On July 18, 1976, a 14-year-old Romanian gymnast named Nadia Comaneci became the first athlete ever to receive a perfect score in Olympic competition. The judges awarded Nadia "perfect 10s" for her performances on the uneven bars and the balance beam that day, and she went on to score five additional "perfect 10s" before the Montreal Olympics came to a close.
I recall that one reporter asked her during the closing ceremonies whether, in light of her perfect scores, she now planned to retire, and Nadia replied, "I'm only 14 years old."It did seem like a strange question to ask someone who was, after all, still a child, but then, what was there left for this child to achieve or to reach for in her sport now that she had attained "perfection"?
In most sports, "perfection" is a meaningless term, for no matter how good a golfer or skier or swimmer you become - even if you get to be the best in the whole world - you will never be "perfect." And in that way, most sports provide a metaphor for children to apply to life itself. Living a good life is a matter of constant self-improvement, with no end in sight.
This whole practice I call "family learning" is centered on the idea that learning and living are intertwined, so it is not surprising to find that family learning encourages parents and children to look upon learning as being self-improvement, and as being perpetual as well.
When we think of learning as self-improvement, it becomes clear that learning cannot just involve the accumulation of facts or the acquisition of skills. Self-improvement means improving ourselves in all ways - mentally, yes, but also physically, morally, spiritually and in our relationships with others. There is just as much development involved in learning how to live a good life and how to use the knowledge and skills you possess as there is in acquiring all that knowledge and all those skills in the first place.
A hundred years ago, the English writer John Ruskin said, "Education does not mean teaching the youth the shapes of letters and the tricks of numbers, and then leaving them to turn their arithmetic to robbery, and their literature to lust. It means, on the contrary, training them into the perfect exercise and kingly continence of their bodies and souls."
This idea is in direct contrast to the "goals" your children hear touted on TV commercials or see modeled in the lifestyles of rock stars, movie stars and some professional athletes. Self-improvement, if it has any meaning at all to these people, is so limited in scope that it involves nothing more than the desire to experience everything possible, no matter how illegal or perverted, once in your life. "Just do it!" Ah, that's living!
No, it's not, but if you don't establish and model the connection between learning, living and self-improvement for your children in your home, then they will be easy pickings for those who model the popular and alluring alternative view for them throughout the common culture.
There is one TV ad that might be useful to us in getting the message of self-improvement into our children's daily lives, and that is the U.S. Army ad that says "Be all that you can be!" The Army focuses on the physical side of life, but we can broaden this slogan in our homes to include all the aspects of personal growth and betterment, so it can be for our children a handy catch phrase to judge whether any of those all-too-alluring activities contributes to their self-improvement or just their self-gratification.
Dr. William F. Russell's books for parents and children include "Classics to Read Aloud to Your Children" and "Classic Myths to Read Aloud." Send your questions and comments to him at Family Learning, 37 W 222, Route 64, Suite 203, St. Charles, IL 60175-1000.