Freedom, Friendship, and a Good Education

It is a truth (sometimes inconvenient, sometimes delightful) that education alone does not guarantee either happiness or success. A diploma may open doors, but it cannot ensure that the people who walk through them will be kind, fair, or wise.

That is why schools like ours don’t just teach equations and grammar. We teach children to listen, to debate, to disagree without being disagreeable. Freedom of speech is not just for politicians and professors; it begins in the classroom, when one child raises a hand and another child learns to wait, to listen, and perhaps even to change their mind.

In a multicultural community, this becomes even more valuable. When children from different backgrounds sit side by side, they discover that freedom is not merely the right to speak one’s mind, but also the responsibility to respect another’s story. They learn that friendship grows not from sameness, but from curiosity and care.

Education, then, is not just about filling minds, but also about shaping hearts. For what use is knowledge if it is wielded without compassion? And what good is freedom if it is claimed only for oneself?

If our children can grow up learning both the confidence to think freely and the grace to live kindly, then perhaps they will do what every generation hopes of the next: build a world a little more just, a little more joyful, and a little more generous than the one they inherit.