On Jan 19th, the TDC team went to Mohammad Sadiq Memon Goth where they conducted a two-day training for teachers from the village and surrounding areas. The end of the gathering was interesting. The locals organized a ‘Much Kutcheri’, which is the Sindhi term for a bonfire. Among lively conversation, music, dancing, and unravelling from the day’s training, Abbas Husain shared several parables and poems with the community which carried lessons for those who were present.
The first parable he shared was one by Rumi, from the Masnavi Book 1. It is the story of a tattoo master and a man who lacks the drive and determination to get what he desires:
A man went to a tattoo master and said, I want you to make a lion on my back. What does making a tattoo involve? Lots of needles and lots of pricking. That is important for this story. This tattoo master was a genius. He welcomed the man in and said: Sure, sit down, I’ll start. But as soon as he started pricking to make the marks, the man could not take the pain and he said, Hey, stop, this is painful. What part of the lion are you doing? The tattoo master said he was doing the left ear. The man said, Leave out the left ear.
The master started again at another part of the back. Again the man could not take the pain. Again he asked: What part of the lion are you doing? The tattoo master said, I’m doing the tail. The man said, Leave out the tail. The master said, Fine. He was such a great artist he thought he would design the lion seated in such a way that the tail will look like it was behind him. Now he started again. Again the man could not take it and asked, What part are you doing now? The master said he was doing the stomach. The man said, Leave out the stomach. As he said this, the tattoo master lost his temper and threw his instrument on the ground. He said, What? A lion without a left ear, or a tail, or a stomach? Who can make such a lion? Even God did not.
The parable ends here. This is the story of all of us. We are that man from Qazwin in Rumi’s time. We all want to do amazing things, but we don’t want to put in the effort to do them. We all want PhDs next to our name, but we don’t want to take the trouble to actually write the thesis. This is the huge contradiction of human motiviation.
I apply this to education. We all want our children educated, but we don’t really want to teach them reading, teach them writing, or teach them skills. We want to save time. We want to cut corners. And so we come to this situation, the situation of education in our country. There is the curriculum, but we don’t know what to do with it. There are the teachers, but we do not want to invest in their skills. We want to get what we want, without putting in the energy and the commitment that is required to reach our goal.