A History of Pragmatic Education
When I began teaching, I almost exclusively taught mathematics. I had students ranging from third grade through twelfth grade. A common question that I was asked particularly by the junior higher was, “When am I ever going to use this?”
Now this is a legitimate question for a student to ask. Mathematics is a class that people either understand or they don’t because of its logical and abstract nature. For both of these types of people, they all have to learn the same things through the same means. Facts and formulas are best learned through drilling which can easily be tiresome to anyone. Mathematics homework is just a lot of work.
As a student, I was anxious for the answer to this question. Why do I have to do all this work? Why do I need to learn this? Will I ever use the quadratic equation outside of Algebra? I do remember asking this of my teacher. Weirdly, I don’t remember his answer. Now that I am on the other side of the table, I have a completely different perspective, one that I would say that most people probably don’t have. The problem with a question like, “When am I ever going to use this?” is that it is the wrong question. This question is all about usefulness or pragmatism. When it comes to education, the point is not usefulness, in spite of what the public education system might have you to believe.
To prove my point, I’ll have to give a history lesson from good old Plato. First off, why Plato? I am not strictly a Plato fanboy. I would not call myself a Platonist, or even a Christian Platonist. I would even argue with Christians that claim these philosophies. Plato was missing lots of big things in his philosophy. There are a few things about him that I do appreciate. I start with him in education because of when he wrote and what he said about society.
In Ecclesiastes 1:9, Solomon gives his famous line that “there is nothing new under the sun.” Solomon knew some things about how people and history worked and knew that things tend to repeat themselves. With this in mind, Socrates and Plato came a few hundred years after him (500-700 depending on your timeline). I do tend to conflate Socrates and Plato in my head because the sayings of one became the writings of another, so just go with me on this. I really don’t care which you give the credit to. Have your fun with it. C. S. Lewis, who is a self-proclaimed Christian Platonist, but I don’t hold it against him, says in his book The Last Battle that “it’s all in Plato.” If you don’t like the proof of a fictional character, I would bring up Alfred North Whitehead who said, “All of Western Philosophy is but a footnote to Plato.” Now I might say that both of these men, fictional or otherwise, overstate the importance of Plato to philosophy and western thoughts, but you can’t argue by much. Plato is a cornerstone to the way that western man thinks today. He had some key observations about the world that still apply today.
To give Plato’s example and the point of this, I would bring up the scene from The Republic about the hierarchy of society and their education. This is one thing that I think Plato completely nails. To give a brief overview, Plato made the case that society is basically broke up into four main parts: the barbarians, husbandmen, soldiers, and guardians. The barbarians were outside of society and were worthy of being slaves. Judge him as you will. He would say that people who acted like animals should be treated as such. He had his problems, like I said earlier. After the barbarians, were the husbandmen. These were the basic tradesmen of the city who took care of farming and the livestock. They took up the majority of the populace, about 80%, did the majority of the work, and were the least educated. Next came the soldiers. They were slightly better educated, were in charge of fighting battles and leading men, and protected of the city. They had the middle amount of education and about 18% of the population. The last group were the guardians. These were the gifted scholars that did not want to lead but had a moral obligation to lead based upon their education and giftedness at wisdom. These was by far the smallest percentage of the populace at about 2%.
So, how did Plato choose who got what education in his city? How did he figure out who got what job? Simple, natural selection (remember, there is nothing new under the sun). everyone got the same education within the city. There were three basic levels of education: first the grammar, then the logic, and finally the rhetoric. A lot of things went into these subjects, but to state them simply, the grammar would be basic language and how to write. The logic was how to think and form arguments. Aristotle was the one who really solidified the school of logic, but Plato wasn’t far behind. Logic was the basis of how to take in new information and to test the source. How do you know if someone was telling you the truth about something? You think about it logically. The final stage was Rhetoric. This was how to convince someone else of your thoughts. One had to had knowledge that was logically consistent, but also had to know how to communicate it in a way that the audience would be receptive to this new knowledge. It becomes obvious that these subjects all connect. Grammar was how to take in information. Logic was how to test new information. Rhetoric was how to share information to get someone to accept it.
A vitally important footnote: character training. Within each of these subjects, there was a level of character training. The grammar class came with training in controlling the appetites, or the stomach of man. The logic class came with training of the heart or virtues of man. An example of this is Aristotle’s Golden Mean. The Rhetoric class focused on the wisdom of man. This lines up with how Plato thought of the build of man, starting off with the stomach for the appetites or passions of man, then the heart for the character or virtue of the man, and finally with the head as the wisdom of man.
