This Is Education, Nor Are We Out Of It
I look back on a mere fifteen years as a professional educator. I look forward, God willing, to many more. But in a historical context, I look back on four generations of professional educators – eight of my direct ancestors in those four generations bearing that gift and the associated calling.
Among them are the turbulent forces that in an ignorant time might have been called the human equivalent of 'principalities and powers'. Mere mortals, of course, all - just as I am, and without one plea - but mortals touched with a spirit of fire. As I reflect upon my ancestors and that lineage which alone in itself ought to humble me, I realise we are humbled by a common master. And that master is not Education, a process anthropomorphised.
Here for example is a fairly normal exegesis of Education in a small and infamous south-east Asian nation-state. The title of this post relates to that through the simple tactic of misquoting from this, or at least from Marlowe's Faustus if you want to read the whole thing.
For what we blithely call 'Education', that Roman ideal so anathematic to the Greeks before them and to generations thereafter, is actually one or the other of these: it makes a hell of the world, or a hell of a world. The Good Book never said, "Go and educate the masses." The word educaré means 'to draw out' in Latin; the word didaskein means 'to instil wisdom' in Greek. The directions of Roman and Greek philosophy are hence opposite in direction! The former sought to draw out from humanity, much as that educational heretic Socrates did; the latter sought to instil within humanity something greater.
But what does the Good Book say about the two directions of learning? Well, it says this about the Roman view and this about the Greek view. I leave you to judge. Think hard upon it; is it better to draw out from the instinctive and natural, or to drink in from the evidence of the eternal around us? Not an easy thing to ask, or to answer.
And yet, until it is answered, this is Education, nor are we out of it.
Among them are the turbulent forces that in an ignorant time might have been called the human equivalent of 'principalities and powers'. Mere mortals, of course, all - just as I am, and without one plea - but mortals touched with a spirit of fire. As I reflect upon my ancestors and that lineage which alone in itself ought to humble me, I realise we are humbled by a common master. And that master is not Education, a process anthropomorphised.
Here for example is a fairly normal exegesis of Education in a small and infamous south-east Asian nation-state. The title of this post relates to that through the simple tactic of misquoting from this, or at least from Marlowe's Faustus if you want to read the whole thing.
For what we blithely call 'Education', that Roman ideal so anathematic to the Greeks before them and to generations thereafter, is actually one or the other of these: it makes a hell of the world, or a hell of a world. The Good Book never said, "Go and educate the masses." The word educaré means 'to draw out' in Latin; the word didaskein means 'to instil wisdom' in Greek. The directions of Roman and Greek philosophy are hence opposite in direction! The former sought to draw out from humanity, much as that educational heretic Socrates did; the latter sought to instil within humanity something greater.
But what does the Good Book say about the two directions of learning? Well, it says this about the Roman view and this about the Greek view. I leave you to judge. Think hard upon it; is it better to draw out from the instinctive and natural, or to drink in from the evidence of the eternal around us? Not an easy thing to ask, or to answer.
And yet, until it is answered, this is Education, nor are we out of it.
Labels: Bible, Education, Etymology, Greek Philosophy, Roman Philosophy, Wisdom
etched with acid at 11:10:00 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home