All Education is Self-Education
A phrase often repeated around Chapel Field is 19th century educator Charlotte Mason's famous observation that "all education is self-education."
This might sound like a strange thing for a school to affirm. If everything is self-taught, why go to school at all? Why seek out teachers if we don’t need them?
Of course, a little time and attention reveals that that's not what Mason is suggesting. The profound truth at the heart of this quotation is this: anything a person learns they ultimately have to see for themselves.
We’ve all had the experience of sitting in a classroom and learning precisely nothing of value. Sometimes this is because our minds wandered, whether the teaching was excellent or not. At other times it was because the teaching was formulaic, throwing information at us without instilling the habits of head and heart that would enable us to attend carefully to the truths contained in the lesson, to glimpse the significance of what was being taught.
In either case, we may have diligently written down all the key terms and the required notes and regurgitated them accurately on multiple-choice exams. But because we were never able to see for ourselves the importance of those dates, the beauty of the story we were reading, or the ideas behind the periodic table, our learning profited us little. We filled in the blanks, passed the tests, received the final grade, but the experience failed to change our souls for the better.
Here at Chapel Field we take Mason’s advice seriously. A good teacher heeds Plutarch’s observation that the student’s mind “is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” A good teacher is a guide up a mountainside, ready to help the student find the best path up, and from there to show him the breathtaking vista that awaits.
But a good teacher also knows that it’s the student’s own eyes which must see that vista. And he knows that it’s the student’s own discipline and determination and physical endurance that must get him there.
The goal of good teaching, then, is to equip each student for self-education, to form each one into a person who longs to see for themselves, to think for themselves and to stand on their own two feet. A good teacher adapts his teaching to this end, fanning the flames of the student’s own desire for truth, goodness and beauty, trusting that the Holy Spirit will do the rest.
Dr. Nathan Gill serves as Academic Dean and Chairman of the History Department at Chapel Field.
