Homeschooling: A Family’s Journey

From a blog post by the Roman Catholic priest and philosopher, Rev. Robert Connor, on the distinction between training and education:

     …  This movement will depend on the degree and quality of freedom the child is given to be and to become himself. When the child’s mind is controlled and manipulated by adults, it is trained under social pressure. But mental training fails to release the inmost energy of the human mind. In fact, such a training forces the child to repress much of his true nature …  Whether one approaches the subject from a philosophical or psychological point of view, the final conclusion is the same:  Training is an inadequate method of development of man’s emotional and mental life, precisely because the human creature is not an animal! Education is based on respecting children as human beings, on giving them the freedom within a prepared and safe environment with an adult to act as a guide rather than a trainer. Only in education, never in training, are children allowed to be and to become with they really are: uniquely themselves. Only when affirmed by mature parents and educators, i.e. loved for being what they are, even for their ‘otherness,’ and allowed to assimilate spontaneously in their own tempo their whole being into their mental and spiritual life, only then will children find their unique identity and fulfilment, never to be plagued by an identity crisis in later life!

(Greg)

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