Katie and Shannon continue their discussion about education. They work through some practical questions like how to use a curriculum and what it might look like to "master" a subject before moving on to deeper philosophical questions like what the purpose of education ought to be, what a teacher is, and what the relationship between home and school should be. Enjoy!

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Mandell Creighton

Then there is the temptation of practical life. A man pursues knowledge; he takes his earnings at once to the market, and makes use of them. His temptation is to regard knowledge as a commodity, and he treats it as such. Is that not a constant temptation that besets a teacher? No life requires such careful watching of its central motive as does the teacher's life. There is a constant temptation to reduce knowledge within the limits in which it can be most conveniently taught, to consider how it can most easily be foisted by mechanical means into an unreceptive mind. The tendency of our educational system at the present day is to increase tenfold the power of this temptation. The teacher is judged by his capacity to produce definite results, at definite times, in a definite shape. Before such a task how difficult it is to maintain a noble ideal, to keep a real interest in the spread of knowledge as such. It is very hard for the teacher to be true to his “first love”; but unless he is, assuredly his career, however outwardly prosperous and marked by the conventional testimonies of efficiency, will be fruitless of abiding results.

Dorothy Sayers

The sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves.

Proverbs 2

My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee;

So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding;

Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding;

If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures;

Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.

For the Lord giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.

He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly.

He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints.

Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path.

When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul;

Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee:

To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things;

Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;

Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked;

Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths:

To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words;

Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God.

For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.

None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.

That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.

For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it.

But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.

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