Education’s value undermined by attention to trivialities

The first thing we can all do is to value intelligence and learning, and model this valuing for the children and students. Unless society makes knowledge a truly desirable social trait that trumps the attention of designer clothes, consumer electronics and the banal aspects of looks, it is not going to happen. I would like to challenge The Nation to uphold this standard of promoting learning and valuing intelligence, especially since your business model depends on literacy.
Last Thursday there was an article headlined “Smart Thai students return with a rich haul of medals” about 65 trophies being won in separate competitions on math and inventing. There was no mention, though, of the students’ names, what they did or what their inventions were.
The same day in the same section, there was a half-page spread on the ridiculous amount of money being offered to football player Paul Pogba. Not only was this given far more space than the winning Thai students, but the next day there was another half-page spread about Pogba.
None of us will ever hang out with Pogba, but there is a good chance you might cross paths with one of these students.
So think of the message being processed by the students and their friends. You study hard and do the right thing and yet get no real attention or acknowledgement. So why study, when the football player gets all the attention? Messages like this will not make learning valued.
We can at least change this incident, so how about The Nation assigning someone to write a better article and let us all know who these kids are and what they did. I would rather read about their inventions and ideas of improving or exploring something than how much someone earns who plays children’s games gets for a living!
Darius Hober