It is because most, if not all, our schools are run like prisons, I can say probably that the only school which are not run like prisons are schools, which are IB schools,
because the International Baccalaureate program does not allow you to do something like that. And it has much more room for creativity and for autonomy. But and of course, I'm sure there are some other private schools which are like that, but by and large across the world.
Schools are unlike prisons, the school is owned by an entity, either the state or a private entity. And you might say, Well, you know which prison is owned by a private entity? Let me tell you that today. As we speak in the United States, most prisons are owned, privately owned, and they are run for profit. So the school is owned, like a prison by
the state of Iowa private entity. prisons have a set of professionals who run them called jails. for schools, they are called teachers.
Children are admitted into the school just as prisoners are admitted into the prison. And their entire existence in the system is characterized by one overwhelming fact, which is zero autonomy, complete lack of autonomy, they have no freedom to do anything on their own.
Just like the existence of prisoners in a jail, they enter at a designated time, and must serve that and can leave only when that time is over. The gate shuts behind them and they can't open it. What they do is totally regulated. And this is informed to them by bells or buzzes. They are not even given the dignity of being spoken to.
very strangely, we seem to believe that young adults, including their teachers, are incapable of being trusted to keep to time limits for their sessions or classes, but must be rudely awakened by ringing bells, or buzzers.
Students cannot eat, they can't sleep, they can play, they can talk, they cannot even go to the toilet without asking for permission. How many of you are familiar with this gesture? You know what this means? And you know what that means?
I can go on, but I won't because we were all fellow prisoners in that system. And some of us have been kicked upstairs and elevated to jail status.
Another enigmatic mystery? Is the Parent Teacher Association. Ask yourself one single question, Who is the school for?
And then ask, why is it that those who the school is supposed to be for have absolutely no say in any meaningful decision making for decisions which eventually are going to affect them?
Yet we believe that we will be able to create discerning, responsible and ethical citizens by ensuring that they never take a single decision in the entire time that they spend at school. We fill their head with random information, we grade them as passed or failed on their ability at random recall. within a specific time, we don't test knowledge. We do not test understanding, much less application. We only test memory.
A child
cannot answer a question.
At 915. The bell rings at 915 his paper is taken away from him. And as the as the teacher as the invigilator picks up his answer paper from his table and walks away. This child remembers the answer to that question. Does the child pass or fail?
Does the child know or he doesn't know? That is how insane our examination system is.
Now ask yourself, how do you define good student by exam grades? Right? good student. Your best students are those who get grades of 90% or more
And if you don't accept that I can show you advertisements of your own schools
showing that pictures of students who scored above 90, and so on and so forth.
regurgitate regurgitation of undigested food is called vomits. regurgitation of undigested information is called passing exam.
And if you don't believe me, tell me, when was the last time you gave a prize for dissent?
Please notice, I'm not saying when was the last time you permitted a student to disagree? When was the last time you tolerated dissent? When was the last time you even accept a dissent? No, I'm asking you. When was the last time that you awarded that you appreciate it. And you gave a prize for dissent for to a student for disagreeing with you?
What happens to a student who student who tells you the truth? What's the truth, that what he is being taught makes no sense to him.
What happens to a student who
understands what you taught him, but does not understand which is much more important.
He does not understand why you taught him that or where he can apply that.
And finally, if a child fails in the exam, or more importantly, fails to learn, whose failure is it really
yours as teachers and parents? Or is it the failure of the child?
I can see some of you saying teachers, my question to you is,
who pays the price? Who gets punished.
I have yet to see a teacher who loses one rupee of salary, because his student failed the exam. But I can tell you that especially for board exams, especially for qualifying exams, if the student fails the exam, it has a serious negative impact, not just on the child's immediate situation, but all his future career, doors closed for him, or otherwise, doors could have been open. But nothing happens to the teachers. Nothing happens to the owners of the schools.
To use Michael Harry's definition of quality, he said, if you want to see what people value, see what they measure. Ask yourself, if you measure quality?
Do you measure the quality of your parenting? And do you measure the quality of your teaching?
And if so, what is the price you pay when you do not come up to the standard? So what standard are you applying to your parenting? And what standard are you applying to your teaching? And if you do not meet that standard? What price do you pay? Or is the price paid by that poor child.
