"I think the great thing is to awaken the child, the mind of the child, the imagination of the child, to give it a light, to respect, not spoil, its own identity, and it will soon finds its way, because life itself is a process of educating the universe. Well, that is not the modern trend, it's all to rational now, and of course this is not education, it is blinding, this hubris of the mind, of the rational. It is a kind of not loving, of not caring. When the human being loses interest in the child, s/he is in great peril because more and more children are being thrown into schools, into the hands of professionals. People give them money and material things instead of giving them what they want - our love and imagination. That is, awakening their imaginations to the experience of love. Once you've done that you can leave it, it will take care of itself. The education of the parents is really the education of the child: children tend to live what is unlived in the parents, so it is vital that parents should be aware of their inferior, their dark side and should press on getting to know themselves. To the extent to which they emancipate their shadows, they set their children free to be themselves. So in this sense, it is the education or re-education of the parents which should be our main concern."
- Laurens van der Post - A Walk with a White Bushman - 1986 penguin Books, p.49 -
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