Query #6 - Education
How can we most effectively foster a spirit of inquiry and a loving and understanding attitude toward life?
The sense of the meeting was most clearly stated by one's wonderment at his awareness of the mystery of creation over the past 15 billion years, and what we do in our lifetime will become tomorrow's creation.
The Quaker worship pattern encourages an open attitude toward life. We foster or discourage curiosity by structuring an open or closed learning system. One person delighted that she never grew out of the "why" stage, while another working with specially challenged children noted her success with always starting with what our senses tell us.
What effort are we making to become better acquainted with the Bible, the teachings of Jesus, our Judeo-Christian heritage, the history and principles of Friends, and the contributions of other religious and philosophies to our spiritual heritage?
Our meeting has encouraged all our children to visit other groups to get a feel for their world-view. We have an ongoing Bible study, have had an extensive Quaker Education series this year and are just finishing our second year of the IYM Spiritual Formation program. We feel we are doing quite well in offering our adult meeting participants tools for their spiritual growth. One member has found that her passion over the Israel/Palestine crisis has greatly heightened her learning readiness for the Scriptural background of the conflict. Another noted that she had been burned out by too much Christian focus in her past. It was noted that the Buddhist meditation practices can help us to adopt an observer stance toward the world and our own growth. We all agreed that at the mystical level all theWorld's religions seem to be quite similar.
In what ways can we encourage an educational process that is consistent with the values
Friends cherish?
We need to take an active role in the education of the next generation through tutoring and sharing our experiences with special programs. One of the teachers in our meeting after 9-11 expressed her concern about what she felt was excess patriotism to her principal who didn't fully agree with her, but did agree to moderate his patriotic focus. Another mentioned she always tries to explain the reasons behind her opinions and decisions to her children.
How do gender-based expectations affect the goals we set and the way we learn?
We all seem to be working hard to move beyond gender-based expectations, but often find ourselves more captive to them than we care to admit. We considered the possibility that some gender-based expectations are biologically influenced and choose to support maximum flexibility for ourselves and others in choosing our life spaces.
Do we take an active and supportive interest in schools, libraries, and other educational resources in our
communities and elsewhere? How do we prepare ourselves and our children to play active roles in a changing world?
Scattergood School is of course the major outreach of IYM and many of us are involved in encouraging their work. The internet has changed the nature and function of libraries and the whole educational process. We are working hard to keep ahead of the challenge both for ourselves and for our children.
--Jim Kenney, recording
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