Things They Don’t Teach in School

They taught us religion, but they never taught us about “Religions”, they never told us why people hold different thoughts/beliefs…as if it’s well known why.
They gave us biology and we studied creature’s classifications, but they never mentioned that we’re unique!
They spoke lots about nationality and patriotism, but they never talked about humanity.
They taught us history, they said when who did what, but they never said why!
They gave us chapters about our country’s history, but they never cared to elaborately describe the human kind history.

Nobody cared to mention where we came from? What did our ancestors do? When did they fight, and why? What did they die trying to do, what are the most precious things that they were ready to die in order to transfer to us? What gave their lives a value and a meaning?

I just really wish to see a school where teachers “explain” why this thing called school was invented in the first place. It seems trivial…but it’s not!
These schools were invented to transfer -for young generations- the very proud, sacred, and precious additions of humanity to this universe. There are people who spent their entire lives to discover a fact or form a conclusion that you read in less than 10 seconds. Schools were not made in order to make us “cope with community” or “be useful machine-operators”…they were made to make these 10 sec WORTH the lives and blood and sweat of your entire specie! Nobody ever told us that by entering a school you are connecting with your whole specie! Nobody ever said that!

It Is Not About Science

The term school is currently used to describe the place where scientific/technical knowledge is transferred, but that’s not the school I mean. I mean it by a wider definition; I mean culture, traditions, rituals and civilization. When you stand up in line waiting for something, then know that you are actually practicing an organizational model (to stand in line) that some people invented and proved to be efficient in fulfilling everyone’s need in such a situation, and you LEARENED it somehow, and you are now experiencing its benefits. So, from basic daily interactions, to skyscrapers and complex traffic systems, you are given the hard work of millions before you on a golden plate

Why?

There must be a reason for this endless distress. There must be a reason our ancestors were so keen and serious in delivering us words, deeds and wisdom. There must be a reason for people writing things down, whispering in ears and craving on stones. A reason to endure so much for the sake of people who didn’t exist yet!!! Why did they give the damn to draw the buffalos and the hunting formations on the cave walls using extremely resistant inks???? It looks important…well, it is important!
But why transferring the important stuff to you?

About weakness and might

The hunting techniques mentioned above could not have been developed in one man’s lifetime, it was an accumulative work, and they understood that very well, they understood that they are so weak and unable to develop this in one generation.
So you can consider these writings an implicit confession of weakness, but on the other hand, these writings show a remarkable decision.
They decided to be strong! And they formed an elegant equation to do so!
The theory: If you are weak, then whatever you do will be in the limits of your weakness. But if your deeds somehow exceeded your limits, then you are no longer as weak as before, you are now on the same level of might of your deeds.
The practice: After they die, these people will have later generations who will look at these walls and learn. The amount of time to do so is little, but enough for the sons to be as strong as the fathers; giving the sons the rest of their lives to be even stronger. The stronger sons are stronger because of the deeds of the fathers; the fathers ARE now stronger…because of their deeds!

That’s how humanity has exceed its limits, that’s how we fought and still fighting weakness, ignorance, fear… etc. It is the brave decision that humans made. It is a decision because they simply could have accepted to stay weak and live with it. And it’s brave because they KNEW that most probably they WILL REMAIN as weak as they are till the end of their lives.

So how big this thing is?

Imagine an empty box being handed among people inside a mosque, everyone is reaching his pocket and putting something in that box, people leave, and new folks come, and the box is still circulating and getting heavier and valuable. The value is not in the things inside it, in the lives these things represent. In fact, it will keep increasing till it reaches an imaginably high value that is even more precious than the sum of lives of people sitting in that mosque at any given time. The box is then no longer a part of their world; it’s a world of its own.

So, by your born you are not only given “your life”, you are given the lives and moments of your entire specie (the box)! No other specie has been granted that!!! And it’s not only that, but you are also given the chance of changing the lives of every single person not born yet, you are given that, by simply doing whatever you decide to do with your life….the life that will be added to the box.

I really wish that someone say these words to people at schools, I really wish that they do classes where they write them down on boards and simply let people stare and think about them.

Someone said this:
لقد هيؤك لأمر لو فطنت له … فاربأ بنفسك أن ترعى مع الهمل
I don’t know who it was, but he/she sums up all I am trying to say.

Reda Maged

Originally posted in May 24, 2010