Contemporary education betrays its classical origins, but it shouldn’t | Ojel L. Rodriguez Burgos

A young man introduced to the seven Liberal Arts, Sandro Boticelli.

The never ending COVID pandemic has dramatically shifted the way of life of our fellow citizens across the United Kingdom. Government mandated lockdown and mask wearing policies are but examples of how the everyday life of the British People has changed. This is true for the many students across our islands who have been forced to take classes through online methods to continue their respective courses. 

Regardless of what time and date in-person teaching returns to Britain’s schools and universities, the environment of education has changed. Many universities have seen enrolment dropping and children in schools not getting the education experience for their development etc… However, as COVID changes the landscape in education, it does provide an opportunity to reform the system into one based on Liberal Education for the benefit of our society.

The word liberal immediately gives a pause to many readers, because of its connotations and associations with liberal philosophy. The philosophy, however, was born in the modern era, whereas Liberal Education is a much older tradition. The word in this instance instead comes from the Latin word liber and Liberalis, the former meaning to be free and the latter meaning freedom or a Freedman. It may now be noted that this is the historical root of the term still widely used in a United States context; the Liberal Arts. As the words imply, a Liberal Education is one that instructs individuals in the proper sense how to be free and how to use that freedom.

The focus of education for the ancients was indeed freedom, however it is important to understand that their conception of it was radically different from that taken by modernists and those in the liberal school of philosophy. Simply, these latter people took freedom to be a mere lack of external constraint- what philosopher Isaiah Berlin termed negative liberty- whereas to the Greeks (epitomised in Aristotle), the Romans, and the Medieval and Renaissance period (epitomised in the works of St Thomas Aquinas), freedom had a far more teleological (purposeful) application; freedom was only found in excellence, self mastery, and the overcoming of one’s base instincts and worse desires. It was not, historically, merely being able to do what I want to do.

Thus, a true Liberal Education is not a novel one but is one that can be found in Ancient Greece and Rome. For these civilizations, a Liberal Education was one that prepared the citizen for civic life in the polis. Hence, a population educated in this form would see the state remain strong, organized, and prosperous. Liberal Education would provide several subjects that were considered essential for civic life, such as logic, grammar, and rhetoric. Thus, creating a sort of epistocracy where the citizens educated in this manner could participate in the political life of the polity.

Liberal Education provides the individual with the ability to choose in a plurality of ways how to live rightly and his own path. This argument was made by Richard Weaver in his essay “Education and the Individual”, because an educated individual is one that can freely choose how to best live the good life. The educated individual is one apt to participate in civic life and understand how to protect freedom and how to use it, thus, preserving the orderly free society which everyone enjoys.

Plato and Aristotle were distinctly aware of the importance that education held in the preservation and cultivation of an ordered, lasting, free polis (or society).

Hence, a Liberal Education prepares the citizen by providing the subjects necessary for civic life. There are no agreed number of subjects, but they may range from history, logic to philosophy. But these must be subjects that prepare the individual to understand the orderly free society which they are living. 

For example, the need to have history as a subject providing historical knowledge of the constitutional development of our parliamentary democracy to understand why the United Kingdom is arranged in the way that it is. Political philosophy that emphasizes the ideas which formed the basis of the declaration of independence, the constitution, and the bill rights. 

This type of education requires three important pillars. The first is the search for the truth; a Liberal Education must provide the truth of the polity the individual is situated in. The British people must know the truth about the tradition of politics to understand the why and how they enjoy freedom. Second, a correlation of subjects; the subjects must be related to one another in educating the free individual. 

Finally, deepening; this type of education must be an intellectual challenge where depth is given to why Britain is a free and orderly society. Thus, this type of education must be one that fosters continued learning because only through it an educated individual is able to fully participate in civic life. 

Readers would argue that children get to learn about these subjects, plus the liberal arts requirement in higher education. However, our modern education system is focused not on creating citizens for civic life, but citizens for a career. Many of these subjects are elective courses or are removed from degree programs because they are not marketable skills in the job market. Even worse, some of these courses are dominated by forces, hostile to what makes Britain free.

The coronavirus pandemic and its effects on the education system provides the opportunity to reform the education system to a truly liberal one. An education that emphasises more the skills that makes us free and foster continued learning through the entirety of our educational development and after, rather than merely preparing clones for industry with no life skills or telos.

Given how many of the COVID prevention policies have raised many questions surrounding the liberty of the individual. If Britons received a truly Liberal Education many of these orderly freedom destroying policies would have never been implemented. Freedom is curtailed in societies as virtue recedes. The Coronavirus provides the opportunity for a reform of the education system, but it also proves the need for a Liberal Education.

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