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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Home Ideals (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 44. The Finest School Work.
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The Finest School Work.
The father and mother together are to become a father. It takes two to make one. We are to go to school to our Father-God until the two joined in one shall be as He is in fatherhood. The father is to be a father with all the mother meaning, too. The mother is to be truly a father in strength and life even while her most loved name remains mother. And so the two together shall teach the child of his heavenly Father, by the father-life they two-in-one live together before his eyes.
This higher father life of father and mother together is the rarest of all schooling. The older we get, and the more we grow, the more we realize that life is all just going to school. It is school work from birth, to the new birth up into the unseen life above. And he gets most out of it, and gives most out to it who enters into all of his life with the real school spirit. Earnestness of purpose, a humble remembering of how little we know, eagerness to learn, patience in the learning, willingness to work hard—this is essentially the school spirit.
Even when we know much there is always more; and the more we don't know is so much more than the much that we do know. God leads us here into the greatest schoolroom of life. It's a schoolroom for the child, of course, with us to play the part of teacher. But it is just as much a schoolroom for us who do the teaching. There is constant study, working out new problems, finding new meanings of words, training the mind to think, the heart to be wise in its loving, the spirit to be both strong and gentle, the tongue to obey implicitly, the hand to be deft, the patience to be tireless, the bodily strength to be wisely conserved,—what schooling!
There are frequent reviews and tests and examinations, promotions and demotions, too; for often the way up is down. And in and through is a Presence, unseen but that may be felt, a Father-Teacher, watching, smiling, showing the next step, never tired nor critical, always eager and patient, with the true teacher-spirit, ever drawing us up the heights.
It's the best kind of school because it combines teaching and being taught. It's going to school, and yet teaching school yourself. Every bit that is gotten from the Teacher and the lessons is being taught in one way or another all the time. There is no learning like that which must be put into use at once. And no teaching equals that which has come up out of life's experience.