Principles for a Sound, Relational Education:
- Children are born persons.
- As persons, they are not born either “good” or “bad”, but with possibilities for both.
- Authority and obedience are fundamental principles having their source in the authority of our Creator.
- This authority must never be abused to manipulate children by guilt, influence, fear, or undue play upon any one natural desire.
- Instead, the three educational instruments available to teachers are:
Discipline—Habits of mind and body that open the doors to learning and maturity,
Life—That feeds upon spiritual, intellectual, moral, and physical substance.
- The child’s mind is not a passive receptacle, but a ravenous organism that feeds upon ideas. The chief responsibility of the mind is to accept or reject ideas by discerning truth and falsehood. Therefore, education should provide principles of conduct and knowledge.
- It is the Creator, and not the teacher, who is the Showman of the Universe.
- It is not the teacher’s business to teach all about anything, but to spread a feast of physical exercises, mathematics, crafts, science, art, and living ideas.
- Education is a natural right. Distinctions should not be made based on class, race, ability, status, or wealth. All children—even those with limited abilities—should receive much and varied knowledge through well-chosen language.
- Knowledge is not assimilated until it is reproduced—told back—in the child’s own words. This “narration” takes place after a single reading to reinforce the child’s natural power of attention.
- There are two guides to self-discipline:
from selfish desires,
The Way of the Reason—Includes teaching children that there are absolute truths of logic, but that men should not lean too confidently
upon their own understanding and should recognize their own fallibility.
- There is no separation between the intellectual and spiritual lives of children, but the Divine Spirit is involved in all the interests, duties, and joys of life.