The Mirror Of Values

The Complexity Of Today's World

Today, the society has become exceedingly complex and has integrated with other societies of the world. Today, no country lives apart. The events and trends in one society affect other societies. The speed of change has also increased. Call it jet age, space age or computer age, the fact is that we can never even think of remaining unaffected from the happenings in other parts of the world.

This further enhances the necessity of value education. Today, western cultural traits and western values are penetrating in our society rapidly. But while no society can remain aloof from others, nor should it remain aloof from others, it is also true that everything western is not healthy or socially useful. Violence is fast becoming a habit in western societies. Should we be swayed by it? Certainly not. Money - Mindedness is today among the most important values in the west. Should we adopt it as our value? By no means. The tendency to remain unconcerned about the fate of fellow citizens has gripped the people of the west. Should we learn to live the same way? The answer will be an emphatic no.

While we cannot remain cut off from others, we have to make a conscious choice about what we should adopt from others and what we have to reject. This does not mean that we have to blow the trumpet of our cultural superiority. We must learn to acknowledge if there are any shortcomings in our society and culture. We must never ape others blindly.

The responsibility of all our social institutions has increased manifold. And these include not only school and other social institutions but also family. This is all the more necessary because we don't have gurukuls (ancient learning) today. The children of today have to constantly go out. They go out to play, to meet their friends, to watch a movie, and for hundreds of other things. In the process, they naturally get affected by the outside forces and these influences are not always positive and healthy. Sometimes they are more destructive than constructive. It is clear that if such influences are not contained and made ineffective in time, they may derail the very life of a child. Certainly, no parent will like that such a thing should happen to his or her child. Parents must therefore remain always alert, detect such influences in time and take steps, with the help of others if necessary, to make such influences ineffective.

Let us remember one simple fact: fighting negative values is as necessary as inculcating positive values among our children.

School is certainly an important institution in the life of a child and it has to inculcate positive values as well as fight negative values among pupils. It cannot run away from this duty. But the role of parents and other elders in the family is no less important in so far as value education is concerned.