The Pursuit of Wisdom and Happiness in Education: Historical Sources and Contemplative Practices

7. The Same Old Story: A History Lesson with St. Augustine about Education Reform

141 7 The Same Old Story A History Lesson with St. Augustine about Education Reform On Education as a “Trifling Game” Despite the claim of modern-day school reformers that their “vision” of education is “transformational” there is, in fact, nothing new or transformational about it at all. Indeed, a little familiarity with history shows that the ambitions and “values” promoted in such reforms are identical to those that drove achievement in schools during the time of the Roman Empire when St. Augustine was a boy. In his Con‑ fessions, Augustine records his earliest memories of his own experiences of school: But, O God my God, I now went through a period of suffering and humiliation. I was told that it was right and proper for me as a boy to pay attention to my teachers, so that I should do well at my study of grammar and get on in the world. This was the way to gain the respect of others and win for myself what passes for wealth in this world.1 Foremost, even in Augustine’s day, was the societal and parental hope and expectation that children attending school would, by doing so, be trained for success in worldly affairs. Twenty‑first‑century schools and those of ancient Rome or Thagaste are not much different in this regard. In Augustine’s day, teachers were a rather brutal lot, administering frequent beatings to their charges at the behest of parents in order that students might take their schoolwork all the more seriously. Rather amusingly, the one valuable thing that Augustine says he learned to do while in school was precisely due to these beatings: namely, to pray—and this in the hopes that it might protect him from the whippings administered by his teachers! He remarks that, “parents scoffed at the torments which we boys suffered at the hands of our masters.” In this regard, he is critical of both teachers and parents for the hypocrisy of their harshness toward children: 142 The Pursuit of Wisdom and Happiness in Education We sinned by reading and writing and studying less than was expected of us. We lacked neither memory nor intelligence [memoria vel ingenium], because by your will, O Lord, we had as much of both as was sufficient for our years. But we enjoyed playing games [delectabat ludere] and were punished for them by men who played games themselves. However, grown‑up games [maiorum nugae] are known as “business” [negotia].2 Note the powerful way that Latin contrasts “business” (negotium) with “leisure ” (otium). The “business” of chasing after worldly success, as delineated by Augustine, is a kind of play (ludus) that negates our participation in schole, otium, or leisure; and leisure, as we have seen, is the precise spiritual activity and requisite “wisdom atmosphere” that renders possible all philosophizing and contemplative activity. In the passage above, Augustine views the education he received at the hands of his schoolmasters—the type demanded for him by his father, and the type demanded to this day by parents—as nothing more than preparation for the “trifling games” (nugae) of adults in the world of success and achievement, of work, and business (negotium). He wonders at how such an education was treated as though it were something of grave seriousness—so serious, in fact, that it warranted such brutal beatings from his teachers—when, in fact, the worldly affairs of adults were no better than the childhood games sought out by Augustine and the other boys on pain of the whip. As a philosopher looking back on his childhood, Augustine is concerned with the pursuit of wisdom; that is, he does not seek out the lesser goods of wealth, notoriety, and power which parents even today want most for their children inasmuch as they suppose that success in these things will bring their children happiness; rather, as a philosopher, Augustine’s concern is to know, to see, and to love the highest Good. It is for this reason that he describes the worldly ambitions that parents and teachers pursue and that they foist upon children as frivolous diversions (nugae). He judges such pursuits to be trifling games masquerading as what is of utmost importance, and he views any education that promotes these things as truly worthy of seriousness as the corruption of a genuine education that would lead human beings to their highest and most real happiness. Augustine is principally critical of the education he received and that his father demanded...