Back to school!
Have you ever thought of education as an emergency service? You should. Education is the foundation of all change at a personal and community level. It is the antidote to riots, the motivation behind climate change and the only guarantee of a quality of life for all. Educators returning to school this week have the task of giving future generations new reasons for living and hoping. Pope Francis puts it this way:
To educate is always an act of hope, one that calls for cooperation in turning a barren and paralyzing indifference into another way of thinking that recognizes our interdependence.[1]
This approach including cooperation, warmth and interdependence can provide the tools for pupils to build a better world. It couldn’t be more important. Without the educator’s careful work, young people will not have the skills to sift the truth from the manipulations of social media. Without their teachers, pupils will not gain the qualifications to influence future organisations. Without the care of mature teachers young people will not have models for how to become a balanced adult influence on their network of relationships.
It’s time to take this longer and wider view of the vocation of education in our society. The word education means “to draw out”, to discover and develop gifts that we will need in our future as a community and nation. It is a vital treasure hunt to equip ourselves for a time of change, to build critical thinking and to embed adaptability. It is also a time to move the focus from mechanical learning to meaning-seeking. Finally, educators build community. The school models a way of living and working together that shapes the expectations and develops the relationship skills pupils will need to live generously for others.
This wider view of education sounds like pure fiction when we look at our schools today as they seek targets and measure their inputs and outputs in terms of test scores. It is easy to lose that sense of a relational experience that draws out the gifts and motivations of students. It’s easier to see the school as a factory, producing units and cohorts of learning for the economy of the country. That aspect is important for the pupils and for the country. Qualifications are the bedrock of modern economies; we cannot do without them. However, if that is all we are doing in school we have probably abandoned education in favour of instruction. We have become programmers of young minds rather than nurturers of knowledge. We have created a failing model of education. Sir Ken Robinson, reflecting on this theme wrote:
We have to go from what is essentially an industrial model of education, a manufacturing model, which is based on linearity and conformity and batching people.
We have to move to a model that is based more on principles of agriculture.
We have to recognize that human flourishing is not a mechanical process;
it's an organic process. And you cannot predict the outcome of human development.
All you can do, like a farmer, is create the conditions under which they will begin to flourish.[2]
There is an optimism built into this farming image that Don Bosco would applaud. He believed that there is a deep goodness and richness in young lives that will emerge if we can create the right environment. He established a safe nurturing space called the oratory where young people could develop their skills, explore their sense of self, and find meaning and purpose. That model was captured in the four words Don Bosco used to describe that nurturing ethos: it was a home, a school, a playground and a church. These four aspects were woven into the Don Bosco’s way of working and each aspect was at work in every activity. It was an organic model nurtured by educators who recognised the individuality of each young person and respected their gifts, their rates of growth and their individual back stories.
This is the kind of education that is favoured by the Catholic church. It is inclusive, respecting the person and leading to fullness of life. It is modelled on the person of Jesus and the values of the Gospel in which fears are put aside, the lost are found and people are called into the fullness of life’s mystery. This approach, without abandoning the importance of qualifications, is what will strengthen young people for their future challenges, protect them from exploitation and allow them to take a deeper plunge into life’s meaning and into the mystery of God. That is why education is an emergency service. It is saving, protecting and nurturing the future of humanity to meet the challenge of a war-torn, overheating world that is technically accelerating beyond our own ability to adapt as human beings.
Catholic schools are the antidote to fears about the future. They will model the caring, nurturing and meaning-seeking skills we need to build safe and life-giving communities. Welcome to another year of emergency service!
[1] L’Osservatore Romano October 16th 2020
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