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ANTHROPOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE CONTINUITY OF SEVEN YEAR CYCLES OF UNINTERRUPTED EDUCATION V. V. Sementsov
From seven to fourteen. First two stages of the return to the perfection.
A small boy, yet injudicious and weak, loses,
When he has scarcely turned seven, his first teeth;
If God lets him live to the end of the second seven-year cycle,
The youth already shows us signs of maturity.
During the third one the tender dawn of a beard curls fast on the youth’s
face,
All his limbs grow, and his skin changes color.
Solon “Seven-Year Cycles of Human Life” [640-559 BC].
The Greek word anthropos goes back to the roots *ano - "upwards” and throp, thropar, which literally means "a turn, something winding” (see: a winding path). The combination of the images of the a drive upwards and revolution around the axis generates the word-root image of "unfolding upwards” - vertical development of a woven scroll from the earthly roots to the heavenly crown like a tree.
According to modern medical notions the pre-natal development of a human as a three-fold scroll happens in weeks - sennights, that is, cycles of seven three-fold convolutions of the development of the psyche, internal organs and external body tissues. The post-natal development of the human as a three-fold scroll in accordance with ancient mythological and some modern anthropological ideas also happens in sennights, that is, in cycles of seven convolutions of the triple development of the spirit, soul and body that are perfecting themselves.
A cut of a tree trunk with growth rings has from time immemorial served ss the symbol of the alternate seven-year cycles of human growth on their life journey. Every growth ring keeps a trace of a triple growth of the tree. The external part of the growth ring tells us a story about the increase of the resistance and the struggle for survival under the pressure of external conditions. It can serve as a symbol of ectomorphic physical development of the external human - bone-muscular power, stamina, strength. The middle part of the growth ring tells us how sunny, nutritious and propitious the last year was for the humification and improvement of the internal qualities of the wood. It symbolizes the metamorphosic
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development of the internal world by considerate feeding, metabolism and fostering of spiritual qualities, a favorable influence on the psyche. Finally, the internal part of the growth ring of a tree that links it to the invisible spiritual core tells us about the hidden fundamental connection with the Earth and the Sun. The quality of the core is dependent on the vital directedness of the whole tree upwards, its ability to mobilize its spiritual and physical forces in order to purposefully burst through the ground on to the surface, going around stones and other obstacles. This part symbolizes the endomorphic spiritual growth of the morally developing innermost human.
If the external part of the wood rots and dies away, it falls off and regenerates. If the middle part is also damaged - there forms a hollow, a deformation but the tree continues to grow. If the tree rots from the inside, from the core, it dies and falls, although on the outside it may look smooth and powerful for some time. Innermost spiritual damage leads to disorder of the psyche and to the voluntary destruction of the person's own physical health: "The heart is the innermost man or spirit, where selfcomprehension, conscience, the idea of God together with the sense of the all-round dependence on Him, the whole ever-precious spiritual life is stored” (St Theophan the Recluse).
In the inter-related endomorphic, mesomorphic and ectomorphic development of a child, the main natural aim is the spiritual and moral making of the innermost man that externalizes himself from the spiritual world into the material. The task of prime importance intended to achieve this goal should be education of the soul in which the internal qualities and inclinations of the innermost man are revealed and developed. At last, a secondary task which is still necessary for the successful development of a child is feeding, strengthening and arrangement of the developing ectomorph - the externalized man.
According to this logic, each of the first three seven-year cycles of the physical upbringing of a child should be aimed not at height, weight, muscle bulk gain and external beauty, but at the making of personality - "I”. The making of "I” is teaching one to be master of oneself, to be capable of selflimitation, and of self-control on the basis of strengthening the psychic-emotional sphere. Fostering of all these most important personal qualities, as well as the development of the intellect of the baby, should in its turn be aimed not at egocentrism and self-assertion of the growing "I” but at rising above one's self - “Super-I”. In Freudism and Neo-Freudism “Super-I” is designated by the term "Super-Ego”, in Soviet psychology - "super
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conscious”, in folk traditional culture - “conscience”, in the Orthodox Christian anthropology - “the Voice of God”, “God inside us” or “Kingdom of God that we have inside us”. In accordance with the difference in these terms, different materialist and idealistic scientific schools have different attitudes towards the “Super-I”. For example, materialist psychotherapy and pedagogy of the Neo-Freudian kind believe the innermost man to be a source of excessive strain on the psyche, unnecessary chimera that engenders the “guilt complex”, the “Oedipus complex” and the “Electra complex”.
