Parents Are Peacemakers (6 of 7)

We’re almost finished with this series!  This part expands upon the oft repeated concept of “how much does the student care?” in a lovely way.

“Charlotte Mason taught that the important question to ask about an educated boy or girl is not “What exams can he or she pass?” but “What does he care about and how much does he care?” Is it of any use to a person to know about many things and to care about none? However well educated that man seems to be, he is only half alive. A good education ought to help each person to be fully alive.”

Fully alive. Quite a different goal than other educational philosophies. I think the St. Irenaeus quote works well here – “The glory of God is man fully alive.”

Teaching from peace,

Nancy

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V. THE FOURTH NEED: TEACHING.

Synopsis:

(1) There is much to learn, everyone needs teaching, but why raise the school

age?

(2) At school there is useful learning and subjects which seem unnecessary.

(3) The question is “How much does he care?”

Discuss: children’s differing home interests.

School teaches what there is in the world to care about. Two kinds of

living to be earned:

(a) the means of daily living,

(b) a living in the mind.

Discuss: children’s school interests, favourite books, etc., in grown-up life,

adult education.

(4) School and home must co-operate.

Discuss: Parents’ Associations and Clubs, Local possibilities.

1. How much there is to be learned all through life. If a list were made of all the things that had to be learned by one of us in a single year, our hearts would fail us. Some things we have to find out for ourselves, for instance, how to get on well with Mrs. P. next door. Other things are learned from the radio, the papers, lectures, meetings. Sometimes there is something which must be done and we are at our wits’ end to know how to do it. Then we long for a teacher, for someone to explain clearly the how, why, when and where of it. Everyone needs teaching. Education does not stop when school is left behind, we pass on to new needs for teaching in workshops, at home in field or mine or factory.

It is probable that in the years to come a longer part of everyone’s life will be set aside for the kind of teaching that is found in the schools. Why should the nation ask for a new Education Bill? What is the use of so much schooling? Why trouble to make so big an effort in expenditure and energy?

Some people would answer: “I want my boy to have longer at school in order that he may have a chance to get on. I want him to do well and to earn a good living later on.” Others say: “Raise the school age and there will be more employment,” or “If the boys and girls of fifteen and sixteen are at school they will keep out of mischief.” But the greater number think: “If my boy stays on longer at school he will learn more of the things everyone ought to have the chance to know and which he cannot know unless he has good teachers and time in which to learn.

2. What will he learn at school? School teaches useful things, reading, writing, sums, languages, mathematics, science, bookkeeping, dressmaking.

They also teach many things which do not seem useful or necessary: music, art, nature study, history, poetry, handwork. Why spend valuable time on these?

3. Charlotte Mason taught that the important question to ask about an educated boy or girl is not “What exams can he or she pass?” but “What does he care about and how much does he care?” Is it of any use to a person to know about many things and to care about none? However well educated that man seems to be, he is only half alive. A good education ought to help each person to be fully alive.

Children differ in what they care for. Some are practical, like making and doing things. Some love to be outdoors, poking about in hedges and fields and woods. Does your boy love machinery? or books? Has he a cherished knife, or a pencil, or a cycle? What does he really care about?

Discussion on children’s home interests.

School, besides teaching what is useful, introduces people to the things which have been found to be of value to men and women of all ages and races. Every person needs to care, needs to have a purpose in life. Good teachers show their scholars the things for which it is good to live, John’s special thing to John, Mary’s special thing to Mary. They put them in touch with the great heritage of mankind, the poems, the books, the art, the science, the mathematics, the music which has been handed on from the present and the past. Hungry minds need these things. Home can do much to supply this need but trained teaching is also necessary. For instance, at home the family like to sing together. At school there will be voice training, part singing and musical appreciation. At home there will be favourite books and pictures. At school, each week should bring new discoveries in writing and in art as in many other things. Discovery, every school life should mean that. People have gifts and abilities, are quick at this and slow at that. They have to find out their own things, their own special ways of life. They have to earn two kinds of living—one brings in a wage with which to supply the needs of everyday life, the other brings in thoughts and ideas and knowledge with which to supply the needs of eternal life. Both must be worked for, earned.

