What is the purpose of education? Is there a set of natural laws, true for all men for all time, that the young person is initiated into by the wise teachers of the community? Or, is the role of the teacher to facilitate the student’s journey to discover his own perspective without the check of an objective truth?
These are the questions that C. S. Lewis explores in The Abolition of Man. He proposes that Natural Law does indeed exist. For simplicity, he calls this basic set of values and truths, which seem to be universally accepted by the wise men of each time and culture, the “Tao.†He argues, “If we are to have any values at all we must accept the ultimate platitudes of Practical Reason as having absolute validity: that any attempt, having become skeptical about these, to reintroduce value lower down on some supposedly more ‘realistic’ basis, is doomed.†Lewis develops the identity of a true teacher as one who helps others to understand and live according to the Tao. He proposes that to teach in a manner that contradicts or ignores the Tao will be to necessarily condition the youth to a particular way of thinking or imposed philosophy. Thus, the instructor would be more of a “conditioner†than an “educator.â€
Lewis’ portrayal of a true education is rather different from the classroom theory I often hear university professors talking about today. A belief in the Tao would be called a bias, and a closed-minded one at that. However, Lewis argues that the Tao is “the mystery of humanity which over-arched him [the teacher] and them [the students] alike.†Lewis would say that to depart from the Tao would be to focus on a more limited view of reality, an ideology, and in that sense make you “closed-minded†to the more over-arching principles.
As Catholics, we believe in an objective moral truth [CCC 2467]. This concept of reality is counter-cultural in our relativistic world. As Lewis points out, once the Tao, these objective truths, are ignored, rejected, or seen to be the byproduct rather than the motive of education, the nature of education itself is severely compromised or destroyed. What challenges do you see in the modern educational system for a Catholic who would like to teach or to be instructed according to an objective standard for truth, especially regarding morality?
3 responses so far ↓
1 NKStanley // Sep 20, 2007 at 2:14 pm
One thing I run into often is the fact that we are all about the individual. Nothing seems to be communal anymore, even positive interactions, like just do YOUR Best! It seems if we focus merely on the individual, we will not participate in the communal. We find object truth and morality if we start to see that we are connected, and not just living our own individual life. What are ways to help build a communal experience in education?
2 Lindsay // Sep 29, 2007 at 4:19 pm
As a student and a teacher, I completely understand what you’re saying. It too often seems like the goal of education is to ask a lot of questions without getting any answers. There is no objective truth, only “truths” that vary for each person. As a Catholic, of course I disagree with the idea of multiple truths.
I think education is about learning to think more critically. It’s about fostering a hunger for knowledge. I returned to the Church once I came to college, and it was here that I had the courage to ask “Why does Jesus use bad grammar at the end of John 8?” and to discover that that particular section is when Jesus says that he is God. For me, education is the path to using the talents and mental abilities God gave me.
3 Abstinence Education Doesn’t Work, Huh? // Oct 10, 2007 at 1:20 pm
[...] As Kelly wrote earlier this week, there’s a great divide between authentic education and indoctrination. In due charity, I must believe that most educators aren’t willfully selling out the young in their charge. They might rightly be accused of trying to fashion students’ minds to fit the secularist mold, but accusations of outright exploitation ought to be directed at those whose pockets are lined (directly and indirectly) by the sexual proclivities of misguided youth. [...]
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