We need an education in wisdom, not specious buzzwords

In all the recent talk about education funding — school and higher education — there has been precious little discussion about the nature of education and the type of education a prosperous nation such as Australia needs.

We hear a lot about falling standards and our relatively poor performance on international tables. We also hear a lot about how a drop in funding will prove disastrous to our performance. And while there is obvious merit in such discussion, there is also a need to go a bit deeper to look at the underlying philosophy of ­education.

It is a truism to say that education today has to be relevant, practical, world-best standard, ­interesting, technologically savvy, student-centred, and so on. These buzzwords and fads are worthwhile in some instances but, more often than not, they are deliber­ately vague and used to avoid more deep-seated problems. Perhaps the biggest frustration with education today is a lack of an overarching vision — a goal.

We must start asking the more fundamental questions: Why do we learn? What should we learn? How should we learn?

The why seems obvious. We learn as part of our development as humans. To know more about things is a good and necessary thing. To be a good citizen, one needs to know about the world, society and where we have come from. However, education is more than facts and ideas; it should be about wisdom. Aristotle said that the wise person is the one who can order things together, and the more complex the thing to be ordered, the wiser the person. To understand how the world and the human story are ordered and to find meaning involve a lifetime of education in wisdom.

What should we learn? The basic answer is as much as possible. However, that is obviously too simplistic. Let’s take for granted that basic foundations in literacy and numeracy need to be laid and built upon. Let’s also take for granted that students need to know about the world around them: scientific, mathematic, cultural, historical and artistic. Once these foundations are laid, the ­ancient principle should be our guide: the examined life is the life worth living. An examined life ­involves deep thinking about the things that matter: the nature of the human person, why is there something and not nothing, and what does it mean to choose well, to choose the good. Sadly, today there is too much focus on the ­utility of education and not enough focus on the need for what was traditionally called a liberal education.

How should we learn? As all people of all times have learned — from others who have mastered some form of knowledge. Learning ­requires humility: I do not know, can you please tell me? The one who is a teacher is ­entrusted with passing on knowledge. So while educational techniques are critical, the single most important criterion for a good teacher is a love of learning. Students today are ­encouraged to be independent learners, and while this is a noble goal, it must be done increment­ally throughout a student’s school­ing. Encouraging students to find out for themselves leaves them open to a fragmented and shallow knowledge based on the first results from a Google search. This is one of the many ­inherent dangers with technology and education.

Another philosophical question for education is the role of the state. For most of human history, at least as it developed in the Western world, education was the function of the family and relig­ious bodies. This changed with the rise of nation-states after the French Revolution and gradually the role of education was usurped by the bureaucratic state. It is ­important to distinguish between civil society and the state. This distinction is important in all areas of life but in education it is crucial, ­especially at this moment in Australia’s story.

There is the tendency for a one-size-fits-all approach to education in Australia, in terms of schooling and in higher education. However, if education is to be understood in a more holistic way, we need a more ­diverse approach to it. This would involve the state to be more discreetly involved in education — to oversee rather than control, to ­enable rather than enforce. A more diverse education system would see greater choice between different approaches: private and public, the classical and technological, the liberal and pragmatic, the religious and secular, and so on.

The fundamental argument here is for a more liberal approach to education - an education that liberates from ignorance and provides the tools for a lifetime of learning and growth in wisdom. In his book In Defense of a Liberal Education, Fareed Zakaria argues that while vocational skills are ­important, it is a broader liberal education that will provide students with the creativity, clear thinking and communication skills needed to flourish. He stresses that the liberal in liberal arts is about freedom and generosity. Of course education needs to be useful but, as Cardinal John Henry Newman states in his classic 1852 work, The Idea of a University: “The useful is not ­always good, the good is always useful.”

Paul Morrissey is president of Campion College Australia.