April 9, 2006

Do we still remember what it really was like to be a child: how imaginative, artistic, and connected to nature children are naturally. It’s hard for me to remember now, but there was a time when my favorite activity was hanging out in the backyard and just looking at leaves and under rocks, sitting quietly, and thinking things over. I could do this for hours.

Unfortunately I see children around not being able to do anything that is truly free and intuitive. Children and their childhood are suffering from the onslaught of media, education and consumerism. They are seen as defenceless and powerless by the market of schooling and advertisements and are targeted relentlessly round the clock.

Children are being harmed and robbed of their childhood by the changing social, academic, cultural, economic agendas and forces. Seeing the disastrous effects one becomes increasingly certain that most of this is intended and premeditated. Admittedly we have not done all that we could and should do to protect our children and their childhood, and there is much more that we must do.

To initiate a serious discourse on what we could have done and what we could still do to protect our children and their childhood the Sindh Education Foundation organised a three-day symposium in Karachi in the first week of April on rediscovering childhood. During the preparation for the symposium we at the SEF were truly baffled and gravely concerned over the dearth of original thinking, research, and knowledge regarding the issues and challenges faced by children and childhood vis-‘-vis social institutions, technology and media, globalization and finally development. The following is a summary of our research as well as discussions that took place during the symposium:

Social institutions are the broadest organizers of individuals’ beliefs, drives, and behaviors. Evolving to address the separate needs of society arising out of the social needs for procreation, socialization, and intimacy; social institutions are free-standing units with their own inner dynamics and rhythms. Although there are multiple institutions to which children are exposed during their childhood, only two (family and schools) were considered to be playing a central and powerful role in today’s society as they are more likely to influence a child’s everyday life.

Traditionally and naturally the family is the primary context where children experience the emotional and physical care and sustenance vital to their well-being. Development theories have also long endorsed that children’s competencies, especially in the early years, develop within the family. Thus, being an integral part of the family system, children’s disposition reflects the interactive patterns and unspoken rules governing the dynamics of the family life; the influence that family members have on each other is not one-sided but rather is reciprocal and interactive.

Moreover, family is conceptualized as a system embedded in other systems both formal (e.g. educational and medical services etc.) and informal (e.g., a family’s network of relatives, neighbors, and friends, etc.). These systems create indisputable influence on family life: children must be viewed as family members and families must be viewed within the context of larger influences.

As a result of the Industrial Revolution, coupled with the colonization of two thirds of the planet, the socio-cultural and economic dimension of human life changed at an unprecedented pace. This change rattled the basic structure of family life — from ‘extended’ to ‘nuclear’ family. The invasion of consumerism, onslaught of media and technology and growing economic disparity furthered the damage to the social fabric of families.

In the race for more and more resources for some and survival struggle for many, children are being robbed of their childhood. Thus, technology (TV, Internet, communication devices etc), poor quality education and commodities have emerged as the apparent replacement for engaging children in meaningless activities. Undoubtedly, these exposures are not ‘value free’ as children often acquire certain values during the process of the interaction with technology and consumerism, which are not congruent with the values usually supported by family traditions.

Family’s role

The following questions were raised with regard to this issue:

* Has the role of family in the upbringing of children degenerated in the last few decades?

* What are some core values that need to be imparted by the family for the intellectual, social, moral and emotional development of children?

* How do consumer/market-driven modern societies offer a challenge to the social and emotional development of childhood? What role can a family play in preparing children to respond to these challenges? Responding to the above, the panelists and speakers said that parents must raise their voices to help breathe new life into simple common sense notions: all adults must protect our children and respect their childhood. For parents children must be seen as priceless gifts as for children their childhood is a invaluable endowment. They also stressed that children are shaped by the world around them. For children under eight years of age, nothing has greater influence on their development than their family. Families filter children’s experiences with others and provide nurture and care that strongly influence early child development. Depriving children of a loving family environment causes lasting damage to their intelligence, emotional wellbeing and even their physical stature.

The panelists spoke of the responsibilities of a nurturing family: Professor Anita Ghulam Ali said that there has to be an element of respect for the dignity of each family member irrespective of age and status. This way they will do things for each other out of respect rather than fear.

Fatima Suraiyya Bajia stressed that children must be consistently treated with respect, so that they do not fear emotional, verbal, physical, or other abuses. Dr Aneela Ahsan said that nurturing families are not perfect; they may have bickering, misunderstanding, tension, hurt, and anger — but not all the time. Ramiz Allahwala said that nurturing families have open and strong communication links. There is a strong need for discussion and discourse within the family.

Former Sindh governor Lt. Gen (r) Moinuddin Haider clarified that in nurturing families rules tend to be explicit and remain consistent, but with some flexibility to adapt to individual needs and particular situations. MD of Oxford University Press in Pakistan Ameena Saiyid said that nurturing families allow for individual growth where each member is encouraged to pursue his or her own interests, and boundaries between individuals are honoured. Zubeida Dossal, a former principal, summed the role of the family by saying that parents must be counted on to provide care for their children. Children must be given responsibilities appropriate to their age and should not be expected to take on parental responsibilities.