And that's why it's very important for us to define standard first. Finally, the last nail in the coffin is the issue of life skills. In our current system, they simply do not exist as an experiment, which I definitely do not advise you to do, but I am suggesting it
take your graduating child who has graduated from grade 12
and tell him or her to leave home and go away for one month 30 days, but during the one month, they must take care of themselves there was not good anyone, friend or relative who they know.
And then after one month, they can come back home.
As I told you, I do not suggest you actually do this. Because you know and I know what will happen if you actually do this experiment, you more than likely will never see the child again.
That is the state of how we teach or don't teach life skills. Let me ask you another question. When you go home today, I would suggest that you look at a newspaper in the jobs
column and find for yourself and see if you can find a job which says high school graduate requirement of education high school graduates, I can boldly bet you that there is not a single job like that does not exist.
question is Why not? Because whose high school graduates. Our high school graduates are people who have spent 15 years in full time education. If I told you that I spent 15 years in full time study of the Quran. What would you call me? You would call me Maulana and you call me an island when you would go
May Allah and then you will run out of out of honorifics and titles.
15 years of studying something full time is supposed to make somebody an expert.
Ask yourself, what is our graduating 12th grader expert in?
And if he or she is not exploiting anything, including life skills, then why are we spending this time? And why are we spending this money in fees to send them to schools
for 15 years full time
to get nothing?
I might say, Well, you know, at least they are literate, at least there is a numerical and, and verbal literacy. But I will submit to you that that takes one year, it does not take 15 years to teach them that. And they do not need to go to a school for that they can learn that at home.
Let me continue.
As for the future, and by future, I mean the future of the endangered species called school teacher. Have you considered the effect of just one of the new developments looming on the horizon? Which is artificial intelligence.
Have you considered what the effect of artificial intelligence is going to be on how education is going to be conducted in the future?
Ai will revolutionize and I must say AI is revolutionizing education among many other things in our society, children will be finally freed from prison, they will not need schools or teachers in the current sense, parents will not need to pay fees for their children to be taught what they can read on their own.
Children will be able to access information on their own and learn subjects on their own time, at home, anywhere on the planet.
homeschooling is rapidly gaining popularity everywhere in the world. And in countries like Australia, New Zealand and Canada, and perhaps of other countries,
you can actually write your own syllabus and curriculum and submit it to the Department of Education, which will certify it and then you can teach your child that curriculum. At the end of that period.
You give them an exam which you have created, and the Board of Education will give them a certificate of school completion certificate. There's only one condition which is that you must teach them the three core subjects which is English,
science and maths. As long as you're teaching these three subjects, they don't care what what else you teach them. He's the whatever you like, whatever you think, is valid for them, including religious education. You can teach them Quran and Hadith and fake and all sorts of things. No problem with that. And I'm talking about Australia, New Zealand, Canada, I'm not talking about Muslim countries, I'm talking about these countries where you can have a complete religious curriculum, they have no problem with that they are willing to give you a school completion certificate at the end of that period. So what is going to happen to schools and teachers in our
current sense, just like self driving cars and trucks.
AI will put millions of drivers out of jobs. So will millions of teachers be out of jobs? When AI comes online? artificial intelligence comes online
and will be made with it already is in many in many situations in many cases, but it is going to only increase.
So question is Will there be a future for teachers? My answer is a very strong and emphatic Yes, there will be a future for teachers, but not teachers as we are today.
There will be a future for teachers, provided teachers can do what artificial intelligence can never do. And what is that? To answer questions about ethical and moral dilemmas, to teach values and principles by demonstration, to demonstrate compassion and leadership to help to connect dots, not collect dots, which is what we do today.
Teachers will have jobs but not in the same way as they don't as they do today. They will have jobs if they can show meaning if they can help students to find direction, if they can mentor them if they can support them and guide them. And above all, if they can inspire students. That is what we need to aim for as parents and teachers. Become inspirational people.
