"Pride and Prejudice", mentioning this British masterpiece more than 200 years ago, Presumably many readers have in mind the author Jane Austen's various insights about marriage and love.
But in recent years, after brushing up on this British romance novel N times, I have begun to pay attention to the educational connotations of the book in addition to the philosophy of love. Among them, the core of a metaphor that touched me the most was -
In all social and family relations, the root cause of all children's problems is the problem of parents.
The Russian writer Leo Tolstoy had a similar view:
"All education, or nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of education, comes down to example."
In the original book of Pride and Prejudice, Austin consciously or unconsciously portrayed the 4 most representative families in different social classes, which adopted very different ways of educating their children, and ultimately directly affected the fate of these children when they grew up.
Regarding the different developments caused by different educations, the author's most direct feedback is the differentiated choice of these children for personal marriage when they grow up. Behind the different choices, they correspond to their corresponding personality defects, as well as the misunderstandings of the families behind them in education.
Myth 1: Advocating the freedom of children's growth and taking it for granted to "stocking"
I have watched the 05 version of "Pride and Prejudice" many times, and I always remember a scene in the movie.
The heroine Elizabeth visits the manor of the noblewoman, Madame Debourg (the heroine's aunt, Darcy). Mrs. De Boer, who had always been interested in the origin and education of women, asked her several questions in succession.
"Do you play the piano?" "Do you paint?" "Do your sisters paint?"
Mrs. De Boer, surprised by several negative answers, asked about her teacher, and Elizabeth confessed that the family had never hired a tutor, and her mother had not educated her 5 daughters.
What surprised Mrs. De Boer even more was that the 5 girls of Elizabeth's family actually entered the social circle at the same time. According to the social principles of unmarried women in Britain at that time, only after the sister got married in a family, the younger sister could go out to socialize.
But the Bennetts ignored social conventions and educational routines one after another. Because of this, the children have not been able to get timely education and guidance, and several of them, except for Elizabeth, who is good at self-learning and assertive, are deeply involved in character defects.
Although the eldest daughter Jane is kind and beautiful, she is not confident enough and emotionally passive; the third daughter, Mary, is excessively eager for attention and always behaves herself regardless of the occasion, but often self-defeating; the fourth daughter Catherine and the younger daughter Lydia are typical of vanity and stupidity, and they dress themselves up all day long to entertain men.
Especially the youngest daughter Lydia, in her values, women can only reflect the value and charm of being pursued by men, so she flirts and willfully tease young officers, and is eventually tricked by the despicable and inferior Wickham to elope.
It is not difficult to see that several daughters of the Bennetts are actually very inferior in their hearts, and behind them stem from the lack of family support and parental attention.
The Bennett family's education is a typical "free-range neglect" education.
The role of the mother, Mrs. Bay, in the growth and education of several daughters is negligible.
Mrs. Bay was a country woman with no connotation, poor intellect and narrow-mindedness. Her daily routine is to "choose a son-in-law" for her daughters in the midst of all kinds of shouting and moodiness.
In fact, she never tried to understand the children's inner emotional orientation, but only blindly used the principle of money to "daydream" and "mess with the Mandarin Duck Spectrum", such as forcing the excellent second daughter Elizabeth to marry the vulgar and obscene Collins.
Mr. Pei is a wise man who has insight into the world, but he is a typical example of pretending to be confused with understanding.
Years of married life had long since bored him of his wife's noise and rudeness. In order to clean up, he used to not ask about family affairs and plunged into the pile of books.
When his wife, cousin and daughter appeared ugly at the ball, he did not come forward to defend the dignity of the family; the eldest daughter and the second daughter were greatly confused in their relationship, and he did not know it; the two youngest daughters were keen to flirt with the officer, and he did not agree, but he did not stop it until the fifth daughter eloped.
The mother is rude and unwise, and the father is an inactive "hand-throwing treasurer". This pair of parents who "rule by doing nothing" has invisibly created a series of practical problems such as children's "youth rebellion", "inner inferiority", and "three views are not correct".
In fact, there is really no need to always advocate the "freedom of growth" of children, many times, this kind of free-range education is just an excuse for some lazy parents to "raise but not teach".
Myth two: In the name of love, establish absolute authority and control over children
In stark contrast to the Bennetts' laissez-faire is the Collinsians' "authoritarian and arbitrary education."
Collins in the novel is Mr. Bennett's cousin, a fool who combines conceit and humility. On the one hand, he was servile and flattering to the noble Lady Debour, and on the other hand, he was pretentious to others, and often lived in the illusion of arrogance and arrogance.
Collins' contradictory personality is naturally closely related to his father's influence on him.
Old Collins was illiterate and miserly, so he had a hard time getting Collins into college. Therefore, he has always placed high hopes on this son. Collins was strictly disciplined by his father from an early age and was required to obey in everything.
Throughout his son's upbringing, the elder Collins trained him with a high degree of obedience in his bones. Because of this, Collins has always lacked autonomy and creativity in his personality, and has a strong desire for a sense of identity that his father has not given him.
