Lawrence’s Ideology of Education

D. H. Lawrence was not only a novelist, poet, short story writer and essayist but also a philosopher, sociologist and educationist. His contribution in the field of education is not less than a milestone. In this article my approach is to analyze his ideology of education which was child centric. Through his novels, poems and essays Lawrence always propagated his vision of education.

vision. Lawrence was the fourth child in his family and his parents did not enjoy a conjugal family relation. Almost every day there was a family feud. Lawrence's childhood witnessed this tragedy and so his early life was full of agony and storm which marked his hostility towards his father first and then his mother. His poems, novels and short stories justify this.
It was Lawrence's mother who decided to educate him otherwise the tradition at Eastwood did not have any concept as such. Children after growing up to teen were supposed to accompany their fathers to the coalmines of Eastwood. But Lawrence's mother did not allow it and she sent him to a nearby school at Eastwood 'Beauvale Board School' in the year 1891. Lawrence got his primary education for eight years at the local school. He won a scholarship to enter the Nottingham High School. It was a great achievement for him as he learned a lot at the Nottingham High School.
In 1901 he stopped his education and went out to work in a factory of J.H Haywood.
He fell seriously ill and suffered from pneumonia and tuberculosis. He read Charles Dickens' Lawrence's ideology of education and his response to it uptight with a huge intricacy which brings forth a never-ending saga of love -hate relationship. No other writer of his age has written as extensively and with frequency as Lawrence has. He was concerned with the developments taking place in the field of education towards the end of nineteenth century.
The scene in chapter III of his famous novel Women in Love entitled "Classroom" reveals his paradigm of thoughtprovoking concern about education system: "At the end there was a little haste, to finish what was in hand. She was pressing the children with questions, so that they should know all they were to know, by the time the gong went. She stood in shadow in front of the class, with catkins in her hand, and she leaned towards the children, absorbed in the passion of instruction" (Lawrence 46 animal functions, to get a mental thrill out of them. It is all purely secondaryand more decadent than the most hidebond intellectualism. What is it but the worst and last form of intellectualism, this love of yours for passion and the animal instincts? Passion and the instinctsyou want them hard enough, but through your head, in your consciousness" (Lawrence 55-56).
All the above descriptions in Women in Love reveal Lawrence's concern. He wanted education to be child centric. He was disgusted with the primary education system during hi s time. Although he was one of the beneficiaries of the welfare state education system of England, he wanted to stop crowding the schools. The Rainbow reflects his concerns with the issues of education. He himself, as a teacher at Croydon School had experienced everything related to education. So, his presentation of Ursula and the way she grew up and established her existence from childhood to adulthood is what his ideology was about education.
"It was this, this education, this higher form of being, that the mother wished to give her children, so that they too could live the supreme life on earth" (Lawrence 12 Love and The Rainbow. His idea was to bring a revolutionary change in the education system as he believed a novelist's duty was to bring social changes through his novels. "Her heart was so black and tangled in the teaching, her personal self was shut in prison, abolished, she was subjugated to a bad destructive will" (Lawrence 357).
Thus, Ursula gets disillusioned and disgusted with the way education system has affected her life. She is an epitome of the outcome of prevailing education system of England during Industrialization. One must read Lawrence's two great nonfictional books to understand his ideology of education and its different spheres. I feel bold to mention that he has proved himself not only a fiction writer of different genre but more than thata Biologist, a psychoanalyst a sociologist and ultimately a great visionary educationist. Chapter  "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interréd with their bones;" (Shakespeare -Act III, sc. II) So, in my opinion critics have unjustly and prejudicially treated Lawrence and demonized his existence in the literary world which has been now acknowledged by the people at large. That's why there has been a surge in reading and analyzing Lawrence's works with an opened approach. The more people read him the more they appreciate him.
Lawrence has elaborately signified the role a mother plays in a child's first steps in education.
Thus, he entitled seventh chapter of Fantasia of the Unconscious "First Steps in Education".
His approach is to create an instinctive ambiance for a child to learn. And a mother has to play a pivotal role in the education of her child.
"And this is the way to educate children: the instinctive way of mothers. There should be no effort made to teach children to think, to have ideas. Only to lift them and urge Lawrence goes on to explain the intricate relation in education and sex. The eighth chapter of the book is entitled "Education and Sex in man, woman and child". In this chapter he has talked on a serious issue related to child's education process. He asks the parents not to artificially stimulate anything in the mind of a child.
"The one thing we have to avoid, then, even while we carry on our own old process of education, is this development of the powers of so-called self-expression in a child.
Let us beware of artificially stimulating his self-consciousness and his so-called imagination. All that we do is to pervert the child into a ghastly state of selfconsciousness, making him affectedly try to show off as we wish him to show off.
The moment the least little trace of self-consciousness enters in a child, goodbye to everything except falsity" (Lawrence 89 It is obvious that a system of education…briefly sketch out… will inevitably produce distinct classes of society. The basis is the great class of workers. From this class will rise also the masters of industry, and probably, the leading soldiers. Second comes the clerkly caste, which will include elementary teachers and minor professionals and which will produce the local government bodies. Thirdly we have the class of higher professionals, legal, medical, scholastic. Finally there is a small class of supreme judges" (Choudhury 117) Lawrence suggests various ways and approaches of as to how to start educating a child. He has a simple and instinctual answer. He speaks about the rules of beginning. "First rule,leave him alone. Second rule, leave him alone. Third rule, leave him alone" (Lawrence 89). He is of the opinion that leisure and physical activities must be made mandatory in school education. He is highly opposed to the corporal punishment and coercion as he believes that these impositions affect the fragile and dedicate mind of children thus hampering the natural growth of growing up children.
My conclusion is that the world, today is following the concept of Lawrencean ideology of Education especially in the elementary education process. 'Learn with Fun','Learn while play and play while learn' etc. are all Lawrence's charter of Education which he perceived nearly hundred years ago. Again, I would like to say that there is a need to acknowledge Lawrence's contribution in the field of education he proposed through his writings.