Lesson 2: A Proper Understanding of Education
1. Educational Policy or practice
Education theoretically and practically are not autonomous
It arises out of something and and in turn rise of something else
Concept on what type of human we want to produce then we need to know what we need to accomplish-what is it to be generally educationally
-human nature
-what man is
Formula:
2. What man is + what he ought to be (human flourishing) = the conception of human nature
Education has a social and political side as well
Consequence to the surrounding community
-Reciprocal
3. Educational policy or practice reciprocal to social or political ideal
Education to affect the social and political world but recognize the legitimacy of the social and political world to employ education to advance its purposes
=consequences
=educational strategies significant to success of social or political ideologies
Formula:
Conception of human Nature moves educational policy or practice
Education policy or practice reciprocal with social or political ideal
Conception of human nature =what man is and what he ought to be (human flourishing)
Connection between education and conception of human flourishing
What is it to be a truly educated human being?
Conception of Human Nature
Plato’s Republic:
-one of three most thoughtful and significant treatises ever written on education
-Plato’s portrayal of the death of Socrates in the dialogues titled Crito and Phaedo(socrates exhibits the balance and harmony of should described and sought after in the The Republic)
-Plato is concerned with the condition of the soul
-soul is the English work that translates the Greek term “psyche:
-this is not the Christian conception of the soul
-the Republic is fictionalized conversations between actual persons who talk to one another in Athens in the years preceding the close of the fifth century BC
-Education: is to establish balance and harmony in one’s soul
-Problem: the soul has three parts and is prone to extremism
-only when all three work together for a common end can we say that the individual is healthy
-Plato through the speech of Socrates gives us the first conception of human flourishing
-Three parts of the soul:
Appetitive
Spirited
Rational- Plato would have the rational component rule
-if any three of the parts act entirely on its own, the envisioned balance and harmony would be absent
-Plato speaks of the just and unjust soul
-the unjust is a meddling interference, and rebellion of a part of the soul against the whole
-the purpose of the rebellious part to rule in the soul, although this is not proper
-justice works when parts of the soul in harmony towards an end in common
-an unjust soul is when one or more of the components is acting on its own without regard for the higher good
-Plato: there’s an education that fits each of the elements of the soul
-Plato: each and every influence is important-most impressionable-rearing of the young
-what we teach them when they are young matters-importance of early years
-important what the young hear-protect the early years-teach them virtue
-learn what we are unaware that we know -the govern our thought and actions
-the republic is about the shaping of character
-the rational component must be cultivated
-the spirit-third part of the soul, the spirit, which the Greeks called “thumos” which is the emotions
-emotions assist the rational component and in a never-ending battle with the appetites
-do things at the right time and in the right order
Ex. we do not appeal to the reason of a young person because a child is yet capable of reasoning
-what can we do in the earliest years? We can appeal to a kind of desire in the young, so set the stage for the rule of reason later
***Plato would have us during childhood and in youth is to strengthen thumos and harness appetite
-what a child sees and interacts with-no influence is trivial
Socrates:
- is sentenced to death by Athens-after his condemnation, he is sitting in prison, he must drink the poison (the hemlock)
-his friend, Crito, an old friend, arrived to tell Socrates he bribed the guard to arrange for Socrates to escape prison and avoid death sentence
-Socrates refuses Crito’s suggestion because it would insult the city and if he were to flee he would show a lack of appreciation to the city he owes
-Fleeing would show Socrates would demonstrate bad character
-reason should overrule appetites-Socrate accepts his fate-Socrates character matters
-Socrates is calmness of balance and harmony of the soul
-capacity to overcome emotions and the appetites
-Socrates is the very personification of the just soul that has been sought after and described in the Republic
Scene of account of human excellence is paralleled only by a scene in Palestine that takes place 4 centuries later
-different account of human flourishing and what it is to be a truly educated human being
St. Augustine (Book of Confessions):
-success in education consists of arriving at an understanding, it is matter of seeing, in achieving this proper perspective, what we are coincides with what we ought to be
-the saint makes confessions-these are a personal account of his life
-he is always in a dialogue with God
-he recounts his youth and that what happened to him can happen to all of us
-he came to realize that God is at the center and understanding that Augustine is all too human
-God at the center when it comes to education since he is speaking from the perspective of the teacher
**another book called “on the teacher”
-the job of a teacher is to prompt a student to discover, discovery or insight is, itself, is a gift of Christ
-there is one and only one source of illumination, everything that occurs is an unfolding of the divine, it is part of the insight that comes with human flourishing for St. Augustine
-the human being is a creature capable of understanding these facts and living in light of them
-when one succeeds in doing so, he achieves human flourishing
-God is at the center, Christ is with us at every moment (measuring of a human)
-it is a struggle because humans are seduced by lower things
-Education for St. Augustine, is the process in which we are put aright
-a wholesome rearing will bring us more quickly to our proper destiny
-bring us to an attitude of faith and humility, and make real in our lives as a constant presence the possibility of divine grace
-it cultivates in the individual, the conviction that quote, “I am nothing without Him”
-a person in a condition of human flourishing for St. Augustine would no longer say, I am nothing without Him, meaning God
-speaking with God he says I am nothing without you
-differences between the perspectives of Athens and those of Jerusalem on the question of human flourishing (the differences are important)
Modernity (Modern Perspective) on human flourishing:
-Two Figures in 20th century” : Sigmund Freud and John Dewey
- both both and aggressive conception of education
***There are deep disagreements between Freud and Dewey regarding human nature, this understanding of education that is now the modern position, follows from the naturalistic conception of man that places both Dewey and Freud in a world far distant from Plato and St. Augustine
-term “naturalistic” is the adjective that corresponds to the noun “naturalism” and by the term “naturalism,” I want
-John Lennox, a professor at Oxford, mathematics professor defines naturalism
“God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?” page 29
-”There is nothing but nature. It is a closed system of cause and effect. There is no realm of the transcendent or supernatural. There is no outside.”
