Story of Paula Parrot

As a teacher or a parent, we always feel that the children need our continuous guidance and instructions to be on track. But our actual task is to connect the child to the meaning of his/ her child. Children are confused just like this parrot because we fail to connect them to their purpose of life as well as we do not expose them to meaningful activities.
Read the story and redesign your tasks.

“So, tell me Paula what would you like to learn?” The question startled Paula. She cocked her head on the left side and stared at her teacher. A thirty degrees tilt of her head usually gave her the perspective she needed to answer intelligently. She then cocked her head to the right side when she noticed her left side wasn’t working. She kept cocking her head hoping to shake the answer loose.

The question posed to Paula was more difficult for her to answer than “what do you want to be when you grow up?”
Adults always asked this insane question at the most awkward moments. Alive! Alive! She’d reply. She knew an answer was best when no one could argue with it. Paula thought that asking what would you like to learn was a trick question similar to “what do you do for a living?

She knew that it would take her years to find out the answer to that confusing question. After much thought Paula decided that the question was a challenge given to her to teach her to move beyond thinking. It didn’t make sense because she hadn’t learnt to think properly yet, so Paula tucked her head inside her wings and drifted off to sleep. Her teacher sang the question softly so as to disturb Paula.

“What would you like to learn Paula?” Her teacher’s persistence was too much for Paula to bear. She would have to find an inarguable answer to be left at peace. Paula ruffled her feathers, preened, turned several times on her perch and then sat very still. Finally, Paula squawked what she believed was the perfect retort- a retort based upon years of experience. “What you want me to learn-what you want me to learn.”

She waited for her teacher to move her head up and down in approval. Her teacher quickly responded “I want you to learn what you want to learn. The ball was back in Paula’s court. Paula was expecting an ordinary aviary and wasn’t prepared for her teacher’s new twist. Paula curled her claw and tucked it up into her feathers. She hoped that standing on one leg would help her gain insight into her teacher’s intolerable question. It was intolerable because it seemed unanswerable.

Paula remembered that when she was very young, she had learnt how to sit still, silent and stiff. Her next teacher insisted that she stretch her wings and participate. Paula obliged and became animated. The next year, her new teacher wanted her to learn how to behave, and the year after that she learnt lessons in corporation. By the fifth year Paula had discovered how to determine what her teacher wanted her to learn.

This was easy, she thought, for it took so little thinking. But this time she couldn’t comprehend her teacher’s true intention.
The question disturbed Paula deeply, she paced back and forth, picking and pulling at her feathers, and thought so long and hard that she began to molt. With feather’s flying everywhere, all she could say was “I don’t know. I don’t know.” “Tell me this Paula” said her teacher “what do you want to be when you grow up?” “Alive! Alive!” Paula automatically responded.

She was surprised how her teacher could ask such a silly question after her previous question, which had caused Paula so much agony. “And what makes you feel alive?” was the next unexpected question. This was a question Paula could readily answer. She had often thought of the sunsets, rainstorms, beauty and the many wonders of the Earth.
For years she had mused about fear, tears, laughter and living. She had questioned why she was alive and what would happen when she would die. She had cried about war and rejoiced about birth. She wanted to know about goodness, generosity and how to love without motive. She puffed out her feathers in pride. She was so full of life she felt she might explode. Her teacher asked her one final time “Paula what do you want to learn?” Paula now knew the answer

“How to fly! How to fly!”
Her teacher laughed a deep throaty laugh and sang:
When you will fill your mind,
With things of the heart,
You begin to soar,
For that’s wisdom’s start

-Anonymous

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