Envious Parents

By: Prem Prasad Sigdel

Adult learning is full of experiences or it has been mostly known as non-formal and informal learning. No person should take any formal class like children rather they have learnt it with experiences, practices, daily chores, trainings, conversation, observation and so on. It has taken different structures rather than formal learning processes of children. In other words, we can know it as a store house of our life experiences which we can use at the time of need without doing mistakes or getting lesson out of it from past experiences. Thus adult learning has been equal with daily life situations rather than the lessons from formal class.

In formal processes of learning we have focused on 3R (reading, writing and arithmetic) whereas in informal and non-formal processes of learning have focused on skills which helps in the living of human beings. Or it has got connection with the economic well being of human kind. In other words, we call it as a kind of knowledge or education that we have been getting in our life. Learning is a process, either it may be formal, non-formal or informal, which has been continuing from beginning to the end of our life. The formal process of learning has ultimate connection with the informal and non-formal processes to make it fruitful. Hence education is a process that we have been learning from formal, informal and non-formal processes.

Formal learning has taken the education processes in grade system in which students have achieved higher grades of their respective grades which has limitation with the learning within the framework of the designed course. In other words it’s a holistic process of reading in which no particular areas has been included. The course has been set by the government or any department and it has included various aspects which consist all sorts of literacy processes to make students acquaint to all the personal, social, national, international issues.

In informal and non-formal processes people have learnt from their experiences and certain type of orientation like training which has been organized occasionally. Informal process has mostly focused on our observations and practices of our daily life experiences. On the other hand, non-formal process has targeted to some particular areas to enhance some skills to people which are necessary in their life. Similarly, informal process of learning has broad aspect in comparison to the non-formal and formal processes. Informal process of learning has taught us many lessons in comparison to other processes. As a corollary, non-formal and formal processes of learning can have also included in informal processes of learning. However, we have found significant differences in these processes in the field of education.

Mostly non-formal process of learning has some economic benefits to the people; or they have taken it with some particular purpose but it doesn’t mean that other educational processes are without purpose. Non-formal has focused on some particular area for example a person can learn tailoring which has connection to economic or life sustaining purpose. On the other hand, we have taken such education system to sustain our life in comparison to formal and informal processes. Formal education is broad in comparison to non-formal, especially for children, after which they should have oriented towards some particular area. On the other hand, informal process has no beginning and end rather it is learning by doing in the experimental process of our life. For example one can learn managerial skill from formal educational process which is also possible with non-formal and informal processes. In means formal learning illuminated the background and non-formal and informal have made it more reliable.

The informal process of learning has started from childhood age which I have already explained as storehouse of experiences. In other words, it’s a kind of adult learning process; sometimes we have been habituated, sometimes we have learnt through experiences, sometimes we have learnt through observation, sometimes we have created ourselves. Or we have got some skills from such experiences or practices and make it a means of living. Though it is so much valuable, we don’t value children and their learning styles and attitudes. After all, they have tried to be the lifelong learner with the game they have played in their life. In the sense that we don’t value the education what we have got or we have been negligent to value our education in life. People seem forgetful of their experiences and they often blame their children of being violent or out of track. The education what they have got is considered as spontaneous so they rebuke children of not following formal process only. Actually, they seem unaware regarding the benefit they have got in their life so they don’t encourage their children for that. The paradox is that the source from what they have learnt has been ignored deliberately. Nobody has tried to teach children their skills rather they have thought it as the spontaneous knowledge which comes all of a sudden to them.

It’s a crucial issue in these days as we haven’t tried to teach our children of our traditions, practices, skills, and so on. We don’t encourage them for observation even of neglecting that our skill is always useless though that becomes the means of living for us. We have encouraged our children to do other things ignoring the benefit what we have got in our life. It is evident that we have inferiority complex of our skills, or knowledge, or experiences, or traditions etc. We encourage or children to learn other than what we have. It has four meanings; firstly, we mayn’t are ignorant about the skills what we have. Secondly, we are envious towards our children that they would acquire our skills. Thirdly, we have been prone to steal others’ knowledge. Fourthly, we have the habit of valuing others’ knowledge. It’s evident that we don’t try to explore our prospects rather we have been running after mirage. The foreign products have been creating a mirage to us so we have been pursuing others ignoring our possibilities. In other words, we have been murdering our skills, knowledge, experiences, traditions and so on. As a corollary, we have been wandering like a musk deer to get the scent unknowingly. Thus we should be able to have proper knowledge of informal learning so that we can cash it.

Adult learning has such benefits if we have been able to recognize the musky of ours. In other words, we have been respecting our indigenous knowledge. We have recognized the taste of adult learning, but are reluctant to share it with others. We would call our flashbacks and nostalgias time and again but unable to encourage to our children to transfer it. It means we have some sense of superiority in front of children as we thought that we have got it without any effort so we have been unable to teach to our children. In other words, we have the sense of ego which has been lying in the core of our heart so we are reluctant to teach it to juniors. Unknowingly, we have been rejecting juniors intending to lose our possession from that skill. We encourage our children to learn other skills in reality which means they can’t be the competitor of us. It’s evident that we have been much envious to our own children so that we have encouraged them to go to learn other sorts of skills. Thinking them to make more talent we have been rejecting their rights to learn our indignity. Most of the parents have sense of pride that their children should leave their home so that they have done progression in their life. We have been ignoring the fact that we don’t want to accept them in our own home. In this sense adult knowledge transference has also got the same trend and youths have been banned from learning such skills.

Of being parents we have encouraged our children to go out of home to make them competitive and independent. We even show our love to them by lip-pretention irrespective of our ego. Psychologically, we have been chasing them out of home as s/he would be our opponent. When we have sent them out of home there wouldn’t be any question of leadership in our home. It means an ego resides in our mind of not producing any competitor against us transferring the experiences and practices of ours to our youngsters. Either knowingly or unknowingly, we have been being envious to our youths however we have been preaching that we love them by heart. According to Freudian psychology we have been guided with ID which presents us to be loving father and mother. The son is the competitor of father and daughter is of mother. It has been dwelling in the core of our heart so that we have been revealing it time and again either one way or another. In this way, seniors are unable to transfer their knowledge to the juniors though it has multiple benefits.

Finally, adult learning has various positive results which have been yet to be revealed. The thing what we don’t value has two perspectives either we don’t have power to recognize it or we have been guides with the psychological theory of Freud. Hence we don’t encourage our children to learn our indignity; nor do we encourage them to learn from their own experience. We have been forcing them to learn the things what we have thought as good irrespective of their capacity or interest.