We would like to share this book chapter from Agnes, the parent of an Elimu Yetu alumnus. Agnes is also a community organizer and mentor. We hope to feature more guest posts from this author in the future.
Upbringing.
Good education cannot solve bad foundations of upbringing from childhood.
My dear beloved readers, I want to take the chance to explain about raising our children. Would you agree with me that ninety percent of parents have been paying for a good education over a moral education? The formation of good foundations. I mean the moral education of living in a community. For to think that a good education will balance everything out, without thinking or caring that there is today and tomorrow. That this child belongs to the community that surrounds him. As is the custom, when a child is in the belly, he is yours but when he’s born he is of the community.
It reminds us that a good education alone, without the best foundations, has not yet helped your child, nor yet cultivated him. Meaning that he can’t live in the community that surrounds him. Why? First, the child has no self-awareness, self-acceptance, self-respect. Even the community cannot accept him if he does not have good moral foundations. As a result, if he gets power we can depend on these from him:
A disrespectful leader
A corrupt leader
An unappeasable leader
An egotistical leader
An unstable leader
A privileged leader
A cruel leader
A bourgeois leader
A lazy leader
A leader without knowledge of wisdom
A leader without fear of God