BY; SESHIE, STANLEY

Pluto is a familiar heavenly body or name to everyone who ever stepped
into the classroom. We know it as one of the nine "planets" of our
solar system, cemented into our memory with that old acronym; My Very
Eye May Just See Under Nine Planet. But as other heavenly bodies such
as asteroids were discovered in their numbers, having similar or
bigger sizes than pluto, yet could not be classified as a planet, the
International Astronomical Union has no option than to demote pluto
into the category of dwarf planet in 2006. So the solar system is now
made of the sun and eight planets, no longer nine. Would pluto make a
comeback as a planet again? Maybe, when the findings from NEW HORIZONS
are studied.

On 13th July, 2015, the workers of National Aeronautics and Space
Administration(NASA) of USA and the scientific community across the
globe were thrown into the rapturous mood in their various
departments. This is because the NEW HORIZON spacecraft sent to trace
the far distant dwarf planet, pluto, started beaming signals. The
well-equipped and fastest spacecraft yet, New Horizon launched in
january 2006, travelled for almost a period of ten years and covering
a distance of three billion miles in july 2015, as it get closer and
closer to its mission target, pluto. And by now, the icy mountains
pictures of pluto, among others are flooding the media in print,
visual and electronic via the internet, even as NASA indicates the
data collected so far would take sixteen months to download. This
makes the USA the first nation to send spacecraft to reach every
planet in our solar system. Is this not another feat in the cup of US,
if not the West? So what does this New Horizon flying by pluto,
beaming back yet to be studied loads of information got to do with the
Ghanaian child?

I daresay everything. It has everything to do not only with the
Ghanaian child but the adults as well. Because this is the achievement
of the human mind, and since everyone has a mind, there is the need to
remind the Ghanaian child of its capacities and capabilities. The life
of mankind is an unfolding evolving story and as mankind loves
stories, so do children. The best way to tell stories for lasting
effects are via our actions and inactions. The Africa suffering
conditions demands that we do not tell stories for the sake of telling
stories or preserving unproductive traditions as we are currently
doing with our little achieving educational system and a worldview
dominated by superstitions and irrationality, cojointly stifling our
minds and that of the children.

We must by necessity tell the story that inspires the child to uphold
that inordinate curiosity from childhood into adulthood. The story in
which the human mind is undergoing continuous proper cultivation and
refining via our actions and inactions, for the progress of mankind in
this world filled with challenges and uncertainties, is what we must
begin to tell. That is the story of science, for when the curiosity of
a child is upheld by education in and by such a story, the thinking
capability of the child is nourished.

For instance, how marvelous for the child to know that the difference
between throwing a pebble and toys up, and NASA sending spacecrafts
into the heaven is not of a kind but degree, as far as the laws
governing their motions are concerned? And, that, the pebble falling
down to earth is the same as the New Horizon spacecraft continuing its
three billion miles journey to pluto, beaming such stunning pictures.
In other words can't we find enough inspirational stories from the
practical achievements of the human mind in mathematics, astronomy,
medicine, health, transportation, communication, architecture,
politics and other impressive unmentioned feats to keep the curiosity
of the Africa child alive?

Why do we keep filling our children minds via our actions and
inactions with superstitious, uninspiring and primitive stories of
bible, quran and tradition with respect to events that never happened,
and there is no chance of ever replicating them in reality, unlike in
the sciences. How do the alleged miraculous stories of those
encyclopedias of superstition and ignorance called holy books inspire
a child and sustain the curiosity needed to think? Why do we still
tell our children there are witches, demons, angels, prayer is the
key, miracle is the rule among other myraids of them?

Any wonder that ours are children fossilized in a tomb of unrealistic,
uninspiring and primitive stories of bible, quran and tradition with
no hope in sight for excavation. Whilst others grow up in an
environment saturated with realistic, modern and repeatable stories of
space exploration and innovations among others that keep nurturing
their childhood curiosity into adulthood till they pratically become
result-oriented thinkers to initiate and sustain the developmental
aspirations of their nations politically, intellectually,
scientifically and economically. Any wonder?

Every now and then the Africa youths are told that they are the future
leaders. But what kind of future leaders do we expect of the Africa
child growing in a milieu of these curiosity crippling as well as
corruption and incompetence filled stories, demonstrated daily by our
actions, if not same? Even the few in the multitudes that might rise
above this sordid Africa system might be fustrated by it as
development needs corporation of leaders and followers.

The only way to develop Ghana and the Africa continent is to
demonstrably write the real intellectual, social, political and
scientific inspirational stories of the human mind by our actions for
easy emulation by our children. Let our stories keep aflame their
childhood curiosity in throwing pebbles to adulthood of sending
spacecrafts into the deeper unexplored places of the universes. No
curious person is a fool. Knowingly or unknowingly, the actions of the
African adults defining the Africa story are suffocating and
destroying the curiosity that could ignite the thinking potentialities
of the Africa child.

Email; seshiehanku@gmail.com

Whatsapp; 0508951323