Teaching Our Two Year Old

I am talking about our Children. Yes the Children of this Nation: Bhutan. You start writing and you start observing. This article in no way is intended to hurt the sentiments of any reader. I was travelling and I guess travelers are actually the observers and writers. Our kids have already started complaining that Dzongkha is too hard to learn and Dzongkha cannot be their favorite/best subject. Some parents in the fear of failing in the subject have started taking Dzongkha self tutor for their children. Self tutor is only possible for our high income parents, not for commoners!
Being born and brought up in a remote village I used to envy our cousins and relatives who used to speak English so perfectly while me on the other hand had tough time blurting a single line. I am not claiming that I speak and write perfect Dzongkha. I am no good either but I think we will be failing as citizen if I do not write it here. I am writing my observation.
“Aie, afi gachi mo (ཨའི་ཨ་ཕི་ག་ཅིག་མོ?)” meaning “Mom, What is that?” To that question the mother replied “horse and cow” I think the child that was questioning was no older than two years. Yes! To the other side of the road there were horses and cows. Then there is another incident that took place in book store at Thimphu. The child was no older than three years and doing some mischief when the mother came out of corner shouting “Baby, don’t do that. Go outside”. I was merely an observer but I was like since when did Thimphus’ language change. Then later I was cursing the unknown mom to my friend that she should have at least acted like she was in Bhutan. Good thing, we discussed that we will teach our children our language.

I know these incidents are minor and have no logic for me to be complaining but I believe that our future citizens and leaders are going to be the children who are two and three right now. What if they grow up not knowing “Ba” as cow and “Ta” as horse? What if they continue teaching another generation the same as we did to our two and three year old? The language, culture and traditions that bind us as Bhutanese would be lost forever. A nation without identity is no nation. For Bhutanese Language “DZONGKHA” is one of our unique identities. What are we teaching our children? Where are we taking our nation as a citizen? What are we doing as a parent?