Month: October 2012

The greatest education you can give your child

The greatest gift, the most foundational belief and education that you can give your child is the deep assurance, the conviction, the knowledge that they are loved unconditionally.

That they are loved for who they are, and not for what they do or do not do. Sounds too good to be true, right?

Is that really possible, you may well ask?

How can it be, when from childhood, or even infancy, we are conditioned to receive conditional love and acceptance? Isn’t that why we all strive for fame, wealth, recognition? Ask yourself why you do the things you do….. We have believed a lie, and that lie continues to destroy lives today.

The truth, dear reader, is this:

Can parents give this unconditional love to their dear children? Dictionary.com defines unconditional love as; affection with no limits or conditions; complete love

You can, but you as a parent need to know and experience it for yourself. From whom can you get this love, this assurance? There is only one source, the same one who created you in His image and longs to see your love, your joy and life made full.

Unless you have it, experience it, and know that it is true, you cannot give it to your child.

Believing a lie ruins life.

Here are a few examples:

The lie that I have to do something to get acceptance, from parents or from my concept of ‘god’. That is not the truth; it is a LIE, plain and simple.

The Lie that you just evolved somehow from some other life form. That you are the product of blind chance! What happens when you leave food outside for 2 days? Does it improve or perish?

Then there are lies believed by those who believe in God: The lie that ‘God’ allows us to bargain with him for sins committed by us. The Lie that our good deeds will balance our bad deeds. No, for God, even one sin is enough for Him to punish us, or else He would not be just.

Can you imagine a murderer being let off by a Judge because he pleaded that he never committed any traffic offense in his life? A Judge like that, a god like that, what would you call him?

The Truth is better than you can ever imagine, dear reader.

  • The Truth is that God created you most wonderfully. He loves you just as you are. He loves you because of who He is, not because of who or what you are.
  • The Truth is that God loves you in spite of your sins, your faults.
  • The Truth is that God hates sin, but loves the sinner. God will punish sin.
  • This God who said He loves you; He came and demonstrated this love by paying the price for your sins, by dying for your sins. Because sin is so bad that in God’s eyes sin deserves death.

This is the Truth, dear reader, and not just fiction, definitely not a lie!

Isn’t it time to be sorry for your sins and ask God to save you? You have to ask, ofcourse. And He has forgiven…..how? On the Cross, by the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. All it takes is Faith. Believing the Truth.

Believing the Truth gives you an assurance of Gods unconditional love, and that is the greatest gift you can give your children too. Jesus said you shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set you Free.

Have a great life ahead.

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A visit to the Microbiologist

Since Swashikshan was launched in July 2012, we have been looking at how whatever we do for our kids could possibly be replicated by anybody in India. Visiting the real world, finding out how things work, how stuff is made, these are the things that make for a ‘real’ education and that is the philosophy behind Homeschooling by and large.

A Doctor friend of ours, who runs a lab, seeing that we were homeschooling, had expressed a desire to know more about it. In the course of our talks, she mentioned that she has a spare Microscope lying with her. We gladly took it up and have enjoyed using it at times.

We then thought amongst ourselves, how wonderful it would be if our kids could get to see the inside of a Pathology Lab, and see what makes up their blood under a microscope, things which only Medical graduates get to see.

So at rather short notice, a few of us gathered together and went to visit Clinilabs at Borivli, in October 2012.

Dr. Neena Patil, whose father was a teacher, was very glad to demonstrate everything in her Lab. She started by showing how blood is collected, by tying a tourniquet. She explained why it is tied, and how blood is collected in different bulbs for testing.

The different colour coded collection tubes are used for collecting blood and running different tests.

She also explained about Biomedical waste and how needle tips are burnt, and syringe tips are cut in theNeedle burner and Syringe cutter. Also the segregation of Medical waste and separate bags for disposal of sharps and other waste.

She explained in detail about how blood is checked, the centrifuge, the Incubator, and the different parts of the Microscope. Parents and children both learned a lot!

Then it was time for all of us to have a look at the Peripheral Smear! This is a drop of blood which is spread thin over a glass slide, stained and put under the Microscope.

We saw Red Blood cells, White blood cells, and also Malarial Parasites, the ring and dot forms. Wow!

She also showed us from the text books the various things we were seeing under the microscope.

Both young and old got a chance to see the miracles of the human body a bit better than ever before.

Since it was a small group, each child could get to see under the microscope under different magnifications.

All in all, it was a great learning experience. Such outings are a wonderful way for all who are a part of Swashikshan. I am ready to organize similar outings for anybody interested.

Here is the Resource tag:

Subject: Biology

Age groups: 7 to 17 yrs, and parents too

Number of persons: 10 to 15 at a time.

My email: drspmathew@gmail.com