HOW THE FAMILY AND THE SCHOOL SHOULD COMBINE THEIR EFFORTS TO ACHIEVE THIS TRAINING TO VIRTUE

Continuation of the conference to parents by the teaching Dominican Sisters of Post Falls, Idaho. The first part of this excellent conference was published in the previous issue of Communicantes

A. School is part of the family "life".

1.  It happens that we hear such statements as these:  "The school must not interfere with the family life." "I, the father of the family, decide to keep my children at home from school for the sake of a  family activity. I do not ask permission. I decide." Something is wrong there and must be brought to order.

It is true that there could be a wrong interference of the school with your family life, were we to direct your private life, your private households. But we do NOT do that.

2.  Now indeed you must  consider the school as part of your family life, since the school is your greatest help in the education of your own children. You must will it. You must support it. Thereby you do love your children to the fullest, providing them with what they absolutely need in order to grow properly, that is this knowledge and training to virtue, without which they cannot become true and good adults.

3. Why do you need the school?

a)  No one is universal. Everybody admits the necessity of having professionals in all areas. Do you go to see your neighbor when your child is sick, or do you go to a "professional" physician? If you do not  see well, don't you go to a specialist, to an eye doctor? Why? If you want a beautiful piece of furniture for your dining room, don't you go and ask a professional carpenter, a cabinet-maker, to take care of it? Why? You know the answer.

b)  And when it is the matter of the most difficult "workmanship" to accomplish: the "carving" of a rational soul so as to make it grow, become knowledgeable, virtuous, strong, holy, how can parents think that they have no need to have recourse to the "professionals" of teaching and education, who are the religious Orders founded and approved by the Church? The normal way,  the only good normal way to accomplish this "workmanship" is to send the children to Catholic schools. And one of the most tragic consequences of modernism, is to have destroyed from the face of the earth all these religious Orders dedicated to teaching. But then let us realize how blessed you and we are to still have one, whereas almost nobody around you possesses such a treasure; and how grateful we should be to the Society of St. Pius X for spending so much time and effort in multiplying schools in order to make up for this disappearance of teaching Orders . . .

c)  Parents at home do not have enough time to dedicate to teaching their children. The father works outside most of the day, and the mother must take care of the home, and of the little ones; she is not free enough for teaching her children, and when she tries to combine both tasks of a mother and a teacher, usually she wears herself out,  she cannot face all her primary duties,  and it ends up with very poor teaching of the children. When there is NO other possibility, then indeed you choose the lesser evil. But it is not the normalcy.

d)  Parents seldom have sufficient knowledge to replace the school. Not that they know nothing. But how can one individual be universal? One may be good at math, but not in English; good in geography, but not in history. The school with its faculty of teachers can provide the children with the skillful and appropriate teaching in all the subjects necessary to form them.

e)  For catechism alone,  or a bit of math and English are insufficient to form the children into true adults, at the natural and supernatural levels. Here I refer you to our last parents' meeting of November 1998, in which we explained the high principles which direct our curricula. It is necessary that children first and foremost deepen their religious knowledge, through sound classes of Catholic doctrine; then that they deepen their knowledge of the human soul, human values, under the light of the Faith, and this is the role of deep classes of literature and philosophy;  it is also necessary that they grasp the full scope of Christian life, how grace is meant to permeate not only their individual life but social life, society as well, to the point of fostering Catholic institutions.  Hence the major role of history with respect to this specific formation. A good knowledge of math, science, and geography helps them tremendously to grasp the beauty and order of the universe, its laws, its purpose.. .etc... And parents would not need professionals to open their children’ s minds to all these truths, to lead them little by little to a unified view of everything in life? Indeed, teachers are necessary to challenge the children, to make them think and truly grow. Self-teaching can be only very short-sighted.

f)  Indeed parents need the school to help them in the tremendous task entrusted to their responsibility;  that is,  the education of their children. The school completes what parents cannot do. This should be the parents'  greatest  joy and relief.  By entrusting their children to Catholic schools,  they show their trust in Holy Mother Church,  and therefore show their wisdom, their holy prudence.

g)  For learning comes first in the process of education.  Ignorance is the major cause of many mistakes and faults at the moral level, in the individual  life,  in  the  spiritual  life,  in  the  social  life.  Our intelligence is our faculty of knowing; it is a faculty of light, of enlightenment. And once again, if to be virtuous is to act according to right reason, the first step necessary to take is to come to know what right reason commands. Knowledge is the necessary beginning for virtue. This is why the school is so important in the education of your children. Its primary task is to provide your children with a sound knowledge of what they need to know in order to live good lives, in the full scope required by a right understanding of nature, and grace, and Christianity, which is everything but individualistic.

