Photo by Ivan Samkov from Pexels
A friend of mine once made a profound observation. He noted that while he has seen a lot of Indians who sees playing of cricket as their talent, he has barely come across a Nigerian who thinks that he's endowed in that aspect.
He made mention that he has also seen a lot of Nigerian who sees playing of football as their talent, while he has barely seen an Indian who thinks the same way.
This observation of his' became my experience while I was writing on Uptrennd. I met a lot of Pakistani there who waste no time in confessing their unreserved love for the game of cricket. I'm a sport lover, but owing to the fact that I am a Nigerian, I know next to nothing about cricket. Many Nigerian sport lovers are not different. But an average Nigerian is a fan of football and quite a handful are talented football players who are looking for where to trade their skill.
My friend picked point exposure as the causative factor, and I couldn't agree less.
How can one possibly know that (s)he is talented in a field (s)he has never tested his strength on? You'll never know how fast you can run, if you have never had a reason to do so. You get to discover your racing prowess while trying to run from or towards something. How can you know that you're a good swimmer when you've never been to a river, a pool or any water body? Your can hardly conceive what you have never heard, seen or felt.
Recently, I was opportuned to be in a team that was to help set up an art/literary club for a school. After briefing the pupils on what we were about to do. We came up with different departments, which were; drawing/painting, drama, creative writing, news broadcasting/oral presentation etc. They were to choose at most two areas of interest.
The first set of pupils chose drawing/painting, others, obviously influenced by their friends' choice tagged along.
Few others went for drama. Other departments were deserted. Being a diction teacher, I needed a bunch of them in the broadcasting/oral presentation department, since I was in charge of that department. Due to the fact that many of them didn't voluntarily indicate interest in belonging to the department I was in charge of, for obvious reasons, they simply didn't know what it entails and what would be expected of them, I was left with no choice but to randomly pick pupils whom I know to be good speakers of English. A lot of them eventually did excellently well in broadcasting as well as oral presentation.
While we have won the argument on kids being allowed to choose whatever career they desire, without parental interference, we should however know that parents/guardians can't and shouldn't stand aloof and watch their ward making bizarre choices.
So I opine that children should be exposed to different field of discipline, to widen their scope.
In today's society, digitalization is gradually taking the centre stage, while some good number of persons are still stuck with traditional/conventional career choices. In today's society a child should be made to know that digital marketing is a big deal, copy writing is a career that can bag in millions, coding is now a big part of technology, internet-of-people is fast becoming an essential skill.
Children shouldn't be locked up with what was obtainable since Abrahamic era. Split their mind open by exposing them to as many relevant skill as possible.
Then you can live them to go with what they desire.