On Education and the Human Soul

<p><strong>Q: What is your critique of modern education?</strong></p> <p>We have built institutions that produce graduates, not human beings. The difference matters more than we are willing to admit. A graduate has acquired certain competencies — skills, credentials, information. A human being has acquired a self — a coherent way of being in the world, a set of values they have actually tested, a capacity for genuine relationship with others and with what is ultimately real.</p> <br/> <p><strong>Q: Is this achievable through formal education?</strong></p> <p>Formal education can contribute to it — but only if it is oriented toward it. The problem is that our institutions have been redesigned, over many decades, to optimize for measurable outputs: test scores, employment rates, economic productivity. These are not bad things. But they are not the same thing as human formation.</p> <br/> <p><strong>Q: What would human formation look like in an educational context?</strong></p> <p>It would look like students spending time with great books — not to extract information from them, but to be questioned by them. It would look like teachers who are themselves good people, not just competent transmitters of content. It would look like an institution that cares what kind of person graduates from it, not just what credentials they hold.</p> <br/> <p><strong>Q: Is this achievable, or are you describing an ideal?</strong></p> <p>Every ideal is achievable in part. The person who says "this is an ideal, therefore impractical" has given themselves permission to do nothing. I am not asking for perfection — I am asking for a direction. Begin moving in the right direction, and you will achieve more than you imagined. Continue moving in the wrong direction, and you will achieve exactly what we are achieving now.</p>