BY FR. SHAY CULLEN
IF EVER true growth and brain-expanding experience of knowledge is ever to be imparted, the classroom experience has to change radically. It is not just the curriculum that needs to be refocused and developed, it is change that starts with the teacher and those that train them.
There must be a new purpose for teaching to impart higher values and knowledge and commitment to protect one’s human dignity, child rights and a desire in children to grow and develop through enlightened educational practices.
Teachers must do more than teach lessons at a blackboard. They must create a classroom that is secure, safe, supportive and understanding of the needs of the students. Many are deprived of those values in their own homes. The students in all grades need resilience to withstand the onslaught of the negative influence of co-students and online communication that are directly communicated through their mobile phones.
Students need guidance and a powerful, positive influencer in the person of their teachers. They need direction and teaching of values and goodness to inspire them to make good choices in their lives. Teachers must develop in their students the ability to think for themselves, to reason, to discuss issues of right and wrong. This is what develops the mind and heart, it is the essence of education, which in Latin means “to lead out, to grow.”
Moral training should be the priority. Students must be able to clearly know the good from the bad and true from false, right from wrong. They need to be inspired to choose the good and reject the evil that is striving to capture their minds and hearts.
While moral value training is essential, there are different systems of education prevailing in the world today. One group of educational leaders see education as the memorization of facts and figures. They support learning by repetition as past generations of education officials wish to preserve that tradition and practice.
One generation is a copy of the previous one, with similar interests, skills and abilities for practical application in the workplace. The students are taught to accept the conservative traditions of the past generation, unquestioning obedience, fear and respect for elders, preservation of the status quo, subservience to the social situation.
There is the other group of educators and leaders that see education as the growth and expanding of the mind and heart with the ability to embrace change. Education is in part to question and challenge prevailing attitudes and ideas and to seek creative answers for themselves. This calls for participation of the students in their own education.
Then a majority of enlightened and knowledgeable educated people knowing right and wrong, good and bad, true and false, could distinguish the good leaders and be inspired by them to choose with free will the good and reject evil. The political landscape could be changed if we have a truly educated, self-aware, reflective population. An intelligent educated person is one not just with skills and knowledge but with active self-awareness and the ability to use them for the good.
Should this kind of education ever come to humankind, there will be a kinder, more compassionate, helpful nation filled with better, happier students and people. That is the power of real education. (preda.org)/PN
