Historical Value

[Bill Ferny]

Laiedheliel wrote:

Many of the parents in my district (I do not speak for anyone in particular, and do not speak for anyone outside of my school district) are under-educated, fathers working and mothers playing the fifties housewife role. I know some of my friends' parents attended college, but a shocking amount did not and now work at labor-class jobs or not at all, and have little knowledge as to what their children are actually doing and being exposed to. This trait their children have inherited, and have not yet come to the dreadful realization that times have changed and that an education is an essential tool to unlocking one's future in this country.

This should be understood in terms of what Kuruharan rightly wrote:

Ignorance of the past is not just a modern "problem." This is a problem that has always been around since the dawn of recorded history. The vast majority of people in all cultures over time have always had a rather flimsy grasp of their past.

The parent’s role in education is not one of providing their children with all the knowledge that the world has to offer. If this were true, then a prerequisite of parenting would be at least a dozen PhDs in the liberal arts and sciences. A man with an eighth grade education, who works in a steel mill in West Virginia, can still be a good father. I know this because I’ve met more than one person fitting this description.

It all comes down to some rather simple things: sharing, honesty, responsibility, kindness, good hygiene, hard work, perseverance, curiosity and inquisitiveness, respect of self and others, piety, a sense of humor, decorum and courtesy. “Everything you needed to know you learned in kindergarten” is false. All these things we learned, or did not learn, from our parents.

These things were actually taught much more thoroughly when the parents were the primary educators, not of science and technology, but hand crafts. Children spent time with their parents, and learned to respect their parents as masters of a craft. This is Tolkien’s Shire, in my estimation. Bilbo’s and Frodo’s relationship, though more scholarly in nature, is much like this. The pupil who respects his parent as someone with something to offer. This, I fear, is what is lacking in my American culture, as I’ve ranted about elsewhere.

Of course, the world has changed significantly, and technology has replaced the hand crafts. However, it’s important that parents have hobbies that they can share with their children. Something like father Tolkien telling his children some of the most wonderful bed time stories ever. Sharon mentions home schooling as a viable option, and the concept does have the weight of historical precedent. At any rate, spending time with parents is how we learn about our family. It is just as important to know one’s family history, about the lives of their parents and grandparents, as it is to know the history of one’s country or culture. This kind of historical knowledge can’t be taught at any school, and it, like academic history, can inspire people to heroic action. Those who know nothing of their ancestors, start life in poverty, and my heart goes out to them.

As someone who has taught both at the secondary level and now the college level, I would caution others not to place too much emphasis on the academic world. Thankfully, academe is not going to be the savior of the world. Not everyone is going to be a professor, doctor, philosopher, theologian, historian, or scientist. Our dignity is not about how much we know, but how we live with what we know. History will remember men and women who thought and did, not men and women who just studied.

In the Dark Ages, or even during the Renisance (now I know I spelled that one wrong), we did not know we were ignorant.

On the contrary, Laiedheliel and Kuruharan, a realization that one does not know is the primary catalyst to know. Men of the “Dark Ages” were in awe of a natural world that presented them with wondrous mystery and frightening power. This inspired people such as Bonaventure, Bénézet and the Frères Pontifes, Peter Abelard, Villard de Honnecourt, Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, Stupor Mundi Frederick II, Geoffrey Chauncer, Marco Polo and Roger Bacon, not to mention the countless unnamed men and women who tamed water with the waterwheel, cotton, flax and wool with the loom, the land with horse driven plow. These people knew they did not know. The good scientist, philosopher, and academic knows that there is much to this world we don’t know. Such is the striving of the human heart.

Sharon writes:

Today, I would argue, we still view college as primarily a place to prepare yourself to earn a lot of money in the workforce. Bilbo's ideal, and the ideal of the Elves, only hangs around on the fringes of academia. Yes, the Bilbos and Elves are still there, but it's often hard to get funding for the liberal arts except in a few choice (and often expensive!) institutions.

I often find myself at odds on this issue with more than a few colleagues of a conservative bent. A commonly accepted justification for higher education is that it “teaches the leaders of the future.” This is, in my opinion, an example of good old university arrogance. Littlemanpoet touches thoughtfully on the John Dewey utilitarianism that has plagued the university. Many students believe that if it doesn’t have to do with quantum physics, then it doesn’t have to do with them. Then the same conservatives wonder why their students care more about frat parties, football games, and the strip than their lectures. Professors should bare in mind that real geniuses and child prodigies don’t have to listen to their lectures.

One can see the same arrogance here at the B’Downs. Just because you have read and enjoyed an inspiring novel, and have pseudo-philosophical discussions on this forum does not mean you are any better than the mechanic down the street that doesn’t know Tolkien from Hopkins. For all the discussion in this thread, there are those who lament the loss of history, and yet in the same thread show incredible ignorance of history (if you have made a comment about the “Dark Ages,” rest assured I’m referring to you). This is the pot calling the kettle black. This forum, like a university education, does not guarantee any amount of intelligence, wisdom, or knowledge.

I strive that my students may gain an appreciation of the world around them, not so much that they pick up banal skills for success. As far as skills for success go, I learned more from my family, both past and present, and the Army, than school or the University. I’m not teaching, nor do I want to teach, America’s elite. I just want to teach. The tides are changing, though, thanks in part to a growing interest in folklore; especially of note is the popularity of the Foxfire Books. From what he has said and written, it is obvious that Tolkien was this kind of professor, a humble man of letters with the wisdom to know that his letters came, in the first place, from the common man.

I've read far to much to believe that there is no such thing as human nature. People have always been inclined to be ignorant, lazy, complacent, greedy, and usually uncaring about anything else as long as they are fat, dumb, and happy.

I’ve read and seen too much to believe such demagoguery. Human nature is more wondrous and beautiful than it is ugly and corrupt.

By the grace of God, I’m a history teacher… not because history is absolutely essential to understanding our individual place in the cosmos, not because history teaches us to be human beings, not because history informs the leaders of tomorrow, not because history is the first of all sciences. I’m a history teacher because I love history, and I firmly believe that love is contagious.