The Proposition that Makes Me Want to Rip My Hair Out
I've heard it. You've heard it. Policy makers and politicians say it. Parents say it. Many teachers and administrators say it. Students say it.
"I only want my child to learn what is useful. Why should he spend any time learning something just because it can be 'appreciated,' or it gives him 'perspective'? I want my child to use what he learns in school."
Perfectly reasonable, yes? Why SHOULDN'T content learned in the classroom be useful? Why SHOULDN'T the curriculum be ordered toward what could loosely be termed 'utilitarian' knowledge? What is the point of fine literature and poetry, of the visual arts, of sports programs? The parent speaking above would perhaps find it challenging to simultaneously hold his position and support these subjects.
A few years ago at Grand Valley I witnessed an educational psychology classroom descend into a shouting match over this exact question (I started it), after a dull-witted young woman stridently proclaimed, "Why should students learn all this fluff in literature and art class? It's totally worthless and it will never be useful to them." Thankfully a few 'conservative' students- including me- outlined the case which I am about to make, which was greeted with general agreement.
I propose that an education that is conscientiously and carefully oriented toward what is strictly "useful" will fail the students, teachers, industry, and ultimately society. Although the quotes above express an understandable (but naive) frustration with "fluff," the ultimate educational path etched out by said sentiments is a descent into intellectual poverty.
The Varying Meanings of "Usefulness"
First of all, let's get across exactly what can be meant by the term usefulness. I'll start from the limited perspective of the educator, with maybe a slight utilitarian bent.
Usefulness is synonymous with utility, or the degree to which a thing or action satisfies wants or needs. This is probably the broadest accepted definition of usefulness. A utilitarian would consider usefulness to be the degree to which a thing or action- all things being equal- furthers human happiness and/or (depending on who you talk to) pleasure. Said happiness or pleasure may be considered from the narrow-individual or the broader-societal view. For now let us consider usefulness in this broad scope, including individual and total human happiness and pleasure. (I realize that not everyone will agree with the way I will use the notion of usefulness. Bear with it for just now.)
Now you might consider the above paragraph and say, "But pursuits such as music, poetry, gymnastics, the visual arts, and fine literature satisfy needs and desires: The needs and desires to express oneself, to create, to communicate, to experience beauty and joy." Indeed they do. This means that what the uncritical parent means when he says "useful" is not really the one that I have offered above- namely satisfying human wants or desires. His definition of usefulness is in fact much narrower.
So let us try to nail down exactly what our dull and uncritical parent means by usefulness. He seems not to include aesthetic satisfaction or the appreciation of the arts. He seems to exclude the value of intellectual humility that one experiences when stepping upon the shoulders of giants. He seems to have no concern for the notion a beauty at all, or that quality in things that stirs the soul to joy. He would not, it seems, worry about things like astronomy, advanced mathematics, ancient history, or biographies of historical figures. What use are these things? he asks.
So he is really not about satisfying needs or desires. He is about "getting things done." He is about the basic mechanics of reading and writing, basic mathematics, probably mechanical repair, the basic laws of chemistry, physics, nutrition and health (because they allow one to get things done). And that's probably about it. I do not mean to suggest that this parent would actively avoid his child learning the components of a "liberal" education that I have outlined above, but he would certainly be challenged to fit them into his narrow view as to what constitutes usefulness. His is the lowest and most vulgar understanding of usefulness, yet it is accepted by a significant fraction (though probably not most) of the American public. I'm not sure I have come across an accepted term for this sort of impoverished definition of usefulness, but I am inclined to call it something like "mechanistic utility."
Let me outline below why I suppose that the adherence to an educational philosophy of mechanistic utility does not satisfy the function of education and that it could potentially stymie the progress of education and social advancement indefinitely.
