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Kennedy Buhere   

Ben Carson’s Gifted Hands and Think Big have been the favourite books for children born in the 1990s and beyond.

Going by the career preferences of most of them, there is probably no other inspiring book —fiction or no fiction—this generation has read.

Most students who top KCPE express interest in becoming neurosurgeons—courtesy of having read the books, whose author is a neurosurgeon of renown in the USA—thanks, partly to his bestselling books.

In many ways, the two books are inspiring. They are built around anecdotes from Dr Carson’s life.

There are two most memorable episodes inThink Big that I personally remember, having read the two books.

The first incident or episode is where Sonia, Carson’s mother, says that rich people, including their children, do not spend their free time watching television. They spend time reading culturally-rich stuff or visit culturally-rich sites.

The second is where Carson happens to be the only student having an answer to a question a teacher asked students in a Geography lesson.

Earlier, he had followed his mother’s exhortation to spend more time on books than watching TV, by enrolling in the community library.

The library not only expands his knowledge  and helps him shoot from the bottom ranks of the class to the top.

It is such stories that help children and students find meaning in learning, and ultimately in life. 

I, however, have three difficulties with the Carson books. The first is that nearly all the students who read the books end up with one ambition: to become a neurosurgeon, like Carson.

There is a pompous streak, a celebrity in the two books. Today, children want to be celebrities.

Current generation likes pomposity; they see neurosurgeon, vide Carson’s projection of it as fitting this bill!

The second shortcoming in Carson’s work is that he mentions  his mother as the only figure who influenced his life. Nowhere does he mention any other personage as having influenced him.

It is said that it takes a village to raise a child. Our parents may have shaped us. But they are not the only people who are solely responsible for what we become.

The third shortcoming is that Carson projects an impression of self-satisfaction—“you see I have arrived” life” attitude.

Truly great men harbour doubts about the ultimate meaning of life and continue questioning things, systems and institutions.

They even question themselves. They appreciate the ambiguities inherent in life.

In biographies, I have came across many people who who shaped the life of the great men and women.

The influences came from the people they interacted with— teachers, uncles, grandparents, aunts.

Other influences truly great people cite are the books they read while they were young or when they had come of age.

I have in mind Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, Booker T. Washington’s Up From Slavery, Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, Mohandas Gandhi’s An Autobiography: The Story Of My Experiments With Truth, Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Helen Keller’s The Story of My Life.

One reads hesitancy, humility, and a self-effacing nature in the lives of these men and women. However one does not find this this humility and self-effacing traits in Think Big and Gifted Hands. You feel certainty. No regrets.

Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s novel Weep Not Child enabled me to appreciate the value of education.

The value of education, Weep Not Child taught me, lies in giving children knowledge, power and influence to change the world. 

Quality education imparts knowledge and develops skills, values and attitudes in the learner. It also develops technical skills that one can sell to earn a living.

But it must also give the child a purpose beyond his mortal power so that he can help make the world a better place than he found it. — The writer is communications officer, Ministry of Education