Summer 2005, Volume 10 Number 2

Table of Contents

I am perplexed and sometimes left speechless by some of the things people say to me.  I find it difficult to answer questions whose answers seem so obvious.  The title of this article is such a question.

Throughout my thirty-five years in education, it always seemed apparent to me that the primary reason for all that I did was so that the children I was teaching and the adults I was influencing in myriad ways would eventually go away with the idea that they were responsible for more than themselves.  Samuel Johnson once said that knowledge without goodness is dangerous.  Thus, it would seem implicit that all of the information and skills that we convey to our children is without merit, if we do not simultaneously give them a purpose for having that knowledge.

Currently in the field of education, the approach to curriculum planning involves answering essential questions about what to teach, how to teach it, but most importantly why are we teaching it.  There are, of course, specific short term goals for every skill or concept introduced, but in what way do we keep an eye on the longer term outcome of all that we are doing?  The first step is to define a clear, unambiguous mission for the school and then to compare what is developed in the curriculum to that essential mission.  In part, Caedmon’s mission states: “We foster in them (the children) the empathy and compassion to see the world from perspectives other than their own.  We nurture in them the self-assurance and courage to one day address the social concerns of their age… By committing to this mission, we believe that our children will grow to take command of their natural gifts with a greater understanding of our complex world and their eventual role within it- a role that will increasingly demand empathy and responsiveness, as well as knowledge, ambition, and skill.  It is for this that we teach.”

Considering that Caedmon only goes through the 5^th grade, people have asked how we can commit to this lofty mission with children who only get to be eleven before they leave us.  I ask, “How can we not?”  It is a commonly accepted idea that children are dramatically influenced in these early years and much of what they end up believing may be traced back to what they were exposed to during this formative period.  If we don’t begin at the beginning, how can we ever hope to establish in an adult a sense that he/she has an important role to play in creating a world that is more equitable and just?  A cousin of mine recently sent me this quote from the writer George Scialabba, renowned reviewer of books related to politics, policy, and the culture of our time.  Scialabba wrote: “Progress depends on extending our imaginative range, identifying with those who are unnecessarily suffering.”  This resonated with me as I contemplated writing this article, because it so eloquently articulated why it is necessary to instill a long term view in our children…helping others is as self-serving as it is altruistic, for without it we will not advance our culture and our lives.  Without ever having read Scialabba, a child in one of our Middle Level classes (third/fourth grade) wrote the following in answer to “Why should we care about people we don’t know?”

“We should care about people we don’t know because someday they might help UNICEF, or help the world be a better place to live for us.  But also because every living thing on the planet helps the world in one way or another.  If we ever stopped caring about a poor person we might not see what they could do with just a little support and a caring person.  So if you help them, it’s not only going to help them by caring, it might help you.”

This is quite an insight for an eight year old.  However, it is the kind of thing we have come to expect as a result of our efforts to educate the children about the social concerns of our time.  Will this carry over when they are grown and making decisions about what they will do with their lives?  That certainly remains to be seen, but there is no question that attitudes are formed early, and we have an obligation to give them experiences that will help them develop a sense of their community and global responsibility.

Another quote from the peace journal of one of our fourth graders gives an indication that even nine year olds are capable of thinking about how they might act for the benefit of others, actions which might ultimately benefit themselves:

“My responsibilities as a global citizen are to feel empathy for others who are in bad situations. Another of my responsibilities is to care for others going through hard times. One more of my global responsibilities is to respect differences. After all, if you try to surround yourself with people just like you, you’ll be missing out on a lot of friendships.”

I find it extremely satisfying that given even a little bit of education about global responsibility young children can have insights such as these.  It gives me hope when I see, on the other hand, the ideas that a number of adults have.  The epitome of this kind of disengagement was articulated in a letter to the editor of The New York Times.  In the beginning of the discussion about privatizing social security, Bob Herbert wrote an op-ed piece about the legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his intention to provide old age security for those less well off.  Mr. Herbert referred to the “litany of rights”, which Roosevelt felt every citizen had.  In response to that op-ed piece Jerry Tempelman of Florida wrote:

“F.D.R.’s litany of rights is nonsense.  The problem with calling for a universal right to food, or housing, or employment, or health care, is that such a right for person A is meaningless unless person B simultaneously incurs an obligation.

Person A may argue that he has a right to food or to a job (a right presumably based on his need), but it does not follow that person B therefore has an obligation to feed or employ him.  B may wish to help A (by means of private charity, for example), but B’s moral intuition does not transform into A’s legal right.”

When I emailed Larry Levine of “Kids Can Make a Difference” about this, and other letters to the editor that were equally disturbing, I said, “Clearly, Mr. Tempelman didn’t go to Caedmon!”  It is alarming to think that children would grow and mature without the sense that all human beings had certain basic rights and that as members of this world we were all obliged to see that everyone had them in whatever way we could.  If this is what we believe to be right, then this is what we need to tell them day in and day out from the time they are very young.  It is also what we need to show them in very real ways through first hand experience.

Last year a group of parents here at Caedmon met to discuss becoming more involved in community service initiatives with the children.  They were all taken with the notion that my daughter was then in Uganda, spending the semester studying development issues related to AIDS orphans, refugees, hunger, and myriad other problems in a third world country.  The parents all wanted to know how she got to this point in her life, at twenty years of age, that she would hope to make this her life’s work.  The answer was simple: partially she was in Africa, because she spent her early years in a shelter for homeless women.  From the time she and her brother were two or three, my husband and I took them to a shelter on a regular basis when we went to set up each week for our guests.  Her knowledge of poverty was first hand and very personal.  I can still see her sitting up on a desk in the shelter, her short legs swinging as she talked with Mary, one of the homeless women who had befriended her.  For my husband and me it is very clear: how we got from there to here was to start when they were very young. 

The same principle applies in school: teach them at an early age and they will never forget.  If you decide, as we did at Caedmon, that our responsibility as educators extended beyond the three R’s, then it is essential to define the long term vision you have for your children in a clear mission statement.  It is essential that you provide them with the knowledge and experience that will lead to greater understanding, and it is essential that this experience foster the compassion that will encourage their commitment to social justice.  This is, after all, the reason that we teach.

Carol Goose DeVine is Head of School at The Caedmon School. She recently became a member of the KIDS Advisory Board. She may be reached at devine@caedmonschool.org

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