A few months ago I had the honor of speaking at the funeral of a lady who I call my “great aunt”. In musing over her life in my head, I recalled the straight-forwardness of her life. She lived alone, gardened, and loved her routine – which she sought to keep even when her body began to fail. She was never in a hurry and always had a purposeful agenda and direction. I came up with a theme to describe her life: simple, but meaningful.
With the coming of the new year, we are all beginning to contemplate resolutions or changes in our activities for the coming 365 days. In a recent blog, I mentioned Pieper’s phrase, “busyness doesn’t equal productivity”. I used it in the context of leisure, but now I would like to use it in the context of action. I would like to suggest that we make our resolutions and actions few, but purposeful. My goal for the coming year is simplicity…meaningful simplicity.
That is also my goal in relation to education. My hope is that as I educate and that as I assist others in educating that I simplify the process (see my blog “Education is simple”). I don’t want to add something else to the plates that educators are already spinning. I want to help them remove some plates. I don’t want to add anything to what they are already doing, but I want to help them realize that classical education is a means of providing few, but purposeful endeavors for the student.
I think that when educators and schools become of aware of the power in the simplicity that the framework of classical education supplies, education will be reformed. May we have the courage to lash ourselves to the mast of the simplicity of the past and turn a deaf ear to modern education’s cry for busyness and complexity.