In accordance with this attitude psychologists and pedagogues are set the methodological task of freeing their students from their “Super-I” by the way of abstracting from subjective feelings and scientific objectivization of the educational process. The live eternal models of truth and righteousness are replaced in this materialistic pedagogy by temporary dead schemes, Commandments by doubtful formulations of general rules, conscience is likened to consciousness, and consciousness is directed towards asserting the power of the subconscious inclinations over one's nature.
A good example of the triumphant theomachy is the concept that is prevalent in the contemporary secular school of the increasing left hemisphere nature in combination with the enforced cult of objective scientific knowledge (the neo-gnostic heresy). The result is deplorable: in the opinion of a number of scientists - neurophysiologists, psychiatrists and pedagogues - the 21st century is already becoming the century of the “left hemisphere autistic schizoids”. One of the consequences of the modern spontaneous neo-gnostic autistic schizoidness that is voluntarily or involuntarily fostered is the sad statistics of modern Russia recently announced in the mass media by the Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation S. B. Ivanov: out of the population of 140 million of the Russian Federation 2.5 million are heroin addicts who on average live for seven years from the day of taking their first dose and “spacing out”.
In the traditional folk Orthodox pedagogy, over many centuries there has been development of a method of natural upbringing designed to make the child obey the internal voice of their own conscience, at serving God and at fostering internal decency with which the innermost “Super-I” humbles and directs its internal selfish “I”, and “I” in its turn consciously restrains and pacifies the roaring and tossing “It”, that is the subconscious aroused by external temptations. In accordance with traditional popular ideas, the main indicator of the level of good breeding of a seven-year old
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child and a fourteen year-old teenager is not the state of physical health, not the level of intellectual development, and not even the degree of socialization. At these stages, and at all the following stages of life, the degree of good breeding and the level of nobleness of a growing person are revealed through the ability of securing a moral victory over oneself. Most important is the ability and the habit of a schoolchild to overcome physical, physiological, emotional-psychological temptations and difficulties in order to subject one's "Ego” to the Supreme power, to preserve the connections of the internal world of the earthly growing person with the Heavenly Motherland.
At the same time the degree of self-denial that is the surmounting of one's "I” in one's actions should correspond to the possibilities of physical, psychic and moral age of the student. A seven-year old pupil of the first year should not be expected to show disinterestedness and voluntary selfdenunciation exceeding the level of obeying the words and following examples of the parents and the teachers. Equally, a fourteen-year old teenager who is more self-willed and less obedient to the elders, should hardly be expected to have a degree of unselfishness, promptness in obeying and self-denunciation which will exceed the level of generally accepted norms and social expectations. The adequacy of requirements that the seven-year old and the fourteen-year old developing people are given by their parents, teachers and educators, has one more very important reverse side. The success of the first seven-year cycle of the spiritual-moral-physical development of a schoolchild depends on the character and the volume of the workload of studies and the degree of difficulty of the requirements the child is presented with. If teachers and parents are satisfied only with the outside obedience of a growing child and don't stimulate their conscious self-limitation, they cause a delay in moral growth of the innermost man at the level of the seven-year old child.
By fourteen years, every physically developed and psychologically normal (not necessarily completely healthy, but normal) teenager is able to learn how to do homework, to memorize information, to solve set problems, to do physical exercise and to reach an agreement with adults. The teenager will do this, and let himself be ruled by someone else's will, to the extent at which adults will finally leave them alone. When these teenagers remain alone with themselves, with their peers, and they receive money in reward for their outer obedience and promptness in obeying, the immature teenager may have time to "cut loose” and become infected with spiritual rot, hepatitis, venereal diseases, drug dependence in as short a time as
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one or two hours of an evening walk. The tendency that has begun to appear lately to solve the problem of spiritual immaturity by force, by forbidding children by law to be out at night, shows the helplessness of the system of school education that has reached a pedagogical dead-end.
