Nature and experience were Rousseau’s main focus. He was interested in “freedom, not power (Rousseau, 5),” which is why he kept Emile away from a traditional school system and allowed him to roam free. In schools, children must abide by the rules of the school, but with freedom they are able to grow without anyone influencing them. He realized that “cruel education… burdens a child with all sorts of restrictions (Rousseau, 4)” and can lead to them feeling “miserable.” By giving Emile freedom, Emile was able to gain “wisdom of a child” while being “free and happy (Rousseau, 14),” which is the important part of his theory.
In the novel, Black Shack Alley we see how Jose’s experience of gaining an education is quite different from Emile. In school, the teacher was given the power to hit and beat children when they weren’t following rules. Jose remembers being pained every time “the mistress beat [Raphael] (Zobel, 65),” who was his good friend. He saw the teacher “beating him with a bamboo cane on his legs, or a ruler in the palm of his hand (Zobel, 65).” Another instance where a beating is mentioned is when “[Mam’zelle Fanny] appeared with a whip in hand (Zobel 93).”Jose and his fellow classmates had to remember things from the previous lesson, however if they got anything wrong, they would get a whip. Later, when Jose moves up to another class level, he believes that things will get better. However, he hears that his new “master” was a “teacher who ‘explained’ well and beat severely (Zobel, 103).” These teachers were given the “power” to harm students, which is one cruelty that Rousseau was strongly against. Rousseau believed that this harms a child’s education by making them miserable and resent school, instead of making them eager to learn.
One should “treat [their] scholar according to his age (Rousseau, 8),” according to Rousseau. If a child is young they should be able to “live the life of a child (Rousseau, 14)” and play as much as one can. However, Jose isn’t given this same freedom. Jose enjoyed being outside with friends and even “cut short as much as possible the time [he] took for [his] lunch so [he] could play with Raphael (Zobel, 64).” However, this soon ends because of Mme Leonce. She “prevented him from playing” and made him “spend each day in [her] dark kitchen and yard (Zobel, 69)” washing dishes and doing other chores. This often made him late to class, losing out on a full education. No child deserves to work this hard. Their lives should consist of learning and playing. After dropping a vase accidentally, Jose runs away and doesn’t tell his grandmother that he no longer spends his lunch at Mme Leonce’s place. Instead, he would roam around and sometimes people would hire him to do chores in exchange for “a couple of cents (Zobel, 75).” He also would come across “guava tree laden with fruits” which satisfied his hunger. Jose suffered because he didn’t have food or a place to stay for lunch, which led to him working and searching for his own food. He had to carry worries that no one should ever have to face. When you carry this much on your shoulders, it often affects your education.
Rousseau’s idea of an education for younger children consisted of freedom and happiness. However, Jose didn’t have either of these going to school. He had teachers that could beat and whip children whenever. He also had to work and do chores that prevented him from being happy. Jose had no freedom, due to the power that the people had over him. Having these types of influences on a young child affects their willingness to go to school and often discourages them to continue on.
This is my peer response to Gabrielle’s post.
I agree with Gabrielle when she states nature and experience were Rousseau’s main focus. He kept Emile away from the traditional school system, so he could fully develop his skills and imagination freely. Giving Emile freedom, he gained the “wisdom of a child” while being “free and happy” (Rousseau, 14), as Gabrielle states.
However, in the novel Black Shack Alley, Jose’s experience from formal schooling was very different from Emile. Jose’s teachers had the utmost authority; anything a student did that undermined their authority or even if they made a mistake, the teachers had the ability to beat them. Jose even describes the principal, Mr. Stephen Roc, hitting children with his bare hands, “… the entire proceedings unfolding not without his clouting him a few times on the back of his neck or ears” (Zobel, 104). This is obviously very restricting, making the children afraid of making a mistake or even speaking their mind, their learning driven by fear, “…waiting to receive the fatal blow on my head, on my back, even wising it would land as quickly as possible” (Zobel, 94). Because of this very strict way of learning, Jose implies how unhappy everyone was, even wishing his instruction mistress, Mam’zelle Fanny, were dead, “As for me, she made me wish night and day that she were dead and I had sworn a long time to burn her alive when I grew up” (Zobel, 92).
According to Rousseau, a child should be able to “live the life of a child” (Rousseau, 14), but that is not the case with Jose. Gabrielle makes a very good point when she proves that Jose was limited in what he could do because of the arrangement between Mme Leonce and M’man Tine. Jose even states himself, “I had never been prevented from playing. As a result, the time I spent each day at Mme Leonce’s dark kitchen and yard was for me a horrible experience” (69). What child would want to spend their free time doing chores for another person, a person they did not even live with!
As Gabrielle states, Rousseau’s idea of education, especially for young children, includes freedom and happiness, but Jose rarely had both. Although he was free at school, he could not fully utilize it because of other people who used their over him to do what they thought was best. Jose was rarely happy due to his empathy for his classmate’s misfortunes or even his own troubles which he had to deal with. These influences do impact a child’s motivation to learn, which is evident when Jose goes on to study at lycee towards the end of the excerpt.