A lot of column inches have been written about colleges instituting a "core curriculum" of the classic literature and values of Western civilization. I wish there could be as much dramatic attention paid to a much more important core curriculum played out almost every day in the streets and backyards of our neighborhood, a hotbed of moral education and struggle that makes the senior seminar on Dante look pale and anemic.
We live with our two girls in a good neighborhood, and enjoy all the privileges of a good neighborhood: reliable neighbors, lack of fear, unlocked doors. But the neighbor hood is also a fishbowl where the usual stresses of living can easily inflate into a fearsome Cold War. Right now there is tactical maneuvering between our two girls and the girl across the street over who will be the leader in the neighbor hood tribe. Several other friends goad this process along because while they have a vested interest in being friends with all three girls, they also want the wiggle-room to move to the more advantageous side as the tension heats up. There are other campaigns as well concerning who will sleep over whose house and what kinds of games they'll play and how to petition the powers that be for a special treat.
This is the crucible in which these children learn to struggle with moral decisions about personal ity, compromise, integrity, honor, truth, justice - in short, the struggles we attach to becoming "civilized." It's a know ledge that comes straight from their skin, from the flash of anger in blue eyes and the modu lated tones of apology. Inevitably we're drawn into these arrange ments (which, in their complexity, rival Europe in 1914) to negotiate terms or assess triage. We try, as good mentors, to help them acquire the habit of thinking about themselves, so that they can form the raw stuff of their feelings into insights and etiquettes, into a footer upon which the walls of their life's house can sit securely.
No core curriculum can substitute for this daily accumulation of truth winnowed from the irascibility of neighborhood skirmishes, the truces that allow for sincerity, solutions to the fair distribution of candy. In fact, colleges might be better off if they crafted their core education along the lines of our back yard. At least then the curriculum wouldn't be ceremonial and dry, an acquired taste that came from exams rather than from hair and breath, from the snap of anger or the gift of compliment. We see the core curriculum made flesh every day. If we've done our jobs well, then when the children read Plato for the first time, it will really be, for them, a re-reading. The words will be different, but the passions will be familiar.
Tenderness
What's Love Got To Do With It?