The primary purpose of The Six Virtues of the Educated Person is to start a philosophical discussion about what it means to be educated. The book describes the definition promoted among today’s policymakers (achieving high standardized test scores); and then it argues for a definition that is rooted in philosophy instead of politics.
This website is an extension of the book. It provides a place for these and other definitions to be presented and discussed.
I make several arguments in the book. The most basic one is that efforts to improve education will continue to be unproductive for the same reason they have been unproductive for the last fifty years — we have not defined what it means to be educated.
Our current system of public education has been driven to where policymakers believe they must hold educators accountable for higher student test scores. This is a low point for education because it is based on a shallow definition of “educated.” We must reverse this downward direction by recognizing the politics behind the standards and accountability movement and by dismantling the testing machinery before it damages any more students, teachers, and schools.
I was taught that, if I tear something down, I should also offer alternatives. Therefore, this book suggests a deeper, more meaningful definition of the educated person. It argues that educated people are those who have understanding and imagination (intellectual virtues), strong character and courage (character virtues), and humility and generosity (spiritual virtues).
This definition contrasts sharply with the belief that educated persons are those who score high on standardized tests. Each society expresses its vision of a better world in its system of education. Being a good Trivial Pursuit player has little to do with making the world better. They call it trivial for a reason.
Many teachers recognize the shallowness of our current emphasis on standardized test scores, but they can do nothing about it because their voices have been silenced, now that policy making has moved to the state and federal levels.
The five-element model introduced in chapter 1 illustrates the integrated nature of how public education works. The elements are (1) a core belief, (2) a system of governance, (3) a set of purposes (identified by those who govern), (4) an organizational structure, and (5) an improvement paradigm. Teachers, parents and students are marginalized in all five elements of our current model.
Therefore, chapter 3 recommends an alternative model in which the same five elements are in a different order, take different forms, and produce a different kind of citizen. The best example of this is the alternative model’s core belief, which is educational instead of political and which drives the alternative model toward educational purposes instead of political ones.
Chapters 8 and 9 argue for the aesthetic nature of education and for a philosophy of education based on the idea that humans have both an uneducated nature and an educated one. Infants become two-year-olds who are ignorant, intellectually incompetent, weak, fearful, proud and selfish. As young people and adults develop the six virtues, their educated nature struggles against their uneducated one.
The six virtue definition of the educated person is based on several premises. One was mentioned — that we educate our young to make the world better. This should be the primary purpose of every school because an educated (virtuous) human nature makes the world better, just as an uneducated (vicious) human nature makes it worse.
Another premise is that public schools are driven by a political core belief, and parochial schools are driven by religious ones. The result is that schools teach the virtues of understanding, strong character and generosity (because these don’t threaten political or religious beliefs); but they fail to teach imagination, courage, and humility (because these do threaten political and religious beliefs). Neglecting these virtues results in graduates whose understanding is unimaginative, whose strong character is fearful, and whose generosity emerges from pride. Society desperately needs citizens who have developed all six virtues, instead of three virtues and three vices.
A third premise is that, although we can separate the virtues and vices in discussion, they are integrated and inseparable in all human situations. This premise recognizes the integrated, infinitely complex nature of human life.
A fourth premise is that the six virtues form a comprehensive foundation for all others. If one were to build a brick wall of virtues, the “bricks” of understanding, imagination, strong character, courage, humility, and generosity would form the bottom row. All other virtues are combinations of these foundational ones.
In the last chapter readers are asked to look at situations through the lens of the six virtue definition of the educated person. Have their life situations improved because the six virtues were brought to bear?
Website visitors and readers can share an improvement story by clicking on “Share a Story.” Simply provide a phone number I can call, so I can take notes about your story and consider it for inclusion in the next book.
