ABSTRACT
Just as the family is often a training ground for life in community, it is the place where we are first given a sense of the meaning and power of education. In Scott Sanders’ memoir Hunting for Hope he reminds us: “Family is the first community that most of us know. When families fall apart, as they are doing now at an unprecedented rate, those who suffer through the breakup often lose faith not only in marriage but in every human bond. If compassion won’t reach across the dinner table, how can it reach across the globe … Many of the young people who come to me wondering how to find hope are wary of committing themselves to anyone because they’ve already been wounded in battles at home…. I remain hopeful about community, because my own experience of family, in spite of strains, has been filled with grace.” The crisis in families that Sanders describes has created an educational crisis. The dysfunctional, more often than not patriarchal family, is often a 118rule-bound autocratic system where the will to learn is crushed early in the spirit of children and adult females. Irrespective of class or educational level, families that support children and adults who are seeking to educate themselves provide a positive foundation.
