The purpose of education

For me, teaching is a way to improve the world, helping people discover where they fit in academia and community, to give them a working familiarity of academic disciplines. To do this, I simplify the disciplines, narrowing them to just four, and show how these Four Disciplines inform my role and performance as teacher. They are art, science, philosophy, and religion.

Therefore, my purpose of education is to help people grow and develop as artists, scientists, philosophers, and self-aware, knowledgeable believers in themselves and others.

The suggestion that all human contribution falls within these four disciplines was introduced to me as a college student 25 years ago. The framework is defensible and useful for helping people self-identify and navigate through academia and life, which I will try to show in this statement.

The role of the student in education

Students, and I have been one for most of my adult life, have the obligation to be open to positive change, personal growth. Because people have varied gifting and skills, some perhaps very nuanced, students need to learn to appreciate the different interests and abilities of others.

In the classroom, this happens as students responsively transition through activities, reveal enough of themselves for identifiable differentiation, provide observation and assessment accomplished data through class involvement, and perform within academic standards.

Within the four disciplines framework, students reflect on their classroom interests as they learn to appreciate the aesthetics, measures, and words of the day’s activities, even growing in conscionable knowledge of subject matter. [I see art, science, philosophy, and religion in there.]

My role as teacher in education

With cooperative students, then, I help them navigate the day’s schedule, tailor instruction for there is no one-size-fits-all, collect and assess data to select and create appropriate materials, and meet performance expectations.

I perceive that the four disciplines framework provides an honest, academically responsive way to teach, meet, and assess academic standards. My role, then, is to help students learn about themselves as artists, scientists, philosophers, and so give them permission for and familiarity with the proverbial light bulb that goes on, which is fairly described as revelatory knowledge.

My role as teacher in the community

Just as functional classrooms transition successfully, self-reveal unto differentiation, collect and assess data to select and create materials, and perform to academic standards, it is my role in the community to behave and model community transitions, take into consideration unique or new circumstances, be responsive to collective measures, and behave within cultural norms.

Because the four disciplines of art (aesthetics), science (measures), philosophy (words), and religion (revelatory knowledge) represent the whole of human contribution, my role as a teacher in community is to show how our diverse expression of these are appropriately appreciated, even encouraged.