Revisiting a Minefield--Part 6
My voluble critic of several decades ago carefully distinguished between the things parents should and should not do by stating that they were responsible for moral training but should not teach academics. He didn't clarify the role of classroom teachers this carefully. Reading between the lines, however, I wondered if consistency would demand that classroom teachers should guard against venturing into the area of moral instruction, in the same way parents apparently were expected to guard against venturing into the academic areas.
It didn't take long for this line of reasoning to run aground. Knowledge is best viewed as a unified whole and cordoning certain areas off with attendant prohibitions is ridiculous, unless the content of that knowledge is itself harmful. I could not, in fact, observe such boundaries within my own person. Before I had children I had been a classroom teacher for five years and had earned a degree in elementary education. After I became a parent, was I then suddenly an unfit academic teacher? I could teach anyone else's children. Why not my own? As a classroom teacher, I had always regarded moral training as an important and sacred duty. If my children had a classroom teacher, I certainly hoped they would include moral instruction in their teaching. Closely examined, the ridiculous dichotomy turned out to be impossible practically as well.
The whole line of reasoning began to look chauvinistic--as though mothers must do all the "grunt" work of raising children, maintaining saintliness throughout and bestowing it upon their children, but they can not be trusted with anything that requires a brain. A spirit and body? Yes. A mind? Don't go there.
Recognizing the unity of all knowledge proved helpful in fleshing out understandings about child training. If parents are primarily responsible for training their own children, and if training is essentially inculcating knowledge (wisdom--when embraced and applied), and knowledge is a seamless whole, then parents are absolutely legitimately involved in teaching their children academics, as well as truth in any other area of life.
Prospects began to look very bright for a rewarding motherhood.
It didn't take long for this line of reasoning to run aground. Knowledge is best viewed as a unified whole and cordoning certain areas off with attendant prohibitions is ridiculous, unless the content of that knowledge is itself harmful. I could not, in fact, observe such boundaries within my own person. Before I had children I had been a classroom teacher for five years and had earned a degree in elementary education. After I became a parent, was I then suddenly an unfit academic teacher? I could teach anyone else's children. Why not my own? As a classroom teacher, I had always regarded moral training as an important and sacred duty. If my children had a classroom teacher, I certainly hoped they would include moral instruction in their teaching. Closely examined, the ridiculous dichotomy turned out to be impossible practically as well.
The whole line of reasoning began to look chauvinistic--as though mothers must do all the "grunt" work of raising children, maintaining saintliness throughout and bestowing it upon their children, but they can not be trusted with anything that requires a brain. A spirit and body? Yes. A mind? Don't go there.
Recognizing the unity of all knowledge proved helpful in fleshing out understandings about child training. If parents are primarily responsible for training their own children, and if training is essentially inculcating knowledge (wisdom--when embraced and applied), and knowledge is a seamless whole, then parents are absolutely legitimately involved in teaching their children academics, as well as truth in any other area of life.
Prospects began to look very bright for a rewarding motherhood.
posted by Mrs. I (Miriam Iwashige) at
11:48 PM
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