In the lives of those children,
my friends, I see education divided into two streams after the first few years of
literary and numerical literacy,
a technical stream and a theoretical or research or academic stream. This actually happens even now, in countries like Germany, because when once a child has learned, has gone to some years of school, he or she then takes a technical job and starts learning a particular technology, and becomes a mechanic or becomes,
you know, some kind of developed technical expertise, what here we call vocational training or skill training, he or she does that, and then they get jobs in those lines, and they have a, they have excellent careers. I mean, this is not a, it's not, that doesn't mean that they are losing out on something, they're not losing out anything, they are perfectly good careers, but they do not go to university, they do not have graduate degrees, they do not have PhDs, they don't need them. They have very technically oriented education, and that is their life, and that is their career. Others on the other hand, they go through the works, and they go to university, and they get PhDs, and so
forth. And then they go into the academic or the research stream. So these are two different kinds of
kinds of streams. that happen. And this, I believe, is also
going to happen in this country. So I will say to you that no more engineer auto drivers, sorry to say that won't happen. We will have people who will be on this stream or that team. My question is, are we planning for this? Or are we still focused on creating exam passing factories.
This is not a litany of grief or a doomsday scenario that I'm painting for you. It's a snapshot of what exists today. And what I believe will happen in our own lifetime. And I'm not talking about lifetimes, as in the next 50 years, I'm talking about in the next five to 10 years, I can assure you that it is changeable and curable, meaning the problems that I have just listed for you are not inevitable, they are changeable incurable, and that too, without too much pain, provided only one thing, which is that you should want to do it.
I'm happy to hear the way. But like a doctor, I cannot eat the medicine for you.
So my first set of questions for you, as parents and teachers is, what does education mean to you? Why do you teach? What do you teach? And how do you teach? Why do you teach? What do you teach? And how do you teach? I think these are three fundamental questions that you need to answer in a way that is convincing and inspiring. Don't get bogged down by matters of syllabus and curriculum. These are fundamental questions that relate to your whole belief about raising children. A second set of questions, therefore is what kind of person do you want your child to be? I want you to think about his very clearly and say, and create a very clear definition.
Who is your role model? for that? first definition? Who do you want your child to be? Like? What is that role model? And does that inspire you? To think that I'm I want to raise my child to be like this? Does that make us lose sleep in the night? Do you measure yourself against that standard? With respect to that definition? Do you stand before our last ran out data and ask for his help in enabling you to achieve this goal? Do you cry before Allah subhanho wa Taala for the welfare of your of your child? And very importantly, this inspirational standard? Does your child share that standard with you? Does your child share that inspiration with you?
I'm asking you to think about this goal very clearly. And try to keep this very clearly in your mind. Because in my view, education is a design issue. It's like to give you an example. You can't build planes in a train factory. You a train engine has 1000 times more power than a plane engine, but a train will never fly. Today, we seem to be in a situation where we have created a system which is ideally designed to produce obedient slaves, but we want those people to come out to the schools and go out and change the world. Believe me, that's not going to happen. It is impossible to happen. And that is the reason why we also have all these great stories of Steve Jobs and this one or that
one.
who dropped out of school? And then went on to do great things, we should ask ourselves this question, why does someone who dropped out of a system? Why is that person able to create great things, unless that system was a bad system in the first place? So this person by dropping out of the system managed to escape the harmfulness of that system. If the system was good, then how come this person dropped out of the system and was able to do great things with the vast majority of people who go through the system cannot do? This is a very serious question we need to ask yourself. Now most importantly, as I said earlier, just now, does your child share this dream with you?
Because the reality is that unless he or she shares this dream with you, nothing will happen.
I remind you of myself, children, listen with their eyes, not with the ears. They listen with their eyes. They don't care what you say, until they see what you do. And this is not only true of children, this drew true of all people. People don't care what we say until they see what we do. And that's the reason why it's very important to demonstrate the values and ethics and morals that we are talking about and that we are teaching to our children.
I want to narrate for you a little story that my dear friend advocate, Shafiq Mahajan, sent me the other day about a Japanese man called Haruki. The story says that I was waiting at a traffic light with my friend Haruki in the passenger seat of my car, and the traffic light was red. It was Sunday. It was a very Lazy Sunday afternoon on the outskirts of Tokyo, not a car inside, not a person inside. So he says I asked my friend Haruki. He said, Man, look.
I know it's a red band. But why don't we go across? hairpieces? No, we wait for the Green Man is talking about the traffic light.
