Beware the culture of Malpractice.

I am certain that you already suspected from my last post that I am not here to talk only about singing and dancing, which a good number of persons conceive when the idea of culture comes up.

I  am an apostle of the position that  "culture is the totality. of the way of life of a people...."  .

Today, I am focusing on the danger that most of us engage in acts and habits which in our opinion have nothing to do with culture. There are many such phenomena in our schools, but my interest today is in the area of Malpractices.

Teachers are not necessarily more guilty than parents. Consider that , whereas teachers and others in the school sysgtem are the engineers or at least conduits of examination malpractices, parents are known to have either induced, sponsored or even partake in these practices.

Two things are to be noted here  ! First is the fact that the child soon begin to take these anomalies as given, as norm. The second is that , that child will sooner or later become a parent or teacher. Would you rightfully expect her to proceed differently than he was taught by example ? NO !

Same goes for malpractices relating to amorous relationships between teachers and their pupils.

Beware ! Thoughts become habit and habits become culture. The Igbo proverb comes to mind here : if taboo lasts a year , it becomes the norm .

The Primary Cultural Influence !

Even with no more than cursory thought, anyone will soon see that a child's primary sources of cultural influence come from two sources - the mother and the teacher.

I know that a lot of you there would rather I replace the word , mother with parents. I have very little to say to the contrary , knowing that fathers do have a chance of playing a role in this respect. My teeny-weeny doubt comes from the awareness that responsible fatherhood dos not come as cheap as responsible motherhood. Anyway, that is assuming that we define fatherhood beyond the provision of money.

Lest I digress, however, I will rather allow that you can replace mother and teacher with parents and teachers if that suits you better.

My worry at this moment is not so much who these primary sources of influence are as much as whether they have appropriate understanding of the term culture, because, if they do not, then how can we expect them to give what they do not possess.

Here then is the time to draw our attention to the fact that, culture can only be properly seen in the perspective of the totality of the way of life of any entity- a people, a family, an association, a company etc.

Whichever of the two categories cited that you belong to, I wish to hereby appeal to you to make a careful study of the responsibility that God has assigned you through your contact with that young life, that toddler, child, teenager, youth .....

On your behalf, I pray God for the grace to succeed.