Ant and Mother
by Bounthavy Insisienmay
Ai
and Ane are brother and sister. Ai, the brother, is five years old and a bit
skinny. Ane, the sister, is three years old and quite fat. Their father works
as a government official and their mother with a private company. They live
with their grandparents in a big family.
Ai, Ane, their parents and grandparents enjoy connecting
with their relatives and other living things
around them such as animals, flowers, vegetable and trees. Their grandfather
plants orchids in front of his home office and the orchids blossom every month
throughout the year. Their grandmother plants other flowers and vegetables.
Their parents rear colorful fishes in a big concrete reservoir in front of
their grandfather’s office.
Everyday, the parents or
grandparents, together with the kids, happily feed the fishes. One morning,
grandfather and the kids were feeding the fishes as usual. But the children
dropped the feed on the ground. Accidentally, they found an ant picking up a
piece of the feed and was bringing it toward the hole. Without thinking, the
kids picked up wooden sticks and tried to hit the ant with the sticks. Their
grandfather stopped them and explained, “You should not hit or kill the ant because it might be a mother
ant who found the food to feed her children who are waiting down the hole. If
you killed their mother, her children who are waiting would cry when they could
not see their mother coming back and they would die when there will be no food
to eat. “The lives of small ants and their mother are the same as grandfather’s
life and yours. Everybody loves their own lives, performs their tasks, and
survives with nature”. “Therefore, we should not hit or kill them, but share
with them the small piece of food we have.”
Finally, Ai and Ane, satisfied and happy, did not kill the
ant and allowed it to bring the food down the hole for its children.
One day the two sisters living next door who were about
the same ages as Ai and Ane, came to play and to feed the fishes with them. The
sisters also found an ant carrying the food that was dropped on the ground.
They also picked up wooden sticks to hit the ants. Ai and Ane shouted to stop
them from killing the ant and said, “Don’t kill them. It is a mother ant
looking for food to feed its children that are waiting down the hole. If you
kill her, her children would cry like us when we do not see our mother coming
back; they love and miss their mother, just like us.”
The sisters understood and allowed the ant to carry the
food to the hole for its children.
n Rainier
A. Ibana
Ateneo de Manila
University
Mr. Insisienmay’s story is set within an ideal family context wherein
its members “enjoy connecting with their relatives and other living
things around them such as animals, flowers,
vegetables and trees.” For the Lao story
teller, all living beings, including humans, animals
and plants, are related to one another regardless of their differences. This egaligarian view of Buddhism is also a key insight towards an understanding and appreciation of
the integrity of ecological systems since ecological niches are indeed constituted by relationships
among organisms and their environments.
Buddhists also believe that human
actions on other life-forms eventually have karmic effects and counter-effects
on the actors themselves, especially human beings who have the power to
initiate deliberate acts. Aside from the
physical connectivity of all living beings, human actions, when habituated, shape the character of the acting persons which are eventually transformed
into an ethics or way of life.
Feeding
fishes, ants and children
Ecological
virtues, such as compassion and care for other life forms, are taught to the
grandchildren in the story through their morning ritual of feeding the fishes
in the reservoir in front of their grandfather’s office. The children learn
these virtues by following the daily examples shown to them by their elders. These lessons are reinforced by their
cultivation and care for the living beings in their surroundings that include flowers,
vegetables and trees, aside from the ant and the fishes in the reservoir.
By
drawing the children’s attention to their experience with their own mother who
fed and nurtured them as babies, they understood that the mother ant might be
looking for food to feed its own offspring.
The grandparents who led the way to feed fishes, their mother who fed
them while they were babies, and the ant that was supposed to be feeding its
offspring exemplify the kind of attitudes that the elders would like to impart
to their children.
The
grandfather has successfully delivered his lesson to the children by drawing a
parallelism between the children’s own situation and that of the offspring of
the mother ant. This is evident in their
subsequent ability to teach the other children who were also about to hit the
ants the following day. The real test of
learning is when students can teach others the lesson taught by their teachers .
Effective
teachers make use of familiar examples derived from their students’ experiences
and they possess the requisite skills to elevate the particularity of their
students’ situations to a level of generality that could be useful for others
who might encounter similar experiences in the future. This is achieved by pointing to comparable
situations such as the ant’s offspring, fishes and the children.
Thinking
and moral considerations
The grandfather had to remind the children of their duty to preserve and protect the life of others because they were “without thinking”. After his exhortations, however, the grandchildren understood his lessons and they were “ finally... satisfied and happy.” They did not kill the ant, allowed it to bring the fish food to its offspring and even taught other children to do the same.
