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This article is from Today's
Native Father, issue #105, September/October, 1999. Related articles
from this issue: |
Are Your Children Getting A Quality Education? |
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It’s back-to-school time for your children. You wonder, “What kind of education are they really getting?” Even the “Christian” label on an educational program does not always guarantee quality. Professor Ed Gish of Faith Builders Educational Program writes, “The Bible says nothing about what educational methods to use. It does speak about what character we should build.” Professor William Cronon of the University of Wisconsin seems to agree. Here is his list of the ten qualities he admires most in well-educated people. How many of these is your child developing in life? 1. They listen and they hear. They can follow an argument, track logical or illogical reasoning, hear the emotions that lie beneath the reasoning, and empathize with the person who is feeling those emotions. 2. They read and they understand. Not only can they read and enjoy written material of all genres. They can “read” the forest, the wetlands, the desert, the field crops. They can recognize fine craftmanship, whether by a cabinet maker or an auto mechanic, and they can surf the World Wide Web. 3. They can talk with anyone. They can give a speech, ask thoughtful questions, and make people laugh. They participate in conversations not because they like to talk about themselves but because they are genuinely interested in others. 4. They can write clearly and persuasively. They know how to put words on paper that move the hearts of the readers. Their writing, like their conversation, is a form of “touching.” 5. They can solve a wide variety of puzzles and problems. They have the ability to look at a complicated reality, break it into pieces and figure out how it works, and put the pieces back together again in order to do practical things in the real world. 6. They respect the rigour of learning not so much for its own sake but as a way of seeking truth. They love learning, but they love wisdom more. They understand that knowledge serves values. Like the character in the comic strip, they ask, “Now that I know that, what am I supposed to do with it?” 7. They practice humility, tolerance and self-criticism. They have the intellectual range and emotional generosity to step outside their own experiences and prejudices and open themselves to perspectives different from their own. Without such encounters one cannot learn how much people differ—and how much they have in common. 8. They understand how to get things done in the world. They are determined to leave the world a better place than they found it. The power to act in the world can easily be abused. Nevertheless, we must act. So we study power and endeavour to use it wisely and well. 9. They nurture and empower the people around them. They understand that they belong to a community whose prosperity and well-being are crucial to their own, and they help that community prosper by making the success of others possible. They know that the freedom of the individual is possible only in a free community, and vice versa. What seem like personal triumphs are in fact the achievements of the community. 10. They follow E.M. Forster’s injunction, “Only connect.” More than anything, a good education enables one to see connections that allow him to make sense of the world and act within it in creative ways. An education like this is not something that anyone ever achieves. It is not tied to a particular curriculum or method. Some people display these character traits with very limited schooling. Rather, it is a way of life, a way of educating ourselves without any illusions that our education will ever be complete. Material by William Cronon condensed from “’Only Connect: The Goals of a Liberal Education”, The Key Reporter, Volume 64 Number Two. Used by permission |
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