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June 2009

REsources for Living

BY LYNN UNGAR, MINISTER FOR LIFESPAN LEARNING, CHURCH OF THE  LARGER FELLOWSHIP

Since June brings us Father’s Day, apparently June is my month to write about “fathers” of Unitarian Universalism. So it seems only right to focus this month on a Unitarian who was well known in his time not only for his own ideas and work, but also for being the father of a popular author. Have you read the book Little Women—or seen the one of the movie versions or the Broadway musical? Little Women was written by the Unitarian Louisa May Alcott, along with a whole bunch of other books for older children and a few for grown-ups. She was a best-selling author in her day, and I’ll bet a trip to your local library will prove that people are reading her books still, 140 years after they were first published.

If you’ve read Little Men, the sequel to Little Women, you might remember Jo’s father using some pretty unusual methods to teach the boys, like making the shapes of letters with their bodies. In fact, Louisa’s father, Amos Bronson Alcott (Bronson to his friends), was actually an educator who had some ideas about teaching that were considered pretty outrageous at the time.

As a teacher, he believed that all knowledge and moral guidance come from inner sources, and that it is the teacher’s job to help these inner gifts to grow and unfold. He would hold conversations with his students, drawing out their ideas through questions rather than simply telling them what to think. He brought art, music, PE and the study of nature into the classroom at a time when no one thought these subjects belonged in school. And, unlike most teachers of his day, he thought it was wrong to punish children by hitting them. Surprisingly, when a student was especially badly behaved, Alcott would insist that the wrongdoer hit him, the teacher, instead. After all, he said, if a student was doing poorly, it must be because the child had not been well taught.

Many people thought that Alcott, and his teaching methods, were downright peculiar. But he stuck to his principles, and taught in the way that he thought was best for the children. I suppose that explains why parents kept pulling their kids out of his schools. The family had to move some 20 times in the course of 30 years, and every time a school started to have a bit of success Alcott would do something that horrified the parents— like saying something about how babies are made or allowing a little African-American girl to join the school along with the white children. (Remember, this was around the time of the Civil War.)

No matter what the rest of the world thought, Bronson Alcott stood by his ideas and his ideals. He helped to establish a shared farm, named “Fruitlands,” based on his principles of what was true and good, Of course, he might have gone a bit overboard on his principles when he refused to disturb the worms in the apples, and insisted that they not plant vegetables such as carrots whose roots went straight down, rather than reaching upward toward the sky. Still, they lived what they believed. He designed pants suits made of linen so that they would not use cotton which was picked by slaves, and he promoted the use of raw, vegetarian foods, in part so that women wouldn’t have to spend so much time cooking in the kitchen.

Not surprisingly, the farm, like the schools, failed. But whether or not the world was ready for such an idealist, Bronson kept trying to put his ideas forward through lectures on everything from Plato, God and education, to animal rights and vegetarianism. Of course, he didn’t make much money even at that, and his wife, Abigail, did much to support the family when she became the country’s first social worker. But the family only really had enough money to live with any comfort when Louisa’s books gained such success. I guess you could call Bronson a free-thinker on that front too, since in those days everyone expected a man would be the main breadwinner for the family!

Whether you think he was a visionary or a nut (or both), you have to admit that Bronson Alcott was ahead of his time as a father. He saw the role of a father as being someone who was actively and lovingly involved in the lives of children, not just as a distant figure whose only responsibility to the family was to support them financially. His four daughters adored him, and you could certainly argue that his educational ideas worked for those who stuck around, since in addition to Louisa becoming a famous author, his youngest daughter, May, became a well-respected artist.

So here’s a happy Father’s Day to Amos Bronson Alcott, and to all of the dads out there today who are gentle and caring, who listen to children with respect for their thoughts and help them to grow into strong, creative adults. I think Alcott would be very pleased that somebody finally understands what he was trying to say after all those years.

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Last updated May 20, 2009