By Principal rylan Auger
Chesterton once said that education is a kind of violence. To contemporary Western ears, that sounds like a frightfully insulting way of training a child. But there is more than a smattering of truth in this statement which even the most benevolent of teachers cannot deny. Especially those who teach young boys (let the reader understand). Work is necessary to education. And, something has to be done about the work that it takes to educate, or else the wrong kind of education is going to be happening beneath the surface.
“Wait,” someone says, “Didn’t Socrates say something about education being an exercise in wonder?” To which I respond, “Amen!” Wonder is essential to the learning process. Without it a child can regurgitate facts, but they will never move beyond knowledge towards wisdom. Wonder makes the learning “stick.”
So the question is not whether we will employ wonder in our teaching but how we will do it. The temptation has been to set our sights on the wonder and hope that wisdom follows. This usually shows up in the mantra “keep things interesting.” But this shift in focus has problematic side effects. When interest becomes the focal point of the teaching, the lesson tends to submit to the interests of the child rather than the child submitting to the interests of the lesson. The problem is that the interests of the child, like every human heart, are fickle and often selfish and sinful. As a result, “keeping things interesting” can be a lot like saying “follow your heart.”
The way of wisdom says we must guard the heart — not that we should follow it every time it sets its desire on something. When we focus on just keeping the lessons interesting, we are teaching our students they do not have to work for the wonder and joy of learning. It may not start here but there is an inevitable drift in that direction. When we teach a child that learning is only about pursuing what interests us, we are not teaching him to be a learner but a slave to his passions. Learning requires going against the grain of what immediately interests us so that we can find something newly wonderful to enjoy. In the same way we cannot hope to sail by simply hoping for the winds to change, we can’t just sit around hoping the interest will come first. We must learn to raise the sails. Sometimes we may even have to bust out the oars and row!
So the goal is not wonder but wisdom. But Proverbs tells us that “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child and the rod of discipline drives it from him.” Which means there will always be a certain amount of conflict (i.e. discipline) involved in teaching a child. As Douglas Wilson puts it, “The child must not spend time enjoying himself, but must learn to enjoy the work of learning.” This cannot happen without discipline. This might mean going against the interests of the child at times, and teaching him to seek out what is interesting in the lesson in front of him.
The wonder of learning, then, takes place in the discovery of what is wondrous. A good teacher demonstrates that there is something wonderful in every lesson, even those that may not immediately interest the child. True wonder arises when the gold of every lesson is mined out. This sometimes requires a bit of mental digging on the part of both teacher and student. He or she may not initially be very pleased about the digging and thus must be taught to love to dig before they can hope to find any gold. Showing a child a chunk of gold may certainly entice his eyes, but that alone will not motivate him to get up and dig for it. Simply showing as many interesting things to a child as will hold her attention will not produce a desire to find those things for herself. It will only teach her that she can wait for you to bring them out for her.
Of course, at first we will lead our students like a guide on an Amazon tour, drawing their attention to that which is exciting. But we cannot stay here. A teacher should become more like a guide on a wilderness camping experience: showing students the skills needed to actually experience the excitement for themselves. We must help our students acquire the discipline to set aside their surface “interests” so that they might in fact discover what is wonderful before them.
When the Scripture tells us that “God has made everything beautiful in its time, and has set eternity in the hearts of men,” I understand this to mean that God has given us an innate ability to wonder at his ability to instill beauty in everything. From everlasting to everlasting, there is an eternity of beauty to discover. In our sin, this capacity to wonder can make us slothful as we become content with merely collecting its low hanging fruit. But Scripture teaches that “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, and the glory of a king to seek it out.” Thus, our goal as teachers must be to lead students to seek out that deeper beauty, that deeper wonder. This takes work.
Let me try and sketch out a few ways you can teach your students to love the work of wonder:
The work of wonder begins with every teacher first doing the work of marveling at the lessons they intend to teach. Find what is exciting in the lesson to be taught and delight in it yourself before laying it out for your students. Children learn through imitation as much as they do didactic instruction. Take them on the same journey of discovery you went through and make them work until they delight in the same way.
You must never give up on a lesson or subject simply because the child is “not interested.” You must persist through those times with double the zeal, and seek out what glory God has concealed in each lesson. This means you must work when it is time to work and leave the play until it is time to play. Lessons can be fun but it is silly to think that lessons should never feel like work!
Content can never be the only goal of our teaching. We must strive to equip students with the tools to dig for the content themselves. Education is as much or more about learning how to learn than it is simply about what things we learn. Teach math concepts not just math facts. Teach writing styles, strategies, and skills, not just grammar rules. Only a classical education that aims to equip students with the tools of learning (the Liberal Arts) can bring out the depth of wonder in every lesson.
Challenge your student to find a way to make a lesson, which he or she finds challenging, more exciting by adding some creative element to it. Invite them to engage with the learning process, making the work itself enjoyable.
Lastly, there is an element of faith here. Even when the wonder is not obvious, we must trust that there is something of Christ to be marveled at in every subject. We teach children to study by faith when we require them to work for wonder rather than simply handing them something to interest them.
If Christ holds all things together then there is something of Christ in every lesson. Let’s strive to teach our students to love the work of wonder so that they might be properly equipped to mine out the wonders of Christ in all things.