Over 7 weeks or so I will post an exploration of each of Kurt Hahn’s “Seven Laws of Salem”. To read Part 1 click here.
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 in the 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.
"Make the children meet with triumph and defeat."
"It is possible to wait on a child's inclinations and gifts and to arrange carefully for an unbroken series of successes. You may make him happy that way - I doubt it - but you certainly disqualify him for the battle of life."
While I'm pretty sure that the sarcasm comes across in the quote above from Hahn's writing on these principals I'll highlight by saying the rest of the paragraph says pretty bluntly we need to learn how to face defeat.
Setbacks and struggles are part of this life. Socially speaking, at this time, in this country, most of us have some penchant for instant gratification. We want the wrongs righted and the gifts given without too much compromise and little hard work. If these are present we often site them as sacrifices toward getting what we deserve - many adults as well as children.
This lesson is one of growing up, of taking responsibilities for ourselves rather than blaming the world around us. If we don't learn it early we tend to have to confront it later in life, when so much more is at stake. I'm thinking of the preverbal "bankers jumping from buildings" when the market sinks or of addicts drowning out feelings of defeat and uselessness, as worse case scenarios. But many of us, coming into adulthood have never fully grasped the meaning and value of major setbacks to our dreams and goals. I see so many people either forcing their way through by aggression or sacrifice, or walking away and ignoring a problem all together.
"Treat these two impostors just the same."
On the other side of defeat, many of us need a lesson in handling success. Its easy to start to define ourselves as the thing we are good at - placing our self worth solely on a handful of roles we engage in every day. When challenges arise in these other parts of life its easy to hide in what we are good at, what we have control over. Whether its a career or a video game or a relationship or a hobby, what feels good and rewarding is an easy refuge.
As adults we need to learn how to balance these. There are areas of life we excel in, but that does not mean we should ignore what is more difficult for us. If you are successful in family relationships and unsuccessful in your career it doesn't mean you should never work again and vice versa. It doesn't mean you should be miserable your whole life either.
Part of this lesson is learning to enjoy our successes and recognize there are other challenges in life we might not be as skilled at. We then need to learn new ways of meeting these challenges, new ways of dealing with defeat that inspire us to move on, to develop new tools or to find new means of support.
A full life isn't an easy life.
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Kurt Hahn's School's and Legacy by Martin Flavin was the primary source for these posts.
