Education at every level reflects our primary assumptions about the nature of man, and for this reason, no education is innocent of an attitude toward man and his purposes. The writer on education who fails to state his view of man at the outset expects to perform some polemical magic. He masks his premises and invites a gullible reader to judge his conclusions on the deceptive merit of a logical deduction. in fact, whether he wishes to or not, he presupposes an order of human values; his understanding of the nature and proper end of man determines the purposes and tasks that he assigns to education.What does the fact that the aim of most education in our culture is pursuit of money (vocational in nature) have to say about what our culture prizes and sees as the main aim of man? How different would our education truly be if we believed what the Westminster Divines taught: that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever?
~David Hicks, Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Educationpp.3-4
2 comments:
Are you re-reading Norms and Nobility?
I am loving this book, carefully taking in each sentence and paragraph. For the first time I truly understand what is meant by "dialectic" (see p. 24-25). And this after reading Sayers and Wilson and Wise-Bauer!
The copy I have includes a "Preface for the 1990 edition" in which Hicks reflects on his book and his own reaction to re-reading it after ten years of maturing in his field. On page ix he writes, "There is a disturbing trend these days, in this era of hyphenated Americans, to seek to motivate students and to build their self-esteem by devising ethnocentric studies tailored to their race or creed or to some high-sounding social agenda. . . One must ask, if our schools fail to believe in a common American culture and to teach it, what will become of us?"
I can only shudder and realize that twenty years later this has happened and I am witnessing what has become of us.
Thank you so much for blogging and commenting a bit about quotes from the book.
I am half-re-reading, Amy! I decided to post and comment on the things I've underlined. Feel free to comment as you go through also! My actual motivation for going back through the book is the blog of my friend Cindy here: http://dominionfamily.blogspot.com/
She has made comments on each chapter there, and i know you'll enjoy the conversation there.
And you are the one who inspired me to start blogging through as i did with Climbing Parnassus :-)
I think Mr. Hicks is a very smart man ;-)
Post a Comment