h)  School is also necessary to give the children a sense and a habit of caring about the common good and social life. It is by submitting and dedicating oneself to this superior good of the whole of society that one individual can really reach his purpose and, by consequence, his complete development in harmony. In one sense, it is the individual who is for society, and not the other way round. This is pure doctrine of the Church, see for example what says saint Thomas Aquinas. Individualism, which reverses this order upside down by making the individual the center of eveything, is revolutionary, and destructive of society and of the order willed by God. It leads but to anarchy, and, by reaction, to slavery.

4. Now how should school be part of your family life?

a)  First you consider it as such.  And it will be manifested through the way you deal with it.

b)  School will be one of your primary concerns, and joys -- not a burden, an unbearable burden which "disturbs your family life."

c)  You will express explicitly the major importance you attribute to your children's studies. The interest you take in them should be made manifest to your children.

d)  How? Get involved with their work in many practical ways.

1)  Ask them about their classes; what they learned at school today, in catechism, in English, in history, in geography, in science, or whatever... Ask them to tell you what the main points were. See whether they understood the classes or not. Become truly interested in these subjects taught at school. "Follow up on them." Be eager to have the account of the next history class in order for you to foster this eagerness in your children. Communicate to them your desire to know how those people or events have moved onwards; show this practical interest in the material your children learn. If they cannot answer, cannot repeat the classes taught them that very day,  scold them. Tell them it is a shame, a fault. Threaten them with punishment if the next day they come back having forgotten everything. Your children need your will to show theirs the way. This makes up ninety-five percent of the work.  This would eliminate ninety-five percent of the difficulties we encounter daily. Why are so few of our children eager to learn, to take steps forward, to make connections between concepts, as well as among the subjects taught? It is because it is NOT part of their life. It is too exterior to it. It is a burden,  something  which  ideally  should  not  exist.  But  why  such  a mentality? It is when parents do not manifest enough interest in their children's studies. I say: "do not manifest." For they may believe in it, but if they do not show it enough, in a practical way, or worse, and God forbid, if they tend to complain about how school is a burden, how can they ever expect that their children will dedicate to their studies the best of their time and efforts willingly? It is impossible! Or it happens very late, towards the end of their school years, when despite the lack of support at home, the children themselves discover the good of learning and become eager to learn seriously. Meanwhile teachers are spending time and energy in almost useless efforts; let us say in efforts made useless by the absence of practical and daily cooperation at home.

It makes a world of difference in the children's minds, in the children's work, in the children's eagerness to learn, when Dad and Morn become interested in what has been taught "today" at school. Then school becomes part of their very lives. And unity begins to shape their life. Life at school and life at home become one, because it is the same goal which the family and school tend to achieve together, each of them indeed according to their providential mission and responsibility, but they work together. The interests of the school are those of the parents, and the interests of the parents are those of the school. And both combined are those of Holy Mother Church, thereby those of Our Lord... Nothing less takes place, is supposed to take place,  in this common labor of the school with the family.

2)  The second point must be to consider the studies as one of the major duties of state of your children. For they arc. Now how many of our students actually consider their studies as one of their major duties of state? I fear I cannot even say that it is twenty percent of them... If they knew that their studies are their major duty of state, through which they show their obedience to God, their love for God, and that the contempt of such duties is a sin, I think that they would be much more serious about their school work. Their daily Mass, and daily rosary, should blossom into an ever-increasing sense and love of duty, into an ever better performance of their daily duties, outside of which their piety, their devotion is false, is meaningless. It is for you, parents, day in and day out, to teach them about the primacy of this duty, the seriousness of this duty, and how to take steps forward, to ever improve, in the fulfillment of this duty. It is somewhat frightening to see baptized and confirmed girls who do not CARE at all about any seriousness in their studies, and at all levels: attention in class, efforts of  reflection, neatness in the presentation, memorization, following directions... If they understood that their love for Our Lord is inseparable from their seriousness in their studies, they would not be perfect at once, no, certainly not, and this is not what we expect, but at least they would strive for this seriousness, they would have their conscience formed, they would know that they are wrong and guilty, when they show this carelessness which we cannot even get them to grasp!! The conscience of such girls does NOT seem to bother them at all. And this is worrying us. And this is why I speak strongly in bringing up this point. No one can replace you in this: your responsibility to form their conscience, to inculcate in them a right sense of duty, of the seriousness of duties of state. Unless you do it, whatever lectures they have at school about it, do not "click"! do not penetrate their minds and souls; they do not "care". In this area as in the others, the responsibility of the parents comes first, is irreplaceable, and has the greatest importance for the children.

