The Use of Philosophy

....Philosophy, taken in itself, is above utility. And for this very reason, philosophy is of the utmost necessity for men. It reminds them of the supreme utility of those things which do not deal with means, but with ends. For men do not live only by bread, vitamins, and technological discoveries. They live by values and realities that are above time, and are worth being known for their own sake; they feed in that invisible food which sustains the life of the spirit, and which makes them aware, not of such or such means at the service of their life,  but of their very reasons for living - and suffering, and hoping.

    The philosopher in society witnesses to the supreme dignity of thought; he points to what is eternal in man, and stimulates our thirst for pure knowledge and disinterested knowledge, knowledge of those fundamentals - about the nature of things and the nature of the mind, and man himself, and God - which are superior to, and independent of, anything we can make or produce or create - and to which all our practice is appendent, because we think before acting and nothing can limit the range of thought: our practical decisions depend on the stand we take on the ultimate questions that human thought is able to ask.

Jacques Maritain,  On The Use of Philosophy,  pp. 6, 7

The Risk of Education

Recently a provocative question came up: "What would a classroom like that look like?" I have been wondering about the answer ever since. The that under question is clear and specific, so that is easy to explain, but the question itself is impossible to answer. This is how the question came about: I was with a small group of teachers discussing Giussani's book The Risk of Education, and one of them wondered out loud: "Imagine how marvelous it would be if all teachers actually taught the way Giussani proposes." Then from another person came the question: "Yes indeed, what would a classroom like that look like?"

Those of us who admire Giussani can make the mistake of idealizing him, and regard his book on education as the solution to all the problems we have in our schools today. In a general sense, it is, because the book analyzes our educational situation accurately and gives the correct directions we should go in. However, the book is no quick fix. Our concrete educational problems are infinite in variety and depend on the right use of personal freedom on the part of all involved, especially teacher and student. That is why no book in itself could resolve our educational problems. 

Giussani's slim volume is the distilled wisdom of a lifetime in the classroom and presupposes that teachers accept the living martyrdom they must necessarily endure as they risk themselves trying to communicate truth to their students. While Giussani states the risks of educating accurately and concisely in the book, he also says that the heroic sacrifice of real educators is the only road to success. Such dedication will not guarantee success that is absolute, however, since not all students will be open to the gift the teacher is giving them.

 

Giussani's message could be taught and applied as a technique. His method could be reduced to a formula, an ideology, or a closed system. But teaching is not a matter of learning the Giussani technique,  and then communicating it in bits and pieces to students till they have digested all the information offered. Teaching, or education, from Giussani's perspective aims at opening students up to all of reality. Reality as a whole? How many students have teachers who see reality that way?

Also, teaching and learning are an joint experience. It should be a truism to say that an experience can only be lived. In the teaching, truth come alive, the student's mind and heart come alive, and this lived experience occurs when the teacher communicates not just data or information but something of himself.

 

Himself? (Or herself?) Why? Why does a teacher have to communicate himself? And what of that self exactly? Why not just the material he (or she) is teaching? Why is the person of the teacher so important? Because of the relationship that only persons can have, a relationship with one another and at the same time with Goodness, Truth and Beauty that is greater than they are. No matter how ably the specific material is communicated, if the link to the "greater than" is not present in the teacher, the teacher does the student an injustice. 

Suppose I am a music teacher. I can teach a child what a scale is, and how to play the scale correctly on the piano. I can then move on to teach the student how to form chords, how to read notes on a staff, and also keep time. But scales and notes and chords are boring. These are all "bits and pieces", or rudimentary information a student must have to play music, just as a student must learn how to write the alphabet, print words, and write sentences. As an educator, I can teach the skills involved in writing, or in piano playing, but I have to have a love of music, or a love of language , to inspire passion in my students and wake them up to what miracles language and music are. If I don't communicate the passion I have in me for what is greater than I am, if that passion is not in me to begin with, what right do I have to be a teacher?

The personal relationship between teacher and student is the context in which Truth, Goodness and Beauty are communicated to the student in the present moment. Where the teacher has no relationship to this totality, he has no calling to be a teacher.