Family and school
Media
Part of Panorama
- Title
- Family and school
- Language
- English
- Source
- Panorama Volume XVII (Issue No.8) August 1965
- Year
- 1965
- Subject
- Home and school
- Parent participation in education
- Parent-teacher cooperation
- Rights
-
- Abstract
- The uses and purposes of school as against the family.
- Fulltext
- ■ The uses and purposes of school as against the family. FAMILY AND SCHOOL The fullest aim of educa tion cannot be fulfilled through limited learning on ly in science or technology, or even in exclusively hu manistic or cultural areas. In the pre-highly specialized stages of education, the school’s aim should be to synthesize knowledge of this world's elements with equal depth-proving of spiritual va lues. The* richness of train ing in natural truth should be matched by proportionate training in the theologcial truth for the cultivation of Divine insights and a sound conscience. Can the school cultivate these ends by itself? Tho roughly dedicated as the school may well be to the foundations of society in truth, to the requirement of justice and to the embrace and driving force of love, and the glories of freedom, the school may well be a voice crying in the wilderness. The teachers — the great and distinguished teachers — hold a detached, norma tive, and critical position in society. They cannot enforce the truth; they can teach it well and the students can learn it intellectually. But there is no assurance that the student will live it. Teacher’s influences can readily be neutralized at the heart of the society — the family. Or from the .start, the drive and power of the school may be frustrated by the arm and the milieu, of which the school servant of society — the gov ernment. Likewise the total is a part (especially, is a si lent and frustrated part), may lack understanding or the will to demand comprehen sive learning of the schools, and thereby compound the evils. Schools and teachers are ultimately dependent. The bedrock foundation of all is the family. We often speak 62 Panorama of the school and the family being counterparts, and so they are. But each is an en tity and cannot be confused with the other. Each has its power and responsibilities, but in all they must coordi nate their initiatives. The family presumes an internal unity for the phy sical, moral, social and intel lectual growth of the young sters so that they assume res ponsibility according to their years. The family is the first school for the child’s self-control, emotional ma turing, or the exercise of initiatives, and the achieve ment of a value code. The family provides a background for the child’s achieving knowledge. Atti tudes and motivations are molded within the family circle: attitudes to know ledge, to people, to natural and other projects, to human activity, to personal choices and their effects on others, and to decisions. Above all, the family’s fundamental gift to the child is stability and the solidify ing assurance of love, lack of which education cannot in sure a steady and balanced progress in the child. That seems jtist to absolve the school and the teachers from all responsibility for the outcome of their minis trations! But not quite. The school is the scene of the child’s first prolonged and continuous excursion in the world outside the family circle. The good school is ordered to such discipline and social relations as to favor gradual learning ac cording to the abilities of the pupil. The school should present a comprehensive pro gram with aims that are tes table, and as well have the means in equipment and library to achieve these ends. The school will naturally require favorable conditions for leaning on the part of the student, such as intellectual effort and success, active par ticipation in the learning pro cess, value judgments, self control, initiatives, etc. The school’s function is to arouse and develop these characteris tics in the students also. — By Rev. Augustine Philip, FSC. August 1965 63