A Human Education
And why we even have to say it
Of course a good education should be oriented toward… humans. This seems as obvious as saying that we want shoes for feet or books for reading. But it is precisely because we have adopted alien, dehumanizing ways of educating that we have to call ourselves back to what once needed no discussion whatsoever. We have become like the shoe shop that now tries to sell stilts as the best way to move from place to place or the bookshop that sells books segmented by color for decorative purposes in our grand room.
Of course education is for humans—but then why do we educate children as if they are merely workers who need to be slotted in a great industrial, technological machine?
A true education—education which is education and not something else—is oriented toward the cultivation of those things that are particular to us as human beings, those things that only we humans do, like count, name, measure, reason, moralize, and create art. If our education cultivates these things, we do best what only humans can do, and we do those these well we experience joy and delight. The frog says, “Lord, you made me to jump and how I love to jump!” What does the man say? What does the woman say? What do the boy and girl say?
We used to have ready, obvious answers to these questions. Now we do not. It used to be that we could say something like “that school has a great humanities offering” and we would know the meaning of “humanities” and know that its relationship to the Latin humanitas would not only mean “humanity” but more importantly mean education. To be fully-trained to do what humans do best was humanitas, was education.
The Humanitas Institute wants help renew a human education, which is to say what education used to be, should be, and can be again. Shoes are for feet. A true education is for human beings and according to our nature.
If you are tired of trying to walk on stilts or barefoot, join us on the journey to recover what has always blessed and cultivated our humanity—a human education.