One of the most important challenges facing us as the new millennium approaches is to ensure that Australia's children grow into happy responsible adults capable of achieving fulfillment and contributing to the common good of the nation. The people chiefly destined to ensure that this challenge is met are Parents.
Parents confer life on their children and it follows that they are primarily responsible for their education. This universal principle was first enshrined in the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959. Complementing and extending this recognition, Article 26 of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights states: 'Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children…' And, taking the point further, the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, signed by Australia in 1972, refers to, 'respect for the liberty of parents …to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions'.
The responsibility for properly exercising their parenthood is the most important one people face in their lifetime. It takes precedence over other professional tasks because of its unique commitment to other human lives and the responsibility to society it entails. If the natural community of the family is acknowledged as the basic building block of society, then parents must be acknowledged as society's first teachers of children.
Some of the contributions parents make to the development of their children are of a unique nature:
This list says nothing of the vital role parents play in preparing the child intellectually, and for the world of school, but it illustrates the scope of the contribution parents make to the health and happiness of children; the same children who, as adults, will determine the health and dynamism of their society.
Yet, evidence shows increasingly that, by the time they reach adolescence, too many children are vulnerable to manipulation by depersonalizing influences such as materialism and the cultures of high consumption, drugs and alcohol, and are ill equipped to sustain stable relationships or go on to make good parents themselves. The inevitable conclusion is that many parents are failing to deliver. Why is this?
One contributing factor may be the narrow definition of education that pertains today, a definition which sees intellectual formation and the role of the school as paramount and fails to be, as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares, 'directed to the full development of the human personality'. This narrow vision of education neglects virtue, the basis of character and what Daniel Goleman, author and researcher in psychology and neuro- science, calls, 'emotional intelligence'. Allied to this narrowness of vision are a weakened awareness among parents of the positive role in education played by authority, especially parental authority, and a widespread sense of helplessness among parents against aggressive values and messages that challenge their own through the media and peer group pressure. Yet another problem is lack of time and priority dedicated to parenting with both parents working away from home and the constant need to juggle work and family responsibilities. This is in turn compounded by the social emphasis on 'doing' that has come to replace the sense of 'being' so that the lives of both parents and children are commonly typified by activism.
Added to the complexity of modern living, there are universal trends that pose more intangible challenges to all of us and to parents and educators in particular. Some of these were mentioned in the Report of the UNESCO International Commission on Education for the 21st Century, chaired by Jacques Delors, former Minister of Education in France. This Report formed the theme for an international education conference hosted here in Melbourne earlier this year. It refers to universal trends flowing from, and in turn affecting, what it calls, 'our ultra-technological civilization', some of which are:
A useful insight into the challenge of understanding the young person which faces educators, especially parents, comes from observations recorded by US academic Sven Birkerts in his highly acclaimed account of the fate of reading in an electronic age. He describes his experience of attempting to teach undergraduates a course in classic American short stories and discovering that his otherwise quick and resourceful students became frustrated and illiterate in the face of the prose of authors like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James and Edgar Allen Poe. What defeated the students were both the medium and its underlying assumptions - not the vocabulary, not the syntax but what it was all communicating. The students did not get it and their not getting it angered them and reduced them to apathy.
Birkerts' thesis is that he was confronting the reflection of a paradigm shift within society, not simply a clash between the sensibilities of his students and those of a Henry James. Students born in the 70's, raised in an electronic culture, were not readers. They had always occupied themselves with music, T.V., videos and had trouble slowing down enough to concentrate on prose of any density. More than this, their collective experience had rendered a vast part of the cultural heritage alien to them. What was at issue was not diction and syntax but an entire system of beliefs, values and cultural aspirations. He concluded that young people do not know what to connect with what when it comes to moral and psychological habits and are at sea about their place in the world as they try to find meaning. As he put it, 'The maps no longer describe the terrain we inhabit.'
Birkerts' thesis is vigorously and convincingly argued. The scenario he describes was surely echoed by Henry Kissinger when he observed that, 'the present generation has the power to tap into astonishing amounts of information on any subject but no ability to integrate it into a knowledge of the past and therefore no ability to project it meaningfully into the future.' These observations raise questions and concerns for Australian educators, especially parents, who operate in a popular cultural context very similar to that of the U.S. They are certainly not unknown to teachers in Australian classrooms.
