The Second Set of Eyes: Learning is Seeing

Few things compare to exposure to knowledge in transforming lives of people with the possibility of making them great and successful.

I want to propose that to know more and have high density of information in one's system is to be equipped to deal more successfully with the complexities of life today. At the very heart of the maturing of a human society is how it expands opportunities for its young people to access knowledge they need to take charge of their lives and their environment. 

Their ability to govern their environs for the benefit of all is what distinguishes human beings from others. African notions of humanness privilege the ability to share one's human values with others. The dictum, you are because we are, commonly called ubuntu, defines the African idea of humanity as being inclusive and communal in essence. 

This is distinct from the pervasive modern concept of "I think therefore I am", which generates the egocentrism from which comes greed, selfishness, excessive individualism, high mindedness and aloofness. 

In this sense, learning to share, to coexist, to cooperate and to co-create is the essence of knowledge in African settings in spite of the impact of modernity. So, acquisition of knowledge is not for the purpose of lording over others, but to become socially useful, to work with others to build a better world, to become better with and through others. 

To the extent that the Christian idea of creation emphasizes that human beings exist to work and govern the garden for the good of all, it reinforces African notions of honour and responsibility where individual human beings earn their place in the community of beings by virtue of their respect of others and their inputs. 

Secondly I also want to propose that exposure to both information and insights from experiences of the world out there has an enduringly positive impact because it gives more than ordinary ways of seeing the world and ourselves in it.  

Acquisition of knowledge is not supposed to be an excessively technical process focused on the transfer of technical skills, but it is supposed to be part of the socialization of society, humanisation of beings. Knowledge is social awareness; it is one condition found in every component of humanity and in all human history from the islands isolated in the Pacific to te Inca of Latin American mountains, the peoples of Europe as well as the peoples of Africa. It is condition that crimes against humanity like racism, apartheid and colonialism sought to destroy.

Gathering information is an important condition for acquiring knowledge. There is no knowledge without collecting data and information about ourselves and  the world around us. It is for this reason that the schooling system exposes young people to loads of information on a whole range of areas of life in the hope that they  imbibe something about each in order to be rounded people. 

Thirdly, by acquiring knowledge as an extra set of eyes I mean that knowledge should enable those who acquire it to see a little more or lot deep into life and the world. It must give them ability to see things from various angles. It must teach them to put on the glasses of many others when they look at issues in front of them. 

The extra set of eyes enables humankind to transcend myopia, prejudice, narrow-mindedness, short-sightedness, amnesia and mediocrity. It helps them see the whole person in their encounters with others, the whole issue in discussion, the whole problem in their communities and the whole world in the manner that they live on earth. 

There is no end to the process of acquiring and training the extra eyes to see clearer, farther and deeper into issues of life. So, there should be no end to hearing and perceiving, training the eyes to see. We should make personal commitments to know better daily and all the time. 

In our next piece, we reflect on hearing in order to see better.