Taking more care of ectomorphic and mesomorphic growing than of the endomorphic rising of children above themselves, educators voluntarily or involuntarily cause a delay in the spiritual and moral development of whole generations of children. During their school years children can succeed in physical growth, have good academic progress and intellectual development, and yet spiritually remain at the level of seven-year olds, with their natural external egocentricity, telling on others, cringing to the older and stronger, with the aspiration to be "cooler than everybody” and to get as many highest marks as possible at any cost. Seven-year old children asserting their "I” in a new group with the help of the teacher play at school in an absorbed manner and learn to study well. Their inwardly immature fourteen-year old spiritual "peers” can already skillfully play the role of a student making good academic progress, masterfully manipulating their teachers and parents, and learning to "cut loose in an adult way”. Where seven-year old children, when they play with friends, learn to hide from adults their funny childish "secrets” made from flowers under a piece of glass, their fourteen-year old inward peers with their underdeveloped "Super-I” can already skillfully hide from their parents and teachers their "adult” secret games with the smoke of a cigarette, with the law on limiting the circulation of psychoactive substances, and with life.
A successful conclusion of the first seven-year cycle of the development of the innermost man is marked by the ability of behaving well. Children who obediently control their realizedthree-four- year-old "I” in the way that their elders tell them are justly regarded as good students. They deserve material, psychological, social support, encouragement and approval. Favorable conditions are created for forward-looking ectomorphic and mesomorphic development: "A good calf suckles two dams”. Why continue to grow above one's "I” and make oneself overcome the growing physiological and psychological obstacles on path lifelong way to supreme spirituality (holiness), if one can tickle one's vanity with bonuses that one gets in exchange for outward obedience and socially approved behavior? One can live well staying at the spiritual level of a seven-year old at fourteen, at 21, at 28 and so on - the main thing is to have increasing material possibilities, social and intellectual-psychological resources. The delay in spiritual development in individuals whose intellect is intact is
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called infantilism in modern culture, and the external locus of control or externality in social psychology. Spiritually underdeveloped people easily become victims of socialization, the prey of show business, of advertising, computer networks, and networks of drug distribution.
To help children subject themselves to their “Super-I” that is their conscience it is necessary to create for them conditions of an inevitable moral choice between trust and denial, self-will and resignation, shallow-hearted despair and hope (expectancy of eternal life), wilfulness and obedience, passion and love, evil and grace, scientific sophistication and chastening Counsel. Moral choice is understood not as the provocation of unworthy behavior but as purposeful stimulation of the growth of a sweet temper. The word morality (Rus. nravstvennost) cognate with the word nrav (Eng. Temper) contains the hint at what the growing person likes (Rus. nravitsja) more: good or evil, deserved trust of the elders, or fair limitation in social rights. One can talk about forward-looking development of the innermost man in the soul of children from seven to fourteen years old when they begin to like the age-appropriate models of faith, resignation, hope, obedience, love, nobleness and holiness. Opposite examples to the model of pure spirituality will on the contrary naturally excite disgust in proportion to the growing good moral taste - they will stop to attract and lure. Inculcating of moral taste in pedagogical communication at a lesson (unlike medical inoculating) can not be done by invading from the outside in spite of the child's own aspirations. The teacher can only throw the student into an internal moral dilemma by offering them models of spiritual actions. Only the spirit of the ancestors roused in the soul of the students - the innermost man, their conscience - can triumph over their immature opinions, lusts and other manifestations of growing selfishness. The moral taste and nobleness of spirit ccanot be instilled into a closed cold heart only by the predicatory efforts of the educators. Efforts to confess on the part of the students themselves who are waking up to the “love for one's own hearth and home, and their fathers' graves”, are also necessary.