The key lesson imparted to the children is consistent with the first Buddhist precept: “Do not kill.” This rule is not a mere negative injunction to inhibit violence but also a positive encouragement to enhance and to promote life because as the grandfather puts it, “everyone loves their own life.” One must therefore share with others and sustain their life as far as possible.
Buddhism teaches that deliberately killing living creatures, either by committing the act, instructing others to do, it or not stopping others from doing it, would ensnare the actor in the causal path of “brevity of life, ill health, handicapped and fear.” Promoting life, on the otherhand, “cultivates the attitude of loving kindness to all beings by wishing that they may be happy and free from harm.” [i]
The ants, with their love for life and quest for survival, are “just like us” who depend on others for sustenance. They are also capable of feeding those who are in need, if we allow them to do so. Aside from love for life, grandfather Bounthavy also taught that everyone must “perform their tasks and survive with nature.” We all have our own special place in the moral universe and if we merely do the job set before us, without transgressing on the tasks to be performed by others, we can complement and complete the harmony inherent in the natural world as depicted in the ideal family situation at the beginning of the story. Our various linkages strengthen the food webs that support the life of ecosystems where all living things belong and are interrelated. If we allow life to flourish and we refrain from killing others, the diversity of our ecological niche will flourish and we all stand to benefit from the various forms of life in our midst.
Education for Sustainable Development
The Brundtland report defines sustainable development in terms of meeting “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”[ii] “Just like us,” all living beings of the present and of the future, are basically trying to survive and to live the kind of life that we are supposed to lead. This is achieved, as grandfather Bounthavy puts it, by sharing, as much as possible, “our small piece of food we have for them.” By allowing other beings to survive and flourish, they will eventually share their goodness to us, like a causal chain of karmic events that create multiple ripples of compassion and caring for others throughout the moral cosmos.
Acts of compassion and caring therefore require an awareness and appreciation of the connectedness of all beings to one another. Everything, including garbage and pollution, must go somewhere. We are mere earthlings, dwellers within this one planet that we cohabit with others. Whatever we do to others, even to the weakest and most powerless such as fishes, ants and grandchildren, will eventually redound to us in some form or another, such as contracting diseases, hunger and other forms of retribution. Teachers must therefore continue to serve as guideposts of compassion and care for others in order to pass forward towards the future the necessary virtues that will allow for the sustainability of our living conditions.
Future generations, somewhat like fishes, ants, flowers and trees, are especially vulnerable because they cannot speak and assert their fundamental rights to exist and to live. It is therefore incumbent upon the present generation to assure that future generations can likewise, at the very least, enjoy the harmonious kind of life that they have lived along with and in relation to the other living beings in the environment.
[1] http://web.singnet.com.sg/~alankhoo/Precepts.htm
Southeast
Asian Wisdom Stories for Sustainable Development 4
Teaching Guide
Ms. Jesusa M. Antiquiera
Master Teacher II
P. Gomez Elementary School
Philippine Department of
Education
Comprehension Question
1. Who are the two children in the
story?
2. With whom are they living in their
house?
3. What do the children usually do
with their parents or grandparents?
4. What happened when they were
feeding the fishes?
5. What did they see?
6. What did they want to do with what
they see?
7. Why did their grandfather stop
them?
8. What
did they realize?
Objectives
I.
The child should be able to
A. 1. think critically, reflectively
and creatively
2. formulate and answer probing questions
3. make distinctions and connections
4. imagine new possibilities
5. identify good reasons
6. construct and analyze concepts
7. use thinking maps/graphic organizers to express thoughts, ideas
and feelings in verbal
and
non-verbal ways
B. 1. Enhance “community of inquiry”
2. share agreement/disagreement with mutual respect
and considerationSoutheast
Asian Wisdom Stories for Sustainable Development 235
II.
CONTENTS
Ant and Mother
III.
LEARNING STRATEGIES: The Ant and Mother
A. Mind-Setting
1. A. How many of you like insects?
B. What kind of insects do you like?
Why?
2. Vocabulary Development using semantic association
(survive)
3. Visualization exercise
The teacher will expose the title of the story to be read. The
students will sit back and relax. Close their eyes and imagine the main idea of
the story.
4. Sharing predicted main idea.
B. Actual Reading
of the Story
(Silent reading of the story)
C. Exploring Ideas
• Why did grandfather stop the kids from hitting the ants with the
sticks?
• Do you agree with what grandfather said that it might be a
mother who found food to feed her children and if she was killed her children
would cry because there was no food to eat? Why?
• What character traits of grandfather would you like to imitate?
Why?
• . Do you like ants? Why? Why
not?
