Over the next 7 weeks or so I will post an exploration of
each of Kurt Hahn’s “Seven Laws of
Salem”. While these were written as
founding principals for a German boarding school in 1930, their relevance to
our own continuing education as adults in today’s post-industrial society
should not be dismissed. Though they can
certainly inform our modern education system, our journey will be looking at
each as it relates to challenges that arise in our daily lives as adults.
Kurt Hahn was an educator and vocal anti-Nazi in the early
days of their rise to power. The principals he called “The Seven Laws of Salem”
(the basis for the school he founded in Salem, Germany between the world wars)
became the founding principals of the Outward Bound programs now offered at
independent schools around the world.
Hahn was focused on developing social change through
education of the younger generation. He placed the natural world, our earth, in
a position of great importance to the heath and development of a human being at
a time when industrialization and modernism was beginning to over take more
traditional life styles.
The Seven Laws of
Salem
1. Give the children opportunities for self-discovery.
2. Make the children meet with triumph and defeat.
3. Give the children the opportunity of self-effacement inthe common cause.
4. Provide periods of silence.
5. Train the imagination.
6. Make games important but not predominant.
7. Free the sons of the wealthy and powerful from the
enervating sense of privilege.
“Give the children
opportunities for self-discovery”
I don’t know about you, but my education was focused mainly
on learning facts and developing tools to solve abstract problems.
Self-discovery happened, I suppose. There were occasionally teachers who
encouraged these types of things, however this was not the way the system was
suppose to work. For many of us I believe, our adolescent years, where we
develop our own sense of self, begins with the realization that there is a
system. We then need to figure out how we can maintain our individuality within
or against such a system.
What typically happens as we develop our sense of self is that
we are usually creating it in relation to what is happening around us. For some
of us it is rebellion, taking on an outsider role, for others it is in
conforming . Yes, there are extremes, but most of us have some areas of conformity
and others where we take on more of an outsider role.
Little time is made for going inward, especially being
guided there – toward what makes us, well, us – our sense of purpose, our
passions and dreams.
Hahn’s own statement on this principal begins:
“Every girl and boy has a ‘grande passion,’ often hidden and unrealized
to the end of life. The Educator cannot hope and may not try to find it out by
psycho-analytical methods. It can and
will be reviled by a child coming into close touch with a number of different
activities…. these activities must not be added as a super structure to
an exhausting program of lessons. They will have no chance of absorbing and
brining out the child unless they form a a vital part of the work day.”
Dodge ball anyone? Its gym class today. So here, at the
start of this exploration we hit upon one of biggest challenges faced by so
many people today. Something that is at the root of so much of our unhappiness,
whether it is the “mid-life crisis” or the “drifting, purposeless” 20
somethings.
Hahn goes on to correlate this lack of exploration of what
truly attracts us in our early development to our spiritual health – the joy
and happiness we experience in life.
“(The) undiscovered…
boy rarely maintains his vitality unbroken and undiluted from 11 to 15. We do not hesitate to say: often the
spiritual difference in age between a boy of 15 and a boy of 11 is greater than
that of a man of 50 and a boy of 15.”
In our society these ages may vary, but think of the
vitality of a young woman or man at 24 and another at 34?
How can we know our passion or purpose in life if we have
never take time to explore it? & as life goes on and our responsibilities
and the roles we play add up quite often we move further and further from that
passion, we cease any effort at self-discovery and begin to define our selves
by the circumstances of our life.
The great gift is it is never too late to begin this
journey. There are many paths to this, many ways of making time and space to
explore and nurture that source of vitality – on your own, in groups or
workshops, with a coach or guide. The world is around us. Vitality sure sound
good me.
Try taking time every day, whatever time you can afford – an
hour, 15 minutes, less? Write down your agenda, the infinite list of what needs
to be done. Next to each item consider why it is there. Is it because of some
responsibility you took on? Something that is part of someone else’s agenda?
Something you chose because it makes you feel more alive?
I’m not advocating ditching all your responsibilities to find
your passion. What I can help with is finding a path to (or back to) that
connection to something that gives your life meaning and vitality. Finding it
in a way that enhances your life – as it is, as it can be.
Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5.
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Kurt Hahn's School's and Legacy by Martin Flavin was the primary source for these posts.
