The road to a nation’s prosperity is paved with the minds of children.
– Mama Vic-
A mind is wasted when:
You teach it to hate
You teach it to believe it is somehow inferior because of its gender or color
You don’t teach it to do good for society
You don’t teach it to be compassionate
You don’t educate it
You don’t give it creative opportunities
You don’t teach it to solve problems
Nations that don’t provide opportunities for all children to learn, grow and contribute are losing untold opportunities for greatness. How many minds have we wasted?
The minds of poor black kids, Indian kids, Mexican kids and poor white kids all wasted by a culture of deprivation, apathy, prejudice and hate. The minds of girls wasted due to gender bias.
What amazing innovations could these minds have created? What new cures for disease could these minds have created? What solutions to economic and environmental problems might these minds have offered?
Who’s to blame? We are all to blame
Every single mother and dad teaching a child to hate is wasting that child’s mind.
Every single mother and dad teaching a child there is only one way to look at the world is narrowing that child’s ability to see through enlightened eyes.
Any nation that doesn’t wrap all its children with opportunities to learn, grow and be creative is destined to fail.
Every one of us is partly responsible for each mind wasted. What did you do? What did I do? Not enough.
Greatness knows no color, belief or nation
George Washington Carver, American slave revolutionized agriculture in the South. Carver’s remarkable success is despite an illiterate trash heap of prejudice.
Heberto Castillo – Invented the structural material Tridilosa – Mexican
Jose Hernandez-Rebollar – AcceleGlove – sign language into spoken and written words.- Mexican
Jedidah C. Isler, Ph.D. astrophysicist – American black woman
Munir Hasan Nayfeh – Palestinian-American (Muslim) nanotechnology
How much more greatness could we have if only so many minds weren’t wasted in the past and aren’t being wasted as of this writing? Imagine the prosperity. Imagine the problems we could solve and the innovations we could have.
The Solution
The solution is simple, but not easy. We must each do what we can to stop wasting minds and our future.
- Teach your kids to dream and use their imaginations.
- Make sure they get a good education. If you live in an area with a crappy school system, educate them yourself. If you don’t have the means to do that, ask your librarian or someone you know who is well educated to help.
- If your culture or religion advocates the wasting of minds, rebel.
- If you know of a child who needs help, help that child.
You have the power!
