(Video Duration: 4 mins. 19 secs.)
Little attention and importance is given to teaching cultural values although they are essential to education. When we give them their deserved importance we shall have reached a major objective.
Improving a community is possible only by elevating the young generations to the rank of humanity not by obliterating the bad ones. Unless a seed composed of religion tradition and historical consciousness is germinated throughout the country new evil elements will appear and grow in the place of each eradicated bad one.
Children's literature whether prose or verse must impart resolution to the spirit soundness to the mind and strength to hopes so that we may raise generations with strong wills and sound ideas.
Educators who have not been apprenticed to a master and have not received a sound education are like blind people trying to light the way of others with lanterns. A child's mischief and impudence arises from the atmosphere in which he or she has been raised. A dysfunctional family life increasingly is reflected upon the spirit of the child and therefore upon the society.
In schools good manners should be considered just as important as other subjects. If they are not how can children grow up with sound characters? Education is different from teaching. Most people can be teachers but the number of educators is severely limited.
Good manners are a virtue and are greatly appreciated in whomever they are found. Those with good manners are liked even if they are uneducated. Communities devoid of culture and education are like rude individuals for one cannot find in them any loyalty in friendship or consistency in enmity. Those who trust such people are always disappointed and those who depend upon them are left sooner or later without support.
Although it is fundamental that girls be brought up to be delicate like flowers and mild and affectionate educators of children due attention must be given to making them inflexible defenders of truth. Otherwise we shall have transformed them into poor impotent beings for the sake of delicacy and mildness. We must not forget that female lions are still lions.
Our humanity is directly proportional to the purity of our emotions. Although those who are full of bad feelings and whose souls are influenced by egoism look like human beings whether they really are human is doubtful. Almost everyone can train their bodies but few people can educate their minds and feelings. The former training produces strong bodies while the latter produces spiritual people.
The first school for children whose souls are as bright as mirrors and as quick to record as cameras are their homes. Their first educators are their mothers. Thus it is fundamental for a nation's existence and stability that mothers be brought up and educated to be good educators for their children.
Source: Pearls of Wisdom by Fethullah Gulen
