Our Children and Theirs

... The Woman's Voice, as it welcomes back its friend Miss Nahla Marwa from America, where she took in fresh draughts from the wellspring of education, is pleased to present her to the readers in her first talk about what she observed in the field of education..

This is the first time I have spoken to you since my return from the United States, and perhaps you expect my talk to be, as usual, confined to particular matters and limited points that do not go beyond the rules of raising the child, caring for him, and guiding him. But I have found it preferable to acquaint you with some of what I saw and noted of the raising of children in the United States of America.

There is no room, in my belief, for comparison between our raising of our children and the Americans' raising of theirs. Our child-rearing is still confined within a limited scope that has not developed much beyond what it was before; in America, however, education has rules and foundations other than those we know and to which our children are accustomed. It therefore takes in the child's life in all its details and attends to his needs in all their variety.

In our society, however, the child is not yet respected. In most of our homes he is treated, in his first months, as a toy for the parents' amusement; then the maid takes him over. She feeds him because his mother has visitors; she plays with him because his mother has gone visiting. After that he is sent off to school, and the teacher alone becomes the bearer of the responsibility, with the help of the simple-minded maid. And if there is no maid in the house, the mother stays by her child, but her knowledge of the principles of child-rearing is very slight. Then our infants' schools and the elementary school, unfortunately, do not give the child what he needs, because those who work with these children have not been prepared to bear this charge. The prevailing opinion among us is that anyone who has mastered reading and writing is fit to teach in an elementary school. Very few indeed in Lebanon are the elementary schools that contain specialists.

And when I speak of Lebanon, I take in the whole of Lebanon, its cities and its villages; for if we took the city of Beirut alone, for example, and spoke of its schools, we should not have given a true picture of our country. If we look at certain private schools in Beirut that attend to the elementary grades, we must not forget that there are hundreds of our elementary schools floundering in the chaos of ignorance and indifference.

We are in need, then, of schools for the training of men and women teachers, to make them ready to teach in the elementary school; for children have their own personality, and therefore they need specialists. The education of small children in America is a branch standing on its own among the branches of education and instruction, and they lavish upon it a care that holds every meaning of sacrifice and devotion for the sake of those little ones, because they believe they are preparing them to shoulder the homeland's weighty responsibilities in the days of their future.

In every one of the states of America today there are countless colleges for specialization and training in elementary teaching. The student spends four years in such a college in order to be qualified to teach in an elementary school. In these four years he is given the chance to practice teaching in a model school under the supervision of specialists before he begins work on his own after leaving the college — for they believe that a teacher, whatever high diplomas he may hold, is not fit to teach in an elementary school unless he has studied, in addition to his diploma, the principles of education and the methods of teaching. In our country, on the other hand, the elementary teachers' training colleges are very few; whence, then, can we hope to have specialists, and how can we hope for success, or for life, for the elementary school?

Our country today is in the most pressing need of the opening of elementary teachers' training colleges — urban and rural — to fill the immense void of which we complain.

It is fitting that I mention here that our Ministry of National Education intends to establish a new elementary teachers' training college together with a model elementary school. This college, and the model school attached to it, will follow the theories and rules of modern education — and such an initiative on the part of the Ministry of Education stirs hope in the souls of those who work in this field.

Then, if we cast a glance at the daily program in our elementary schools, we see that it is a purely theoretical program, and that it does not suit the psychology and temperament of children.

John Dewey, the great American educator, says: "Education is life." And how far our schools are from this truth!

I spent fourteen weeks in an elementary school during my studies in the United States, and I saw the school as a small community in which the children live. The hen with her chicks dwells in the first grade, and the mother rabbit with her young lives in the kindergarten playground. The visits to the police stations, the fire brigade, the nearby farms and the neighboring shops never cease — to say nothing of the ways and methods used in giving the various lessons. Blessed be a school that gives children what they need and nourishes their inclinations and polishes them!

As for cooperation between home and school, it is a matter taken for granted in the American schools. But it is a matter not yet heard of in our schools here.

The teacher or the administration never sees the face of the father or the mother at the school unless the child has broken the rules or fallen behind in his lessons. But if we wish to build the child's complete personality, we cannot separate the school from the home; the cooperation between them is a fundamental factor in the child's upbringing.

I was invited to attend several meetings of the parents' and teachers' association in the United States; the like of this association exists in every school there, and in it the parents study their children's problems together with the teachers, and become acquainted with the researches of modern education.

Let us leave the elementary school a moment and see what we have done outside the school. Have we playgrounds set apart for children? Are there libraries of their own? Any gardens for them? Or any entertainment we think of holding for their amusement?

All of this is nonexistent among us, while it is an ordinary thing in countries where children have been given their rights. In every American city and village there is a public library with a special wing in it for the little ones. I shall not forget my visit to one of these libraries, where I saw a large number of children listening to a story read to them by a specially trained young woman; and when they had finished hearing the story, they set about picking out books to take home with them to read, just as in the grown-ups' libraries. There are also playgrounds and gardens set apart for children, which they frequent in their free hours for play and amusement, and these too are supervised by specialists. Among the things that aroused my interest was the existence of special theaters for children, where stage plays suited to their ages are presented to them, and where moving-picture films made specially for them are shown, widening their horizon and developing their knowledge.

It is a shame to leave our children in the street. We must not forget that these children have a world all their own, and we must work to make them happy in this world of theirs.

These are a few passing thoughts on what I saw during my studies in America; perhaps they will throw some light on the great difference between our way of raising children and theirs — and hence between our children and their children.