Thus, when Collins confronted his benefactor, Madame De Boer, who had provided him with a decent job, he naturally showed extraordinary deference and humility. He even took every word of his wife as a divine will, such as choosing a wife as soon as possible.
At the same time, the "poor and rich" are eager to show off everything in order to gain recognition. So a very funny scene happened. He decided to return to Longborne and prepare to marry a daughter of the Bennett family in a gracious manner, in order to "make up" for the loss caused to his family by inheriting property in the future.
At the first sight of bennett's family, he fell in love with Jane, the eldest daughter of the Benett family, and after learning that Jane was about to get engaged, he turned to the second daughter Elizabeth, and regardless of the interests and dispositions of the two, he made a lot of jokes like a clown, and later married Charlotte, the old girl of Bennett's neighbor's family.
Collins can be said to be insignificant in his attitude toward marriage. He had only one criterion for choosing a mate, and that was to meet the requirements of the benefactor's wife.
From his wife's choice to the layout of the house, everything in his life was arranged according to Madame De Bour's preferences and instructions. In order to please the lady, he did not have his own concept of right and wrong and moral standards, and even told Mrs. De Boer about Lydia's elopement and wrote letters on her behalf to mock the Bennett family, looking like a loyal dog of a rich family.
Through constant compliments and absolute obedience, Collins lived a decent life under the shadow of his benefactor with an ugly appearance, but never had his own independent personality and independent thoughts. Writer Li Xue once said:
"Once a child succeeds, it is likely to be out of the control of the parents, so the parents will do everything they can to sabotage the child's chances of success and firmly make the child a part of themselves." This is not uncommon, highly controlling parents feel that everything is for the good of their children, but what they actually do is to ensure that their children are in a state of waste and obediently controlled. ”
Collins Sr. may not have intended to sabotage his son's success, but his arbitrary education did raise the child into a "waste" who only knew obedience and had no opinion.
Myth three: it is believed that the educational significance of schools is greater than that of family education
The philosopher George Santayana once said, "A child who is only educated in school is a child who is not really educated." ”
This sentence actually explains very well why a person's level of knowledge and social achievements are not enough to represent his moral standards.
In growth education, many parents emphasize the significance of school education, if a child has a problem, they often attribute the problem to the failure of school education, but ignore the importance of family education. In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen gives two vivid examples.
One is Darcy.
Darcy is Jane Austen's multitude of good men, from a well-to-do, handsome, and knowledgeable family, apparently the epitome of a well-educated person.
But the lack of attention and arrogance of the character flaws have greatly diminished many of Darcy's advantages. When he stood with his friend Bentley, they would rather befriend the less wealthy but kind Bentley than the cold and picky Darcy.
In the process of proposing to Elizabeth, he still did not reduce the superiority and lofty posture of a noble prince, so that he hurt the self-esteem of his lover without knowing it.
From his various behaviors, it can be seen that Darcy was once a purposeful, self-centered person who was extremely lacking in empathy for empathy. Regarding this character flaw, he also confessed to Elizabeth:
"When I was a child, adults only taught me how to be a person, but they didn't teach me to correct my temper. They taught me one kind or another of morality, but they allowed me to haughtily honor them. Unfortunately, I was the only son who spoiled his parents from an early age. Although my parents were good people, they allowed me, encouraged me, and even taught me to be selfish and arrogant, not to care about anyone except my own family, to look down on all the people in the world, at least to see them as not as smart as me, not as noble as me. ”
Fortunately, although the negativity of family education has created a defect in Darcy, this defect is not intrinsically moral and is easy to reverse. The situation with the other protagonist, Wickham, is much more serious.
Wickham's father was Darcy's old butler, a man of decency and respectability. But her mother squandered and lost the family's money. Fortunately, the elder Darcy gave Wickham selfless care and support for him to go to Cambridge to study.
But later, it is not difficult to see from Wickham's lazy, profligate and irresponsible behavior that he still inherits all the negative effects of his mother in his bones, and it is inferred that old Wickham is likely to be unable to discipline the children.
In this case, the unconditional care of the elder Darcy and the disobedience of the father combine to breed Wickham's selfish cravings. He felt the illusion that he could enjoy a life of luxury as long as he maintained good relations with high society.
To this end, he disguised himself as a decent man in front of the elder Darcy to obtain money, and disguised himself as a gentleman and a victim to deceive trust. Knowing that being a priest and a soldier does not make money, he chooses to seduce the daughters of rich families and gamble, and his marriage to Lydia is also unfortunate. Due to the absence of discipline and the negative influence from the family, Wickham was reduced to a social scum of morally corrupt conduct.
American psychologist Dewey once said: "Education is growth, growth is traceless, education is also traceless." Without preaching, without words, and without the personal will of adults, children are unconsciously educated in this process, which is traceless education and natural education. ”
In fact, the best education is the words and deeds of parents.
How to avoid the "three major misunderstandings" of education? In fact, it can be summed up as an "authoritative" parent, giving the child specific support rather than unlimited freedom, giving the child the opportunity to create rather than setting limits for no reason, and giving the child a vivid example instead of tedious preaching.
END.
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