In recent weeks I have made several references to my work as a substitute teacher with early elementary children. I deem this the most important work I have ever done in my life as it is helping shape young children in their early formative years when they are only beginning to make “sense” out of life. Several days ago I referred to “neurological plasticity” which describes their vulnerability in neuro-physiological terms, referring to the fact that what they are learning is very malleable at this point in their life though parts of it will soon be “set in stone. One specific part that will be “set in stone” is their basic self-percept, their basic approach to the world, the basic notion of their standing in the world and their sense of efficacy. This is the reason that early childhood education is so important and why good parenting is essential. Two verses from the Old Testament had this in mind, Psalms 127 telling us, “….”As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth,” and Proverbs 22 noting, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Unfortunately, I fear these two verses are often used to justify some training that could only be described as abusive!)

By the time these children get into school, the subjective cauldron that is their identity has been largely stabilized so that they can “learn from experience” and can function, more or less, in a structured environment. Now this “cauldron” is still bubbling and one of the basic tasks of education at this level, as well as introducing the building blocks of a formal education, is teaching them to live in accordance with a social structure. And, it is fascinating to watch these lovely children as they seek to win affirmation by curtailing those teeming impulses though so often failing to do so and facing a firm but kindly “re-direction” by a teacher…or even substitute teacher. Some of them are still so “teeming” with emotion that the “re-direction” is very painful and they are sometimes crushed.

I often describe my work in the classroom as “herding cats.” These dear little children are just so full of intense emotion, desperate needs, insecurities, emotional hunger, and impulses that it is often almost impossible for them to remember the rules of the classroom. I so remember being part of a classroom like that in my youth and so often the “re-direction” was harsh and punitive, sometimes overtly shaming. I’m pleased now to work with teachers who are much more respective of the fragile world of their charges and will often merely present the miscreant with, “Johnny (or Susie), you are not making a good choice now.” And that intervention is very effective as the child wants to merit the description “good.”

Now let me get “anthropological on your ass.” Children coming into school are raw product who are beginning the process of being “milled” into a finished product who can take their place in the social body in a couple of decades. One could call it “brain washing” but that is not as bad as it sounds. The “brain washing” I observe now is merely the presenting of values and ideas of our culture and they are not presented in a manipulative or tyrannical manner. Education always involves “brain-washing” in some sense but in the modern schools in which I now work, even in conservative Arkansas, emphasizes critical thinking which will allow these children to make mature choices in their future about what values they wish to subscribe to. Some parents opt to avoid the “brain washing” of public schools and home-school their children, failing to realize that “brain washing” will take place nevertheless but the “brain” that will be doing the washing will be very narrow and often “private.” Though some parents who home-school do a very effective job, including addressing social needs, I fear many do not and their precious children are “brain-washed” into a very narrow, maladaptive worldview.

I’d like to close with a poem by Theodore Roethke which reminds me of a more conservative approach to education which prevailed during my youth, when regimentation of the “raw product” was more the goal of the educational system.

DOLOR
I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manila folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplicaton of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.