Online Book Club: The Headgate, Require Work

The Headgate, (click here to read)
Step 2:  Require Work

by Brian and Keri Tibbets

The Headgate tells us that the second step to creating an ideal learning environment is to require work.  

"The main reason for requiring work of our children is that it develops a strong self-discipline muscle that they may call upon whenever they need it to accomplish something difficult.  When our children get inspired by great books, and are old enough to begin reading, they will need a well toned self-discipline muscle in order to see them through the hard part before the reward comes.  If they have not developed this through hard work, they may think that reading is just too hard for what it is worth to them...even if it is of great worth to them."(p.9)

Work and education go hand in hand.  Working hard gives children the self-discipline and confidence they need to educate themselves.  Learning to do something new, developing a talent, and gaining an education aren't easy things to do.  Learning is hard work.  Mortimer Adler address this in his essay An Invitation to the Pain of Learning.  He says, 

  "One of the reasons why the education given by our schools is so frothy and vapid is that the American people generally-the parent even more than the teacher-wish childhood to be unspoiled by pain.  Childhood must be a period of delight, of gay indulgence in impulses. It must be given every avenue for unimpeded expression, which of course is pleasant; and it must not be made to suffer the impositions of discipline or the exactions of duty, which of course are painful. Childhood must be filled with as much play and as little work as possible. What cannot be accomplished educationally through elaborate schemes devised to make learning an exciting game must, of necessity, be forgone. Heaven forbid that learning should ever take on the character of a serious occupation-just as serious as earning money, and perhaps, much more laborious and painful... 

 "Anyone who has done any thinking, even a little bit, knows that it is painful. It is hard work-in fact the very hardest that human beings are ever called upon to do. It is fatiguing, not refreshing. If allowed to follow the path of least resistance, no one would ever think. To make boys and girls, or men and women, think-and through thinking really undergo the transformation of learning-educational agencies of every sort must work against the grain, not with it. Far from trying to make the whole process painless from beginning to end, we must promise them the pleasure of achievement as a reward to be reached only through travail.  (Invitation to the Pain of Learning, Mortimer J. Adler)

 Another reason they need to learn to work is so they can  take care of themselves when they leave my home.  Doing that will be so much easier if they have already learned how to work before they move out. All the education in the world means nothing if they can't provide for  and take care of themselves.  I think teaching my children to work is one of the greatest gifts I can give them.  
I just finished reading the autobiography of Booker T. Washington, entitled Up From Slavery.  He started an African-American college in the black-belt of the south, not long after the abolition of slavery.  At that time in the south the ex-slaves felt that manual labor was only for those who didn't have any education, once you had a little book knowledge working was beneath you.  Booker, however felt differently.  Along with providing his students an education he also taught them the importance of work.  In fact, each student that attended school was required to work.  They built their own buildings, started their own brick making industry, made and sold wagons, and raised crops and livestock.  He wanted his students to be useful, not just knowledgeable. He wanted them to take the knowledge they had learned and better not only themselves but also their communities.   He said that one of the saddest things he had ever seen was a  young-man, "who had attended some high school, sitting down in a one-room cabin, with grease on his clothing, filth all around him, and weeds in the yard and garden, engaged in studying a French grammar."

In his book Standing For Something, Gordon B. Hinckley lists teaching children to work as one of the ways to preserve the sacred institution of families.  He said,

"Children need to learn to work.  Ideally, they do this by working with their parents--washing dishes with them, mopping floors, mowing lawns, pruning tress and shrubbery, painting and fixing up and cleaning up and doing a hundred other things whereby they learn that labor is the price of cleanliness, progress, and prosperity.  Overindulging children only wreaks havoc.  Let them grow up with respect for and understanding of the meaning of labor, of working and contributing to the home and its surroundings, with some way of earning some of their own expense money.  Hundreds of thousands of youth in this land are growing up with the idea that the way to get something is to steal it." (Gordon B. Hinckley,  Standing for Something, pp. 188-189)

About a month ago, I started with my children, what I call "family work hour".  In the morning, after everyone has done their individual chores, we work together for 1 hour deep cleaning a room.  We wash walls, wash windows, move and vacuum under the furniture, and even clean the base boards.  I can't believe how that one hour of hard work has improved our school days.  Everyone is happier, they get alone better with each other, and guess what, they have been reading  more.  

Gordon B. Hinckley also said this about work,

 "Only through labor do nations become stronger, cities more attractive, families more tightly knit, and lives more robust."(Gordan B. Hinckley, Standing For Something, p.95)