Oleander, Jacaranda by Penelope Lively

Author:Penelope Lively
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2006-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

I did not go to school in Egypt. I could have done – there were English schools, but they were in Cairo so there would have been a problem about transport. For whatever reason, school was never proposed and at some point, without fuss, Lucy turned herself from nurse into governess. This now seems to me a bold and indeed valiant move. I don’t think that she herself had had much, if any, secondary education. She wrote an exemplary copperplate hand, was competent with figures and a keen reader, but that was about it. What she did was to discover the organization which exactly catered for those in our situation. Possibly my parents had a hand in it, but my feeling is that they did not. I don’t remember either of them being involved or indeed taking a great deal of interest in my lessons. It was Lucy, all the way, and the organization upon which she lit was the Parents National Educational Union – the PNEU.

The PNEU was, and still is, both a system and a philosophy of education. It ran schools in England, but it also offered a sort of do-it-yourself education kit to expatriate parents. The child was signed up with the PNEU centre, and then the timetables, the books and expansive instructions on how to administer them were dispatched at intervals. I have some of this material in front of me now – Form III (A & B), ages 11 to 18. Pupil’s name: Penelope (IIIB). April 1944. I was just eleven, so evidently we were keeping up nicely. The PNEU’s credo is magisterial: ‘Children are born persons. They are not born either good or bad, but with possibilities for good and for evil. The principles of authority on the one hand, and of obedience on the other, are natural, necessary and fundamental…’ Straight Rousseau – and it continues along the same lines.

The PNEU motto is ‘Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life’… We hold that the child’s mind is no mere sack to hold ideas; but is rather, if the figure may be allowed, a spiritual organism, with an appetite for all knowledge… children should be taught, as they become mature enough to understand such teaching, that the chief responsibility which rests on them as persons is the acceptance or rejection of ideas.

All very high-minded. Reading it now, I wouldn’t quarrel with many of the sentiments, even if the language seems a touch sententious. The philosophical synopsis continues by outlining the system which was the cornerstone of the PNEU method – the telling-back process.

As knowledge is not assimilated until it is reproduced, children should ‘tell back’ after a single reading or hearing: or should write on some part of what they have read. A single reading is insisted on, because children have naturally a great power of attention; but this force is dissipated by the rereading of passages, and also, by questioning, summarizing, and the like.

Lucy read: I told back and, when older, wrote back.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.