Carey Smith on Learning from the Past
December 30th, 2009I recently spent time in New Delhi, India and I was fortunate to be hosted for a lunch at a traditional Indian restaurant.
When you are in someone else’s country you are effectively in someone else’s culture. We got to talking about languages and the traditions that surround the use of language. Over the past 10 years English has become a preferred teaching language in India, to the stage where many parents who can afford it send their children to international schools to ensure their children have exposure to English.
The interesting point about this is that when a generation is being taught a new language then the gap between the generations becomes wider. But from talking with my hosts, there is an upside and that is the desire to understand culture has never been greater. His children want to know and ask a lot of questions about Hindu traditions and they want to learn more about what their parents and grandparents have done in the past. Is the past considered important enough to the future?