Many of us all over Pakistan are concerned about how much damage schooling is doing to our children, the burden and stress it is putting on them, and the need for radical change in the current pattern of education. Yet, very few of us have the courage or the conviction to do something about it. Ignoring our common sense, we accept the physical, psychological and spiritual tortures inflicted daily on our children — rationalizing this for the ‘good of the nation’ or for their future career. There are also, of course, parents’ own selfish motives of not having enough time or inclination to take care of their children for which school provides the ideal babysitting solution. Many parents in Pakistan who do understand the damage being done by schooling still do nothing — their silence cementing our collective self-paralysis. Some (who can afford it) send their children to private schools, where the daily deprivation is better concealed and the institutional tortures imposed by mainstream schooling delayed.

A school is becoming a place based on the overriding principles of regimentation and competition. These are both antithetical to a child’s physical, intellectual, moral, spiritual and emotional development. School schedules leave little or no time for carefree exploration, play, creativity or just a chance for children to enjoy the simple pleasures of childhood. Children are compelled to follow a rigid system of education obsessed with examinations and evaluations. The assumption that our children’s academic future is more important than children’s intellectual creativity has become so commonplace that it is almost impossible to convince parents and educators against regimented and monolithic schooling.

Parents and communities are deemed inept and incapable of contributing in any beneficial way to their children’s education as they are thought to bring obsolete and ‘backward’ knowledge systems, wisdom and experiences. As a result the culture of schooling paralyzes each child’s sense of initiative by humiliating them to such an extent that they begin to lose faith in (and even begin to despise) themselves, their creative energies, their cultural reference points and their innate potentials.

The challenge ahead is to deepen our insight into the existing systems of schooling/education for reclaiming the dignity and respect that our children deserve. This will guide us towards creating a facilitative environment for our children for open, pluralistic, free and diverse learning.

Questions raised related to schooling included:

* Amidst global challenges, does the possibility exist of reclaiming children’s dignity in the existing schooling system?

* What learning spaces and opportunities do children lose when they are forced to attend schools? Can they be re-created for children?

* How do we go about undoing the damage already done to us and our children by the present culture of schooling?

* What role can society at large play in this undoing?

* What kind of fundamental attitudinal shifts and operational changes are needed to undergo for dismantling schooling?

Wasif Rizvi said that unless children’s innate natural abilities are understood and respected there cannot be any learning. He said that schools must be turned around to respond to the diverse learning styles and particular interests of children. Abbas Hussain, Yasmin Bano, Jan Visser and Wendy Griffins were of the view that false and prevalent myths in relations to schooling will have to be shattered for free and open learning to take place. They said that learning is not and should not be seen as being detached from real life adding that much learning actually happens without proper instructions or guidance. They also criticized current ways of teaching saying that all children cannot be taught the same way.

Technology and media

Nisar Ahmed Zuberi and Abbas Hussain made back to back presentations on the impact of media and technology. According to them children in urban areas spend approximately 30 hours per week watching TV, playing video games and watching movies. In rural areas the average is lower but on the rise for TV and movie watching. Excessive and premature use of technology such as computers, video games and television during childhood exposes children to a range of developmental and physical risks, they said. These include muscular injuries, strain on the eyes and myopia, obesity and possible side-effects from toxic emissions and electromagnetic radiation.

They also suggested some guidelines for parents. Parents should plan family viewing in advance and give children a choice of what to watch. Parents should place the TV so that it does not become the centre of family life. Things that parents should do with their children includes playing games with them, reading together and allowing them free thinking time.

The following questions were raised by these speakers: How are media and technology altering the experiences of everyday life for us and our children? How do they influence what children learn? What are the implications of using media and technology on children’s health? Do media and technology serve to increase cultural homogeneity or do they promote diversity?

TV personality Arshad Mehmood, who also spoke, said that the electronic media had become a powerful force in our lives. Amar Jaleel said that teachers, parents and communities — urban and rural — were being influenced/manipulated/coerced by the media. Some are aware of what is happening while others are not, but all feel powerless in the face of this onslaught.

Shoaib Hashmi said that the media can be a very powerful tool for supporting dynamic and diverse forms of learning — every media experience can become an opportunity to learn or to enhance one’s learning abilities and processes. Amar Jaleel, Farooq Qaiser, Rashid Sami and Haseena Moin however believed otherwise saying that very few opportunities for creating a truly ‘liberating media’ exist.

Other speakers at the conference included Zubeida Mustafa, Stella Jafferi, Karamat Hussein, Ayaz Kiyani, Dr Tariq Rehman, Dr Shahid Siddiqui, Kaiser Bengali and Helena Norberg Hodge also spoke. n

The writer works for the Sindh Education Foundation. Email: Mashhood@cyber.net.pksp

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