The development of the student’s intellectual capacity is the school’s most characteristic part. However, this development will be defective and even dangerous unless it is strengthened and completed by the training of the will and the formation of the character. Ratio Studiorum
If you are just shooting for intellectual knowledge and you are not strengthening the will and forming the character at the same time, not only is education defective, but it is capable of being "even dangerous," and possibly extremely so! Education prepares nature to receive and cooperate with Our Lord’s grace. We are instructing the intellect, training the will, and forming the character —in other words, the whole man —based upon serious principles. Father Michael McMahon
Memory and the analytical go together.
Following the use and strengthening of the Memory is Understanding. Now, understanding anything depends on three things. The first is the introduction of the material and how it is introduced. The second is repetition and examination, and the third is appropriation.
Those who teach anything, including sport, can see this simple plan. The child begins kicking a soccer ball without much understanding of the techniques or even the rules of the game.
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| Thanks to wiki for the Jesuit Astronomers |
Understanding must be guided by the teacher, even in Socratic Method, until it is appropriated.
The student who is baptized and learning the life of the virtues finally has the advantage of the graces of Confirmation, the Gifts of the Holy Spirit to help him.
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(By the way, most Jesuit schools no longer teach the Ratio Studiorum) The Spiritual Excercises came out of St. Ignatius being taught by Christ in much the same way as the development of the Ratio.
Marvellous that some parents have picked this up in home schooling.
The Will is then strengthen through practice and perseverance. The will of each one of us is a precious gift and cannot be taken for granted.
There is an old saying that the parent must break the will of the child, but not the spirit. Much like training a horse on a lunge line, the parent has to balance discipline and freedom or creativity.
The books used for all of this are the Classics, of course. You may like to know that when St. Ignatius died, there were 35 colleges in Europe and within 200 years, 800 schools, colleges, and universities. That is not the case today. The peak of Ignatian education is over, and some of the schools are steeped in Liberation Theology.
Here is an interesting list of goals for Jesuits educational institutions, which help show the connection between formation and education. Here is a snippet from a small booklet on some aspects, not all, of Jesuit education.
When Jesuits began their schools, two models were available. One was the medieval university, where students prepared for professions such as law, the clergy, and teaching by studying the sciences, mathematics, logic, philosophy, and theology. The other model was the Renaissance humanistic academy, which had a curriculum based on Greek and Latin poetry, drama, oratory, and history. The goal of the university was the training of the mind through the pursuit of speculative truth; the goal of the humanists was character formation, making students better human beings and civic leaders. Jesuit schools were unique in combining these two educational ideals.
Perhaps the most important reason for the success of the early Jesuit schools was a set of qualities that Jesuits aspired to themselves and which they consciously set out to develop in their students:
- Self-knowledge and discipline,
- Attentiveness to their own experience and to others',
- Trust in God's direction of their lives,
- Respect for intellect and reason as tools for discovering truth,
- Skill in discerning the right course of action,
- A conviction that talents and knowledge were gifts to be used to help others,
- Flexibility and pragmatism in problem solving,
- Large-hearted ambition, and
- A desire to find God working in all things.
These qualities were the product of the distinctive spirituality that the early Jesuits had learned from Ignatius and that Ignatius had learned from his own experience. Jesuits hoped, in turn, to form their students in the same spiritual vision, so that their graduates would be prepared to live meaningful lives as leaders in government, the professions, and the Church.
Ironically, the institution which published the little booklet with the goals no longer believes in these.
Lofty ideals from Memory, Understanding and Will and parents, you can do this.
The Jesuit philosophy of education is nothing more than the Catholic philosophy of education intimately and inextricably linking scholastic philosophy and the dogmatic teachings of the Church, that is, reason and religion, St. Thomas and the Magisterium. Paramount is the proper understanding of human nature as created by Almighty God and the ultimate destiny of man.
Man is not merely a citizen of this or that country; he is born to be a citizen of heaven. Therefore, in all truth, we can say that the purpose of education is a preparation for life, proximately this life, but ultimately everlasting life. That is why the Jesuits educate, why we educate. And we’re here to learn the principles necessary to fulfill that end. The glory of our role as priests and our specific vocation as educators is just that; we have the opportunity to form young souls. That is something that principals and teachers need to meditate on constantly; it should be their daily concern. We are intimately involved in the formation of citizens for heaven, souls made for the Beatific Vision. And that can never be over-emphasized.
Therefore, we are not talking about intellectualism. Education is not just intellectual formation nor instruction; it is the formation of the whole man. It is interesting to note that formal religion classes in most of the Jesuit schools never were never given more than two hours a week. Instead, the Jesuits strove to have religion permeate everything. They thought it somewhat odd or superficial to make religion a course all by itself, or to devote many, many hours to it sheerly because their teachers were religious. Unlike the Jesuits, we don’t have only priests or religious brothers teaching. We must make sure we staff our faculties with the right kind of teacher, not just someone who knows math or history, but a Catholic man in the state of grace and striving for sanctity so that religion permeates his class, whatever the subject. This is critical, because religion is not just a class at a certain time; religion is everything. Fr. Michael McMahon
Teacher and Teaching by Fr. Richard Tierney, S.J.
True education is generally the work of skillful teachers. Since the former is a pearl without price [true education], the value of the latter can scarcely be overestimated. Teaching is the art of the interesting, the inspiring (p.27).
Before he can teach men, or mold teachers of men, or even conceive the first idea of legislating for the intellectual world, he must, himself, first learn. There are two fundamental lessons which he does learn, and they go to form him: one is that, among all the pursuits, the study of virtue is supreme. The other is that, supreme as virtue is, without secular learning, the highest virtue goes unarmed, and at best is profitable to oneself alone (p. 15). Fr. Thomas Hughes, Loyola and the Education of the Jesuits.
McMahon. Hughes, and Tierney quotations, as well as the above from the Ratio in this post are at http://www.edocere.org/articles/jesuit_model_education.htm
To be continued.....
