Choose Instruction

My son, from your youth choose instruction,

thus, even to grey hair, you will find wisdom.

As though plowing and sowing, draw close to her;

then await her bountiful crops....

How irksome she is to the unruly!

The fool cannot abide her...

For discipline is like her name,*

she is not accessible to many (Sirach 6:18-23).

(* in Hebrew, "Discipline/ wisdom/ skill is a perfect homonym for "removed, withdrawn."

Thus, the path of instruction/ discipline/ wisdom is inaccessible to many.)

If we had to choose just one virtue that would lead to a happy and productive life, it seems to me it would be the virtue of "listening," of "choosing instruction," of willing to be taught, of the willingness to learn. 

The proud man thinks he already knows the right way; the humble is willing to listen to others to discern the truth.  For centuries, Oriental wisdom was taught each generation to "listen," to learn from others and not to speak until they themselves had acquired wisdom.  Wisdom, for the young, meant listening to the elders.  When I first began teaching English as a Second Language, I -- in the Western mentality-- encouraged my Oriental students to speak in class, to give their opinions, something that went against their cultural upbringing.  One of my students told me:  In our culture, it is God first; teacher, second; parents, third. 

 They were taught to speak and to share their knowledge only with one another--to help one another to acquire the same knowledge they had learned.  Of course, in our Western classrooms, we saw this as "cheating;" every student was expected to do his/her own work and to think for him/herself. 

Now, in my old age, I wonder what we have done in encouraging so much independence in our children.  They do think for themselves, but in doing so, they have lost all acknowledgement of the wisdom of "God, teachers, parents."  They have become "like gods" in their own minds, and they no longer "choose instruction," but must learn only from their own experience.  In the words of Sirach, they are no longer willing to "put [their] feet into her (Wisdom's) fetters and [their] neck under her yoke...to search her out, discover her; seek her and find her (25-28).

I am not condemning the young here, like an old lady shaking her cane at the upstart generation....not at all, for I teach a class of wonderful 11th grade students each week, who could not be sweeter or more respectful.  These are the children I love, who do "draw close" and "seek instruction," and who I am convinced will find joy and enlighten their minds, again in the words of Sirach.

When I look at the advances of the education system over the past 50 years, I do see that we as a society have embraced some of the Oriental wisdom, and we now recognize the value of "collaborative learning," where children are now taught to acquire knowledge from one another and to work in teams in the classroom, where the success of one is the success of all, where competitiveness is giving way to collaboration, where bullying is being replaced by respect for each person, where listening to others is valued over bragging and boasting.  I rejoice in these new methods of education, and my hope is that this generation can overcome the win-lose mentality that is now so evident in Congress and politics, where the good of the country suffers by the supreme unwillingness of our "leaders" to listen and to learn from one another.

Independent thought is indeed a virtue, as Socrates taught, if it is preceded by the wisdom of knowing " that we do not know," as Socrates also taught.  If we from youth "choose instruction" as our discipline, we will indeed wear wisdom "as a robe of glory, and bear her as our splendid crown" (Sirach 6:31).