In the special secondary school “Gumanitarii” founded in 1991 the problem of the internal awakening of conscience and sense of patriotism is solved by addressing the phylogenetic development of the student. Appealing to the historical formation of the personality of each student, teachers learn to educate the “Super-I” on the basis of spiritual, social and blood relations between descendants and ancestors up to seven generations back. On the basis of the Christian biblical tradition the time expansion of one convolution of the anthropological spiral of succession of
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generations is determined to be approximately 26 years. Accordingly, 26 multiplied by 7 equals 182. If we deduct 182 from 2009 we have 1827. For example, at a math lesson or a Russian language lesson, it would be quite appropriate to draw children's attention to what the mathematical ideas or peculiarities of perception of a text were like for the students of the ninth grade in 1827, 1853, 1879, 1905, 1931, 1957, 1983. How has the world outlook, knowledge, skills and abilities of teenagers of the previous four and two more generations changed and in what they remained the same? What most valuable things are now temporary, but not irretrievably lost? Thanks to what kind of education did the teenagers of 1905 stand their ground in 1914-1916, and the teenagers of 1931 secure a great victory in 19411945? How did the ancestors live, what did they believe in, what did they play at, what did they love, what did they aspire to, when they were the same age as our students 182, 156, 130, 104, 78, 52, 26 years ago? In what way were they more educated, wiser, better than many modern people at the same age? In what ways did they lag behind their modern peers? Thanks to what knowledge and qualities fostered from the childhood did many of them live their lives worthily, brought up children, defended Russia, and achieved outstanding success in culture, science and politics? And of course, examples from the life of the ancestors should be as close to the students as possible, concrete, authentic, based on biographies of the most prominent fellow-countrymen who lived in the same region as those present at the lesson. The greatest educational effect is achieved when some of the participants of the lesson can share their family legends, their ancestry.
Selfness and conscience - the two contending qualities and conditions of the growing innermost man. The word svoistvo (Eng. Quality) comes from the possessive pronoun svoj (Eng. my, your, his, her, etc.) which in its turn goes back to the same etymological root as povoj(nik) (headdress of a married Russian peasant woman), povituha (Eng. midwife), povit' (Eng. to wind round with a band), svit' (Eng. to braid), svitok (Eng. scroll), sviaz' (Eng. connection). Developing, the qualities of conscience and selfness remain qualities (Rus. svoistva) as long as the connection (Rus. sviaz1) of the people with the sources of their spirituality and morality is preserved. In their innermost conscience the growing people are twined and connected with God, and in spiritual internal selfness - with other people like them. The root of the word sam (Eng.-self) is the same as in the English same - "the same”, “I'm like everybody”. When the selfness of a fourteen-year old boy is more developed than his conscience, he finds
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himself very closely bound (socialized) by obligations to his peers (the life of the party), and almost cut off from the previous generations of his parents, great-grandparents and primogenitors. A little tree whose branches are tightly intertwined with the branches of neighboring little trees looks safe, but if their roots don't go very deep in the ground, it will inevitably collapse at the first gust of wind together with its friends and neighbors. Acting according to conscience, teenagers are sometimes forced to sacrifice their Independence and popularity among their peers. With difficulty, they restrain their amour-propre and free themselves from conceit, self-satisfaction, self-assurance. This work and moral self-sacrifice is the only way to assert power over oneself. As in any work one needs teachers who help to develop the necessary practical skills and habits. Theoretical knowledge of how one should go along the road of life, or drive a car around the city, is alone not enough to prevent an accident with tragic consequences. It can only provoke it, just as prematurely obtained adult rights, theoretical knowledge of life and driving gives rise to thoughtless self-assurance in an inexperienced driver.
