The Key to Finding Joy in Your Daily Life
Be big and small
Age-Based Groups?
Horace Mann (1796-1859) is known as the American politician committed to promoting public education. Through his influence, public schools adopted the practice of age-based classroom grouping. This was a radically different model from that of the one-room schoolhouse. Which is better? I'll answer that question with an observation, voiced by Sir Ken Robinson in his 2009 work The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything:
Public schools were not only created in the interests of industrialism —
they were created in the image (emphasis original) of industrialism.
In many ways, they reflect the factory culture they were designed to support. . . . Students are educated in batches, according to age, as if the most important thing they have in common is their date of manufacture (emphasis mine).1
This artificial age-grouping is completely unnatural, and the only place it exists is in the traditional public school system. Everywhere else we look, we find mixed-age groups:
at home
at church
in the workplace
in society
Even in homes catering to senior citizens, the groups are formed based upon the level of care needed, such as independent living, assisted living, and skilled nursing care. This care level is not simply a factor of age.
The Value of Mixed-Age Environments
Maria Montessori (1870-1952) recognized the value of mixed-age learning environments. Most known is her Children's House, the Casa dei Bambini, which welcomed children ages 3-6. The elementary-aged children were grouped either in the ages of 6-12, or in some schools, in 6-9 and 9-12.
The beauty of this arrangement is evident several months into a new school year, when many of the children have experienced the process of normalization. The younger children look up to the older children and learn from them, either through simple observation or by directly asking and obtaining direct instruction from the older ones. The older ones serve as role models and mentors to the younger ones. It's quite a sight to see - like a buzzing, happy bee colony where everyone is confident and content in fulfilling his role, which serves for the good of the whole hive.
The small humbly learn from the big, while the big charitably help the small.
In doing so, they all grow in virtue.
Finding Joy
We can and should be big and small too - confident in our areas of expertise, yet humble in areas where we stumble. While we are paying attention to our own ability and progress, we are constantly aware of what others are doing in our surroundings. This is the key to finding joy in your daily life - recognizing the value in ourselves and in others.
It's like singing in a four-part choir. (I always liked thinking of a beautiful four-part choir as a single being with four mouths, its voices perfectly balanced and in tune.) You have to be big - to sing your part confidently and strongly enough to be heard among the other three voices. You also have to be small at the same time - to be able to hear the other parts and make sure you are blending with them, not drowning them out.
Where can you be big and small?
While you're thinking about that, close your eyes, and enjoy one of my favorite pieces of polyphony.
1 Pub. Penguin Books, p. 230-231.
Great points! I love the concept of younger children learning from the older children just as the benefits we get in communities where we are exposed to and benefit from our older generations. There is a synergy and it works both directions.