The Meaning and Purpose of Education
Let us start at the start. This post is ultimately about education, so let Stella Van Petten Henderson explain, in a single sentence, what education is:
Introduction to Philosophy of Education. [My emphasis]
Now the above quotation seems to define education almost (but not quite) as an end rather than only a means. I suggest that it is probably both a means and an end. That is, education serves a purpose beyond itself, but it is not unreasonable to suggest that education (formal and informal) is itself a good, just as happiness or physical satisfaction are.
But I don't think education can be only an end and that education should be blindly sought for its own sake. Doing so is a goose-chase, and calls to mind Caroll's scene from The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland, when Alice asks the Cheshire Cat for help:
"Cheshire Puss,... Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where-" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"-so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
We need to know where we are going, you know, if we are to get anywhere.
Let me put forward a somewhat narrower explanation for the purpose of education, apart from only the definition. The purpose of education is to fulfill or actualize- to the greatest extent possible- an individual's and a society's potentials for human intelligence, excellence, and virtue, contingent upon the individual or social needs and desires. So the purpose is to advance the development of the human person and the progress of human society, both of which include things like art and literature. Notice that we leave ample room here for the definition of usefulness with which we started.
It is a socially and intellectually impoverished people that renders education skeletal and lean by stripping away what is deemed useless when no one seems to artfully articulate what is meant by usefulness in the very first place.
Notice that what I call mechanistic utility denies the development of the whole person and instead focuses on his practical skills and his checkbook. Both are crucial for a successful life, to be sure, but they are not life. Life has passion and beauty, movement and music, poetry and love. Mechanistic utility nurtures none of these and therefore stunts the natural growth of the human person.
I suggest we are already tasting some of the bitter fruits of this latent- sometimes explicit- drive toward mechanistic utility in the dry pragmatism and choking close-mindedness of our politicians. It is a stunning testament to our current lack of creativity and compromise that 2013's Congress was the record-setting least productive congress in American history. These are the same politicians who seem to make it a hobby of whittling education into a tighter and shallower box with each new term, passing impossible acts like No Child Left Behind and Race To the Top (The second of which I don't see as significantly different than the first; it just appears to slightly shift responsibility and effect, but the basic outcomes look very much the same to me.)
The Rub
Be wary of "teach-only" philosophies. The educational squalor of "teach-only" philosophies sometimes goes unrecognized, especially by an uncritical and simplistic public, until it is too late. They are all failures. They fail society, their students, and the teachers.
Also exercise caution of "teach-all" philosophies if they are carelessly managed. A lack of direction leads us exactly into Alice's problem quoted above.
The direction of progress should be oriented partly by the social needs and the social heritage, but it should allow some room for the development of the unique virtues of the individual, manifesting in what we often call curiosity. I think that a "teach-all" philosophy is more likely to nurture this natural unfolding of the individual's fancies than a "teach-only" philosophy. Probably a "teach-most" philosophy is best, although I decline here to suppose in great detail just what that would look like. I think it might look like the curriculum of Greek Antiquity, which, by the way, produced the greatest minds- greatest in rationality, creativity, scientific effort, morality, curiosity, and aesthetic understanding- that ever thought: Thales, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and hundreds more.
The great thing is that we don't have to reinvent the wheel and produce our own culture of Platos. He has done the thinking for us. Bernard de Chartres said, "We are dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants," and what a clear perspective he had.
I'll end with another quote by Van Petten Henderson:
"There is no good reason why boys and girls who expect to earn their living in factories and on farms should not study and come to love Shakespeare, Plato, Goethe, and Dostoevski. Many of us have believed that much of our cultural heritage belongs only to those who are to enter the professions... Helping young people learn how to earn a living is only part of the function of education. Its total function is to help them to the best all-round living. Life is richer and more meaningful for those who have assimilated at least part of our cultural heritage... Lawyers, doctors, teachers, accountants, businessmen, do not have a monopoly on brains... The notion that... intellectual interests belong only to professional men and women is false. Such interests can be awakened in the vast majority of people."
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