Imran Omer's Blog

           I was the fourth child, a son, born to parents that fought every evening as if it were a ritual without which they couldn't go to bed. My father left us when I was seven. My mother did her best to make ends meet, but it was obvious that three jobs, paying minimum wage, were killing her. When I was twelve, my two older brothers were killed—One by a rival gang and the other by police. The grief soon killed my mother. My elder sister, who had been paying the bills with some help from the state, disappeared a year later. Some says she was a victim of sex trafficking, but I never came to know what had happened to her. There was nobody to pay the bills so I came to live on the streets.   Every night, I took the last green train and slept on it; then I went to my 'hood in the morning. Photo by  Paul G             In my 'hood, guns were everywhere.  I just needed to find an allegiance with a gang...

As a teacher, when I look at our youth, my feelings move from hope to disappointment and then disappointment to hope. They are intelligent, but mesmerized by technology. They lack basic skills, but believe that they are special. They know what is on Facebook, but have little interest in the abstract ideas and deeper questions of life. They are bright, but do not understand that hard work is as important as intelligence. They want to leap and have unique ideas, but are too distracted to turn their ideas into reality. A colleague of mine said that all generations are like this until … until one day life dawns on them and forces them to be pragmatic. I am not so sure about that. Just fifty years back the world was different and so was the generation that breathed in that environment. We did not have cell phones, and the internet was not part of our basic needs. Jobs were ample (at least in the Western world) and a bachelor’s degree was more than enough to m...

Before the commencement of 20th century, the role of education was to inculcate moral and religious values. Since the dawn of the industrial era and particularly after the Second World War, education became more career oriented. Its value as a job grabber and a mode for competition for industrial and corporate positions has increased tremendously.  Gradually the process of providing values and morals, both worldly and religious, moved to the end of the list of objectives of education. Another problem with moral education is that it cannot be taught directly in the form of a sermon. When it is provided in the form of a sermon, as we usually see in the religious dogma, it produces fear and may convince the receivers to hide and sneak in their immoral behaviors, but it does not create an impact that is capable of convincing the receivers about its everlasting worthiness and its impact on their personal lives. Morality is like the  koan  of Zen. The Bodhisattva comprehends...