Philosophy Presenting the Seven Liberal Arts to Boethius by Coëtivy Master / The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Ms. 42, leaf 2v
True Education
The correct formation of our feelings of pleasure and pain, which makes us hate what we ought to hate from first to last, and love what we ought to love; call this ‘education’, and I, at any rate, think you would be giving it its proper name. - Plato, Laws
Richmond Grammar School 1850
Introducing true education is no easy task. This is partly because it isn’t a “method” of education, and it isn’t a curriculum like the Common Core. It is an approach, a philosophy, a way of thinking. One could even say it is a way of living, though that might seem strange. To some degree, you are probably already familiar with true education, even if you went to the most liberal public school in the heart of a big city. In the last thirty years or so it has become very popular, especially in Christian circles. I would wager that even if you did not grow up in a “classical school”, you probably think and feel like a classically educated person more than you know. This is because the fundamental ethics and logic of that education are deeply rooted in our society. And though our society has tried to rip up those roots in recent centuries, they still endure. We are going to attempt to unpack some of the different aspects of true education here. We hope to examine parts that are more familiar to us and probably to you, as well as to explore foreign and uncharted waters. So jump in and explore with us as we endeavor to pursue the true, good, and beautiful.
Recent
While there are no “quick” fixes for our modern educational woes, there is a relatively easy-to-implement pedagogical method that can be used in any number of circumstances. This method is the art of narration. If you have dabbled in the world of Charlotte Mason at all (or perhaps you’ve dived in head first), narration is not a new idea. In fact, it is one of the primary tenets of the Englishwoman’s philosophy of education. Reading about it from her own works or learning about it from Karen Glass in her excellent book Know and Tell will quickly convince you that narration is some kind of magical antidote for our modern educational woes.