Education for Life: Preparing Children to Meet the Challenges (Continued)


Please note direct word-for-word quotes from Education for Life are indicated by single quotation marks.

Chapter 4: How Progressive, Really, Is “Progressive”? (Education needs to help children progress from immaturity to maturity throughout the different stages of their lives)


'It seems obvious that the learning process should take one from somewhere to something: from relative ignorance to relative understanding.'

Many people 'imagining children to be already fully aware regarding basic issues of behavior and belief, let them grow up without guidance in these crucial matters. As a result many of them later on in life remain emotionally immature and without faith in anything or anyone.'

Life has meaning and 'a growing child needs faith in that meaning just as urgently as he needs air to breathe.'

Life's meaning is best taught to children through teaching them the findings of people who are known to have lived their lives wisely.

Children’s upbringing ought to be progressive, in the sense of leading then from immaturity to maturity. 'Isn’t the attainment of maturity what growing up is really all about?

'If so, then it becomes necessary to ask ourselves, "What is maturity?" '

Maturity can be defined 'as the ability to relate appropriately to other realities than one’s own.' Immaturity is obviously displayed in the opposite kind of behavior. 'Immaturity is a little child throwing a temper tantrum in a public mall because he can’t get what he wants.' Children discover as they grow up that life won't always comply with their wishes. 'The process of growing up is one of learning to “play the odds”—to adapt to situations as they are, and not as one wishes they were.'

Many people learn to deal with their frustration when their hopes are disappointed, but not many learn how to banish frustration altogether. They mature a little, but not much, beyond the child with his temper tantrums. Much might have been accomplished during the time they were growing up to cure them of this childishness. Instead, it is common in our times to feed this immaturity instead of curing it.

'Not long ago, during an economic recession in Detroit, many hundreds of workers had to be laid off. A considerable number of them were given psychiatric counseling to help them adjust to their predicament. There were too many such cases, however, to make this counseling available to everyone. Interestingly, it turned out that those who were given counseling had a notably more difficult time adjusting to their new circumstances than those who were given none.'

'How to explain these unexpected results? The report said that the “beneficiaries” of counseling were hindered from simply getting on with it. Instead, they were encouraged to dwell on their predicament, to “see it objectively,” and to consider various theoretical means of coping with it. Those who missed the opportunity for counseling wasted no time in theorizing about their misfortune, and set themselves instead to simply doing what had to be done to rebuild their lives.'

Adapting to situations where we don't get our own way doesn't mean trying to make compromises but accepting the situation fully as it is and getting on with our life.

As such 'maturity is not a finishing line reached automatically at a certain age. It is a continuous—even a never-ending—process. Who, indeed, may claim that there are no levels of reality to which he still needs to learn to relate? Who knows where our ultimate horizons lie?' Education for life continues throughout all the years of our lives.

The purpose of the book Education for Life is directed toward helping children to find their way progressively toward maturity.


Chapter 4 in full can be found through this link for those who want to go into greater depth.