-this definition of naturalism demonstrated the alliance of the two ancient alternatives, Jerusalem and Athens–or in our case, Plato and St. Augustine–and their common opposition to modernity
-both Jerusalem and Athens recognize something higher that’s not naturalistic, subservience to which he completes us as human beings and defines human excellence so there’s that fundamental congruence between two ancient positions to the modern position
-two ancient positions disagree on what it is that completes us, but they agree that there is something beyond the naturalistic that is necessary for us to be truly human
-Freud (like Plato and St. Augustine) conceives of man as comprised of warring elements
-at the deepest level, each of us is and “id” a term coined by Freud
-Id is an identity-less urge for the satisfaction of primitive urges and drives
-superego is the conscience which is the internalization of society’s prohibitions on the satisfaction of those very urges that the id wants to satisfy
-Freud: the id and the super ego that are locked in violent combat, the ego is responsible for charting a safe course between the combatants, and the conflict is never ending
-whatever compromises that are achieved are temporary, and pain is permanent
-Freud: human nature, there is no possibility of a spiritual resolution of a conflict
-Freud under the influence of Darwinism & other 19th century influencers
***they embraced a materialistic form of naturalism
-Freud: a human being, like everything else in the universe, is fundamentally continuous with the material world that is captured by the categories of physics and chemistry
-Freud understood that during his lifetime science had not yet arrived at a comprehensive account of man
-Freud believed that he was forced to come up with a stopgap measure, something that will tide us over until science has a these breakthroughs where man can be dealt with purely on a materialistic basis
-Freud developed stopgap measure called psychoanalytic theory
-Theory: infamous division man consists of ego, id, and superego
-these categories become the foundation of intellectual construction
-Freud: There is human flourishing, but because of his conception of human nature and human possibilities is so different from Plato and ST. Augustine
-Freud: happiness for other than rare, fleeting moments, happiness is impossible
-a human being unavoidably yearns for greater satisfaction of fundamental drives and instincts than the world can provide
Freud’s book, Civilization and Its Discontents
“What decides the purpose of life is simply the program of the pleasure principle. This principle dominates the operation of the mental apparatus from the start. There can be no doubt about its efficacy, and yet its program is at loggerheads with the whole world. There is no possibility at all of its being carried through. All the regulations of the universe run counter to it. ONe feels inclined to say that the intention that man should be happy is not included in the plan of creation.”
***the word creation is in quotation marks, because Freud is an atheist and doesn’t believe in creation at all
-he points out that happiness is not in the cards for human beings because of the nature of man and the nature of the world
-Freud: possible to accept substitute satisfactions at least some of the time for these drives and instincts that define our id or our fundamental nature
-a proper education for Freud can never eliminate frustration and unhappiness, and we’re all destined to be neurotic
-but with intelligent and skillful rearing, a human being can live a useful and productive life and avoid disabling mental illness
-Freud: 2 measure of such a life: they are the capacity to work and the capacity to love, not mean to be happy, but reason to get out of bed in the morning and go to a job
-capacity to love is a euphemism for Freud for the ability and the willingness to raise children and keep the species viable, but no escape from scarcity, and there is no prospect of fulfillment in a world after this world
-in this realm, Freud says there is room for sacrifice and nobility, a kind of human excellence
-the picture of human fruition that defines what education can and should do, it’s a picture that is lonely and sober, strong images of disappointment and gritted teeth
Dewey: modernity and naturalism
-impact of progressivism in education is the focus of Dewey’s ideas
-conceptions of human flourishing and how for him education is responsible for making that flourishing possible
-Dewey: there are 3 aspects to human nature
***instinct, habit, and intelligence
-contrast to Freud and in quite self-conscious opposition to Plato and ST. Augustine
-Dewey denies that instinct has sufficient definition or influence to control or even largely govern human life
“Human Nature and Conduct” book
“In the case of the young it is patent that impulses are highly flexible starting points for activities which are diversified according to the ways they are used. Any impulse may become organized into almost any disposition according to the way it interacts with surroundings. This depends upon the outlets and inhibitions supplied by the social environment.”