The point is that our times and the future promise increasing technological sophistication that will continue to impact on the way human beings think and behave and inter relate. It is most important that parents, who are the first ones responsible for humanizing their children, understand the positive and the negative repercussions and challenges for human behavior and human values inherent in the brave, new world their children will inhabit from their infancy.
Clearly, society's educators, especially parents, cannot be content with a definition of education limited to knowledge and good intentions as though simply arming children with these at school will equip them to thrive in the world of the new millenium. No, knowledge and good intentions alone do not constitute effective education. The quality of education needed for the future must encompass development of character.
What is character? According to William Bennett, former American Secretary of State for Education and author of the best selling, 'The Book of Virtues', character is what makes society tick. 'Good character,' he says, 'is not some abstraction. It is one of those tangible, very real human attributes that we know, and appreciate, when we see it.' In his illuminating guidebook for parents and teachers entitled, 'Character Building', Professor David Isaacs, says character building is a question of developing what is most natural to an individual - the inner core of the person. But in order to develop the different aspects of one's inner core and personality (and, as a result, one's personal freedom), first of all, one needs to know oneself. This is not something new to humanity, only forgotten; the ancient Greeks, for example, carved the admonition, 'Know Thyself' on the portal of the temple at Delphi.
Knowledge of a person's qualities helps determine the best way for him or her to improve and develop, a development achieved through growth in the human virtues. The list of the virtues is refreshingly long - fortitude, perseverance, responsibility, industriousness, generosity, cheerfulness, honesty, sincerity, being just some of them. In this process, the formation of both the intellect and the will is essential. Habitual ways of acting in a manner good for oneself and for others must be developed and reinforced over and over in childhood if they are to become second nature to a person for life. When a person has achieved a well-balanced development in the human virtues, we can say they are humanly mature. They are equipped at their inner core for living and achieving happiness. All the other aspects of their education, intellectual, physical, cultural and spiritual, are ideally, underpinned by the development of their character. Character development, sometimes referred to as self-mastery, is thus essential for effective education and society, in turn, depends on its members developing the virtues. In light of the widespread vulnerability of many young people to destructive influences, the words of Lord Tennyson ring as true as they did a century ago: 'the happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of the passions'.
How can parents, as the first teachers of virtue in their child, become more enthusiastic and effective protagonists in developing the inner core, the character, of their child? The Parents for Education Foundation, known as PARED, was established in Sydney in 1981 by a group of parents and professional educators out of the shared conviction that parents are the first educators of children. It recognized that the potential of parents to educate their children in character often goes unrecognized, or is never fully realized. It recognized that nature itself has endowed parents with an inclination to prefer the child's good over all else and that this quality when encouraged, affirmed and supported, plays a dynamic role in education. PARED was also convinced that schools, which are the second most important learning environment for children after the home, cannot adequately compensate for parental failure in education.
PARED has assisted parents since 1981. Its chief initiatives have been the establishment of Tangara School for Girls in 1982 and Redfield College in 1986, both based on a character building approach whose efficacy depends on parents. The success of the schools has led to parental demand for another, similar school in Sydney's outer western suburbs which will open in 1999. The PARED schools incorporate a unique tutorial system which involves parents meeting regularly throughout the year with their child's tutor to discuss the educational process in detail. The tutor has regular, scheduled one-to-one tutorials with the child to talk, not solely about academics, but about everyday matters such as study habits and progress, cooperation with fellow pupils and teachers, responsibility, the fulfillment of duties, friendships and social life. The PARED approach involves parents and school focussing above all on the child's character development as reflected in the myriad of issues that school and home life encompass. Tutors come to know children well and develop close working relationship with parents. Through parent/tutor teamwork, the educational effort of home and school is harmonized and maximized. Shared goals are established that normally come down to the acquisition by the child of one human virtue or another. Far from being passive the child becomes more and more aware of being the protagonist of his or her own education and that parents and teachers are united in his or her best interests.
