A "Risk of Education Luncheon in Crosby, MN

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Sharon, photographer, poet, professor, mother, grandmother and blogger from California who now blogs in Duluth at Clairity's Journal, has posted a very reflective and interesting account of a recent meeting in Crosby,near Brainerd, to discuss the role of women in educating children.

There are women who love ladies night out, sororities and mothers groups. Then there are the other women like me who normally feel stifled by such. On one day last month a group of about 25 women, including college students, mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers, gathered for a luncheon in Crosby, Minnesota to hear a talk on Fr. Giussani's book The Risk of Education. We had dozens of children under our care and guidance (though thankfully someone else took care of them during our luncheon!). When Marcie Stokman introduced the group, she said that when some men had asked to come she had to say no and that there was something special about women getting together to talk about their life.

I had to agree with her, because this gathering would be and was different. Women tend to get caught up in the details, and well they should because that's what keeps the domestic life moving along. It's our life to sweat the small stuff. This is the way kids get raised and families cohere in practical and emotional matters. What's so annoying is when it stays on that level, as an overwhelming avalanche of tiny disconnected matters. It's when the details become the end that it is so suffocating: obsessing on the price of hamburger, the problem with the kids' teacher, the nasty breakup of so-and-so.

This gathering was refreshingly different. At this luncheon, Bunny Vouk spoke of her experience of studying The Risk of Education over a three year period weekly with a group of mothers. They studied the text and then verified it in their lives, as seemingly mundane and trying as it is for all of us. She showed us the method learned by Fr. Giussani for embracing the daily and finding in it a deeply satisfying meaning that could then be communicated to our children.

Bunny is not an educator or a homeschooling mom, as she was quick to point out. She works part time in the insurance industry and has practiced this method at home in her life as a mother. From hilarioius anecdotes of aspects of life from mowing the lawn to pondering the mystery of the Eucharist, Bunny opened up her own life and shared her verification of the great proposal of Christ as the meaning of everything.

She covered the points of the method of education, of the verification that adolescents must learn to undertake for themselves, and about offering a unified proposal which is rooted in tradition.

There was a superabundant impact from this gathering which was clear to all. At the luncheon--a superb outdoor meal hosted by the Caupona Maria Retreat Center, a mother of three who had never encountered the movement before, asked very insightful questions about verification and wanted to know how she could learn this method more. Such an interesting luncheon discussion demonstrated the need for this method of Fr. Giussani's to be offered as an education to educators. The proposal was clear enough to offer a positive provocation for those who attended. [snip] Read More, Please