Be Good and Teach with Authority
How do we enable students (who we will call “scholars” to emphasize their telos) both to recognize and embrace truths for themselves and to value truth above all other educational and existential considerations (grades, prestige, career, pleasure, power, etc.). How can we most effectively meet this challenge? D.C. Schindler writes:
Plato suggests that the communication of knowledge requires, so to speak, a community in goodness between teacher and scholar. This entails a willingness to be tested through questioning, a willingness to respond, and in general, goodwill and lack of envy. It is interesting to note that all of these characteristics point to the affirmation of a good beyond oneself, by which one is measured and to which one is responsible. If it is the case, as we have been suggesting, that an indispensable aspect of knowledge is the mode of relating to reality by which the soul subordinates itself to goodness, then it follows that substantial thinking and genuine communication cannot take place outside of the spirit created by a basic disposition toward goodness. The good, then, is the single condition of possibility of communication, insofar as it gives being to what is talked about and imposes certain demands, intrinsic to that being, on those who wish to know and thus to speak properly. In this respect, to teach in the fullest sense means to impart not just ideas but a relation to the good, and one can do so, and foster such a relation, only if one is in love with the good, as it were. To communicate truth requires a love of beauty and goodness. Be good, then, and teach naturally (Plato's Critique of Impure Reason: On Goodness and Truth in the Republic, 245).
If Plato, and Schindler's interpretation of Plato, are right, the ultimate job of the teacher is to help orient scholars to and deepen their intimacy with reality itself, not to the teacher's view of reality, nor to any Great Author's view, and not even to a body of settled knowledge about it. And the indispensable condition for a teacher being able to do this is not expertise, experience, knowledge, or pedagogical technique, however important these are, but literally being in love with the good. If we are in right relation to the good, and if we "teach naturally," we will best be able to enable the scholar to desire and adopt a "mode of relating to reality by which [his] soul subordinates itself to goodness" so that "substantial thinking and genuine communication can thus take place."
1) How can we as teachers can fall more deeply in love with the good to help our scholars do so;
2) How can we better "teach naturally," that is, impart to scholars more than mere ideas about but a real, personal relation to the good;
3) How can we form a community in goodness between teacher and scholar?
This is not about particular teaching techniques or curriculum, though it is aimed at making us better teachers. It is about that which precedes and thus should ground, inform, and transform our best teaching techniques and curricula. Having a better understanding of the preceding ground, we will hopefully become more adept at avoiding the habits of thought and action in our teaching that undermine and work against this ground. The essence of good teaching, I have discovered, is mostly just the awareness of these anti-teaching habits and sustained vigilance in avoiding them. It is less about what we say or do, and more about what we refrain from saying and doing. If we can just learn how to allow goodness, truth, and beauty to inhabit us, or better, allow ourselves to inhabit them, and then flow through us, primarily by removing the blockages, the good classical teaching techniques we already know and regularly use will bear much fruit. But if we focus on the latter over the former, placing second things first, our good efforts will be frustrated.
1) How can we as teachers can fall more deeply in love with the good so as to help our scholars do so?
The number one priority for a teacher is to love the Good. The Good, as Plato teaches us in the Republic, is something both transcendent and immanent, for being, as he says, “beyond Being,” it is that which allows Being itself to be, and thus beings to be what they are, and the truth about them to be known. Thus, the Good is an authority, indeed, the authority of all authorities. All authority is a mediation and manifestation of the Good. What I mean by authority here is not power. Power, though it may boast and act otherwise, is only a participation in and manifestation of authority, and is ordered to it. This is obvious in the authority of God, but all earthly authority is a participation in and reflection of divine authority, and so must have the same nature and function.
Think of the authority of a parent. She opens up the horizon of being to the child by mediating it in love by her very presence. A mother does this initially and most fundamentally by affirming the intrinsic goodness of the newborn child, just by smiling at him. The goodness of being in general and the baby’s being in particular is authoritatively communicated to the child by the mother’s smile. This is just what authority does, whether parental, spiritual, political, or pedagogical. It allows beings to be, to be known, and to be loved.
Authority does not exercise power, but authority figures do, or they authorize its being wielded by another. But this is not the main function of authority; indeed, it is only when authority is not properly established and exercised that coercive power becomes necessary. One can see this in the classroom: behavioral problems and lack of scholar engagement are primarily a function of the lack of the presence and exercise of authority by the teacher, not his power, that is, not because of bad “classroom management.” But even when his authority is present and exercised prudently, no power on earth or heaven can make the scholar truly learn, for that can only come from his own desire and choice. Sure, we can manipulate him using incentives and sanctions to inculcate him with opinions, even the right opinions. But this is counterfeit teaching and counterfeit learning. The most we can and should do is establish the conditions by our loving exercise of authority that dispose the scholar to enter into his own relationship with the Good, and then by our guidance and encouragement, to enable him to further that relationship in our absence.
In the classroom, the teacher is the authority. The teacher-scholar relationship is not a mere social contract or arbitrary hierarchy established for purposes of order and efficiency. The authority is real, ontological. The Great Books are also authorities, but they are always-already mediated by the teacher’s personal authority. All authority is ultimately personal. In light of the preceding, what is our main task as authorities? We are there to open up reality to the scholar. Now, each scholar, of course, has his own direct relationship to reality, and our own relationship has its defects. But in the classroom, in virtue of the real, ontological relationship a school establishes, though their personal relationship remains, it is now augmented, purified, deepened, and corrected through the presence of a teacher who stands in his authority and acts accordingly. The teacher enables each scholar’s God-given relation to reality to be more actualized, to be recognized by him more clearly, to be more intimately experienced and engaged. I welcome any suggestions as to how we can more perfectly stand in our authority, for such is the sine qua non of good teaching. As indicated by the initial question, and hopefully more clearly seen now, it is directly related to our deeper falling in love with the Good, so how do we do that?
