Educating for Wisdom

Do we cultivate wisdom? Do we seek wisdom? Do we educate for wisdom? (I fear rarely in our schools and in our churches) We're happy to provide neat little packages of information, but not the wisdom to engage with it. What about youth workers?

David Ford writes in The Shape of Living (1997)

'wisdom is best learnt face to face by apprenticeship to those who have themselves learnt it the same way ... The wise see us in our potential ... They open us up, inspire us, energize us, allow us to blossom, and give us a sense there is always more' (69-70)

Do our young people learn wisdom from us? Are we wise? What does it mean to be wise? Do we inspire, energize, allow to blossom the young lives in our care? If we do not seek wisdom, if we do not have a wise faith are we in danger of selling our young people short?

Ford goes on to say, 'we see an educational system drowning in information, knowledge and skills, and rarely even attending to the question: how can we learn and teach wisdom?' (72).  Are we able to open up the scriptures, to see the Word of God inspire and energize and give a sense there is always more? Or do we provide a closed reading, neatly boxed, which offers a small and uninspiring picture of God?

I think we shy away from theological wisdom. We don't like to the hard work of becoming wise. We don't place ourselves in those relationships with the wise. We become theologically-shallow and -narrow. We end up resorting to speaking about God in loud voice (with light shows and fast-paced entertainment) because God is so small for us.

Comments

[ash]

I agree wholeheartedly. I have long thought that the New Labour education policy was seriously awry in it's starting point: that education is to get you a job. School is for jobs.

I have never seen school this way. Education was to build me up as an individual, and to enable me to think and learn in bigger ways. I enjoy learning, and education. If I never get a job again, give me a library card and I'll be fine.

[Laurence]

I'd also be shy of any restrictive or utilitarianist view of education, learning, or interacting. As per the cliche, I found the process of university - how it taught me to be able to think and explore to the furthest extent possible - by far and away more beneficial than any particular facts I learnt.