|
What do we mean, "educating the whole child"?
There's something special about New Church schools. Maybe it's
the innocence of the school - people are conscientiously trying
to teach children the way the Lord would want them to be taught.
Children are not just our children, but the Lord's children,
too.
Much of the difficulty in modern education is caused by the
effort to teach without values. It is, in our view, a doomed
effort. There really can't be a value-free education. If a child
asks, "why do we study history?", you might say..."So that we can
learn from the successes an failures of earlier peoples". Why
should we do that? "So we can do better than they did." Why?
Well...what do you answer? So we can have more material wealth?
More power? More fairness? Less pain and suffering? Every answer
is going to reflect underlying values. There's no such thing as
value-free thinking.
The real question, then is this: What values are we going to
base our teaching on? There aren't all that many choices. If we
suppose that God doesn't exist, then we might as well teaching
our children how to get the most wealth, comfort, instant
gratification, power - whatever - for themselves. We would focus
a lot of attention on getting ahead, competition, marketable
skills and worldly success.
If, on the other hand, we start from the premise that God made
us for a reason, and that He wants to teach us truths and lead us
to good, then we have a very different school. You would expect
to find more emphasis on kindness, obedience, good manners, and
thoughtfulness. You would also expect that children would learn
about the world around them - from the standpoint of a respect
for and interest in the way things work, since they are a part of
the universe which God has made. You would also hope that the
school would teach the children about the Lord, from stories from
the Word, and from a thoughtful philosophy of education based on
His teachings. This is the kind of school we are trying to
create.
We are far from having established a perfect educational
system. It is still very much a work in progress, even after over
a century of New Church education. But we are pleased when we see
our students helping each other, working together, and growing up
nicely. We're very pleased when they come back from high schools
and colleges to visit, and to tell us that PNCS prepared them
well, for school, for work and for living a useful, happy
life.
|
So...whole children...spirit, mind and body. Without question,
the three are highly interconnected. Unlike most schools, we work
with all three.
We try to encourage healthy bodies through physical education
classes, active games at recess, class activities such as circle
games, crafts, and large scale art projects, and fairly light
homework loads.
Working with children's minds is a more subtle challenge. The
growth of the mind has been an area of particular study for New
Church educators. We've learned that four-year-olds typically
love movement, sense experiences, singing, simple tales, and lots
of hugs from their parents. Eight-year-olds will have more
ability to imagine. They'll appreciate the rich variety in skies,
and rocks, and colors, and peoples. They love stories, and
reading, and they begin to see deeper levels of meaning in
characters and events. Twelve-year-olds love learning about the
natural world, and they like to begin classifying, and seeing
geometry at work. Their social horizon broadens from the
classroom to the local community, and they get interested in
legends, and history, and heroes, and literature. This stage is a
great time for teaching science, and craftsmanship, and skills
such as mechanics, weaving, and gardening.
All these stages are part of an orderly progression, in which
the natural mind is opened, and filled with knowledges which can
later form the foundation of higher thinking, and more spiritual
awareness. The spiritual nature of children is developed by
learning stories from the Word, by imagining heaven and eternal
life, and by early efforts to live by the Golden Rule, the Two
Great Commandments, and the Ten Commandments. We therefore teach
stories from scripture to all ages, choosing ones which are
appropriate for the various age groups, and gradually building up
a sense of the continuous threads running through the Old and New
Testaments. This distinctly New Christian education is an
important foundation for later life, in which these truths will
have to be called in times of temptation and doubt.
|
