Youth, Gender,
The Environment And The Separation Of State, Religion And Business Part Two DAVID RALPH MACKERETH dmackereth@canimac.com
YOUTH
was in fact probably created for his benefit.” Always
“Education has to teach us not only what we can know but
cognizant, the child did not ask to be born!
also what the limitations of our knowledge are – what we don’t know.” Vartan Gregorian (1989).
“In the lives of individuals and of societies, language is a factor of greater importance than any other.” Ferdinand de
“Compare the views, make allowances for distortions, and
Saussure, Course in General Linguistics (1916).
then judge for yourself. That is the only way. Hence the many newspapers on my table.” Samuel Robinson Littlewood (1875
“It is more important to pave the way for the child to want to
– 1963).
know than to put him on a diet of facts he is not ready to assimilate.” Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder (1965).
“[…] the human nature takes it shape in the years between
“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that
one and five.” Virginia Woolf (1929).
at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy
Most animal parents are compelled by Nature to provide their
(1641).
young with the very best enabling instruction. The lion’s share of this knowledge has accumulated through evolution.
Youth should be provided with the most useful possible
G.K Chesterton, in his 1910 book ‘What’s Wrong with the
knowledge as they progress to maturity. And to provide this
World’, sets the stage a century ago: “Obviously, it ought to
information without detrimental effects, as Seymour Papert’s
be the oldest things that are taught to the youngest people;
1984 ‘New Theories for New Learnings’ cautions, “the scandal
the assured and experienced truths that are first put to the
of education is that every time you teach something, you
baby. But in a school today the baby has to submit to a
deprive a [student] of the pleasure and benefit of discovery.”
system that is younger than himself.” To a child beginning out
Determining the source for this learning, Marshall McLuhan
on their lifelong journey, the world appears rather simple. As
mentions in his 1974 public lecture ‘Living at the Speed of
we learn from Northrop Frye, in his 1990 ‘Words with Power’,
Light’, “Ivan Illich has a book called Deschooling Society, in
“Innocence he [William Blake (1757 – 1827)] associates with
which he argues, since we now live in a world where the
children, not because of any moral superiority in the child, but
information and answers are all outside the school room, let
because the child assumes a world that makes sense, and
us close the schools.” Illich stresses in this 1970 ‘Deschool-
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MBE BUSINESS MAGAZINE JANUARY 2021
W W W. M B E F O RYOU. C O M
