January 27- February 2, 2008 Issue |
Posted 1/22/08 at 11:26 AM
Five hundred years ago, a child was ready to start his life
at the age of 12 or 13. The Virgin Mary was about 13 or 14 when God considered
her capable of making history’s greatest act of human moral freedom.
As early as 100 years ago, the average young person was
ready to begin life at the age of 15 or 16. Most schools did not teach beyond
this age; a 16-year-old could be qualified to be a midwife, to teach elementary
school, to be the owner of a small business.
Sixty years ago, adulthood began at 18 or 19. Our
grandparents were ready to go and fight in World War II as soon as they reached
legal adulthood. Many of them left behind young wives who already had children,
and who took over most of the “men’s” work until the soldiers returned.
Today, many simple jobs require university or college
education, and increasingly young people are not ready to set out on their own,
start a family or begin a career until they are 24 or 25. Among the university-educated,
it is not uncommon to find people in their 30s who are still unmarried,
childless and waiting to “start” their lives.
Most people tacitly assume that the proliferation of formal
education is a sign of social advance. Democratic theorists have always agreed
that a working democracy requires an educated adult population, which is why
the universal franchise and universal schooling appear at a similar time in the
writings of social philosophers. It is less than useless, however, to have a
heavily schooled population if students emerge from 13 or more years of school
without an education.
There are five essential areas of education that need to
come together to make a responsible, complete adult. A quick survey of them
should suffice to tell us that there is a crisis in modern schooling that goes
well beyond the literacy crisis and the problems of sexual education.
First, an educated adult should have knowledge of the world
that he lives in.
This is particularly important in a democracy, where every
citizen is expected to be involved in the political life of the country. A
basic understanding of the political process, of the history of one’s own
country and of the world, of basic geography and a working knowledge of global
economics are all essential. These ought not to be the province of a
specialized few, and they are easy to teach.
A kindergarten child, for example, can be taught in
approximately 10 to 20 hours to identify every country in the world on a map,
yet this is material that is not taught at any level of public school in most
jurisdictions.
Without it, world history is incomprehensible, and even the
day’s newspaper can’t possibly be deciphered meaningfully.
Second, an educated adult should have a working knowledge of
the intellectual basics: not only reading, writing and arithmetic, but also
logic, reasoning and critical evaluation.
The ability to follow an argument, detect a false premise,
tell whether a conclusion is being drawn erroneously, and recognize the
difference between a rational argument and a sentimental appeal are all
essential skills.
Unfortunately, while students are expected to engage in
argument and write essays, the mechanics of rational thought are usually not to
be found in the curriculum. This state of affairs leaves children and adults
alike open to manipulation by advertising, political sloganeering and
journalistic propaganda. It produces a population unable to work out truth and
able to think only in premasticated sound-bites.
Third, education involves not only the intellect, but also
self-knowledge: the emotions and the interior life.
Self-knowledge is often given a nod in school classrooms,
but it is covered simplistically and sporadically.
Instead of learning to examine their consciences and
recognize both their faults and their strengths, students are given aptitude
and personality tests. These break kids down into a small number of
psychological stereotypes and generally give the impression that a single part
of a personality (intellect, emotion, will-power, etc.) is sufficient to form a
complete identity.
They sort kids according to the way that they would like to
think of themselves, not according to their actual strengths and weaknesses,
and they end by congratulating everyone on being naturally great, leaving
little impetus for real self-knowledge and improvement.
Fourth, a good education should inculcate in its students a
strong sense of meaning and morality.
If a student emerges from school with the sense that all
meanings are self-constructed toys that distract us from the meaninglessness of
existence, that morals are arbitrary rules designed to keep things relatively
orderly and that the best you can hope for is to have some fun before you die,
then everything else is going to fall apart.
It is no wonder that, in the absence of a solid moral
foundation, schools are awash in apathy and student misbehavior. Everything
from the epidemic of “attention deficit disorder” to the much lamented
“literacy crisis” can essentially be traced to a lack of moral foundation.
Why should a child learn the self-discipline to pay
attention to lessons if he can’t see any reason or purpose in doing so? Why
should he bother learning to read if it takes hard work and he can get away
with just watching the movie?
Finally, a student should emerge from education able to do
something.
Healthy societies function because everyone has unique
talents and abilities which they bring to the communal table. These allow
people to make their livelihoods in a way that respects and honors their
dignity, which reveals their creation in the “image and likeness of God” and
that allows them to craft their lives as a “work of art” in which every element
supports all of the others.
The fact that so many people lead fragmented existences,
where work is divided from family, and family from entertainment, and where the
whole never amounts to anything more than a tedious succession of parts, is the
highest proof that there is something wrong in our education system.
Indeed, this is the primary matter that leads to the
perpetuation of childhood: We cannot joyfully accept the responsibilities and
challenges of adult life if we do not know who we are or what we have to offer.
It is not difficult to teach these skills. However it does
require a particular attention to individual students; it requires that
teachers be allowed to harness their own strengths and abilities, that school
be a lively and organic place in which children play at being adults, in order
that they may be ready to enthusiastically assume the mantle of responsibility.
This cannot be achieved by standardized testing,
standardized curricula and standardized teaching methods, but only through a
web of relationships between the teacher, the student and the parents, so that
children graduate as fully formed adults, not frightened or confused, confident
in where they are going next.
The fact that there is a great divide between what education
ought to be and what it actually is suggests that there is someone who is
benefiting from the status quo.
In the next segment, we’ll take a look at who that is, and
how it is that they got their fingers into the minds of our kids.
Melinda Selmys is a staff writer
at VulgataMagazine.org.
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