________________
The Role of Parents, Teachers and Society in Instilling Culture Values
95
lawyers, etc. but to some extent, it is not producing good human beings. Unless education instills moral and spiritual values in a child, it can not produce human beings. Our primary responsibility is to make man a man, to instill culture values in our youngsters. The famous American thinker Tufts writes:
Education is for character building, by character building and of character building.
Thus, according to Tufts, the purpose and end of education is to sow the seeds of good character and good values in a human being. Since the independence of India, the commissions, set up to study and suggest reforms of education, headed by the famour philosopher, Dr. Radhakrishnan, the famous scientist, Dr. D.S. Kothari, and the famous educationist, Dr. Mudaliyar, all came to the conclusion that education must relate to human values. As long as this is not done, as long as education does not sow the seeds of good character traits, instead of good human beings, our colleges and universities will continue to turn out people with undersirable attitude and tendencies.
with their children. Thus, how can their children be expected to learn culture values? This also applies to the children of working parents. In many cases, the character traits developed by such children are of the servants and babysitters and not of the parents. Many people send their youngsters to Western-style boarding schools so that their children may not come in the way of their indulgence or they may not pick up the undesirable habits and conduct of their parents. In this context the couplet written by an Urdu poet seems to be appropriate:
Tifl men boo aai kyaa ma baap ke itwaar ki Doodh to dabbe ka hai taaleem hai sarkar ki (How can an offspring adopt the faith of the parents?
He is the given canned milk and (British) government's education.)
We can not depend on others to instill our culture and traditions in our children. If parents want their children to imbibe the sound and health, features of our ancient Indian culture, they will have to lead a clean life of self-control and self-sacrifice. They will have to be immaculate in their livelihood and behaviour.
The Role of Parents and Guardians in Character Building:
It is true that family is the first school for a child where the seeds of culture values are sown. A child spends about 18 out of 24 hours with the family members. Thus, naturally he or she is most influenced by the character of his family members. Now the question arises: Are today's parents in a position to teach good character to their children through their actions? If the parents are busy in the pursuit of their own interests and material pleasures, then it seems impossible for children to learn good values. Many parents of high class, affluent families lead a luxurious life, greatly influenced by materialism of modern culture. It is rather difficult to imagine that their children will keep away from materialism. On the contrary, it is seen that such youngsters develop many undersirable habits and behaviour. First, such families are adopting non-vegetarianism and using intoxicating drinks, thus moving away from good, healthy, clean diet. Secondly, their untamed desires have put a question mark on the purity of their character. Thirdly, because of the greed for money, the reliability and simplicity of their lives is being eroded. It is evident that such atmosphere is not conducive to the building of good character of children. If the parents spend much of their time in offices, parties and clubs, and the children are left in the care of servants and baby-sitters, they lose intimacy
What should Parents and Guardians Do? f. Parents and guardians should have an immaculate,
cultured and ethical conduct so that they produce a
good influence on the youngsters. 2. Parents and guardians should watch the kind of
company their children keep. Peer pressure has
tremendous effect on youngsters. 3. We should select the schools carefully. We should
respect the teachers and teach our youngsters to do the
same. 4. We should select the boarding schools and dormitories
carefully for our youngsters. 5. As far as possible, the children should not be left in the
custody of servants and baby-sitters. We should spend
as much time with our children as possible. 6. We should provide good literature for reading and
should try to keep our children away from 'dirty' books,
films and records. 7. We would educate our children about our values with
the medium of moral stories and the life stories of great
men. 8. We should take our children to meet with noble.
educated and cultured personalities.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
