He loved to talk, and I love to listen, specially to older people, who have so much experience!! So, we ended up chatting about a loooooot of stuff. Actually from the moment I sat till the moment we stepped out of the plane, on that cold dark gloomy evening, in that tiny scary plane.. we talked non-stop and I didn't realize how time went! (I recommend talking on the planes!)
We talked about how having a Master is really better than having a PhD when you only want to go have a non-research job in industry, and then about his trips to India, and about Indian independence (somehow he didn't expect someone of my age to know Gandhi, which is so odd because Gandhi's one of my heroes!!) and then about Pakistan's separation of India, and how the two countries killed each other's citizens for several years, and how different the two countries have become (India, democratic, Pakistan always under military dictatorship, etc.) and I asked him if he thinks the two countries will ever be friendly, and what would be the right thing to do to make things better.. would it be education? money? what?
He told me he travels a lot to many countries and in his opinion, in third world countries (India, Pakistan, and of as he thought, probably Iran too...) there's usually no one who can *not* afford sending their kids to school because of the school costs... He said education is free mostly in Pakistan and India. And I know in Iran it's free too.. He said the problem is, when a house has many kids and low income and unemployment problems among other things, the parents *need* their kids to go get some money from somewhere.. They prefer to send them over to get a job on streets, in a shop, somewhere, soon, to support the family.
For a long while, I had thought that education improves the culture and ultimately makes many positive changes in the society, and I wanted to go to Iran and while being a university professor there, start/join a non profit teaching network or something like that, and just teach underprivileged kids all around the country.. Now, I think... maybe a much better goal would be to instead **create jobs** so that the kid's mom and dad can get some constant salary, and then maybe the kids can be sent to school after all..
I know it's such a tricky complex issue.. but ultimately, it seems that just increasing the life quality of the underprivileged families might result in themselves taking care of the rest.
Sooooo, what do you guys think about this all? Anyone ever had a experience, or talked to an experienced wise person who knew about these issues? I'm inclined now to focus more on creating jobs to help the country rather than building schools and teacher networks etc. that's of course important too, you know, but I'm thinking that without taking care of the first the second would not be as effective... Any thoughts?!
P.S. Thanks for the comments guys! Artashes jan, haha answering those questions will have to wait a few years/decades! :D
P.P.S. Gosh I've missed your all!!!
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