Immeasurable Need

I was talking to a friend and fellow teacher today.  We were noting the process of inanition, or lack of intellectual life or vigor, that it seems that most of our young seem to be experiencing.  This can be seen by the abysmal lack of curiostiy,  the absence of understanding, and almost complete lack of connection between a student and the content they study.  I see the latter all the time as a history teacher.  The lives of the past that we study are only so many words on a page, rather than actual people's lives.

As a new teacher, I took note that it seemed that the light of intellectual life went out in the eyes of many students between the 6th and 8th grades.  My friend, who teaches sixth grade, noted that it seemed that it is happening earlier.  We both noted that the process must start much sooner.  Minds do not starve to death overnight.

We also both noted that things do not show much chance of improvement.  Our current course has us only spending time on that which can be quantified and measured, which means we are becoming more and more fixated on what information our kids can regurgitate to us.

This is only part of the gradual slide toward an eventual disconnect between our stated goals and how we achieve them.  We say we want to educate, but this is problematic when one realizes that true education only comes when the mind is fed, and that the only food for the mind is ideas.  But how does one quantify the inspiration a child receives when they digest a great idea?

We run into another problem when we understand that education is the science of relations.  A teacher must be capable of modelling respect for the student.  The ability to relate to a student is, perhaps, more important than knowledge of the subject matter.  A good teacher is able to relate to the student as a person, not as a product.  Yet how is this ability to relate, or its benefits, measured?

Yet the obsession with standardized tests, "accountability," and measurability all start at a younger and younger age.  Kindergarten is now what first grade was when I was a child.  Yet our children are still starving.  And they will continue to starve as long as we keep them on a daily diet of information, which is to the mind what sawdust is for the stomach.

Then we will wring our hands and write books called Why Johnny Can't Think.

We must start our children on a liberal dose and variety of good ideas as soon as possible.

The Science of Relations

In our assembly-line mentality about education, the centrality of relationships is lost.  We underestimate (in fact, we hardly acknowledge) the necessity of right relationship in education anymore.  In the next few posts, I'm going to be discussing three core issues around the role of relationships in education: the relationships between 1) student and teacher, 2) student and student, and 3) student and content.

It pains me to see how "discipline" (if that's what it can be called) is handled in our school system.  It is a rule-based system that attempts to delineate exactly which behaviors are "inappropriate" and what punishment those behaviors will warrant.  Lost by the wayside is the goal of what we ultimately want to see in our children, which is not the ability to follow rules, but the ability to have empathy for those around them and, perhaps, to think of others before they think of themselves.

This rule-based discipline will never be able to teach these things, because it fails to address that right behavior is based not on a cosmic set of rules, or even a societally-agreed-upon set of rules, but it is based on whether it strengthens or weakens relationships.

When Christ is asked about the greatest commandment, what does he respond with?  Relationship.  Why is this so hard for us to understand?

A student belligerently disregards the instructions of the teacher.  The teacher sends him to the principal.  The principal then applies the appropriate discipline, given by the code of conduct, to the student.  The student takes what's coming to him and returns to the class, filled with bitterness and anger at the teacher who exerted their authority.  If he argues, we usually hurt the situation even more by, of all things, appealing to the child's self-interest!  "You will need to learn how to follow instructions when you're in college."  "You'll need to know how to submit to authority when you have a boss in a real job."  This situation is replayed countless times a week in schools all over the place.  Yet the thing that is not addressed in the child is that which is most vital!  The child has broken relationship with the teacher.  If there is not trust and good faith between a teacher and student, the whole environment is poisoned, impacting all of the students' ability to learn, the teacher's ability to teach, and the emotional health of all involved.  Until that relationship has been righted through sincere contrition and an expression of good will, then the student will not learn like they should, the teacher will care less, and the student certainly doesn't learn that their relationships with other people are by far the most important thing they can possess; far more valuable than a diploma, or a career, or money.

This is from Charlotte Mason's biography by Essex Cholmondley, written from the perspective of one of Mason's students:

"Once, and once only in my student days, was she confronted with one of those examples of youth's foolish rebellion which were commonplaces of school life in those days - her method of dealing with the situation gave me a marvellous insight into what she meant by discipline - nothing was 'done to' the offenders - we were all simply left to talk over the situation and find a solution; the offenders having time 'to come to themselves' bitterly repented, and found, I think greatly to their surprise, that public opinion had been entirely against them."

Education is a Life

"We absolutely must disabuse our minds of the theory that the functions of education are, in the main, gymnastic.  In the early years of the child's life it makes, perhaps, little apparent difference whether his parents start with the notion that to educate is to fill a receptacle, inscribe a tablet, mould plastic matter or nourish a life; but in the end we shall find that only those ideas which have fed his life are taken into the being of the child; all else is thrown away, or worse, is an impediment and an injury to the vital processes."

-Charlotte Mason, "The Draft Proof"

Informational Meeting

An informational meeting about Ambleside schools will be held on Monday, May 19th, at Brookside library, located at 1207 E. 45th Place, just off of Peoria, at 6:30 pm.  I will be there to talk about my trip to Fredericksburg's Ambleside school and the basic philosophy of a Charlotte Mason school, as well as to answer any questions anyone may have regarding these schools.  This meeting should only last for about an hour and a half.  Anyone interested in coming should contact me by messaging me on Facebook, or you can email me at dimestorephilosopher@gmail.com.

Knowledge for its own sake: Part 2

"It seems to me that education which appeals to the desire for wealth (marks, prizes, scholarships or the like), or to the desire of excelling (as in the taking of places, etc.), or to any other of the natural desires, except that for knowledge, destroys the balance of character, and, what is even more fatal, destroys by inanition that desire for and delight in knowledge which is meant for our joy and enrichment through the whole of life."

--Charlotte Mason, "Books and Things"

From the book Home and School Education