-determinism is found in Freud is tied to the id
-determinisms is found in Dewey as a picture of man as a creature that is, for all intents and purposes, malleable, what we will become is very much up in the air so man is in the making, and man is the maker
-the vehicle for creating a better human being for Dewey, and through creating a better human being, creating a better world, is the establishments of good habits
-habit formation is a major function of early education
-habits need to be modified in what Dewey calls environing conditions, so we must modify our habits in light of changes in the environment
-which habits should be retained and reinforced and which are to be modified or eradicated altogether
-this question addressed by the third component of nature = intelligence
-intelligence reveals to us the consequences of adhering to the practices, beliefs, principles and convictions of the past
-consequences are deemed by intelligence to be no longer appropriate, it has further responsibility to formulate new ideas, then action on the basis of the new ideas, to evaluate their impact
-Dewey = never-ending natural process that defines the human version of the Darwinian drama of an organism struggling for survival in an every-changing, unpredictable, and challenging world
-so we are to modify what we have believed in the past in light of changing circumstances
-if fail to do so properly then our survival is in jeopardy
-primary habit to be developed under Dewey’s scheme is attentiveness to changing conditions married to a propensity to adjust as needed
-such adjustment is facilitated by development of the habit of acting intelligently
-this is a humanistic understanding of man and human possibilities
-humanistic = man is solely responsible for what happens to man
-we can’t count on anything beyond man to be here to assist us in any way
-given the plasticity of the human being the emphasis predictably falls upon surrounding circumstances
-reason Dewey’s unparalleled emphasis on education
-education properly conceived is for Dewey the deliberate process by which human beings take responsibility for their future
-in principle, everything we currently do and believe is subject to review
-we possess ideal ends-in-views, but these ends-in-view are subject to ongoing revision and we act under their authority after they are revised but they are always in principle, subject for further revision is that of an informed and responsible human being or many human beings cooperating to bend the world in the direction of their fruition
-man is responsible for his own fate
-men can act in the manner envisioned by Dewey only if they possess suitable skills, insight, and propensities
-suitable human behavior in the future depends upon having earlier appropriate experience, and it is the central purpose of education to provide such appropriate experience
-Dewey’s progressive education so that the young will act appropriately when they are older
Final figure: CS Lewis
-book, “The Abolition of Man”
-Lewis offers a rehabilitation of the ancient perspective that we saw both in St. Augustine and in Plato
-he assures us that we need not acquiesce to the powerful forces of materialism and naturalism
-definition of man, a matter, quite curiously, that’s only touched upon in passing in this book
“First, in explaining the heart of the education problem–the task is to train in the pupil those responses which are in themselves appropriate, whether anyone is making them or not, and in making which the very nature of man consists.”
“In referring to the eternal and unchanging natural moral law, which he calls the Tao, in the Tao itself, we find the concrete reality in which to participate is to be truly human.”
-Lewis talks about the abolition of man, what he is pointing to with quite a bit of alarm is the abolition of that creature who is able and willing to respond appropriately to what is eternal and unchanging
-Lewis, education properly understood consists of preserving in future generations that very capacity and willingness–the capacity and willingness to live in light of principle or the good
-warning that there’s a sort of education growing in influence which achieves precisely the opposite
-this corrupting activity debunks the ideal–and endeavors to reduce any appeal to principle, to naturalistic priorities and objectives
-to the degree that this impulse succeeds, the human flourishing that was envisioned by Plato and St. Augustine becomes illusory
-Dewey: his theory of education certainly prescribes an important place for principle and ideal, but Dewey’s vision, it is impossible for a principle or ideal to attain an eternal and unchanging authority
-it’s precisely a principle or ideal with eternal and unchanging authority that we must have for Lewis because it’s allegiance to that which for him is a necessary condition for us to flourish as human beings
-the very necessary condition for Lewis’s human flourishing is, by definition, excluded in the modern theories as we see them represented in Dewey and Freud
-Lewis-down the path offered by Dewey lies the abolition of man
-the purpose of education for Lewis is to defeat this outcome by continuing to develop in the young not only the possibility of recognizing the higher things but also the ability to understand that genuine human flourishing consists in living and perhaps dying in service to them, in service to those principles and ideas
-conceptions of human flourishing and fundamental nature of man
Governing diagram:
Conception of human nature ->Educational Policy or Practice <->Social or Political Ideal
-to balance our picture (3rd part)
-Plato’s writing as one of the principal texts on politics
-Plato 1st to admit that anything of consequence in the political realm depends on the proper preparation of human beings to accomplish a political X, it is first necessary to achieve an educational Y
-Plato, we are beginning with a political or social vision and then working back to the implications for education
-formula works in the other two-way arrow = understanding of human flourishing that inspires our education vision, there are inescapable consequences for the social and political order
-Socrates refused to abandon the city that condemned him to death, because he recognized the debt he owed Athens for being permitted to live under its rare institutions
-he understood that the good life required a particular social and political setting, and that Athens, for all its shortcomings provided such a setting
-if we are deeply animated by a conception of human flourishing and the educational program that makes it possible, we will be dissatisfied with a social or political order that stands in their way, and will be inclined to support one that promises their success
ideas can be dangerous, if we see what it is to be genuinely human, we will be impatient with whatever obstructs that end.