The meaning of Life

The meaning of Life

As an English teacher I am required, of course, to teach English. Nevertheless, I can and do go far beyond that in order to stimulate interest and productive interaction amongst students, to develop critical thinking and creative endeavour, to offer ample and varied perspectives about many of life’s basic skills and needs – basically, to help students become self confident and capable adults (I also teach adults, but in this case I am referring specifically to my teenage students). Since these students are at an Advanced Level of English there are numerous themes we can breach and a multitude of tasks that are used to develop language skills.

One of these tasks is writing Essays, which are in this case part of the curriculum. I do my best to find themes that may be both challenging and interesting, using a variety of resources. In this case I am going to share with you, we viewed a short video of a presenter answering a six year old child, and the question was: “What is the meaning of life?”

We did severeal different exercises derived from this video and for homework the students had to write an Essay discussing the following:

“What would you answer if a six year old child asked you what is the meaning of life?”

Listening to the speaker’s answer on the video and working on that was quite alright, but them having to come up with an answer themselves was another issue. Some said it was the hardest thing they ever had to write J

For me it was quite interesting to see how teenagers view the meaning of life. Here are some of the answers (the writing is 260 words long – these are just the parts that answer the question directly):

“I think that the meaning of life is to enjoy yourself and create a good environment for the next generation.”

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“I like to think that we are the ones that give meaning to our lives. The way we live it and look ati t are crucial aspects and guidelines to the meaning we decide to give it. I believe the biggest purpose while we’re alive is to live a life we’ll remember and enjoy it to the fullest. If we live according to our beliefs and dreams, we have already given some meaning to life.”

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“I have learned that life is not about finding yourself, or finding your purpose. It is, really, about creating yourself, creating your destiny. If you are inspired by yourself and by your life, you will inspire others.”

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“It is important to have a happy life to the fullest, helping others, doing what’s right because that is the true meaning of life. Deep down the true purpose of life is to be happy and make others around you also happy.”

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“Just explore and question everything, do things you wouldn’t do on a daily basis so you find the true meaning of life.”

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“It might not always seem clear, but if you can find joy and happiness in simple but powerful things, that is the meaning of life. Whenever you find yourself annoyed or worried about something, remember: everything happens for a reason, which you don’t necessarily need to know. You just need to be.”

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There are more but I have already handed them in! So here is a sample which may be helpful to someone out there. Who knows? ;)

Many “I Love Yous” my dear readers J