The best gift for our children

My father, who sadly died very young, at 39, told my siblings and me that the greatest inheritance he was leaving us was our education. Sure enough, he didn’t leave us much in the way of property, but he did leave us education and culture, and I try to honor that legacy.

Education is the best gift for our children on this Children’s Day.

But giving them an education is not just sending our kids to school to learn. That matters, but it also means caring about what they learn; it means giving them culture and values, teaching them to tolerate frustration, to overcome adversity, to look past the superficial; it means learning to share, and above all helping them understand.

To educate, in Latin, is ex ducere: ex means to draw out, and ducere would be to guide, to lead, so educating would be something like drawing out the best in someone and setting them on their way.

I prefer to think that to educate is to lift up, and what better gift for a child than to give them wings?