The education of  your children is in your hands first and foremost. Either you lead your children to be willing to learn, to actively respond to the teaching given; you make them will it; if needed, by compelling them to will it, by punishing them for their laziness, their carelessness, their inconsistency; do not excuse them; do not lend a complacent ear to the tales that some of them are very clever to tell you; come to us directly when you have a problem with something.. .etc... Or you mislead them. They will develop vices instead of virtues. Again and again, your children need your firmness, in order for them to grasp the seriousness of their duty. For them to become truly interested in their studies, they must see that it is your major concern.

3)  Be demanding with your children. Be exacting. If they have received ten talents, they must fructify the ten talents. If it is five, five. If it is two, two. But each of them must be trained to do his best.

4)  To achieve this goal, close and frequent communication between parents and teachers of the child is necessary, and a full agreement upon the requirements. Support the schedule of the school, the decisions of the school, the punishments which your children may deserve at times. Never, ever question any of them in front of the children. But of course come to us if something surprises you... We are always ready to answer any question you may have. And indeed it may also happen that one of us might make a mistake. But never in front of a child should anything belonging to the school life be put into question.

5)  For the homework, set up a good schedule at home, a fixed time. This helps immensely. Provide also a quiet environment for your children at the time of homework. But there is another even more important point: do not leave your child completely alone during his homework, except the very oldest. For they need your "presence", not only nor always your "physical presence", but the "presence", once again, of your interest in their work.  A few questions, when they set  to work, may be very encouraging: "What do you have to do tonight? Show me that. Alright." Give them some hints, some ideas to organize their work; or to see the outline of a long lesson; give them some timelines. Offer to come back in half an hour, fifteen minutes, or an hour, according to the age. Quiz them. When their morale is lower than usual, offer to study the lesson with them, etc... This is more important, I dare say, than finding a quiet place,  though this quiet environment  is  of course more than necessary. But what is most important is the practical manifestation of the real interest you take in their studies. So we beseech you to do something about it, and I promise you marvelous results which will reach beyond your greatest hopes! One of these fruits will be the rapidity with which the homework will be completed. Indeed the length of time, for seventy-five percent of our girls, lies in their lack of interest in their work. This is the first thing which needs to be corrected. In any case, it is the first step in the learning procedure. Without a love for learning, one does not learn, one never cares about remembering anything, and this is the sad reality of our days at school.. We repeat over, and over, and over again the same simple concepts; it is always new, many children never remember, they do not try to remember from one day to the next... It is as if we were dealing with dead minds, minds which do not function. Eventually we end up creating some "reflexes'", but this is not thinking, this is not intelligent work, and we cannot go forward. All the sisters  and  teachers  are  quite  worried  about  this  inertia,  this passivity. As we were saying above, the learning procedure is interior and personal to each individual. It is our task, yours first and then ours, to foster it, to "oblige" the child, each child to work, to trod the path of learning,  to take steps on this path,  in an ever more conscious and willing way.  If we give up, then the education of the children is never accomplished. It is very serious.

B. A few major points concerning the training of the intellect.

2.  The necessity of training the imagination.

a)  Since all knowledge comes through the senses which feed our imagination, we must be vigilant about:

* The kind of images our senses will convey to our imagination. Hence the necessity to put our children in contact with beautiful things, healthy things, and to stay away from ugliness.

* The amount of images our senses will receive. There is a danger of overwhelming the intelligence by an overdose of images. Since to think is to abstract concepts from images, then make connection among these concepts, which leads us to new concepts that we logically draw from right reasoning, it is obvious that an exaggerated amount of images will wear out the intellect which becomes overwhelmed by an unbridled, scattered, and mad imagination.

Since to think is to abstract concepts from images, when one is overwhelmed with billions of images, then he cannot abstract ideas from so many images. Such an amount is unnatural, inhuman. Our human intellect has its limits. To have our children watch frequent movies is to plunge them into the world of images, sense perception, with NO time to think, for it goes too fast.

An abuse of images gives the children the illusion that they know much. They don't. It is merely sense-perception. There is not time nor room for intellectual work, for reasoning at the level of concepts, of ideas.

