Choking for words, she just asked ‘why?‘
A student was reading a powerful novel set in WWII, and had followed the protagonist though appalling circumstances; his compassion, warmth and courage made him an immensely likeable character whom she somehow felt she really knew. His sudden brutal, quick and surprising death came as a shock; and the student was powerfully moved, almost to tears.
Not a happy novel, and not the most cheering of sentiments. But important ideas emerge, and we owe them due consideration. I have been thinking about how our Mission for Peace can be addressed in our the academic curriculum (here I leave aside the other four elements of our Learning Programme). If we really are educating for peace then should we look outside the regular academic classes? Should we join those who see traditional academic education as prolonging an outdated system that was really set up for the industrial era? Or are there possibilities for deeper, affective opportunities that can profoundly shape the student’s values and aspirations?
I think you will see where I am going; that there are indeed such transformative opportunities within the the traditional academic curriculum. Not, of course, that we cannot improve things, we can, we must, and we are always striving to do so. But in our unswerving dedication to improvement, I sometimes see a tendency to take for granted the goods that we already have. And having students clearly moved, emotionally connected to far away situations and people – who are very different to them – has to be one of these goods; and I believe it is a powerful step towards educating for peace.
So I am seeing the value in traditional literature, though that runs contrary to some Departments of Education around the world which seem only interested in more obvious and quantifiable returns on investment. There is, of course, an important place for the quantifiable – maths and science can help us understand possibilities and probabilities in the widest arena of human affairs; and that history, psychology, politics (for example) should help an engaged citizenry weigh up the costs and benefits of war. But short of experiencing the horrors of war itself, perhaps the arts of literature and drama are the closest we can ever get to understanding what those costs truly are. I can attest to the profound effect studying this book had on my daughter, and how her subsequent trajectory has been informed by such moments.
That seems to me to be a defence of an intelligently designed, passionately delivered, broad and balanced traditional academic curriculum, with a central place for the Arts. Academics are not everything, for sure, but properly done, they contribute as much to the holistic and emotional growth of students as anything else.
