Why you should teach about culture and history to our children?

If you have a child, ask him or her whether she knows about Tagore or read anything of Tagore. Ask if she knows about Lalon, read Thakumar Jhuli or Sukumar Roy. Ask if she knows why the Liberation War happened. If she doesn't know then the fault is yours. At large, the fault is ours.

We don't teach or give the opportunity to explore our culture and history. Having a few chapters on the textbook on liberation war and few things about our culture or having 2-3 poems of Tagore don't mean children actually internalize those.

You may ask 'Why it's even important'. My child is doing great in school and on the way to have a great career. My child will finish the first 10-12 years of education here and then leave the country anyway. So, it's better to learn about western culture and history.

Children learn about the culture before even they learn the language. A society that encourages 'sharing' teach their children to share their food, toy with other children or their siblings. Children learn about culture from other children, not from adults. But adults can certainly create an environment at home at school that encourages children to learn about the culture.

We talk about brain-drain problem among youth in our country. We talk about lack of patriotism among people in this country. Well, just to keep in mind: shouting in the cricket field for BD team is not patriotism. But supporting the team when they are going through bad time is.

If your child is not proud of his heritage, is not proud of being a Bangladeshi or Bengali - then you can't expect him to grow up as a confident individual. A person who is not proud about his or her heritage, his root, his country, his society, his culture, his history - that person will never ever bring or do great things to his country.

And you might migrate with the hope that you are going to give a good life to your child. Yes, your child may relocate to another country and grow up as a second class citizen in a Western Country and live his or her life. And if you think by doing this you and your child are going to avoid your root, you are fooling yourself. In real life, because of your skin color, your tone, your country, your origin - you will always be treated differently. And often, you need to defend your country, your root, your origin. If your child doesn't know about it, if your child is not proud of it - how you are going to do it?

All the successful nations in the world are proud of their heritage. Even when they were in absolute despair. For example, the Germans during 1930s. In the last 2 decades, we see the rise of our neighbors - China and India. Two countries with people proud of their root, culture, nation. Nationalism is absolutely necessary for a nation to rise. Having a strong sense of your root is a pre-requisite for a nation to rebuild the country.

Bangladesh once was the cornerstone of the world for doing business. The subcontinent used to generate 80% of world's GDP. We were a proud nation, we were proud of our culture, heritage and our root before the British came along and taught us otherwise.

I strongly believe if we want to solve a lot of problems in our country, we should start working on instilling a strong sense of pride among our children about our culture, our root, our history and our nation. Our education system should work on this. Besides the Government primary schools, the Kindergarten and English medium schools should have mandate to teach about our culture and give an environment where children can actually experience the culture - not just taught in the classroom.

Every school in Dhaka, should have a tour in all the major museums in Dhaka.

And for the homes and parents, buy some damn books for your children. Not Disney books, but Thakumar Jhuli, Upendrakisore, Sukumar, Kazi Nazrul and so on.

Aside from spending 400 tk to watch Frozen, spend 20 tk to visit the Liberation War Museum or National Museum.