Besides, images are very attractive. Intellectual work is arduous. By increasing this attraction of sense-pleasure, one weakens the will. Intellectual work is seen as more and more arduous, almost unbearable.

b)  Hence the necessity to forego frequent movies. Movies fill your imagination with billions of images. See how you are incapable of thinking, incapable of intellectual work right away after watching a movie. Therefore to watch a movie can be a good recreation once every two months. But if it becomes weekly, it is deadly, and above all for children who must learn how to think, to bring concepts together, to make logical connections among these concepts, etc.

c)  The reason why we have so many children who are incapable of thinking, so forgetful, so inconsistent, is because their intelligence is enslaved to an over-excited and totally unbridled imagination, due in part to the frequency of the movies tney watch. They lose focus and strength: focus. Decause movies distract them.  (From "trahere": draw, and "dis": away); movies "draw them away" from what should be their major goals their intellectual formation. Movies overwhelm their imagination by drawing it towards so many different directions, that they necessarily lose sight of the main one. This scattering of their imagination necessarily entails a scattering of their thoughts, and a tremendous weakening of their intellectual aoilities. For strength flows from unity, from being focused, from having one's powers unified around their aiming at one major goal. Children end up therefore resisting every kind of truly intellectual work. They always long for fun, images, sense pleasure, quick tricks, ready-made recipes. Worse: They do not mind about contradiction, contradictory thoughts. This is where you can see the destruction of the intelligence happening.

d)  Beware also of many modern games which disconnect the children from reality. It is tragic. We teachers can clearly see this destruction of the intelligence happening.

How obvious that when man goes against the "laws" of his nature, the laws inscribed in his nature .- remembering that action should follow being, that a nature is a principle of operation -- he destroys himself. He becomes less and less human, less and less virtuous, since to be human (or virtuous) is to act according to right reason. But in order to do so, his reason must first function, and function rightly!

e)  Educate a good sense of observation. Because "nothing is in the mind which is not before in the senses," the training of the intellect begins with the training of the imagination, which itself entails the acquisition of a good sense of observation.

Teach your children to observe nature, birds, flowers, rocks, animals, mountains, lakes, to discover the laws of nature, etc... This is healthy observation, which provides food for thinking, and right thinking, based upon reality and not on "virtual reality"; and it goes at a human speed.

f)  Understand also the role of educational games, to teach little children how to connect, to coordinate, to "think" in their little way, to make logical connections, still at a sense level, yes, nevertheless preparing the way to rational thinking, little by little.

3.  Necessity of training the memory.

Man has a sense-memory.  He also has an intellectual memory.  The intellectual memory is the power of retaining concepts, ideas. This memory needs to be trained, to be disciplined, in orcter to foster the progress of our understanding and knowledge inasmuch as they depend on it. Here are a few practical points:

a)  The remembrance of concepts, of ideas, is necessary to the progress of reason, of knowledge. If we had always to go back to the first steps of reasoning,  we would never advance; there would be no acquisition of knowledge.

This is why it is so difficult to keep going ahead in class with so many students who no not retain the previous lessons... So often we, teachers, have to cover again all the steps from number one, because the students do not truly care to remember even the most basics! Hence the necessity to have the children retain concepts, ideas, therefore memorize.

b)  We must be very vigilant over what they memorize, for it becomes part of themselves. Hence the major role of their memorizing beautiful and profound texts (poems, plays that are truly beautiful). Their intelligence and sensibility are deeply marked and rormed by such texts. On the other hand, we set aside mediocre texts and plays. (A comedy can be alright, but not just any comedy. It must still bring a message of humanity, otherwise it is only gross -- therefore degrading. )

c)  We must keep a good balance. To be intelligent is not to have memorized everything. The memory is at the service of the intelligence; it is a necessary tool. (Even in a subject like History, the accumulation of singular facts must not make us forget the role of reason: to find logical links, general views, explanations, etc.) Both excesses must be avoided:

* To exaggerate the work of memorization in being content with children very capable of reciting lessons perfectly well, without making sure they understood it.

* To neglect memorization under the false pretext that what matters is to understand. For you cannot have the children grow in their knowledge and understanding without assimilating the content of the classes. To understand is to grasp the very depth of things, of different subjects.

Memorization must always be supported by a deep understanding of what is memorized. And in turn a good memorization helps the students to understand more quickly the next classes. We must remember that the goal is the acquisition of knowledge, which of course requires that children retain this knowledge. Thereby knowledge becomes part of their nature, as it becomes a second nature, which in turn is a principle of acquisition of new knowledge, of growth in knowledge and understanding, as well as a principle of new operations, flowing from this acquisition.

Part I

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