Actions Speak Louder Than Words

One cannot learn to dance simply by watching. He must interact with the music, not through his mind but through is body. Calculating the mathematics of dance out on paper will help you no better understand it than watching a muted movie … blindfolded. In Michel de Montaigne’s narrative, “On Educating Children”, he explains how one must put forth character and intelligence before knowledge. It is simple to read then reread for the sake of memorization. For instance, during my toddler years I was able to recite the ABC’s forward and backwards, but if you had asked me to read The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald, you would be in for a surprise, for I would had introduced characters and plots unknown to man-kind! My point being, just because I was able to regurgitate the alphabet, did not mean that I truly understood the each of the letters. It is through the action of practicing the ‘words’ when one can begin to naturally enrich his mind with understanding. Not all children are one in the same. In today’s educational system, children are treated as just that, identical. So it would come to no surprise to Montaigne that out of a class of 30 individuals, only one or two students would have properly understood the material that was “taught” to the whole class. Montaigne states, “Spewing up food exactly as you have swallowed it is evidence of a failure to digest and assimilate it; the stomach has not done its job if, during concoction, it fails to change the substance and the form of what it is given.” (Screech, 169). Our education system has been out-of-date for quite some time now. Teaching groups of individuals, each with their own mindset, a one set strategy is failure within itself. No one mind thinks exactly alike, so it would be like trying to teach snowflakes the proper way to crystallize. Individual snowflakes follow slightly different paths from the sky to the ground which determines, through the slightest change in atmospheric conditions, the form it will take. Children can be thought of in the same way. Each child has experienced in his life his own path from the day he is born up until the present. The obstacles he faces shape him as well as his mind. Montaigne suggests that instead of testing children on their capacity to memorize words, one should test a child through their actions. Test to see if they truly understand the meaning and substance of it by making it a part of themselves. The knowledge children receive through study should not be presented to them with the purpose of making more money, instead, it should be introduced to them as something that will embellish their minds; something that will allow them to build character and judgment, something that is truly their own (Screech, 168). Montaigne believes that children should be taught to be virtuous and to think for themselves, stating, “Let him not so much learn what happened as judge what happened.” (Screech, 175). Too often in arguments are we caught up in our own mind, so much so that we fail to see that we ourselves are the enemy. Instead of learning from others, we are quick to claim our judgment the fairest, denying all who oppose. This stubbornness prevents one’s ability to see things anew. Montaigne praises the minds that think again, changes, and admit to being wrong - whether it be when you are alone or in the midst of a heated debate. He calls these qualities an act of justice and integrity, one every child should pursue, that show strength and wisdom. After the child has learned himself, his judgements, can he then move on to learn subjects. Montaigne claims, “Only after showing the boy what will make him a wiser and a better man will you explain to him the elements of Logic, Physics, Geometry, and Rhetoric. Since his judgement has already been formed he will soon get to the bottom of any science he chooses.” (Screech, 179). In Bakewell’s chapter, “How To Live: Be Born”, she discusses Montaigne’s early years of childhood. She explains just like Montaigne does in his book of essays how Pierre, Montaigne’s father, conducted an experiment on his son, which consisted of Montaigne living with a nanny who cared for and spoke nothing but Latin to him until he was two years old. Montaigne was then returned to his real family which continued to familiarize his young ears to nothing but the Latin language. Quoted from Montaigne’s essays she writes, “‘without artificial means, without a book, without grammar or precept, without the whip, and without tears,’ Montaigne learned a Latin as fine as that spoken by his tutor, and with a more natural flow ...” Pierre believed that learning should be a pleasurable experience, and he did just that for his son. Montaigne grew up almost with unlimited freedom and hardly, if any, introduction to discipline. “He was a world unto himself.” (Bakewell, 56). This in turn pushed Montaigne to follow his own curiosity and grow up to be an ‘independent-minded adult’ constantly questioning things and forming his own judgement (Bakewell, 55). Education should be like food. It should present itself to be delicious and edible. It should entice its students with such an aroma that any starving mind would soon find its way towards it, regardless of whether the kitchen window is closed. Instead, at times education is made out to be villainous, grabbing its victims by the throat and beating them into submission. Montaigne makes it very clear that education should be organized and carried out with gentleness, a safe-haven for those trapped in a dull world if you will. He explains that forcing subjects on children create a disastrous mixture that debases and ridicules their very well-born nature to learn. Montaigne goes on to say, “By punishing boys for depravity before they are depraved, you make them so.” (Screech, 186). By putting children in an educational system that constraint subjects onto students whose desires are elsewhere, subliminally trap them in this jail like classroom, which in turn, only create puppets that undermined the true beauty of learning. When something is good or healthy we naturally are drawn to it, in the opposite case, when something is bad or harmful we condemn it. Why not the same with education? We see that it does not work for all, yet we continue to implement such a weak structure onto upcoming generations. This way of teaching is creating more sheep than it is shepherds. Soon true knowledge will be as rare as Shakespeare’s signature. When education is made enjoyable, practicing no longer feels like practice. It becomes a part of one’s soul, a life line. It begins to feel so natural that you hardly even recognize it has conformed to your customs, as Montaigne would put it. It would be so much a part of you as you are it that anything would be made possible, but through virtue only be attracted to what is good and your actions would show for it. Montaigne describes how he knew of people who constantly were apologizing for getting tongue tied, claiming that their minds where just too full of knowledge which in turn was preventing them from properly delivering their idea. And to that he says, “That is moonshine.” (Screech, 189)! He explains that they never fully understood the concept in the first place and the reason they are tripping over their words is because their minds lack clarity on the subject. If you yourself do not understand your mind, how can you explain it to others? That is the beauty of understanding, for once it’s mastered, explanation will have no boundaries; language will be no obstacle. Quoted from Montaigne:
“My pupil will not say his lessons: he will do it. He will rehearse his lessons in his actions. You will then see whether he is wise in what he takes on, good and just in what he does, gracious and sound in what he says, resilient in illnesses, modest in his sports, temperate in his pleasures, indifferent to the taste of food, be it fish or flesh, wine or water; orderly in domestic matters: as a man who knows how to make his education into a rule of life not a means of showing off; who can control himself and obey his own principles.” (Screech, 189).
He becomes his knowledge … [insert title here].

Works Cited
De Montaigne, Michel. The Complete Essays: On the inconsistencies of our actions. Trans. M.A. Screech. Penguin Classics; Reprint edition, 1993.
Bakewell, Sarah. How To Live – or – A Life of Montaigne. New York: Other Press, 2010. Pages: 39 – 63. Print