So, if everyone was given the same education, how would that solve Plato’s problem of figuring out who would do which job? Because he knew that people would fail his classes. He assumed that the husbandmen would be able to pass his grammar class and fail out of the logic. Likewise, the soldier class would be able to pass the logic and fail out of the rhetoric class. Finally, the guardian class would be able to pass the Rhetoric class. If one could manage to do that, they were then further trained in the quadrivium of Number, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy or to put it differently: Number, number in space, number in time, and number in space and time.
With the passing and failing of the sections, each level of society would only have certain levels of character training. The husbandman would learn how to control his passions. The soldier would learn how to act virtuous. The guardians would learn how to be wise. One was to do the work. One to protect the people. One to lead the people. This is how Plato saw the world. through it all, society would be basically educated for their station.
Now, what does this have to do with the question from math, “When am I ever going to use this?” This question is entirely pragmatic. It is saying that the only reason to learn something is if it is going to be directly useful to my daily life. Is the quadratic equation useful to everyone? No and yes. No, because not everyone is going to have to figure out solutions for every quadratic equation. Yes, because it helps someone to think logically and abstractly and to see a fuller view of the world if taught correctly. The next question should be, who needs to learn how to think logically and abstractly about the world?
Plato would argue that the husbandman and soldiers do not need to learn to think beyond their station. One does not have to have a higher understanding of the world around them in order to take care of animals, raise crops, code computers, apply medicine, design houses, or shoot a rocket to the moon. All of these things and occupations only require a limited knowledge of a limited field of study to be able to accomplish the task at hand. Some of these things I listed require large amount of specialized knowledge, but it is only knowledge. Wisdom is not needed to do these things. Wisdom is required to know what animals should be raised and how many, what crops to plant and how many, what should a computer do, what is a good use of medicine, what makes a beautiful house and the cost vs speed of design, and if man should even go to the moon and at what cost of dollars and life. These are the things that take wisdom.
Soldiers are told to follow orders. Do not question the commands that come down from above. They are not told to think about if they should be doing what they are doing. They are only told to think about how to get a thing done. There is no wisdom involved. Plato actually had more things right than we do on this one. He thought that soldiers should be the key example of virtue, particularly courage and justice. In battle, the soldier’s job it to decide how to kill someone but not who should be killed. The enemies were clearly defined on the battlefield.
Plato knew that some people, the vast majority in fact, would be destined to being cogs in the wheel of society. Most people do not have what it takes or the desire to be leaders within society. Most people would be content with doing their jobs day in and day out. For some people, that may be enough for them. This may even be great for them. The question that I would pose is, “What do you want for yourself and your children?”
In America, we have been blessed. In the history of the world, there has never been a time with so many choices of what to do and how to do it. With these choices, comes responsibility. There is a responsibility to raise the bar. We have 2400ish years on Plato. We should have some things figured out better than him. We have Christ who died on the cross and blessed us with salvation through faith in Him. We have electricity so that I can write this and share it with all of you. We are tremendously blessed to be in the time we are now. We can’t squander our time, our now.
A problem with Plato is that he thought that the majority of people should be cogs in the machine, mindless robots that do not question the orders from above. Man is not called to this type of living. Man is called to take dominion over whatever is in front of him. This domination-taking mandate is throughout the system. Some people may be called to live out their lives at the bottom of the education level, but that does not mean that they have to stay uneducated. All mankind should be seeking to improve themselves over time to take over their realm, their spheres of influence. America is built upon this concept of the American Dream, the self-made man. To be able to grow beyond the station that one is born is the point.
So, the next time that you are thinking “Why are we doing this?” or “Do I have to learn this?” Consider the type of person you want to be within society. Do you want to be a cog in the wheel? Or do you want to work on developing wisdom in order to give a direction to all those who are around you. You may all end up coding computers or build widgets. If you have wisdom though, you’ll know why you are coding and the types of things that a computer should and should not be doing and being used for. You’ll have an answer for “Should we be doing this?” Most people can’t answer that question.
This does not mean that you can’t ask these questions to your teacher. You have to be content with answers to those questions such as, “It’s good for you.” or “It is teaching you to think.” or “It will expand the way that you see the world.” The world is big, and any one person can only see it from one angle at a time. To think that you can see a thing rightly and fully instantly is foolish. It takes training and wisdom to begin to see the many facets of the world around us all and it will take a lifetime to truly understand the world that we are in.