So the driver says, I said to him, Look, there is no one here there is no there are no cars, there is no chance of an accident. There are no people even Why don't we just go Why must we wait for the Green Man?
The answer blew me away. Because Haruki did not say because Allah subhanaw taala is watching. You know what? He says? How he says he said, he smiled at me and said, What if a child is watching?
What if a child is watching? And that is the reason why in Africa, they say it takes a whole village to bring up a child. I go to South Africa and other African countries quite often. And whenever I hear this statement, I say No, you're wrong. It does not take a whole village to bring up a child. It just takes one smartphone, one smartphone is enough to bring up a child. What's better is one iPad. This is what we have done to raising children, which I think really we need to think about this
very, very seriously. My brothers and sisters, today we are facing a crisis. We are facing a crisis of youth.
We have in India, the youngest population in the world, we have
to give you some numbers, we have 526 million people under the age of 25.
Out of that we have 272 million we who are between the ages of 10 and 19, which is cool, we're in children. That means that for the next 30 to 40 years, we are going to be have the youngest population of any country, including China, in the world. Now, ideally speaking, this is brilliant news, it means that we are going to end up having or becoming the workforce for the world. And I know that this is the story and this is the line that has been peddled to us, especially by our political leaders, we say we have a demographic advantage. Fantastic. Sounds nice. The point is this.
The point is that they do not tell you and most of us do not think of the caveat of the conditions which make this a democratic, a demographic advantage or a demographic time bomb. And that is three conditions. Number one is the right kind of education. Number two is converting their education into employment. And number three, infrastructure to support that employment. Now, what do I mean by right kind of education? Let me give you some numbers.
Just looking at engineers alone,
not 2016 figures. Last year's figures tell us that employability percentage of engineers is at three
Point 7% 3.7% of engineers are employable, which means that 96.3% of our engineers are unemployable. Tell me whose fault is it, they went to college, they pay the fees, they did all that. And then at the end of that, they even get a certificate because we give them certificates. We don't like them to fail. We don't like to fail them, because then they're stuck in the college, we want a new crop. So therefore, we send them out, but they are unemployable. And that is not a small percentage is the vast majority. 96.3% of our engineering, engineering graduates are unemployable. 3.7%, are employable. We're talking about right education, where is the right education, talking about
converting that into employable people or employment. Most are people, including those who go to MBA colleges and so on, they see the goal as getting a job, they do not see their goal as creating jobs. And that's the reason why vocational education and entrepreneurial development is the backbone of society. And I'll come to that in a minute. So therefore, we have a situation where we, first of all graduate people who are unemployable. And secondly, obviously, there are no jobs. And third thing is in terms of infrastructure development. What do I mean by that? I mean, three things, ports,
PowerPoints, power plants, and transportation systems, roads and trains.
Just think about that. Think about two things. Number one, what time does it take to build a power plant to build a road to a global standard to build a port to global standards? How much time does it take? How much money does it take? Where's the funding for this? So we are talking about a situation where we have a young and youthful population, but as once they come out of schools and colleges, they are going to hit this blank wall. My question is, what are we going to do?
I was in Bhopal last week, I was invited to speak at the police headquarters as a series of the
other dgps lecture series, as they call it. And I mentioned some of these things to them. After that, I went to the satpura National Park Tiger Reserve. On the way we were driving through several rural villages that I'm talking about within an hour's drive of Bhopal. So we came out of Bhopal and we are going to Sakura. Every single village I noticed one thing which was young men standing by the roadside or standing on street corners. So after we passed through several villages, I asked my driver I said you know you got away Why are these people standing here? So he said Sir, come Puccini. He said Sir, they have no work. So I said to school college was Dr. de gallo. I said don't
they go to school or college by diversity serwotka school to hoga or college and he said he said the school is over and they cannot go to the college. So I said
to the parents what he said was okay, because they are farmers they are in the fields. So I said yeah a categorical
back Why don't they go to the farm with the with the Father level says sir in school dogana
IV, a kidney Kappa aplysia tequila semester.
