THE MICHIGAN CITIZEN MARCH 8 -14,1987
9
OPINION
How to prepare children for change
By L. Ron Hubbard
Editor's note: Displaced from
jobs by automation or other
economic upheavals, mOT< and
more white-collar workers today
need retraining in order to stay
employable. Here L. Ron
Hubbard, best-selling American
author and educator, explains
why children should be taught
early to solve problems so they
can be ready to meet a changing
world.
The only salvation I believe
a child might have in the shift­
ing pattern of our time is
the ability to do quick tudies
of common bject. Univer-
'tie often say it is needed and
never te ch it well in practice.
It i not much knowing
here to 10 bu t HO to look
and familiarity with 100 ing
that can bring the child to a
te of rapid tudy ability.
I ould very gre tly appre­
ciate an early introduction of
thi into their hooling. It is a
chan ing world. any higher
bject re not table today
for a year t a time. Botany,
horticulture, physi c and the
like are in a m ate of change.
I feel the udent i only re -
cued by cqumn an ability
to e amine and kno at . great
ed. Thi applie to arch
in te t, of cour , but even
more widely in . arch in the -
phy . cal univer .
Therefore I ould gre tly
appreciate it if te chen would
plea introduce ( and develop
the skills for it what we call
RESEARCH into the children'
training.
A one or all of them will be
required in later years, the
bility to EXAMINE and 0
may keep them from failing or
t lea from making huge error
o judgment.
"The child who
is educated to
CHA GE is
never betrayed
by his teacher. "
sample of this would be a
daily a ignment to report on
the exact and somewhat com­
plex tatus of mething on the
grounds.
Example of a simple ssign­
ment: Go fmd a flower and
count its petal and come back
and tell me how many petal .
Example of a more complex
. nment: Find a tree and a
bush and find all the difference
you can between them.
Example of posing a pro­
blem: Go out and find a pro­
blem in the front yard.
Later, when the child ha a
good command of reading, the
following could be done.
Example: How is steel
made?
Example: When wa the
Tower of London built? Why
wa it built?
Example: How many kinds
of cats are there? What are
their differences?
Thi would not be AFTER
a cl tudy of eel, the Tower
or cat. The a ignment would
be "out of the blue." The
child must learn first to find
urce .
The subject is further ampli­
fied by the ddition of "up­
po Itions," The child i told to
find a tree and give some
ccount of how h think it
might have gotten there.
The keynote of all such
training (in its earliest stages
at least i the abandonment
of the idea that there are exact
answers to all things. This is
fallacy and i the .� primary
reason education may f�. Man
ha very few exact � answers.
He has 'agreed upon ers, "
"workable answers" an "policy
answers."
It is the sheere t folly to
insi t that ALL things have an
exact an er. If the child i
trained to believe that all
an ers are found in books
and that all b ok an ers are
exact, his educational progre s
i stultified. Thi is, in fact,
an ' operation" intended to
enslave the child to current
belief . As many, the great
majority, of the beliefs can be
counted on to change before
the child i 25 it i a di rvice
to freeze hi thinking for the
period during which he is being
educated.
'Educational truths" a they
apply in inexact subjects are
created truths and are of finite
duration. The child who is
educated to CHA GE i never
betrayed by his te cher.
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eadin
To et e r
SHAPING IDENTITY
African American parent r very familiar with the terribl
effects of gregation upon th Bl c child's If-image but
what about the effects of integration? Andrea Lee explores
this issue in the novel Sarah Phillip Random Hou 19 4 .
The novel is narrated by rah, a young African American
oman who has grown up in a ne ly integrated uburb
ttended integrated school and recently raduated from
Harvard. It would m that she certainly h the right tic et
to succe .
Sarah's story, however, is not one of success. Quite the
contrary. In the opening chapter of the book, Sarah is living
in Paris, speaking French fluently but dirty, unemployed
and sharing living quarters with three young men. From this
arting point the author leads the reader into a journey
through Sarah s childhood arching for clues which might
explain this young person's di -integration.
Sarah is the younge t of t 0 children in a middle income
family. Her father a Civil Rights tivist i pastor of a
church which is located in the inner city. Every Sunday the
church overflows with member who, like the pastor and hi
family, now live in the suburb but who drive back to the city
for worship services.
Straddling the two worlds in a 'muddle of cial change"
Sarah and her brother gre up feeling a mixture of pride and
animosity toward the church which eem to repre nt the
Black community. They liked the armth the security and
comfort offered by the congregattion ut as they gre older,
they began to thin of it as being a bit like a dreadful old
relative linking them to a past hi h ame to em embar­
ra singly primitive."
The divided feeling about her 0 n people al 0 came
from conflicting signals within the family. For e ample,
Sarah' father gave the hildren stacks of material on frican
American history and urged them to be proud of their cultural
identity, but the children frequently heard their father peak
unflatteringly of his own people in the priva y of family con­
versation.
Sarah was pulled even farther a ay from her ba of
identity when she as sent to an exclusive boarding h I
and to an expensive summer camp here the only fri an
Americans she saw were the rvants and children from an
economically di dvantaged neighb rho d who were brought
to the camp in a cial experiment. In these settin as ell
as in her college years, Sarah often f und herself stranded in
a cial and cultural no-man's land where her friendships
were formed from an as rtment of odd chart! ters,
Bit by bit the author strings together the incident fr m
the home, the school and the community hich prevent
Sarah from being able to have a p sitive well-adjusted life
in spite of her excellent edu ation.
The story ends on a hopeful note ho ever with Sarah
beginning to realize that what is mi ing from her life and
from the lives of other confused American youth i a ense
of identity, purpo and commitment.
Parents should enjoy reading and dis u sing this novel.
........._----