It might be helpful to begin where I left off in my previous message.
“Givers of life remind us that no one person can live without being carried by someone else. All of our lives are relational. We are who we carry and how we respond to them. As individuals, all of our days are measured by how we give ourselves. As members of society, all of our existence is measurable by the record of life-giving, collected in memory as history, and practiced as culture.” [italics added for emphasis]
The next question becomes, “What is the purpose of this vision?” The answer may or may not surprise us and I certainly will not withhold it. Freedom is the goal, hence liberal education.
The vision espoused in the passage above certainly resonates with expecting mothers.
A mother carries a child in the womb for 40 weeks. The child is entirely dependent upon the mother for nutrition and protection.
This vision also resonates with teachers.
A teacher carries his or her students along the ascension to truth. The student is being led out of darkness into the light of truth, and the teacher is the instrument that enlightens. “To teach our students is to lead them out of what they already know of themselves into the wider world where they can grow in knowledge and understanding.”
Freedom is perhaps the most misunderstood power of the human person in this postmodern world.
Our nation is founded on freedom, and there is no denying the rugged individualism and sense of self-determination that formed this republic. But if we lose the higher purpose of freedom from our sight, if we stay in a sense - adolescent - with our understanding of freedom’s true purpose, we cannot flourish into maturity.
The adolescent struggle is to find one’s self in this wider world. For parents and teachers alike, the manifestations of this struggle come in hostile mannerisms and anxious outbreaks. This inward struggle can mysteriously appear outwardly as overcompensating for the insecurity of identity. This is all normal and developmentally appropriate, but the solution is not in a self-creation or radical self-determination that severs the self from others.
The solution is to be led out of the darkness into the light.
“Nature and history teach us that reality is far greater than what any one person thinks and lives. ‘My’ claims must give way to ‘our’ claims; ‘my personal truth’ to the truth of personal knowledge; and ‘my lived experience’ to human experience: to a shared human condition, to communal learning, to passion that is outward and expansive, and to culture that collects what we know and love as ours together.”
Perhaps the most fascinating experience working in an educational model such as ours is observing this play out day by day, and from year to year (I know this is where Mrs. Sweet left off last time too!). There is so much security in students in elementary school and so much insecurity in junior high and high school. Free will is both the catalyst for this developmental trajectory and the final cause, or end. As the child senses their own creative capacity combined with increasing social awareness, “we must be educated to freedom”.
What is a liberal education?
“Liberal also denotes an approach to humane studies directed toward the whole: toward all truth, all goodness, all beauty, toward all lives and each life, the whole of our history, and everything by which we see and cultivate our life together. In that light, to think, feel, and act liberally is not without direction, nor are we without criteria by which to judge what claims made about the life we have. Right judgment concerning what to love is embedded in our cultural ways of seeing who we are and how we ought to live. Put another way, when we look closely at our cultural record, we find that our knowledge is inherently relational and our loves are directed toward each other and are life-giving… to cultivate the best ways to see by the light of what we know and love.”
Mr. Zwerneman's definition of freedom is also stunningly clear:
“Humans exercise their free will within the fluctuating constraints of the human condition. We, alone among creatures, are free to choose either to fulfill our nature as responsible persons, or fail to do so; hence, our central role in the drama of history, which breaks sometimes towards order, sometimes toward disorder.”
Mrs. Sweet concluded with these comments regarding the perceived constraints in the student experience: “When our students embrace the structures, routines, disciplines, and instruction we have prepared for them, they experience beautiful transformations – academically, spiritually, socially, and emotionally.”
Structure creates security and order for freedom to flourish in the self and society. I like to think of a liberal education as a stone mansion - a sort of super structure - that stands the test of time and resists the immature impulses that fail to equip children with the virtues and knowledge needed to go out into the forest. This solid dwelling provides a safe haven for weary travelers seeking a nourishing meal, good company and conversation, and even a healthy sense of humor. We teachers set the table with the best of ingredients from our cultural records, and thankfully we have the gift of supernatural grace in the Holy Sacrament to nourish our souls and unite us to the Incarnate Truth, Jesus Christ.
“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1)
As it was in Galatia around 50 A.D., so too it remains today! May our students come to know what Saint Paul said to the early Christians of Galatia, and may they resist the rampant temptations so prevalent in our culture towards disordered self-love and misguided freedom. - Mr. Derek Tremblay, Headmaster