"On Business Education" Chesterton and Classical Learning

 

Classical Education Teaches the Individual How to Think

I’ve found G.K. Chesterton’s essays to be among the best writing prompts ever suggested. I had an English teacher that couldn’t reference him enough. A few years ago I decided to give the old writings a once through. 

Nature's God

He is clearly a devote of what we now call the Classic form of education. His concern in “On Business Education” is for primary school and not college. I imagine college was out of reach for most working folks in the 1930s in England. How many Women’s Studies majors were there in Edwardian England anyhow? Classic education is concerned with studying classic texts for a well rounded understanding of the world and human nature. Here is Chesterton:

“Everybody ought to learn first a general view of the history of man, of the nature of man, and (as I, for one, should add) of the nature of God. This may enable him to consider the rights and wrongs of slavery in a slave community, of cannibalism in a cannibal community, or of commerce in a commercial community.”

Or put differently, citizens need to understand the culture and community they live in. How else can we hope to correct and criticize and improve our world without specific knowledge of how it used to be? This is true of both local and national issues. Education should train the next generation of citizens to carry on with the experiment started by those who lived long before us.

Practical Frames

This isn’t something unique to the West. Most cultures pass down notions of the ideal society. Even when their core understanding of human nature or created life is flawed.

 Someone decided certain stories, values and traits were important to pass on. How did they decide and were they correct? Do our current values still reflect that? Why or why not?

Those dilemmas animate us today. But it’s quaint to read the objections to Classical education from his day. He references the common objection from parents about why their kids should learn about “ancient Athens and remote China” if they plan to be a plumber. The same answer in his day works for ours, to give them a frame of reference for decision making. Without a larger context for human nature, the plumber is limited outside of his trade. As is the teacher, the mechanic and the chemist.

We are more than just buckets to be filled with information on how to do a task. As citizens we have autonomy and live with our choices. We contribute to the larger community with children, commerce, private organizations, churches and associations. Without it we aren’t citizens at all. We do a task, uncritically, and go off and watch TV.

Uncritical Frames

Citizens need to know how to think critically. The classical model is the best way to do it, but I’m sympathetic to the idea of just teaching kids to learn how to make money. In a free society we should have that option. In so many ways it’s an old fashioned debate. One I’d love to have, but one that sadly doesn’t reflect the condition of the current school system. They’re a perfect illustration of what happens you adopt secular humanism. In the early stages you get the sixties and its obsession with overturning conventional morality like sex in marriage. In the late stages you get the Post Modern obsession with race and gender. Designed to foment enmity between groups, it’s concerned with gaining and keeping power.

It's infected institutions from education to business and even churches. The result is a society that can’t think properly about the relationship between citizen and state. Not to mention between parent and child, husband and wife. 

But this is old news. 

Many of us understand the problem but are overwhelmed by the scale of it. Even here, Chesterton points to something crucial. He does it almost lazily or as an afterthought--the nature of God.

Old Testament Frames

If the citizen needs to think critically and evaluate his/her current malaise. They should look no further than the Old Testament, of which are countless cases of wickedness that threaten to destroy the land. In Exodus, Moses brings the 10 commandments to the people from Yahweh Himself. The children of Israel nearly wiped out by a vengeful God, remembers His promise to Abraham and offers the law instead (Exodus 32:10-14)

Nehemiah and Ezra, both called in different ways to rebuild a people (and so much more) and train up the next generation to honor God. Jerimiah warned the Jews of the coming destruction, and exile. Their behavior had become so hateful to one another and their regard for the temple (the place of God) contemptuous. Even here Jerimiah pointed to a Savior. Salvation for mankind, once and for all, was always the goal. We could see it back to Abraham’s willingness to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God (Genesis 22:6-12)

The value of a citizen is in knowing when a thing has gone too far. The ancient prophets knew.

Conclusion

Oak Park and River Forest High School in Illinois are set to institute race based grading in public schools. The text is full of jargon-y nonsense about racial equity. The presentation is notably light on specifics plans with on exception, "materials and assessments are to be designed around a student's culture, which often includes a student's racial background".  It’s completely nuts and threatens to destroy any semblance of learning. Whatever classrooms are now, they are so far from teaching kids to be citizens that a wholesale rethinking is in order.

 I imagine this kind of analysis is what Chesterton had in mind. Critical thinking from a common point of reference. I hope America can get back to Classic teaching/learning.