CM Not sure I agree

[malakoa]

21. A Scheme Of Educational Theory - Children of different social classes have different educational needs, but all need habits for character training and ideas for inspiration.

Why would they have differing educational needs?

22. A Catechism of Educational Theory - Replacing good habits for bad ones builds character and is the main task of education. Discerning good and bad ideas and choosing the good ones is the goal of education.

What about the love of knowledge? What about learning for learning's sake?

18. Feelings Educable by Parents - Parents should gently make children feel pleasure or remorse for behavior, and parentalexample should make children feel reverence for God.

How is this congruous with GBD?

[Leslie]

21. A Scheme Of Educational Theory - Children of different social classes have different educational needs, but all need habits for character training and ideas for inspiration.

Why would they have differing educational needs?



That section goes on to explain that children of the lower classes - I'm guessing we'd be talking about the kind of children that Montessori tested her theories with, who were left to fend for themselves while their mothers went to work in factories - would need to learn vocabulary. They'd have to start with the very basics because they had been deprived of the parental interaction that fosters learning. But it would be a waste of time to do that with children from homes where parents had spent time talking and explaining things with them.

In Jane Healy's book Endangered Minds, she says that some inner city kids arrive at school without ever having been exposed to books - they can't even grasp the concept that pages of black squiggles are words, or that the spaces between the groups of squiggles signify different words. They need time to understand the concept of what a book is before they can even begin to learn to decode and read. But to hold back all the kids and require that they all spend time discovering what a book is and how it works would be a waste of time for a child raised by parents who read to him.


22. A Catechism of Educational Theory - Replacing good habits for bad ones builds character and is the main task of education. Discerning good and bad ideas and choosing the good ones is the goal of education.

What about the love of knowledge? What about learning for learning's sake?


Ultimately, the goal of education is to produce a child who chooses the right thing and follows through with it. It's not the only goal, but it's the most important one. What benefit is it to raise a person who loves books and has a thirst for knowledge if he lives a depraved life? She does address love of knowledge and learning for learning's sake (over and over and over again!), just not here.


18. Feelings Educable by Parents - Parents should gently make children feel pleasure or remorse for behavior, and parental example should make children feel reverence for God.

How is this congruous with GBD?


I don't know that GBD is inconsistent with feeling guilty and sorry over wrong-doing. Guilt and conscience were given to us by God; if a child can commit a secret sin and feel no remorse, that seems to me to be a bad sign. It's remorse that motivates us to repent, restore, ask forgiveness, etc.

[Strumbelina]

Leslie,
You addressed those questions very nicely. Thank you!

[malakoa]

as a public school teacher for five years, i feel like an idiot for not recognizing the truth behind the different students having different needs.

thanks for your answers! oh, and your patience.

[Strumbelina]

:hug Well I'm glad you asked the questions, I had never really thought of the different needs either.