He said they went to school. And so therefore they consider farming beneath their dignity. And I don't know if I mentioned that before, but I saw them stunning. All of these kids are wearing trousers and shirts, or jeans and T shirts. And some of those jeans are you know, the the artificially aged jeans and so on, which normally costs a lot of money, but I'm sure they would have got them at some discount rate or second or whatever. So they're all dressed in western clothing. And they are standing on street corners. So my dad tells me say the panchik ben Vanier Khanna and Tony kutaragi, a Panzer panaway, the eternal Japanese.
He said Sir, their duties have come off. They are wearing pants and shirt so they do not go in flush. They can't go into the fields. So as the Catholic guy, what do they eat? He said domata Kamata bukata what the parents are these these kids? They eat? So I said, how we should try and guys what will happen to them in the future? My grandma says sorry.
He tells me that this is what you will have to tell me. What will happen to them in the future. This is what we are facing. The 3.7% employability that I mentioned to you is for engineers, we are not taking into account in that figure people who never go to school school dropouts. We're not talking about people who go to degree colleges and get ba and BSc and and be calm and all that which are even more I mean, what can be less than less
worth while then 3.7%. But Allah knows best but I'm saying degrees which have absolutely zero value.
Many people have this wonderful attraction for BBs and MBAs from fly by night institutions which have, you know, zero standing anywhere. The all of these, at the end of the day, they are going to come, they have no job. They have no education, they have nothing to lose, but they have a vote. And these people are coming out. They need food, they need shelter, they need homes, they need families, what are they going to do? So who are these people? These people are not the workforce of the world. They are the raw material for the drug trade and for crime. They are the cannon fodder for those who want to gain political power, by invoking all kinds of divisiveness and communism and violence. They
have no jobs, no education, most importantly, nothing to lose, how do we reach them? How do we help them, believe me, it is our need, it is not even their need, it is your and my need to reach them and to help them to help them to become self sufficient to help them to earn an honest living, and to help them to have to live like good and decent people. Otherwise, we are sitting on a time bomb, and it is sticky. As I said, I have a solution. So please bear with me.
Now infrastructure development, what does that mean? It means becoming energy sufficient, making world class ports, and transportation systems. Without these four things, clean, reliable energy, good transportation, ports, and highly employable workforce. No major investor will invest in this country. I won't go into a probability analysis of all this, but I think the writing on the wall is clear for anyone who can read. The only way out of this is high quality schools, which can produce ethical moral citizens who are trained as entrepreneurs, governments cannot help us, we have to help ourselves or get prepared to perish
by a solution which is implementable in every single school. And the results will be visible within a few years. It has three interlinked parts. Number one, vocational and skill training in all secondary and high schools in all madrasahs. In all parts shall as in every school of every description, every child in every school must learn a skill and must be able to work with his or her hands.
Number two, entrepreneurial training, how to turn that skill into a paying proposition?
How can I take my skill and earn some money from it? Number three, is hand holding with regard to venture capital funding to incubate young entrepreneurs, I'm not talking about large amounts of money. I'm talking about small money, interest free loans that are given to them to set up in business. I'm not talking about creating employees, I'm talking about creating potential employers who will not only stand on their own feet, but they will be able to employ one two or more and visualize data. If the business goes more people. That is the solution. Because the best way or the best solution to combat crime is to give people something to lose. In addition, they have zero
tolerance for crime, which means that criminals must pay not crime. That's the meaning of rule of law in any case. And that's the reason why I say to you, especially the teachers and the parents
teach values before you teach anything else. And remember, that values can't be legislated values must be inculcated your job as parents and teachers is to give them memories. Because it's those memories that will come to their aid in times of moral and emotional dilemmas. It is those memories, which will become the touchstone their criteria for making their own decisions in their lives. Give them memories thoughtfully, because you are giving them memories anyway.
Make sure that you give them memories that will honor you for and they will honor you for those memories and they will remember you by those memories and they will pray for you and they will seek forgiveness of Allah subhanaw taala for you.
Let me share with you some memories of my own teachers and parents.
It was 1968 I was in grade eight.
I was sitting in my class
My seat was next to the window. And across the courtyard were the world our toilets. Just before the morning mid morning recess mid morning interval, just before the bell rang for that. What do I see? I see our principal Mr. K kuruvilla. Jacob, walking into the toilets.