Linguistic logic leads us to recognize the fact that the necessary condition for the victory over oneself and the triumph of conscience over selfness is the freedom of choice fostered from childhood. The etymological root of the word svoboda (Eng. freedom) is the same as the word svoj - it is a quality given from above and likening man to God, and only later - in God - to other people. The Godlike innermost man who rules his system listening to his conscience is an angel incarnated. He frees himself from the power of his selfness and the external locus of control - he acquires internal freedom, at the same time preserving external connections and commitments. Independent to a greater extent than a conscientious teenager, the spiritually underdeveloped teenager with all the outward freedom of morals and independence inevitably finds himself in the internal prison of his own amour-propre, self-satisfaction, self-assurance, self-pity, self-glorification and other weaknesses that lead to the state of pathological dependence on fashionable public opinion and isolation from patriarchal popular tradition.
The transition from externality and dependence from external marks conditioned by the naive children's selfness to conscientious self-control and self-possession on the basis of acquired internal models of moral behavior of ancestors at school age either happens in due time, or does not happen, between the ages of seven and 14. In other words, during the transition from the elementary to basic general education the natural
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dependence for the children's psyche on the opinion of teachers and parents should make way for teenage internality, i.e. to displays of independence and spirit of contradiction inherent to older children. In those schools where at every lesson of every subject due attention to the strengthening of conscience and an opportunity of a free moral choice is not given to children, natural protest behavior is provoked in children of 714 years. In the absence of a system of forward-looking education of the innermost man, protest behavior of the students as a rule leads to two types of deviations in the growing up process: (a) children who possess strong will conflict openly with teachers and parents, sometimes resulting in leaving school and family, in psychological traumatic experience and demonstratively delinquent behavior; (b) children who don't possess strong willpower become hypocritical, two-faced, inclined to displaying protest deviant behavior that are hidden from their family and school.
A successful conclusion of the first seven-year pre-school cycle of the interrupted education of a child should be considered externality, readiness to learn from the elders based on children's submission and obedience. The conclusion of the second school seven-year cycle should in accordance with the traditional ideas of the good breeding of a teenager, be marked by the internal aspiration to self-independence, the ability to behave in harmony with one's conscience and the preparedness to bear responsibility for one's mistakes.
2. From fourteen to twenty eight. The return to externality and internality on the new levels of personal growth.
During the third one (seven-year cycle - V.S.)
The tender dawn of a beard curls fast on the youth's face,
All his limbs grow, and his skin changes color.
Everyone in their fourth seven already reaches the bloom of
the bodily power, and in it the sign of valiance appears.
Solon
In the period of transition from teenage demonstrative independence of fourteen years to the new level of student's obedience, responsibility and external locus of control of a school-leaver who is of age, university entrant and student it's important to help students preserve their internal integrity. Pushkin's winged lines - "While we are still burning with freedom, while our hearts are alive for honor, my friend, let's devote our souls' best impulses to our Motherland” - fully express the apprehensions of a youth growing
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above himself. In them one can hear the fear of extinction of the internal freedom, aspiration of the innermost soul man to manage in time to devote his still obedient to him soul to his Mother land - the supreme will. Like their ancestors in many generations before them, modern boys and girls are under serious social pressure. The temptation to renounce their innermost spirituality, forget about conscience for the sake of successful socialization while preparing to undergo leaving and entrance examinations, can sometimes be very strong. The age from fourteen to 21 is marked by the increase of natural externality together with which obedience to the voice of the remote ancestors temporarily gives place to the obedience to the family, elders, examiners, fashion, public opinion.
The next convolution of the making of a growing personality in the system of uninterrupted education of adults - from 21 to 28 - is characterized by the return to their innermost "Super-I” and mature internality on a new level very far removed from teenage independence. Instead of ill-founded self-assurance a strong conscious faith in God, loyalty to the ideals and sanctities of the Motherland is naturally formed in this period. Selfness, power of public opinion and authority of the contemporaries logically start to become secondary. "To the calling of God be obedient, oh, muse. Undaunted by insult, not asking for a wreath, be indifferent to both praise and slander, and don't oppose a fool” (A.S. Pushkin, 1836). If by approximately 28 years an adult teacher in the system of uninterrupted education has not grown above his "Ego” (selfness), and has not come on to the level of mature internality, then he is hardly capable of becoming a model of personal maturity and morality for his students.
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