Sydney Maco

The pursuits of the intellectual are ultimately frustrated by further questions, complications and apparent “anomalies”. The wise on the other hand seem to have a slow but steady stream of re-affirmations, a level of insight only few can grasp, leaving others to seek wisdom rather than mocking the intellectual in public debates.
Intellectuals approach knowledge as a collection of facts and figures, regurgitating these at any opportunity to demonstrate supremacy, spicing things up with a dash of logical argument. Claiming exclusive rights over all that has been revealed, naming mathematical constants, celestial objects, the human genome. A phenomenal height of arrogance which can lead to a crashing fall back down to earth.
I do not claim to be neither an intellectual nor wise, only that I acknowledge there is a distinction. On seeing this difference I can now turn in the direction of seeking wisdom, rather than a mere intellectual pursuit.
There are many examples of intellectuals who have finally come to realise that their pursuit has been more an initiation into wisdom than anything. You may be at a stage in your life where facts and figures reign supreme, in that case you have a long way to get to wisdom. While you continue down this path, you will never understand more about the known universe than (On a scale of 1 to 10)
1 + 3.1248163264128256 x 10 ^{-4309583847598347538274238764}
(Constant - the pinnacle of intellectual wisdom).
You will know when you are in the company of a wise person. Learn the language they speak, don’t burden them with life’s trivialities, but rather seek to understand their beliefs and motivation.

Growing up many of us may have memories of fairly strict parents, some a little tight with their money. While other kids had the latest toys, we’d have to settle for what we had. Although there may have been a feeling of missing out, this can’t be farther from the truth once we had reached adult life. A loving parent isn’t one that gives the child everything they ask for. The softened parent that’s supposedly loving towards their child is in fact not loving at all, but careless. It takes real love to teach a child that they can’t have something, and persevere. Is the new generation of Australian born Macedonian parents becoming a bunch of careless parents, looking for the easy way out ?

The role of the parent has been mis-shaped by secular culture, the media, etc. The good old values our parents held, are tried and tested over many generations, but we seem to be fairly swift in dismissing them as old fashioned. Treating values like they are outdated, almost like they’re an old dress with frills and shoulder pads, or a tight fitting light grey suit our dad wore with big collars and flares.

Children’s brains are absorbing information at an amazing rate, they learn much more in the first few years than many adults learn during their lifetime. It’s the responsibility of the parents to ensure an encouraging and safe environment is available for the child to learn. By environment I mean not only resources like books, videos, activities, etc, but also attention, assistance, genuine interest in the child’s development. Not only providing those things required to aid learning, but also to restrict those things that lead them astray. Parents that don’t show a genuine interest in their child’s learning tend to be content with the child consuming popular culture, and what’s freely available. I’d go as far as to say it’s irresponsible as a parent to think the school will take care of their children’s education and they don’t need to do anything. Some dangers that children are currently exposed to include;

- Television shows, Allowed any show they want to watch including big brother (can’t be healthy for primary school kids).
- Movies with strong scenes of violence, action, sex, swearing, etc
- Unsupervised internet access, eventually they will stumble onto pornography or some pedophile.
- Violent games involving stealing cars, killing people, etc

Either parents take on this responsibility, or society will fill the void. Parents have a big task ahead of them, much of what’s on offer from popular culture is much more enticing than being taught good values and morals. Just because something is free doesn’t mean it’s good for you. In fact most of the time it comes with strings attached or provided by someone with a hidden motive. It’s the reason quality content and information costs money, and anything else for general consumption is like junk food, fills you up very cheap.

I remember as a kid, my dad had a friend who recently opened up a video library when VHS was really big, still had Beta but in one small corner. He had so many movies, and he’d lend them to us all for free, we thought it was the best thing out (because it’s free). We were watching all sorts of movies back then, including all the Bruce Lee movies with all the killing, etc. I guess this would translate today into a dad who had a mate that could get him free unrestricted cable TV, thinking he’s getting something great because it’s free. Or getting bundled internet access with foxtel, because it’s free, etc.

Pay attention to your kids, become part of their learning experience, you may learn something also. We laugh when our parents have trouble with the latest electronic gadgets, but we will face the same fate unless we become closer with our children.

This is true in many ways, more so when our culture and heritage are at stake, fortunately we are in a country where we can freely retain these. This great freedom can easily be dismissed by first generation Australian born Macedonians while raising their own children. Some questions immediately come to mind, for example;

• Private or Public
• Secular or Christian
• Convenience for parents or sacrifice by parents
• Co-educational or girls/boys only
• Supplement with after school or Saturdays

Obviously a large factor in schooling is cost, this to a large extent will determine whether you chose to send your children to a private school vs a public school. Having gone through the public system myself, I can say that it was definitely character building, the challenges faced have more than made up for the standard in teaching. For example we had a Biology teacher for our Year 11 and 12 Physics class. A very nice man, but he couldn’t work out how to use a protractor to measure an angle. This challenge for me turned out to be a blessing, I ended up learning physics on my own using notes from students in the other class and self study guides.
Being Macedonian Orthodox, one challenge faced during primary school was scripture. The Greek students had their own scripture classes, the Christian students had their own, the Hindi, Buddhist, etc. We were placed in the non-scripture class to just sit there and be supervised by a teacher who would read the news paper. Again this challenge has turned into a blessing where I studied the bible on my own, and continue to do so today.
Some parents go to extra-ordinary lengths to get their children to school, others are happy for them to walk to the nearest public school. School can be treated like a continuation of early child-care by some parents, who enjoy the convenience and like to leave everything upto the teachers.
I can understand the reason why parents would object to sending their children to a co-educational school, they have the best intentions in mind. But I feel that through my own experience, it’s not as bad as they may think. The problems they’re concerned about come about from the children that attend that school, regardless of whether it’s co-educational or not. Some could even argue on the other hand, that it’s no co-incidence that Catholic School Girls have a reputation.
Saturdays typically involved going to Macedonian school at Newtown. It’s the reason that I can now read/write Cyrillic, and speak Macedonian with people outside of my dad’s village. I have often thought it would have been better if I did something else on Saturdays like soccer, or piano lessons, etc.
Currently I’m faced with this decision on a school for our children. When I see some of the youth that hang around at Bankstown for example, I’m deeply troubled. I’d like to see my children go to a school where they are not subjected to the mindless impulses of these lost kids. At the same time I feel that with a lack of real-life experience, and over-sheltering they will be less likely to cope in the real world. I feel that it’s very important for our children to attend a school that teaches the values we have as Christians, and not some one-size-fits-all school where anything goes.
As a Macedonian community we do not have private schools for our children to attend and grow up together. The only compromise I can come up with is an Anglican school which uphold the same Christian values that we have.
My argument can be summarised as follows; We wouldn’t send our children to an Islamic School for example, based on the difference in values alone, even if we weren’t familiar with the vast theological differences. Why then would we send our children to a school with neutral values, accommodating to all religions ? If cost is the factor, then we’d need to supplement their education with scripture outside of school.