Exploring

Ah! What a great thing education is. We can open our minds to receive the wonders of the world.
But last night, I found myself in a difficult situation. I was corrected, not on what was right or wrong but by what the masses believed. I was to take on board and accept that I was a minority in my thinking. This is not new for me, I have always preferred to explore theories before accepting the established thesis. But my liberal understanding was stopped dead. I knew all the details, but my understanding of them was questioned. (I will go into detail later perhaps).

At this moment I query education itself. When we go to school, are we there to broaden our minds, to develop as individuals? To find our own strengths, to grow as individuals and develop, invent new answers?

Or are we there as the name suggests to be schooled? Like a shoal (school) of fish to all follow the same path, to blindly follow the person in front? So we can swim together in harmony, not treading on each others toes. If fish had toes I am sure they would worry about other fish treading on them. But they don't seem to worry, swimming happily together. Fish swim in three dimensions, thousands of fish of one kind at a time can swim together happily avoiding all obstacles and other species of fish.

The question I’m asking is if fish weren’t schooled and couldn’t swim together how could certain species of fish exist? We know if antelope didn’t stay together as a group they would be picked off one by one by predators, safety in numbers. Being schooled as a community is extremely important for us to co exist, to belong to a group and to know how to react and to behave is really important.

So where am I going?
I am not sure, but what I am exploring is the importance of being an individual. To be ourselves and to develop in our own special way seems essential. But an individual needs to know how to conform to his surroundings, his family, peers, colleges and adversaries. Without these skills he/she is an outcast.

So where do we go? What do we conform to? For me there is a path set before me. It is a path set by God. Being a Christian I have my path, I know how to conform with my Christian family and if I truly follow Jesus’ example it is easy to accept and embrace peoples differences, and to care for your fellow human being regardless of race or gender.

I agree this is in itself schooling, Christ’s sheep flocking together. But is there more than one flock? There are many different denominations. Different denominations that can at times be led to kill another. Moslem’s too have conflict within their different identities, I don’t yet know enough about it to comment much, but I believe from their different perceptions of God, he is still telling them the same thing, to love and honor God and to love your neighbor as yourself. I personally feel confrontational events boil down to political and cultural differences rather than religious differences. But even locally we see conflict between one parochial flock and another. If we truly followed Gods word, no matter where our faith stems from then these things would not happen.

So what is important? To conform to the masses or to make up your own mind. Of course it is an element of both. But the difficulty is how. We need to be schooled, taught how to conform and not be anti social or confrontational.
My difficulty is if you don’t have a path, which way do you turn? Children are brought up in a main stream school UK schools have difficulty finding an identity. What is their identity? I can only speak from a southern English perspective, but as an English citizen I too find it difficult. If I was Scottish I could be proud to be Nationalistic. As an English man if I was a Nationalist I could be perceived to be racist.
I am not even sure what flag I should fly, the Union Jack/Flag or what ever it is now called or the George Cross. If I fly the union flag I may look imperialistic, if I fly the George Cross I am perceived to be a Football fan or a Crusader.

We attack ourselves too much in this country, but then we have a lot to attack. Our imperialist history is too recent and sometimes to painful. If we celebrate our patriotic achievements we can appear a war mongering nation, celebrating our heritage is now in question in the media. Living near Portsmouth a Royal Navel port I have grown up around “HMS Victory” I truly believe there is a lot to celebrate and I did recently at in the 2005, 200 year celebrations.

I have missed my point and gone on to far I will come back later.