Are we raising kids who won’t fit in? I have asked this of myself regularly over the past few years. My wife and I are educating our three boys at home. We don’t watch television (only an occasional video). We emphasize books. We read to the kids and make them memorize poetry. We pray together on our knees. In many ways, our kids are culturally ignorant. They don’t know about Disney World. The other day, my five-year-old asked, “Who is Mickey Mouse?”
So I guess the answer to the question has to be yes. But the “yes” is a qualified one, for when one considers the concept of “odd,” one should ask, “compared to what?” This moves us in a helpful direction, for if “normal” is merely what everyone else does, then what is normal changes with the times. What is odd in one time might not be odd in another. On the other hand, if “normal” refers to a proper way of being human, and if human nature is unchanging, then what is odd, in the sense of being opposed to the majority, may in fact be normal. . . .
There are two facets to educating a child well. The first is to recognize that education is not merely the accumulation of facts, but that it has an unavoidably moral aspect. A suitable education must do more, therefore, than simply teach facts, even moral facts. Education must seek to cultivate the moral imagination of the child, for reducing moral education to a list of rules is bound to fail.
For one thing, just as it is impossible to make laws to cover every conceivable situation, so, too, it is impossible to create a moral code that does the same. The complexity of human life precludes the sort of detailed arrangement that would reduce moral and legal reasoning to the mechanical application of myriads of rules. Judgment is a necessary part of moral decision-making, and judgment must be cultivated through practice. And an important part of this practice comes through encounters with historical and literary characters.
Another reason why moral education cannot be reduced to a set of rules is that lists of rules fail to move the imagination. They do not elicit the aid of that spirited part of the soul of which Plato writes. Consider which of the following would educate a young person more effectively: (1) a rule stating, “Be brave,” or (2) the story of Leonidas at Thermopolyae or Henry V’s St. Crispin’s Day speech.
Stirring a child to aspire to noble thoughts and deeds is a central role of education. The example of Our Lord is instructive: He educated his disciples by telling them stories.
The second facet of a sound education is developing in the child a logocentric view of reality. Holy Scripture is accessible only to those who are literate. God has revealed himself through the words of Scripture, wherein we read that “In the beginning was the Word.” Christ is the Logos. God did not give us a Sacred Picture Book. He gave us words by which we, via our imaginations, can gain access to eternal truths. . . .
While the ultimate aim of education is to cultivate the souls of children toward godly virtue, a secondary but related end is the preservation of civilization. The foundations of our civilization, so long in their development, bought at such a high price, are being attacked in many quarters and are simply ignored or taken for granted in others. If we ignore the past, if we fail to grasp the invaluable and delicate gift we have received, if we fail to pass this love on to our children, then civilization itself is in jeopardy.
And our particular civilization, for which the spoken and written word has been such a central part, cannot be perpetuated by those who are not both literate and loving. That is, stewards of our civilization must possess well-cultivated language faculties capable of grasping complex and abstract ideas and concepts. But the ability is not sufficient, for these stewards must also have a deep love for that which they have inherited. Their well-formed moral imaginations will not be duped by cheap goodness or half-truths or paltry beauties. They will love that which is best and seek to improve that which is wanting.
If a proper education is to accomplish or at least to seek to accomplish these tasks, then a normal child is one whose moral imagination is well formed, whose soul is oriented toward a love of logos and the Logos, and who knows and loves the best of his own civilization. Such a child will, perhaps unwittingly, become a steward of the good, the true, and the beautiful. In a world where normal is considered odd, such children are desperately needed.
Read it all. Dr. Mitchell also offers a critique of television and a priceless anecdote about his child confronting Homer Simpson.
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