Let me describe for you what crivellaro Jacob look like. I think that's important for this story. Kumara Jacob was he was a motherly, very tall, dark man used to wear white on white white bush court with patch pockets, half sleeves, and white trousers. And he used to wear black shoes, his shoes, his trousers had a crease that you could cut yourself on. And it shows us to shine such that you could look at your face and issues. This was cool, Jacob any time of the day or night you saw him. This is how he was beautifully turned out. Very, very, very impeccable in it.
Now Mr. Jacob is walking into the toilets, and he's not going into the toilet. To do something there. I saw him walking into the toilet with a bucket in his hand from which I could see a broom and a brush protruding. So I dug my seatmate in his ribs and I said Look over there. He looked over there and the bell rang. As soon as the bell rang, all of us took out of the class. We go and stand in front of the toilet. What do you see? We see Mr. kuruvilla Jacob cleaning the toilets. Now why was he cleaning the toilets because our toilets like most Boys School toilet HPS at that time, was only a boy school was festooned. The walls of the toilets were festooned with all kinds of what I
can only politely call creative prose and poetry of a very limited nature. So we had all kinds of nasty stuff written on the walls. I saw Mr. Google Jacob taking clean and brushing and throwing some water on it and cleaning the walls of the toilet. All of us there were 30 of us in that class. We stood there and we watched him in silence. Not one word spoken. clean the toilet. That one toilet, Mr. cruel. Jacob cleaned it completely. He put his brush and his broom and his water back and the mug back in the bucket. It picked up his bucket. He came out of the toilet. He smiled at us and he walked away.
He didn't say one single word. Not one single word. The band did not reprimand us. He didn't tell us what kind of thing is this? Why do you do nothing, nothing nothing.
He just smiled at us and walked away. I wasn't at school for the next four years. And I can tell you, Mr. Jacob cleaned only one toilet. But miraculously every toilet in the school became clean. And I can vouch for the fact that as long as I remained in that school, no one ever wrote anything on the wall on the wall of any toilet.
That is the power of demonstration.
This memories from 1968 I am telling you this story in 2017.
That is the power of memories.
Let me tell you a story about my father.
Every single day that I remember
230 to three in the night,
we would hear the clang of the handle of a bucket. These were the days before plastics, buckets are made of metal and the Clank of the bucket meant that my father was making
then he would grow the Hydra. And after some time, we would hear him hear his voice reciting Quran. And all this time. All of us get we would be far too fast asleep. At the back of the back of our consciousness somewhere we would hear him reciting Quran. And then at the time of father, he would come into our room and he would pull our blankets off us and he would say Assad to Cairo Milano Isola to Cairo Mina No.
Now my brother says still to this day he says you know I used to hate this thing is to pull our blanket off and it was cold and otherwise in those days, especially the winters but not waking up for father was not an option at all of us woke up. All of us woke up no matter how young you are you woke up or further you went and made widow. And remember in those days there was no hot and cold flowing hot and cold water. You made widow with cold water because at that time, water would be heated outside in the summer so there was no hot water in the bathroom. You made water with cold water you prayed for a lot of other no exceptions.
My entire memory of my father's whole life is it never once missed the heavy
metals ran into the field is covered with no second memory of my father.
He was a medical doctor and he worked in the
The 50s and 60s in the Karnataka government in those days Mysore state, in the in AP and in Hyderabad, all in Metalworks. Final last job was Hyderabad.
Now, my father was a very good doctor, he was a he was a brilliant doctor. And I'm not saying that because your father but because he was a very brilliant doctor. His clinical diagnosis was absolutely superb. He would just look at somebody walking up, and he would diagnose him from head to toe before the man came into his room. It was also a surgeon who's dropped it every day from six o'clock in the morning, immediately after surgery was operated after in the afternoon, now,
but he never did prior practice. So he earned very little money.
So I used to get out in his life, and I still look every one of your batchmates. And people are building hospitals, and they've got massive palatial bungalows, and they're making lots of money. And you are the only one and you are better than all of them. But you don't do private practice. And you have, you know, you earn so little, uh, why don't you do private practice. So eventually, I think he just to oblige me, he just got sick of me bugging him. So he said, Okay, I will do private practice. So he started a cleaning.
Now, I was very happy, I said, wonderful. Now we are going to look at all the you know, notes rolling in. But to my great surprise, I find that this clinic of his did not make one single cent of money.
