Are We Really Catching Them Young?
Today I saw something on Nigerian Twitter that threw me off. There's a video of a little boy, he's probably about 10 years old, and he made an ATM out of boxes of cartons and a battery. Of course, it doesn't actually read the debit card inserted neither does the password input work. The battery only powers the rotor that makes the cash come out. Now, I find that impressive from a little boy considering the fact that around here, most kids his age are not that creative.
What makes me unhappy is seeing so many negative reactions to this video. There are adults seriously contesting that ATMs don't work that way and they're making jokes and laughing at this boy. Well, duh, ATMs don't work that way obviously, the child is just trying to have fun and be creative while at it. How can that not make you smile?
'Catch them young' but a little boy from the streets can't even make his own toy without woke Nigerians making fun of him. He's a smart little boy and he's got a good headstart but sadly, he's from a place where talent and skill are hardly ever nurtured from the start especially for the lesser privileged.
Oftentimes, people like to talk about Nigeria in the second person like they're not part of Nigeria themselves. There's a lot of mockery about the boy's creation and them saying Nigeria has failed him but they're the very ones failing him by mocking him first. The creative part of him that's essential for his mental development has been ignored and it's not surprising at all.
Most parents would rather send their kids for 'holiday lessons' in preparation for the next school session than enrol them for technical and practical lessons to acquire skills. There's more to a child's growth than school and I honestly wish people would break out of the mentality of school only.
I saw an ad recently for summer technical lessons for kids and it was so exciting, a younger me would have loved to take such classes. I can imagine how much more kids would find it exciting especially because it's in a very relaxed environment with a regular guy as the teacher and not their classroom teacher. It was also very affordable for the ordinary man unlike the lessons organized by schools and big corporations.
Kids actually have the most fun and learn more when they do other activities asides from schoolwork. For all-round growth, the keen interest of every child should be well-nurtured and improved on, not shunned or laughed at.
The little boy from the video made me smile and I sincerely hope for better years ahead for him wherever his stars lead him. Hopefully, nothing mars this creative side of him.
I am a Nigeria and I actually appreciate the fact that you take note of the talents within my country
There are many more talented young kids in my country the problem we have today in Nigeria is the level of corruption and scarcity of job this has caused youth young parents to be unable to provide the best for the kids conducive environment to learn is difficult ot find. So now people are only interested in looking for money get rich based on bad government hopefully which the youth fighting back the government now, shows there's hope for young talents in the future.
She's a Nigerian too. So it's her country too. Moreover, her main point isn't about bad government or people's interest in getting rich but people being blind to recognise talent and creativity portrayed by the young boy, and also the fact that school is only seen as the way/path to a child's growth and development instead of acquisition of skills.
Nice post by the way @wolfofnostreet.. Been a while from here.
Thank you 😁
You've been busy. Are you done with exams now?
No, still Aug 20th
Goodluck!
Yes, I get that the corrupt system plays a huge role in child and youth development but the post focuses more on individuals.
Thanks for your comment.
@Vmozy seriously u just said my mind, this present Nigerian government is really doing more harm than good in terms of catching young talents, I just hope they come to realize how wrong it is and start acting towards helping your talents achieve their dreams
They are so adorable, I hope, as you say, they will be taken care of from a young age
that will contribute a lot
I hope so too
That sucks that adults would discourage and mock him like that. :( Here in the States when I was growing up it was school, school, school so my generation all got deeply into debt to go to college and now there are still no good jobs for us and we have all this debt. So what do our parents say? "Oh well kids should have gone to technical school instead, plumbers and mechanics make good money and it's cheaper." Uh huh, but that isn't what you drilled into us when we were kids, was it? We did what we were told and the "benefits" we were promised weren't there. When I was growing up it was generally looked down upon if you would have done that instead of college - and I came from the poor neighborhood! It was especially pushed on us to go to college as a way to get out of poverty. But in reality it was the opposite.
I hope the kid in the video does what he likes and has a good future because of it.
We face the same thing here till this day. After going through school with the aim of getting corporate office jobs, a lot of people end up with hands-on practical jobs that didn't need them wasting all that time in school.
Hopefully, the coming generation get to live their dreams in their chosen unconventional routes.
The nigeria i knw it would turn out 2 ways either the guy get discourage or the guy won't follow his dream due to frustration sorry but its the sad truth
Or the third option, he becomes an engineer 😌
How about you take him up and sponsor him through technical lessons?
I mean wouldn't it better that you try to help instead of pointing fingers?
No offense
Pointing fingers?
It's a random video of a child on the Internet, the least anyone could do is applaud him. Imagine that kid reads all the negative comments about him?
Nice photography
It's a sourced photo