Hello everyone, greetings!
It's no news that we learn everyday and that one who wants to die rapidly, is one that has decided to stop learning.
From the stories that I was told by my dad, I knew that I was a cheery chap. I didn't cry on my first day of school. In fact, in my dad's words, he said "you collected your slate from me and waved bye bye to me". This was to the surprise of even the teachers back then because they were ready with biscuits to cajole me.
I began my primary school education at the age of three. I was drawn to books and my dad made sure to supply them. At only seven years old, I remember that I was already adept on how to use the dictionary. My dad bought me "Michael West dictionary". This increased my appetite for knowledge and guess what, it paid off because I was the one to discover the English name of a local fruit we referred to as "asala". The English name is "walnut". My status improved greatly, little wonder I ended up as the senior prefect girl for that academic session.
One peculiar thing that I also recall, was the fact that "teachers were held in highest esteem", they were literally gods to us learners leading us "to believe everything we were taught by them".
In class four, we were taught on plants and photosynthesis in elementary science. I recall being taught that plants breathe in carbondioxide which man exhales and these plants give us in return oxygen that man needs to survive.
The teacher said that the carbondioxide is used by the plants to manufacture their food in the presence of sunlight and their way of saying thanks to us humans was to release enough oxygen for man to breathe in. I carried this information for many years,believing that plants indeed breathe carbondioxide, till I got into senior secondary school and started learning Biology.
Right there in the textbook, I read that plants breathe in oxygen and need it for metabolic activities, just as we do. Oh goodness, you need to have seen the shock registered on my face and invariably my mind. I called some smart students as well and we began to deliberate or rather argue on it till our Biology teacher intervened.
He went on to explain that indeed plants require carbondioxide for their photosynthetic process but they also breathe in oxygen like other living things. Scales fell from the eyes of my mind and I began to research deep into this theory but it wasn't easy though cos back there was no access to google. I had to follow the traditional part and that was to gather books read some more.
After I discovered the facts, I was happy that I unlearnt to learn the right thing. Now as an educator myself, I make sure to keep myself abreast on new scientific discoveries, facts and research and not rely on old knowledge alone when I teach my students.
Learning only stops when we hit the grave.
Thank you all for reading..shalom