It is vital that when educating our children's brains that we do not neglect to educate their hearts.
Interpretation
Education should encompass both knowledge and emotional intelligence.
The quote by the Dalai Lama emphasizes the importance of nurturing not only the intellectual capacities of children but also their emotional and moral development. It suggests that educating a child should involve shaping their character and empathy just as much as imparting academic knowledge, ensuring they grow into well-rounded individuals who can contribute positively to society.
In practice
In a speech about educational reform, I would emphasize the importance of emotional learning alongside academic achievement by quoting the Dalai Lama.
Human beings are not intrinsically selfish, which isolates us from others. We are essentially social animals who depend on others to meet our needs. We achieve happiness, prosperity and progress through social interaction. Therefore, having a kind and helpful attitude contributes to our own and others' happiness.
Material objects give rise to physical happiness, while spiritual development gives rise to mental happiness. Since we experience both physical and mental happiness, we need both material and spiritual development. This is why, for our own good and that of society we need to balance material progress with inner development.
All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.
The ultimate source of a happy life is warm-heartedness. This means extending to others the kind of concern we have for ourselves. On a simple level we find that if we have a compassionate heart we naturally have more friends. And scientists today are discovering that while anger and hatred eat into our immune system, warm-heartedness and compassion are good for our health.
My religion is kindness. _x000D_ A good mind, a good heart, _x000D_ warm feelings these are _x000D_ the most important things.
If a person's basic state of mind is serene and calm, then it is possible for this inner peace to overwhelm a painful physical experience. On the other hand, if someone is suffering from depression, anxiety, or any form of emotional distress, then even if he or she happens to be enjoying physical comforts, he will not really be able to experience the happiness that these could bring.
Easy reading is damn hard writing.
There's so much more to tell about Africa than the usual stories about war, famine and disease.
As children growing up here in the East Bay, we were raised by a community with a deep belief in the promise of our country - and, a deep understanding of the parts of that promise that still remain unfulfilled.
It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.
Now of the difficulties bound up with the public in which we doctors work, I hesitate to speak in a mixed audience. Common sense in matters medical is rare, and is usually in inverse ratio to the degree of education.
We urgently need a paradigm shift in our concept of the purposes and practices of education. We need to leave behind the concept of education as a passport to more money and higher status in the future and replace it with a concept of education as an ongoing process that enlists the tremendous energies and creativity of schoolchildren in rebuilding and respiriting our communities and our cities now, in the present.
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