Learning is the most natural activity for living beings. A little kid learns the love of mother and father without anyone’s teaching. Psychologists tell us that a child begins to learn through mother’s feelings, and thoughts during pregnancy. At later stages of pregnancy, the child learns through external sounds like music and vibrations. This phenomenon is over for you now but, important for all pregnant mothers.

The ancient people knew this phenomenon, how, I do not know. Elders of yesteryears advised would-be mothers to be more religious during pregnancy, and refrain from sinful thoughts and activities.

Educationists Categorize children’s development into several stages depending on their age span.

• Definition:
  • Change in the child occurs over time. Changes follow an orderly pattern that moves toward greater complexity and enhances survival.

• Periods of development:
  • Prenatal period: from conception to birth
  • Infancy and toddlerhood: birth to 2 years
  • Early childhood: 2-6 years old
  • Middle childhood: 6-12 years old
  • Adolescence: 12-19 years old

Knowledge is a very useful aspect of a good life. However, knowledge cannot perform tasks and achieve goals. The second concept is SKILLS. Skills are the child’s ability to perform something. For example, you can teach a child to play hockey.  Hokey is an act in which skills are gained through training and practice. You can read ten books on hokey and get KNOWLEDGE about hokey playing, but not SKILLS in playing hokey. Knowledge about hokey helps to acquire skills in hokey but it is practice that makes your child a skillful hockey player.

Give him/her beneficial skills like memory skills, reading skills and the like

ATTITUDES is the third concept. We all have different attitudes. In simple terms, our attitudes show how we perceive things. For instance, Ruwan believes that Raj is a kind and helpful person. This is Ruwan’s attitude about Raj. There are millions of attitudes among people. All such attitudes can be categorized as either positive or negative attitudes.

Scientific education emphasizes that a child with relevant knowledge, skills, and attitudes makes someone great. However, hagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba introduces a Fourth Dimension in child education: Human Values. Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Everyone learns, but children learn much faster than elders. This is a very positive and a negative phenomenon as well.

Why positive? Children have an open and unpolluted mind without being polluted by bad things in the environment. Create a situation where the child begins to value and enjoy positives. Such a learning situation becomes the unshaken foundation to glorify his/ her life. You certainly can CREATE THIS FOUNDATION of positive nature.

All teaching situations provide three different but interrelated concepts. KNOWLEDGE is the first stage of learning. Knowledge is knowing facts. “What is your name?” The mother asks. “My name is Vindhya”, the three-year-old kid answers. That means she “knows” her name. The infant gains knowledge or knowing of the taste of milk, recognizing mother’s voice as different from that of others, and so on.  We give the child knowledge about many things and this knowledge grows with the age.

Let your child acquire knowledge beneficial to him / her. Avoid knowledge which will create hatred.

Baba introduced Five Human Values for mankind, for children in particular. The Five Values are: Sathya (Truth), Righteousness (Dharma), Inner Peace (Shanthi), Love (Prema), and Ahimsa (Non-Violence)

 

Knowledge, skills, and attitudes are the building blocks of everyone. These building blocks change with time. If we change these life building blocks of knowledge, skills, and attitudes, consciously, and in a planned manner, then we build for living a human life.  Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba’s Five Human Values create a golden life, for ourselves, and for our children, a life that benefits ourselves and others

 We will enlighten you more about Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba’s Human Value Education in the next lesson.