Instruction, Education, and Edification

When an elephant was brought to the town, a group of blind men decided to investigate.  As they felt their way around the animal, each one encountered a different part.  The one who touched the elephant's trunk declared, "This animal is much like a snake."  The who touched its ear believed it to be like a fan of some sort, and the man feeling the beast's leg said, "Surely this creature is most like a tree."  One of the men touched its side and said, "No, it is much more like a wall," and the one grabbing its tail said, "On the contrary, this beast is like a rope."  The last of group, grabbing hold of one of the tusks, proclaimed, "You are all wrong, for the creature is smooth and hard and is therefore most like a spear."

Such is the famous story found in Jain, Hindu, and Buddhist texts, and it applies to how many of us approach what we call education.  Under that broad term we often mean several, quite different things.  Each is important, and it would help if we gained some clarity by looking at each element more closely.

Instruction

Listing for struo in the Oxford Latin Dictionary

Our English word "instruction" is derived from the Latin verb struere, meaning "to set up."  In its compounded form instruere, it is often used to describe arranging troops on a battlefield.  Instruction is the most basic level of what we generically call education, but by this I do not mean it is of lesser importance.  It is fundamental to everything else.  Instruction sets things up.  Before students can explore calculus or Shakespearean sonnets, they must know basic math facts and how to read.  Instruction is about presenting facts.  It is about disseminating information.  Because this is the case, instruction can take place in any form.  You can list for me in an oral presentation the Presidents of the United States, or I can read that list in a book, and it really does not make much difference.  One person may prefer one method to another, but the method of knowledge acquisition does not matter much when the goal is merely acquiring facts.  Doing something with that knowledge is another endeavor entirely.

Education

Once again the Latin etymology of "education" is the clue to what is going on with this next stage.  Derived from the preposition ex, meaning "out of," and the verb ducere, meaning "to lead," education is a leading out, and this recalls Plato's Allegory of the Cave in Book 7 of his Republic.  Education involves leading someone out from the darkness of ignorance into the light of understanding.  It leads onward from the point of instruction.  When students have been instructed in basic math facts, they are then educated in the ways those facts can be used, from building a table to constructing the Artemis rockets.  This is where the humanity of teaching and learning becomes fundamental.  Through the shared journey of discovery and fueled by encouragement and inspiration, teachers and students alike go far beyond the acquisition of facts.  Cicero was thinking of this when in Pro Archiā 12 he encouraged people to take the knowledge they had gained through reading into the world where it could be put to work.

Ceteros pudeat si qui ita se litteris abdiderunt ut nihil ex eis possint neque ad communem adferre fructum neque in aspectum lucemque proferre. 

"Let others be ashamed if they have so hidden themselves in literature that they can offer nothing from it for the common good or can bring forth nothing into the light to be seen."

A good program of general education will involve both instruction and this specific understanding of education, but there is still another level, one that can be overlooked in the mad rush to college- and career-readiness.  It is also less often seen because of one, rare commodity necessary to bring it about.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106-43 B.C.

Edification

"Edification" is not a word heard much these days.  It is taken from the Latin verb aedificare, which means "to build," and although the Latin word could be used with physical structures, we would never say something like, "He is going to edify a storage shed in his back yard."  Edification has to do with the building up of a person.  It is soul work.  It seeks to help others achieve not merely their own dreams, but to become more than they have ever dreamed possible.  After students have been instructed in basic facts and educated from darkness into light, edification goes out of its way to usher them into the true, the good, and the beautiful.  Edification goes far beyond the written curriculum because no curriculum could know the particular needs of a particular student or class on a given day.  Edification works by inspiration, which is literally a breathing into.  As the Spirit or breath of God breathes into a teacher what He knows students need, that teacher who is receptive to such inspiration departs from the lesson plan to build into the students something more.  If all of this sounds a bit too spiritual, know that the word aedificare itself breaks down further into the root aedes, which often meant a temple or a sanctuary.

And what is that rare commodity needed for edification to take place?  It is love, which has little or nothing to do with emotions and is quite often strongly opposed to any positive feelings whatsoever.  The inspiration to edify causes the shifting and reorganizing of a lesson, or possibly even the abandonment of an activity, because there are only so many minutes in a class period, and it would be far easier to ignore the quiet urging and continue as planned.  Edification is not about foisting our own pet views on another and the perverse pleasure of getting others to think as we do.  It is about loving those we teach so much that we are willing to do more work and to make connections that may seemingly have nothing to do with the stated objective of the day but that have everything to do with a life well lived.  As Benjamin Jowett wrote in the preface to his 1881 translation of Thucydides regarding the work of the translator, it is necessary that "one who has drunk deeply from the original fountain should renew the love of it in the world, and once more present that old life, with its great ideas and great actions, its creations in politics and in art, like the distant remembrances of youth, before the delighted eyes of mankind."  Edification requires those who have drunk deeply from many sources.  It requires people who themselves have been instructed, educated, and edified to the point that they are willing to do anything to help others along that same journey

If you are a teacher, do you find yourself spending most of your time in instruction, education, or edification?  Remember that instruction is the foundation for the others, so do not rush to make judgments about the superiority of one of these over another.  If you are a student or parent, do you see all of these operating to some degree in your local school or homeschool?  All three are appropriate for people at any age and in any course of study.  It is the mark of what is generally classified as education when all three function together.