Cyprus Editorial: Are children more mature than their teachers?

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A leading women’s rights activist once said that “the most fitting monuments a nation can build are schoolhouses and homes for those who do the work of the world”. What she didn’t realise was the need to train educators, and competent ones at that, to fill those schoolhouses.
The problem, as seen from the students’ reaction on Monday to their teachers’ selfish strikes, has gone beyond the rudiments of education and deals with the personal finances of the Oelmek union members. They are more concerned with the 25 euros that are deducted from their wages and other menial “sacrifices” than the purpose of their calling, ie. to teach the youth of today to become decent citizens tomorrow.
At a time when our society, realising that it is in the middle of major local and worldwide crisis, is bracing for tougher times ahead, it also expects teachers to cultivate a fundamental relation between learning and personality development of the students. However, with their militant approach to cost-cutting measures, teachers are also cultivating a sense of apathy and senseless rebellion among the same students they very often stir up to take part in demonstrations.
How can we expect the next generation of citizens to become positive thinkers, care about society and societal problems, when the teachers are instructing “Strikes and Public Disobedience – 101”?
If the adults offer proper guidance and encouragement to these schoolchildren, it will be easier nurture a sense of positive attitude whereby children will build up a measure of self-confidence so they dare to take risks. Only then will they become the thinkers of the next generations and approach all matters – politics, economy, inequality – much more wisely. Perhaps even more wisely than half the political leadership we are all obliged to see and hear on a daily basis.