Mary shows great care and patience in all illness, whether in one of the family or in an animal—she wants to become a nurse. That will be her way of earning her daily living. Yes, but she also discovers at school that she can understand her science teacher, can remember details and experiments and what they prove. She works hard at this. At home, too, she never misses anything on the wireless which can help, asks her Father many questions about his work at the factory and so on. Hardly an interest for a girl. Will it be of any use to her? Perhaps not, yet the study of science gives Mary a sense of laws at work, of the wonder of order and process, of the thrill in experiments carried patiently through to new knowledge—it gives her another kind of livelihood, for science supplies her with thoughts of law and fills her mind with wonder.

It is the things for which we care which are our livelihood, life comes to us through them. Many people seem to care about far too little. This is partly through laziness, but largely because they have never discovered the things which belong to their livelihood of mind, they have never found out how to work for this kind of living and so they are paupers or beggars. It is as though they lived in their own neighbourhood yet never came to know their friends and relations. Every one of us has relations to discover, friends among the poems, the art, the music of all ages, relations among the great men and women and the philosophers who used other languages or who lived in other times. We have to get to know them through hard work, then we grow to care for them, learn more and more about them, respect or reverence their work. We feel akin to one here, one there, find out that they speak to us and we understand them as friend to friend and in so doing we live and grow up and earn a living of the mind. The

things we care for give growth to our minds and forceful direction to our purposes. All education should help us in these two things—growth and purpose—helping us to find who and what to care for, who and what are our relations. School comes to every growing person holding out the help of good teaching in many directions. Boys and girls go to school in order to gain their two kinds of living.

Discussion on children’s interests, what they care for in school lessons: instances of favourite books, etc., in grown-up life. What grown-ups care to learn about. Lectures, study groups, Women’s Institutes, “Adult Education.”

Children learn other things at school. They have to be taught how to behave in community life, must learn how to get on well with other people, how to say no and when to say yes. They have to meet many suggestions and temptations, it is not easy for them to stand out, to refuse to be led away from what they know is right. Parents and teachers must work together; a word at home to a child about his behaviour at school often counts more than a talk at school. Many schools have regular parents’ meetings where Fathers, Mothers and teachers can come together for friendly discussion and to explain difficulties. Others have started parents’ clubs with the same objects. So much training depends upon the home. For instance, a boy may be encouraged at school to make steady effort and to see a piece of work through to the end. At home, perhaps, his Father and Mother are not aware of this particular piece of training. The boy begins this and that and sets them aside unfinished. He may learn to complete his school tasks but it is his home that will have the longest influence on his life and training. If his parents allow unfinished work this is what the boy will continue to allow himself and the school training is useless to him.

If parents and teachers understand each other and work together, there will be no more “Teacher says this but Father says that” to puzzle a child. “At school we must have good manners but at home it doesn’t matter.” The children should grow up knowing that their parents see eye to eye with their teachers in things which really matter.

Discussion on Parents’ Associations.

Future educational plans will raise the school-leaving age, will provide Colleges and centres where older men and women may attend lectures and classes. Teaching should be easy to come by in the future. Will the most needful teaching of all be there to find? Teaching about God? Teaching about our own human nature? Without these no amount of education can satisfy our restless minds. The mind of man seeks here and there and finds no peace until it finds Christ, His teaching, His healing, His feeding and His Leadership.

Parents Are Peacemakers (1 of 7)

Parents Are Peacemakers (2 of 7)

Parents Are Peacemakers (3 of 7)

Parents Are Peacemakers (4 of 7)

Parents are Peacemakers (5 of 7)

Parents are Peacemakers (6 of 7)

Typed by the Charlotte Mason Poetry transcription team.