EDUCATION'S END by Jon Christianson
If
I were tasked with the composition of a Student's Handbook for D isrupting Class, I would not spend too many words on trifling matters like technological distraction or destruction of property; such barbarism has long been the natural prerogative of the academically obtuse, for which no formal instruction is required. A truly Machiavellian plot must overcome the teacher's sovereignty not with force but with discourse. Defeat a teacher with words and you defeat him on his own terms. What words, then, would find their mark? "What," the student should inquire, "is the point of learning this?" This is all too familiar a question for the educator, especially in the classical classroom. No assurance of the inherent value of our academic heritage ever seems to suitably satisfy for the enterprising disruptor the demand that the sacrifice of time and attention yields something tangible and useful. In a sense, the ubiquity of this question could be a good thing; the student's objection speaks to a desire for purposeful growth that shows a right apprehension of education's ends, if not its means. The classical instructor, however, often faces the same question of practicality from the parents, whose perception of the program as worth their while (and their weal) is conditional on the material or circumstantial benefits their students stand to gain from classical scholarship. This question of academic purpose is itself a fundamentally classical one. To explain the point of your instruction you must establish the point of instruction itself: What is the end that education seeks to achieve? We are fortunate to have the answer from the patriarchs of classical antiquity themselves, a s ma ny a mong those concerned with the good of man and the welfare of the state turned
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