Rev Dr Phuveyi Dozo
Naga United Village
Children of the present days are going through bustling and hustling movements. Being psychologically hurt and injured by phenomenon of brutal and uproar circumstances around, we all long for a calm, peaceful and normal future. In such a time, we do think of a better humanity by a human technology of raising our generation. Our society is no longer safe by modern sophisticated systems, rifles, and artificial intelligence. There is no better principle than the precept of the Prince of Peace, the Lord Jesus Christ who even calmed the stormy sea saying, “Peace be still.” The world is too proud, injurious, greedy, violent, hateful, vehement and arrogant that there is no room for God.
Our precious children, the succeeding generation, are going through such a jolting and bumpy atmosphere. They are disturbed and bewildered with psychological trauma of violence, raping, murder, issue of gender identity, robbery, mistrust and hatred, and insecurity. Gone is gone, but the issue is ‘How can we redeem and raise our children in safer manner in the midst of turbulent and chaotic days?’ Remember the Lord was peaceful while the passengers were awfully afraid in the Galilee storm. He is in control of nature as the Creator.
Fundamental Values VS Artificial Intelligence
The modern culture which is Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an automating scientific capability while Fundamental Values (FV) relate to human original qualities and principles handed down from creation with improvement along the way. The AI is a great human achievement or invention which is not out of the sphere of God since God has given ability of human brain but with limitation (Obadiah vs 4). One can think of production of robots, mystery of geometric art work, videos and digital games, smart systems and such computerized products.
Beware of AI Evils
Imaginations and human wish are engineered, designed and robotized in technology. But AI culture and its over dependence will produce an inert and adverse effect without ground reality. Addiction to excessive videogames in cell-phone habit will generate a mechanical habit and human liability. Parents must be aware of the Vitality of your children being destroyed and eaten up by robotic obsession. You can control the regular habit of your children eating with visual and screen habit in front of their food. Such a quieting habit is not a discipline but a destruction of human relationship. Beware of and overcome the dark and ugly side of vulgar vulnerability of AI that may harm humanity. The automatic machinery application has so much advantage that can overcome human errors. But we also must neutralize illusionary syndromes and flipside of AI obsession with fundamental reality.
Fundamental School VS Text Book School
Many parents have tendency of brushing off their responsibility and dumping it on the schools or tutors for development of their children. The biological parents are different from the hired teachers. Books are academically oriented and designed for brain feeding while fundamental and grass-root values come from the model and teaching of the human fathers and mothers. Parents must differentiate the difference of a secular school and human family. The fundamental family imparts basic essentials of humanity. A school means ‘text book coupled with AI. A home is a place of incarnation where the parents pour their best into the life of their children. What fundamental values your children can learn from home while pursuing their education in schools?
1. Spiritual foundation
It means knowing the Creator and developing a relationship with God. How can this take place? The children are what the parents are as you are what you are eating. It happens when a child sees the father and mother reading the Bible, praying, speaking healthy vocabularies, and doing things together. The spiritual life of children is formed by the model of their parents. A home precedes a church and a Bible school where the children learn the existence of God and their spirituality. Therefore, the Philosopher rightly recommended that a child should learn in a tender age (Proverbs 22:6). Where is the place of learning? It is at a home. The Lord Jesus compared faith with a house built of a strong rock (Matthew 7:24). Our children want to see a smiling face instead of frowning; they want to hear the prayer of their parents with their hands on their heads instead of tugging. What they need is assertive and affirmative loving vocabularies from their parents.
A home is a place where the children must hear the name of their God every day, before eating, school, daily work, and before sleeping. For Christians, children must hear the name ‘Jesus’ (aniconic), for Muslims ‘Allah’, Hindus ‘Brahma, Krishna, shiva or Vishnu,’ and ‘what?’ for people of non-religions? The parents explain the name and meaning of their God, demonstrate and practice their faith in their God, and reflect their relationship with that God through their prayer, loyalty and holiness with allegiance. It is important for our children to hear the name of their God and develop their spiritual security every day.
Ten Commandments
Through the Israelites God gave the commandments to the world that the world would know God and have peace and integrity. The Bible presents them to us as the universal precepts. These basic elements are our education at home, outside, anywhere and any moment:
*Knowing God
*Making no substitute
*Loving God with heart
*Resting on Seventh Day
*Honoring father and mother
*Loving others instead harming
*Being Holy instead disloyalty
*Working to eat and live
*Living in peace with people
*Being Content with what you have
2. Home as a Fundamental School
The children learn basic human values from family. They learn the importance of parent-children relationship, human vitality, forgiveness, exigency of human love and peace. A home imparts spiritual, ethical, moral, social, and basic human values. Civic maturity and discipline begin and ripple from home. A home is a place where children experiment theory that they learn in their schools. A home is a therapeutic center with healing environments. A home is a school that projects the true image and realty of children. A school is like a lunch or a dining table while a home is like a digestive system. Learning and practicing of human values take place at home. We think of those houses in a rural village when we see majestic cities and towns with sophisticated technology. A home precedes a modern world because all original values flow out from there. A home is the birth place of the overwhelming modern world. A home is the center of the world.
3. Home as a Practical School
A home comes before secular education, work and employment, civil society and a university degree study. They are born to begin life values. Before scaling up life ladder, kids must anchor their life principles on strong grass-root foundation. In this journey, the best unpaid teachers are their parents who teach them with heart and soul. Alongside AI, what our children must learn includes weeding and gardening, clearing spider-webs, sweeping, kitchen management, room organization, use of detergent, dishwashing, feeding and raising animals, cooking and tea and coffee making, domestic works, sanitary and cleanliness, and also social behavioral beauty and decency.
The need of our world is excellence of humanity, human dignity, peace and livability. They all begin at homes as families. Our children must generate and promote these basic fundamentals from homes. By a great mistake, we term our children as people of tomorrow. They are very much a part of our society in existence. They must begin today instead of psychological procrastination. We see the dimension of our horizon in our children. We must apply the principle of honesty and integrity in them. A better world begins today by grooming our children. Our children are spoiled by over-loved, especially in cities and towns by giving what they see and want whereas everything is not necessarily healthy.
Recommendation for developing stage
+Give them working or carpentry tools instead of toy guns and excessive digital or videogames, and zooming screens.
+Give them cooked food and boiled water instead of fast, junk or processed or readymade food items. Let them eat germ-free foods.
+Employ healing words and positive terms instead of scolding and using abusive words. Every human word has a scientific equation.
+Assist them to perform basic domestic elements such as eating by themselves, dishwashing, dusting and wiping, mopping, cloth washing, use of brooms, cooking, and flushing toilet.
+Help them to articulate positive vocabularies and constructive sentences with ‘May I’, ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you.’
+Work together with them that they may learn their parental values.
+Pray and read Bible with them to form their grounded and rooted spirituality.
+Ask what they see around in the universe and what they should thank God for.
+Motivate them to work hard and encourage them to make responsible decision.
In the midst of ongoing human crisis and upheavals, children are our priority among many priorities today because they are the foundation of the ladder of nations. If a qualitative upcoming generation and a good successive world is our concern, our conscientious attention must be on our aspiring children. We must pave the way as it is high time for us to work for a new generation.
May God help us!
