Which educational system to choose? What to focus on in this choice, and in general, who said that education must necessarily have a system?
In the late 1970s, I happened to attend a meeting with the authors of the then popular system of family education, in which many things seemed very reasonable, but the system as a whole was somewhat alarming, and I could not catch what exactly. At the meeting, I realized: I lacked a soul in it — it was something like a charter of educational service and promised too much, and the numerous supporters who had gathered were aggressively intolerant of any doubt in it as the only true teaching. I saw something similar in connection with other systems — from the fashionable “according to Dr. Spock” to God knows what. Each of them has its own precise observations, highlights and interesting finds. But all these wonderful things in themselves run the risk of not working or turning into their opposite as soon as they become part of a rigid system.
Young mother and father are cute guys with a two-month-old baby and a heavy conflict between themselves. She prepared for motherhood, read a lot and found out that if you indulge the crying of a child, he «sits on his neck.» Husband’s attempts to take the small one in his arms when he cries lead to scandals. As we speak, weeping is heard from a bag on the sofa. The mother yells at her husband, who has moved towards the baby. May I ask you to hold the baby? He instantly calms down in his arms, and in the meantime I tell him how and why this is vital for him, and pass the bag to dad. His mother intercepts him and, with obvious pleasure, presses him to her: «I was sure that it was impossible.»
- Julia Gippenreiter: «Follow the child and help him grow»
The system is always part of the culture. Among the Japanese, for example, boys do not know the prohibitions of adults. Here is a story from the internet. On the bus, the kid sitting behind the woman with obvious pleasure crawls with dirty boots on her light coat. She asks her mother to somehow calm him down and hears in response about upbringing according to the Japanese system. A young man moving towards the exit takes out a chewing gum from his mouth, with the words “I was also brought up according to this system,” sculpts it on his mother’s forehead and leaves. Not the most polite, but a convincing lesson for a mother. And here’s a bus scene in Japan. The father reads the newspaper, the kid again and again demands candy from the bag in his father’s hands, then breaks into a roar. Father gets up, walks around the bus with a bag, treats passengers, returns with an empty bag, sits down and unfolds the newspaper. No indulgence, no word of prohibition, no note of condemnation. A great lesson for a boy. To educate in a Japanese way, you need to be, as it were, a little bit Japanese and hope that those around you — education is not closed within four home walls — will support you in one way or another.
All systems are well-intentioned, so why this one and not another? Rational arguments explain this only partly, and it is easier to explain than to understand. To understand, one has to ask oneself: why do I, what does this system give me — just me? The truth is that we choose the system primarily for ourselves. We console the pain of the memory of our difficult childhood … we sanction the discharge of some emotions, and then — which ones … we increase our own self-esteem … we calm our fears … etc. etc. I do not mean that you need to uproot something from yourself or break yourself. But awareness of this side of the choice, even if it is not always easy, helps to use our life experience more productively, and not to twitch on the strings of our complexes. It makes us freer and sincere in communicating with the child. And finally — it frees the child from the role of hostage to our needs and problems. The choice of the system «on its own» has another important side. For example, education with a high stake on communication — to be among people, the soul of the company, etc. — can be very difficult for a couple of quiet stay-at-homes and require finding a style that will be good for the child and not overstrain themselves.
- Where do bad kids come from?
«Golden Key» — knowledge and acceptance of the child as he is, helping to build a system «according to the child.» No matter how much you feed a hare with meat, you will not grow a lion out of it. I would say that education in spirit, which makes the system alive both for us and for children, turns it into an instrument of love.
Education according to oneself, according to the child, according to the spirit.