A BOOK ON THE HEAD

There was a time, not so long ago, where education was a matter of sex. I mean that boys were separated from girls and each gender was brought up according to different values. That was the time where girls used to walk, in lines or in circles, balancing a book on the head.

That might sound a bit weird nowadays but you should understand that it is really, very important for a woman to learn how to walk chin up, stiff neck and stiff back as well.

That was how education was, more or less, last century.

Nowadays things have changed a lot.

Nowadays pupils and students hardly know what a book is like and they think that the eBook is the only book in the world.

No more ink and pens, no more pads, unless it is an IPad, no more notebooks either...

Education nowadays goes through the use of a keyboard. Our new-age students have developed such an amazing skill, the skill to use their thumbs. Keep in mind that we are in the century of high technology where “sms” and “emails” are the new letters.

Nowadays students of all ages, fortunately kindergartens are spared for now, are connected. Yes, they are connected the whole day long... via their blackberries, their Iphones or smartphones - I like the adjective "smart" applied to a phone - somebody is smart in the end but not necesseraly its user who can hardly spell a word properly, and that brings me to ask myself if smartphones are for dummies - between you and me I have a smartphone and I adore it... ^_*** - but I belong to the old school, where we used to write on paper with ink and on blackboards with chalk, where a book was a bunch of paper sheets and where kids used to stand up each time the teacher entered or left the classroom.

I'd like to add something more, you know what, I will not change MY LAST CENTURY EDUCATION for the one kids have nowadays. Nope, I will not do that.

I was brought up in a time where parents and educators worked in a complementary way.

Parents taught principles, good manners, respect, tolerance, behaviour, morals, and the acceptation of the word NO.

Educators where people who taught us how to read, how to write, how to count, how to draw, and also introduced us to arts, to mathematics, to philosophy, to natural sciences, to history, to literature and to foreign languages.

Last century education and the school of life have made of me the woman I am today; the one who is writing this "post" in my "blog" -words from the new century-. The one who knows how to use a "software" -another new word- whether with a "hardware" or a "Smartphone" -new words once again-.

The one who loves to feel the pages of a paper book in her hands and the one who uses earphones with her IPod ^_***.

I want to say "thank you" to all the educators who bumped into my life, to all these marvellous people who taught me that "Education" is the progressive discovery of our own ignorance... Oh, by the way, I am still a learner ^_*** and hope that I will keep learning the rest of my life.