The most significant changes in the attitude of parents and children occurred in the twentieth century. The time has come for international agreements, declarations, conventions and manifestos. People began to be interested in the issues of protecting human rights, women’s equality, the rights of the child, etc. The era of modern humanism, a very peculiar humanism, has come. With the movement of humanism that arose during the Renaissance, modern humanism has little in common.
How did it happen that in the 20th century adults began to pay more attention to children’s problems? Let’s remember history. Both world wars left a huge number of orphans. Many of them later turned out to be connected with the criminal world. Hard times gave birth to heroic teachers such as A.S. Makarenko and Janusz Korczak. To solve the problem, active actions at the state level were required.
In 1924 the League of Nations adopted the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child. The meaning of the declaration was that children should be provided with conditions for normal development, protected from exploitation, and supported in difficult times of trial. In 1946, the United Nations Children’s Fund was created — the organization UNICEF. Initially, the Fund was intended to help disadvantaged juvenile victims of the Second World War. Later, the organization took on the task of helping children around the world. In 1959, the UN adopted a new Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Compared to the Geneva Declaration, it stated more strongly that society should protect the child, his honor and dignity. Society must provide the child with all the conditions for his development, including food, housing, entertainment, medical care. The child should be brought up in conditions of love, understanding of friendship for the benefit of society. On November 20, 1989, the Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted. Since that time, the whole world annually celebrates November 20 as World Children’s Day.
The declarations adopted before that had a recommendatory character. Another thing is the convention, which is a legal standard. The convention states for the first time that the child has the rightand parents and the state are responsible for ensuring that this right is respected. The convention emphasizes that it is necessary to solve the problems of the child in the family.
Of course, declarations and conventions would be worthless if people’s ideas about children and their upbringing did not change. These ideas are reflected in the literature. Remember the good children’s books: «Alice in Wonderland» (Lewis Carroll, 1864), «The Adventures of Tom Sawyer» (Mark Twain, 1876) «King Matt the First. King Matt on a desert island.» (Janusz Korczak, 1923), Mary Poppins (Pamela Travers, 1934), The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery, 1945), Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945), The Kid and Carlson ( Astrid Lindgren, 1955). These are not only books for children, but also books for adults about children! Since the middle of the twentieth century, television has also joined the books: films, cartoons, children’s programs.
Teachers, psychologists and even children’s doctors began to develop new concepts for the education, upbringing and development of the child. It is now, through the labors of these people, that practical pedagogy is taking on its shape.
The costs of humanistic education
The ideas of humanism helped to cope with the prejudices of the past. However, humanism turned out to be a double-edged sword. Some modern humanists in their beliefs reach the point of absurdity.
“In Florida, Kat and Harland Barnard, parents of 17-year-old Benjamin and 12-year-old Keith, have gone on strike because their children are not helping them around the house. According to 45-year-old K. Barnard, she and her 56-year-old husband tried all methods to make children behave properly: educational posters, deprivation of pocket money, consultations with a psychologist. The drop that overflowed the cup of patience was the fact that Benjamin did not offer his mother to help mow the grass on the lawn, although she had just had an operation. A week ago, the parents set up a tent in front of the house and several slogans, one of which reads: «Parents are on strike.» They sleep on inflatable mattresses in a tent, eat barbecues and only come into the house to take a shower. Children live in the house, eat what they cook for themselves from frozen semi-finished products. The confrontation between fathers and children is watched by local police, teachers and social workers. Local law enforcement officers came to the Barnard house three times, but did not try to intervene. 17-year-old Ben is not very happy with the strike and the media attention. However, his sister says she understands her parents and intends to improve, ”the BBC reports.
Funny situation? Only not for American parents, bound hand and foot with many prohibitions. This is not only about physical punishment (by the way, if you decide to spank a child while you are in Western countries, you risk ending up behind bars). But even such punishments as depriving them of pocket money, sweets or the opportunity to play with their toys can be considered too cruel. American children know their rights. In this country, it is considered normal for children to inform on their parents. Do I need to say that raising children in many families becomes a problem?
But some parents have gone even further. Imagine a school where kids can do whatever they want: draw on the walls, ride a bike, swear. No exams, no tests. Any lesson can be skipped. A student can break a school window and will not be punished. All teachers are committed to developing children’s innate creativity. Their task is not to teach the child, but to interest.
This is not fiction, such a school really existed in the USA, in the city of Seattle. The Sea and Sand School began its work in 1970. It was an experimental project of teachers and parents who shared the common belief that a child needed freedom and should not be forced. The school was paid, the education of the child cost a tidy sum. Here are some principles that teachers and parents tried to adhere to:
- Adults They have no right to demand obedience from the child. Children should be free, and adults should treat them as equals.
- Strictly are forbidden any punishment.
- It does not follow ask children to do some work until they are 18 years old.
- Parents should not requireso that the children say «thank you» and «please» to them.
- Must not reward the child for good behavior. Reward is a hidden form of coercion.
- A child’s progress in school is his personal business, parents should not interfere in this matter.
Notice that humanistic education contains many prohibitions, it’s just that all these prohibitions are against parents. In fact, the prohibitions boiled down to the following: “If adults do not interfere, a talented creative person will certainly grow out of a child!” Here are the memories of one of the students:
If I got tired of doing mathematics, I was peacefully allowed to go to the library to compose stories. We have studied history by reproducing its most unimportant elements. Within one year we pounded corn, built wigwams, ate buffalo meat, and learned two Indian words. This was the early history of America. The next year we made fancy costumes, sculpted clay pots and papier-mâché gods. It was the culture of Greece. And a year later we were all portraying beautiful ladies and armored knights, which meant that we were studying the Middle Ages. We drank orange juice from pewter goblets, but we never learned what the Middle Ages were. They remained for me a kind of Terra Incognita.
Not teaching, but a fairy tale. Problems began a few years later, when the students were released into life. Memoirs of the same student:
When we left the walls of the school, the recent happy children turned out to be useless. We had a feeling of our complete worthlessness … Wherever we tried to enter, we inevitably turned out to be poorly prepared and insufficiently developed culturally. For some of us, real life is beyond our reach. One of my school friends committed suicide two years ago after being expelled at the age of twenty for poor performance from the weakest school in New York …
Teachers were often interested in how I managed to get into high school. However, I managed, albeit with great difficulty, to master not only high school, but also higher education (first to finish a two-year college, because nowhere did they want to accept me for a full course of study, and then New York University), testing something for science the unchanging disgust that was instilled in me at school. It still amazes me that I got a Bachelor of Arts degree and I prefer to consider myself a Bachelor of Science…
And now I understand that the real task of the school is to captivate the student with a variety of knowledge, and if it fails to captivate, then draw him into this process by force. And I’m sorry they didn’t do that to me.
The story seems sad…