The Theatre of Education

“If give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”

Over the last few years, there is a buzzword called lifelong learning. In my school days, I wished that after graduating from university, I could stop reading my textbooks, doing my assessments, stop taking examinations and work in a single profession all my life. But I was wrong, I realized when I started working, I got to keep learning new things, unlearn former things and relearn to stay relevant in the marketplace. This is a reality in the ‘Knowledge Economy’. We not only have to learn the technical skills of our trade, but also IT skills, Public Relation skills and presentation skills.

However, I also believe that education is not just for the advancement of our careers. Education is also about life skills which help us to manage our daily affairs with our family, our personal emotions and the way we think about ourselves and others.

There are 3 reasons why investing in lifelong learning is the best investment in life:

Education is not only in school. Life itself is the theatre of education.

I grew up in the Singapore school system. I was trained like an academic soldier, and my only goal was to score As for all my examinations. When examinations drew near, I would reduce my social activities, lock myself in my room and do my 10 year series. My friends found this repulsive, but I told myself I had no choice, I had to score my As in order to succeed in life.

However, I had a serious medical condition when I was 21 years old and I had to quit school to recuperate. My condition was so serious that the psychologist told me not to stress myself and take an easier path in life. This well meaning advice rang like a death sentence. Having propped myself solely on my academic achievements, I felt like I had lost my only clutch in life. I fell into depression and had thoughts of killing myself. But I realized these thoughts were fatalistic. I urgently changed the way I thought about life and saved myself with the help of my family and friends.

I took half a year of rest and reflection. I had the privilege of talking and learning life skills from the elderly when I went for my morning walks at the park. I learnt the importance of overcoming trials, building quality relationships, having faith and many more life skills. I learnt valuable lessons from the theatre of life itself.

Our society focuses a lot on paper qualifications and our next generation faces much pressure from studies. I fully agree that we have to be taught how to do maths, science, and score well for our examinations. But I firmly believe that life skills, such as overcoming failures, looking beyond academic performance are even more vital skills that we need to teach our next generation.

Our success depends on our belief system

One of my favorite books is ‘Think Rich, Grow Rich’ by Napoleon Hill. Napoleon did extensive research on how the traits that successful people have and he found common denominators that successful people share. One of which was having right belief system to acquire wealth.

If we believe that we cannot fail, we will not dare to take needed risks to grow our wealth or advance our career and lives. Even when I mustered enough courage to propose to my girlfriend, I had to contend with the risk that she might reject me and hurt me emotionally. However, I believed that even if I failed in proposing, it was a necessary risk to take. And now, I am blessed with a lovely wife and a fulfilling marriage.

The successful people believed in action, so they will not procrastinate and will continuously take action to fulfill their dreams. They also believed in team work, so they leverage on other’s talents and skills to achieve something greater than themselves. So we need to start examining our beliefs and evaluate whether are they propelling us or hampering us to greater success.

Don’t fear failure; fear we do not learn from failure.

Who in this room hasn’t failed before? All of us face failures. But if we fail and do not learn from our mistakes and dare to try again, that would be more tragic than failing altogether.

When we do not succeed in doing something, do not think of it as a failure. Rather, think of it as ‘delayed success’. Walt Disney went bankrupt several times before he finally succeeded with Disneyland.

Thomas Edison before he invented the light bulb, failed 1000 times before he finally succeeded. He said, ‘"I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps."

I would like to encourage you to embrace your lives in the theatre of education and learn from its every facet. Let us reflect on our daily lives, and replace negative thoughts with empowering ones. Finally, when we face failures, let us learn from our mistakes, draw strength from each other, overcome every obstacle and emerge as the successful person aspire to be.

Aaron Graham Tay