Is the curiosity of the african child suffocated?

BY; SESHIE, STANLEY

Pluto is a familiar heavenly body or name to everyone who ever stepped

into the classroom. We know it as one of the nine "planets" of our

solar system, cemented into our memory with that old acronym; My Very

Eye May Just See Under Nine Planet. But as other heavenly bodies such

as asteroids were discovered in their numbers, having similar or

bigger sizes than pluto, yet could not be classified as a planet, the

International Astronomical Union has no option than to demote pluto

into the category of dwarf planet in 2006. So the solar system is now

made of the sun and eight planets, no longer nine. Would pluto make a

comeback as a planet again? Maybe, when the findings from NEW HORIZONS

are studied.

On 13th July, 2015, the workers of National Aeronautics and Space

Administration(NASA) of USA and the scientific community across the

globe were thrown into the rapturous mood in their various

departments. This is because the NEW HORIZON spacecraft sent to trace

the far distant dwarf planet, pluto, started beaming signals. The

well-equipped and fastest spacecraft yet, New Horizon launched in

january 2006, travelled for almost a period of ten years and covering

a distance of three billion miles in july 2015, as it get closer and

closer to its mission target, pluto. And by now, the icy mountains

pictures of pluto, among others are flooding the media in print,

visual and electronic via the internet, even as NASA indicates the

data collected so far would take sixteen months to download. This

makes the USA the first nation to send spacecraft to reach every

planet in our solar system. Is this not another feat in the cup of US,

if not the West? So what does this New Horizon flying by pluto,

beaming back yet to be studied loads of information got to do with the

Ghanaian child?

I daresay everything. It has everything to do not only with the

Ghanaian child but the adults as well. Because this is the achievement

of the human mind, and since everyone has a mind, there is the need to

remind the Ghanaian child of its capacities and capabilities. The life

of mankind is an unfolding evolving story and as mankind loves

stories, so do children. The best way to tell stories for lasting

effects are via our actions and inactions. The Africa suffering

conditions demands that we do not tell stories for the sake of telling

stories or preserving unproductive traditions as we are currently

doing with our little achieving educational system and a worldview

dominated by superstitions and irrationality, cojointly stifling our

minds and that of the children.

We must by necessity tell the story that inspires the child to uphold

that inordinate curiosity from childhood into adulthood. The story in

which the human mind is undergoing continuous proper cultivation and

refining via our actions and inactions, for the progress of mankind in

this world filled with challenges and uncertainties, is what we must

begin to tell. That is the story of science, for when the curiosity of

a child is upheld by education in and by such a story, the thinking

capability of the child is nourished.

For instance, how marvelous for the child to know that the difference

between throwing a pebble and toys up, and NASA sending spacecrafts

into the heaven is not of a kind but degree, as far as the laws

governing their motions are concerned? And, that, the pebble falling

down to earth is the same as the New Horizon spacecraft continuing its

three billion miles journey to pluto, beaming such stunning pictures.

In other words can't we find enough inspirational stories from the

practical achievements of the human mind in mathematics, astronomy,

medicine, health, transportation, communication, architecture,

politics and other impressive unmentioned feats to keep the curiosity

of the Africa child alive?

Why do we keep filling our children minds via our actions and

inactions with superstitious, uninspiring and primitive stories of

bible, quran and tradition with respect to events that never happened,

and there is no chance of ever replicating them in reality, unlike in

the sciences. How do the alleged miraculous stories of those

encyclopedias of superstition and ignorance called holy books inspire

a child and sustain the curiosity needed to think? Why do we still

tell our children there are witches, demons, angels, prayer is the

key, miracle is the rule among other myraids of them?

Any wonder that ours are children fossilized in a tomb of unrealistic,

uninspiring and primitive stories of bible, quran and tradition with

no hope in sight for excavation. Whilst others grow up in an

environment saturated with realistic, modern and repeatable stories of

space exploration and innovations among others that keep nurturing

their childhood curiosity into adulthood till they pratically become

result-oriented thinkers to initiate and sustain the developmental

aspirations of their nations politically, intellectually,

scientifically and economically. Any wonder?

Every now and then the Africa youths are told that they are the future

leaders. But what kind of future leaders do we expect of the Africa

child growing in a milieu of these curiosity crippling as well as

corruption and incompetence filled stories, demonstrated daily by our

actions, if not same? Even the few in the multitudes that might rise

above this sordid Africa system might be fustrated by it as

development needs corporation of leaders and followers.

The only way to develop Ghana and the Africa continent is to

demonstrably write the real intellectual, social, political and

scientific inspirational stories of the human mind by our actions for

easy emulation by our children. Let our stories keep aflame their

childhood curiosity in throwing pebbles to adulthood of sending

spacecrafts into the deeper unexplored places of the universes. No

curious person is a fool. Knowingly or unknowingly, the actions of the

African adults defining the Africa story are suffocating and

destroying the curiosity that could ignite the thinking potentialities

of the Africa child.

Email; seshiehanku@gmail.com

Whatsapp; 0508951323