We pay no attention to spelling or grammar and so little of what is written is up to par. Math is done by calculators not by minds. History is devoid of names and dates and is more about identifying trends and making judgments. Homework is taboo since much of college homework is doing the assigned readings. Memorization of just about anything has gone the way of all flesh. In its place is something different, something not quite education but still costing the student some big bucks (in the hopes that their student loans will be forgiven). Of course, critical thinking is passe and the obligatory acceptance of the opinion du jour is not optional. In order to think, you must know facts except that to some of the enlightened it is precisely facts which are not really knowable. Don't be said, feelings will suffice.
Down the road from where I live is a Tennessee state college, a liberal arts college they like to remind us. I wish we remembered what a classical education actually looked like. I am not sure it can be found on this campus or perhaps most places. The Seven Liberal Arts–which are not the foundation for nearly every liberal arts college I know include the trivium of grammar, logic, rhetoric (how to master language) plus the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy (how to master math). Under girding any real classical education is, of course, the reading of good -- dare I say great -- books. The result of this education is not simply knowledge but the formation of character, an appreciation of the arts, and the cultivation of virtue. Those who attend a Christian classical school know what I am talking about as well as those who follow a classical pattern in homeschooling. In a Christian context faith is not a challenge to this education but a partner. The heart of education is the education of the heart, The bottom line is that an authentic classical approach to education (especially higher education) cannot be achieved without facts and facts are key to learning, understanding, and applying this vocationally.
Everything today is relative, tentative, and less about facts than feelings. It is never old and always new but somehow the new is like the Covid 19 vaccine -- it does not prevent anything and actually may make you more susceptible to get sick. Modern education is rather like that. It does not teach and may actually be an enemy of learning. We have often spoken of the rabbit hole that is modern education. It is expensive, it must be left to the professionals, and it dare not be challenged. In other words, it is too important to be questioned and so it is not. The only problem is that along with other things modern educational theories do not do is this. They do not educate.
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The sad fact is that many of the academics who shaped modern education into the condition it is in today likely received a classical style education earlier in their own academic life. Yet, they rebelled against it. The architects of the modernist American education were often products of my own time and experiences, students of the 1960’s and 1970’s who became teachers, professors, and administrators, and took education into a whole new direction. Many were academically birthed during the turbulent 1960’s, when anti-establishment sentiment was in vogue, fueled by opposition to the Vietnam War, civil rights, and advocated promiscuous sexual freedom, the pill, the drug culture, and a desire for near total and dramatic social change. Education was a huge target. The family was another target. Entertainment became more coarse and ideologically driven. Political power and liberalism became the vehicles sought for transformation. Some people wanted to wipe out religion too. John Lennon, in his notable song, “Imagine” pursued the idea of a world without religion, without Christianity, simply a humanistic paradise without God’s presence. When such ideas percolate deeply into society, and objective truth itself becomes fluid, facts no longer count. Knowledge is not emphasized as the way to advance critical thinking. Indoctrination replaces intelligent discourse. Despite this state of affairs, many people today are uncomfortable with academia, and thus the growth in homeschooling, and charter schools, as well as interest in Christian colleges and traditional universities which do focus on critical thinking does not go unnoticed. Perhaps, there is hope for American education, and by the grace of God, the end of the war on facts. Soli Deo Gloria
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