Educating Children | Building Character Through Balanced Education
EDUCATING CHILDREN
Long gritted his teeth as he saw the bandits taking Lan away. A volley of shots rang out. It was over. His beloved younger brother was killed. Long tried to keep his body still on a dense high tree. His eyes blurred with tears. Combatants in the Special Forces were trained to keep their bodies still for a long time. If they moved, they could easily be detected by their enemy or special devices. Sometimes, the whole enemy troop pretended to leave, but some would still stay behind to secretly ambush our soldiers.
For the whole night, Long was lying motionless, enduring the freeze, the ants, and sometimes quietly taking a pee. In the morning, two bandits really came out of the bushes and left. Long climbed down the tree and ran as fast as he could out of the dangerous area.
Yesterday, his squad fell into the enemy’s ambush. All died. Only Long and his brother, Lan, could climb up to the dense tree top to hide. However, Lan was too hot-tempered to wait for long. As soon as he got out of the bushes, the bandits beat him unconscious, took him away and killed him shortly after.
Long ran and ran until he saw a signal of his side. He sent them a signal to get a rescue. At the headquarters, he reported the situation to his boss who gave deep condolences to him and told him there were ‘moles’ inside their Special Force.
Three years later, his Force received news from a secret agent that bandits had appeared. His boss assigned him to the mission.
Learning from the painful experience, Long laid a bait to trap the bandits and directed his platoon to softly eliminate every single bandit. Long also crawled around the area to wipe out any enemies lying in ambush or their men. The last one was very conniving. When he saw Long approaching him, he attempted to raise an alarm. However, Long quickly shot his shoulders with a muted gun to stop the motion of his hands. Then Long jumped towards him to stab in his neck. The bandit moved his neck to avoid the stab. The knife was stuck in his armor. Suddenly, the bandit shouted:
“Brother, it’s me, Lan...”
As Long was surprised, he cupped Lan’s mouth and pressed him on the ground. When he threw off the mask, Lan was there, alive and a bandit. Long whispered:
“What happened? How did this happen?”
Lan took a deep breath and told his story:
“Three years ago, they arrested me and forced me to work for them. I couldn’t escape.”
“I heard the gunshots as if they had killed you.”
“They are very skillful at diversion.”
“Why didn’t you try to flee and get back to our headquarters?”
“There are moles in our headquarters, so any news can leak out.”
Long nodded his head and said:
“Our boss knew that, too. He has made many fake combats to find out the moles and we arrested some. This combat was to make sure no mole remains in our force. It didn’t leak out, so it means there is no mole inside anymore. But, why did you fight so hard? Do they trust you?”
“They trust no one. They use the cunning of letting opponents fight with each other, and nobody can run away.”
“I remember dad worried so much about you and asked me to take care of you...”
Long spoke quietly whilst gently bandaging Lan’s wound:
“Dad used to say that Mom loved you and pampered you so much that you would be spoiled and have low resilience. He separated me from you to teach his own way. Mom indulged and praised you too much, which unbalanced your psychology. Dad trained me under various methods: rewards and penalties, praises and criticism, love and punishment. Therefore, I was stronger and more stable than you. Don’t get mad, but it was probably lucky for you that mom passed away early. Dad sent us to the Special Force, hoping to strengthen our courage. At his last breath, he told me over and over again that I must protect you carefully. He knew you were not strong enough because Mom pampered you since childhood.”
“I asked Dad why he was so pessimistic. He said he used to train people for special combats so he knew very well human psychology. It’s just like raising babies.”
“To develop their bodies healthily, we need to feed the babies enough nutrients. If we only feed them meat and no vegetables or fiber, they will be sick. If there’s only sweet flavor but no saltiness, they will be sick as well. Even we adults also need peppers or chillies to make our food tasty.”
“Likewise, in psychology, we should teach kids flexibly. Praises without criticism can ruin their characters. Love without punishment can spoil a child. Kids must be raised under various manners to grow up with a balanced psychology and good personality.”
“Maybe we have wiped out all those bandits. Let me check the signals once more, then I will take you out.”
If we want our kids to become good people, we have to create a good and diverse educational environment for them. Receiving only love and no punishment, they will be weak and dependent. But being punished and not loved will make them feel resentful. Both love and punishment are equally necessary and useful to educate children. It is important that educators wisely and reasonably switch between these two. Thanks to that, children will grow stronger.
Later in life, children will have to face many difficulties, including objections and humiliation. If their endurance is not well trained, they cannot deal with difficulties, and they will give up easily. What does it mean? It means they won’t be able to integrate themselves into life to earn a living. Who will feed them? Nobody knows. Their parents will die one day. Their siblings will get married and they must take care of their families.
Many types of medicine used to be advertised with flying words and highly welcomed. But a few decades later, their horrible effects came out and outweighed what they could cure. Similarly, several new educational methods are said to be more civilized than those in the past and are even set into laws. A few decades later, they will turn out to have totally spoiled the entire country’s human capital by creating a generation with unbalanced psychology. Those young people are easily offended, quick to commit suicide, and willing to attack or kill others.
Several people are fascinated about everything from overseas and suppose anything from abroad is good. Such a silly thought. If Vietnam was not good enough, how could we achieve many victories? We need more research into the goodness we have, then enhance it and introduce to the world.
Today, many Vietnamese professors are teaching in American universities because they lack a lot of professors. Their teachers suffer from the students’ disrespect due to the law. Fewer and fewer people want to become teachers. This happens because their lawmakers pass the bill whilst daydreaming in air conditioned rooms, having no real insight into the harsh lives.
If we do not pay close attention to this problem, we may possibly lose our own pearls and jewels to take in others’ rocks and stones. We have such a great national culture, why do we disregard it?
Please grow empathy in your kids
Let them treasure this beloved planet
Sow kindness on all paths they go
Build the world to a realm of bliss.
Please send your kids a silent prayer
If they have to go abroad one day
So the holy shall safeguard their way
And the homeland remains in their hearts.
Janna