He ran this clinic and month after month past, and he would either break even, or he would actually lose money, he would not make any money.
So I said this is very strange, because here is a man. He was a brilliant doctor, his his bedside or patient side manner was superb. He was very popular. A couple of them, they went to the clinic just to see if people were coming or if it was, you know, I see a long line of patient, he would run this clinic till 10 o'clock in the night, then he would come back home and the clinic would always have patients that was not a time when there wasn't somebody there. So I said here is a piece of medical practice, which is very busy, which is highly successful. The people love the doctor, but the man makes no money, what kind of thing is this?
So as permission, I say, let me come and sit to the clinic. So
I decide for you what I saw.
I went and sat there in a corner. I see this elderly lady come to him. And he examined. He prescribed some medicines. And then he gave her that prescription. The lady says Dr. sabich by Kathy gulia. How much do these tablets, this medicine? How much does it cost? My father says this rubber cap How much? It costs you 10 rupees.
She says
Dr. subquery Ross has to allocate a mirror pass guy does have a very barato
he says to him, please write a cheaper medicine because I'm a poor woman, I don't have 10 rupees.
My father puts his hand in his pocket, takes out 10 rupees and gives it to him and says Jama darlin, in Museum, I'm always like seeing my mother, go my mother and get your medicine. Now I'm watching this thing as a Oh my God.
That is the reason. Instead of earning money, the man is paying money. So of course there I said nothing. When we got home. I said to him, I said to him, Popeye, this is you know, you are running a private practice. You charge a very small fee, a consultation fee. But I see you're giving money to people to buy medicines. And I said I'm sure that womanizer was not the only one. I'm sure you're doing that. You know enough to make a loss. I mean, what more can you say?
And I said to him, so he tells me, what do you want me to do? Here is a woman. I know what is wrong with her. I know the right medicine. I know it will cure I know it will take away her pain, but she has no money to buy the medicine.
So what do you want me to do? What is the goal of my writing a prescription if she cannot buy the medicine? So obviously I give her the money.
So I said to him, I said how do you know she deserves it? How do you know she's not fooling you? My father says to me something which stays with me and which I will take to my grave. My father says to me whatever I got, Allah give me even though I did not deserve it.
So I am not going to sit there in judgment to see who deserves what. Let Allah decide who deserves What if someone asked me for help, I will help him.
So I said to Alhamdulillah I am not asking any more questions, please do whatever you are doing.
I have met some of those people. 40 years later, I went to have always wanted to see who was around and so on as I met some of those people are the old people.
One of them takes me to his house. He shows me my father's photo which is put on the wall and he's put some candles there and he's put some some incense sticks. And he says this is my god and I worship it right
Allah, please don't do this thing. This is against our religion. He says I am not a Muslim or Hindu.
So I say even if you are Hindu, please don't worship my father. He said,
he said, what this man did for me.
He says, this is all that I can do for him.
Because I could not do anything else for it.
This is what I'm talking about. I'm talking about giving your children memories.
And seriously, my submission to you by my friends is that this is what happens. And what is happening with our education is that we have reached a situation where we are
focused purely on information, random information, we are focused purely on fees, which is our own income. We don't care about building of character, we don't care about employability, we don't care about what happens to those children, once they get out of school, please forgive me, I'm not accusing you, I'm saying this is how the system is. And this is what we need to change, I think I have tried to do my best in explaining what needs to be done, which is to create the right kind of education, which is focused on skill development, and take them handhold them to the point where they can actually stand on their own feet, and, and, and take care of themselves as well as maybe
others. And in that whole process, give them memories with regard to ethics and values and morals, which will hold them and create them and make them into human beings and good citizens of the country who care for one another, who look after one another and who support one another. That in my view is my vision of nationalism. nationalism to me is for P is for a population, which loves one another, which supports one another, which helps one another. That is the meaning true meaning of nationalism. As far as I'm concerned, I request you to think about what I have said and try to see if you can inculcate this in your schools. And anyone who wants me to give any more detailed advice
about this. I'm more than happy to do that.
Please, most welcome please contact us and we will we will try to help you as much as we can. Thank you very much. Does that allow for more Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.