Education
Sunday, September 15
Good morning. Our text today is from Hannah Arendt’s The Crisis In Education:
Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it, and by the same token save it from that ruin which except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and the young, would be inevitable. And education, too, is where we decide whether we love our children enough not to expel them from our world and leave them to their own devices, nor to strike from their hands their chance of undertaking something new, something unforeseen by us, but to prepare them in advance for the task of renewing a common world.
I’ve many times appreciated the carpenter vs. gardener framework of parenting. A carpenter, so the theory goes, is one who parents intending to shape their child in particular ways. A gardener tries to facilitate the child’s growth, with little regard for the ultimate direction that will take.
I think a similar principle applies to society at large, and how our education system ought to treat young people. Our future is in their hands, and it’s not clear what path will get us there safely. I can only hope that they find it, and that they have as much support as we can muster.