I remember reciting this poem as a kid in nursery school and knew nothing of what I quoted. My fresh brain had crammed it and spat it out at the instance of Mrs. Nkuda. The poem went this way:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

When Shakespeare penned this down, he probably didn’t realize how perfectly fitted this sestet would be to describe some of the contemporary issues surrounding the process of education in much of today’s world. Unbeknownst to him, he was ordained a poetic prophet to a certain time; a time whose vagaries may have been too complex to comprehend at his time. Consequently, this poem has given me a historical frame through which I can share my thoughts on how mis-educated I feel today.

Now by ‘mis-education’ I do not mean the same thing as being uneducated. But I am speaking of a concept that encapsulates a whole process of wrong applications of the mind over time that result in a mediocre performance on life’s stage. At this stage of my life, when finding satisfaction in whatever I lay my hands to do is more than a wish, but a need, I find that I am less qualified to really get a hold of that life I so want for myself. How did this ever happen to me even after I went through formal education and doing very well at it for that matter?
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