2) How can we better "teach naturally," that is, impart to scholars more than mere ideas about, but a real, personal relation to the Good?
We can only impart to our scholars what we have to give. So we must have a real, personal relation to the Good, and sustaining and augmenting this should be our main concern. Each time we teach, this relationship should become stronger and deeper. Truth is objective and common to all, and as teachers, we should, of course, be more advanced in our knowledge of it, but each scholar has his own unique subjective relation to it, a relation that is sacred and for which we should have an attitude of reverence. But don’t we ultimately want to replace their “inferior” relation to the truth with our “superior” one, to use our words in such a way that by the end of the course, the scholar now sees things more as we see them, shares our true opinions and adopts our accurate worldview, as a result of having had our superior knowledge, as it were, poured into him? The question is answered if we consider that such an approach certainly imparts ideas about the real, and perhaps truer and more expansive ones than what the scholar began with--but it is at the expense of imparting a real, personal relation to the Good! And so it is worse than doing nothing. The scholar has been manipulated, grafted into the teacher’s relation to the good. Such teaching is rhetorical manipulation at best, and an act of sacrilege and betrayal, at worst. It is to substitute power for authority.
3) How to form a community in goodness between teacher and scholar?
We must enjoy their presence, individually and as a whole. I think If we do this, everything else will follow. They will experience our joy in their presence, and mirror it back to us and to each other. I have found that when this joy is absent, nothing we do will work. The first act of our authority is to enjoy their presence, and this is most challenging when their presence is just not enjoyable. This is where we need God’s help most. Now, there are other obstacles to joy other than our own impatience and selfishness. Sometimes it is the scholars. So, this does not exclude firm discipline, even with anger, when necessary. Anger is the appropriate response to injustice. Such anger governed by reason and motivated by love also reflects reality back to the scholar, in this case, the reality of their unjust and vicious behavior that damages the common good, which is their good, and that’s why we are angry. Anger is the appropriate response when such behavior seems malicious and willful. But we must quickly return to joy, and anger can become a bad habit, even when it is subtly expressed in annoyance, impatience, irritation, and dourness.
My institutional authority as a teacher allows me to employ power, but the one thing I really want my power to accomplish is, paradoxically, the one thing it cannot do. I want my scholars to recognize and flourish under my authority so that they recognize, love, and obey the authority of Truth. But this “outcome” I cannot “manage” effectively because ultimately it is the free choice of each scholar. The most I can do is use my power to point to this authority and try to make it attractive to them. The paradox here is that the more scholars recognize that this is my aim, the less effective my use of the strategies of classroom management is because they know that I cannot coerce them to achieve this aim, which is really the aim that they have for themselves if they knew themselves the way I know them. Those scholars who recognize this and choose to make God and Truth their authority don’t need classroom management strategies because they have become independently motivated for the right end and under the right authority, God, and so respecting my authority, which is ordered to His, and listening attentively and with docility to my words, mostly Socratic questions, and obeying the few, gentle “management” directives I give them from time-to-time to help them achieve their good as scholars, that is, my employment of power, is something they genuinely want to do freely and without the need of any coercion.
On the other hand, those scholars who have not chosen to obey the higher authority that I miserably try to represent will find being on task and engaged difficult, as for them, I am just another power broker, which is dehumanizing to them. They are right to rebel against this. But as long as they are not continually preventing the other scholars from obtaining the good they have chosen to obtain, I can’t do any more for them, and I need to allow them some leeway. This actually is key to building a community of goodness. It means that I must tolerate them being uninterested and sometimes a bit distracted, even distracting to others. It is good to do so, and it shows love. For, if I were always to exert coercive power to make sure that they are on task and engaged, for the sake of an “effectively managed classroom,” it would hurt the common good of the class, for the classroom atmosphere would become bureaucratic, cold, and authoritarian (like those movies that show classrooms in China, or in Ireland in the 50s with mean nuns with rulers); the content would need to be essentially busy work with clear “objectives.” I could easily exert the exact amount of coercive power to make these power-oriented, “excellent sheep” scholars “behave,” but this would hurt not only the more mature, authority-oriented scholars, because what these less virtuous scholars need is to be (relatively) free to reject my authority, and then deal with the natural and supernatural consequences of their rejection, not just my dumb punishments.
If the consequences of my power wielding is the only consequence they experience of their rejection of true authority, such as scolding, detention, moving their seat, sending them out, getting a bad grade, then they might be inclined to think that power is all there is, and this may very well be the reason they are rejecting my authority in the first place, because perhaps in the past the authority figures they had to deal with were actually just power figures, and they rightfully rebelled against these loveless frauds. They are right to think of me as the same as these frauds and traitors, at least at first, and so I need to be patient with them and not use my power willy-nilly. After all, I was one of these “scholars” once, and I was able to recognize my foolishness only by experiencing someone who loved me enough to use both his authority and power to help me realize what authority really is. Such is indicative of the community of goodness we want the scholars to experience.