Over and above the involvement with tutors, parents in the PARED schools receive regular input relevant to their child's education. This is provided by the schools in the form of orientation courses for new parents, seminars and lectures delivered by teachers, fellow parents and guest speakers, reading matter and other information, all directed at enhancing parental knowledge of their task, of the school's specific task and of how the two can work more effectively together for the best education of the child. Parents quickly realize that the school looks to them for leadership in relation to their child and for personal example in the human virtues and for a willingness to become both better parents and better persons.
PARED gives high priority to assisting its teachers, all of whom are integral to the effective working of the tutorial system, to better understand the role of parents in education and how teachers play a special part in furthering character building and parental authority. PARED is well aware that the real measure of the success of its parent focus is not the academic or professional success of its students, gratifying though this has been. It will be measured in the lives of its graduates, in the kind of workers, citizens and parents they become. Next year, PARED will have seen ten classes graduate; that may be the time to officially survey them in order to statistically verify the real effectiveness of PARED's approach to education. In the meantime, PARED can speak anecdotally, with some pride, of the vast majority of old boys and girls with whom the schools maintain contact who have gained entry into a wide variety of tertiary courses or have graduated and are steadily employed, several of whom are now married and establishing families of their own.
More widely, PARED has launched programmes on the dynamics of parenting, focussing on such topics as Adolescence, Teaching Freedom, Communication, and the Home/School Relationship; these courses use lectures, readings, case studies and group discussion techniques to involve participants. Recently, convinced that the role of parents in the development of children in the 0 to five age range cannot be overstated, and perceiving a real need, PARED launched a course entitled 'First Steps' designed specifically for such parents. The course aims to make young parents aware of their educational task by focussing on the impact of new experiences on young children, on how to turn everyday situations into learning occasions, on knowing their child's strengths and weaknesses, on how to assess and analyze their child's progress and how to set short term, realistic goals with an eye to each developmental area - all within a long term context of the child growing into an autonomous, responsible and happy adult. The course seeks to reassure young parents that though parenting may seem complex and even daunting, it is simply day to day living with an educational eye open. The greatest demand on parents, the course emphasizes, is to teach sound habits by example and to be consistent.
Some of the most positive benefits for participants of the 'First Steps' course have been the motivation and inspiration they have come away with in relation to their task as educators, their increased perception of the complementarity of the mother and father in parenting, the opportunity afforded them to evaluate the way they balance and share family and work commitments and the sense of solidarity they develop with other parents as well as the sharing of insights and experiences as a way of reinforcing their own dedication to the parenting task.
Two decades of working in the field of parent focussed education have increased the PARED Foundation's knowledge of and conviction about the importance of investing in parents. PARED believes that more than ever parents require assistance in their task as educators and that the increasing complexity of society and the challenges to the education of character make parental preparation an urgent priority. PARED has experienced that the goodwill inherent in the hearts and minds of the majority of parents provides a basis for positive parental attitudes such as:
It is illuminating that 44% of reports received by the Department of Community Services are requests for help or support. This statistic reflects a need at the heart of Australian society, the need of all parents, not only those at risk, but across the broad spectrum of socio- economic, cultural and religious differences, for assistance to better fulfill their central task in life.
Australia's genuine interests will be best served in the future by government and non-government, church, private interest and welfare groups focussing in a concerted way on initiatives that encourage the education of character and parents as the first educators of children. A vital challenge for the immediate future is to raise the level of parental prestige. This challenge must be met if Australia's children and the nation are to fulfill their potential.
References Cited
Goleman, D. P. 'Emotional Intelligence', Bantam Books, New York, reprinted 1997.
Delors, J. Chair of the UNESCO International Commission on Education for the 21st Century, in the Report entitled: 'Learning : The Treasure Within', UNESCO Publishing.
Birkerts, S. 'The Gutenberg Elegies', 1995, Fawcett Books
Bennett, W. J. 'The Death of Outrage', 1998, The Free Press, New York, p. 36.
Isaacs, D. 'Character Building', 1995, Four Courts Press, Dublin.