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Wonder and Education: An Invitation to the Truer Realm

In November, my husband and I took our four children to the Richmond Symphony for a performance of Brahams’ Violin Concerto. As we listened to a world-renowned violinist evoke incredible music from this small wooden instrument, with moments making the bow dance across the strings and other moments a seeming battle of bow and strings, it was marvelous. Mesmerizing. Enchanting. We use these words often but if we pause to consider their meaning, we remember that they convey a sense of otherworldliness. Our world is not just matter and material; it is the blend of the supernatural and the natural.  Moments of profound beauty stir within us wonder and delight. We have a deeper sense of what it means to be alive, to be human.

The Celts often spoke of “thin places.” In certain places, the boundary between heaven and earth seems to collapse. C.S. Lewis speaks about this in his Letters to Malcolm as he describes taking the Sacrament at church: “I find no difficulty in believing that the veil between the worlds, nowhere else (for me) so opaque to the intellect, is nowhere else so thin and permeable to divine operation.” These thin places, these moments where we seem to get a glimpse of heaven and earth meeting are sacramental moments. They are deeply innate to humanity and often first seen in the eyes of a young child discovering his world. Children wonder and marvel at playing in lovely autumn leaves, collecting a cache of acorns, and listening to a well-told tale. Perhaps part of what Jesus means when He says we should all be like children is that we are all to see and wonder with the eyes of gratitude and wonder.

Schools can nurture this deeply human characteristic of wonder. Rather than stunting this growth of wonder with over-testing, boring lectures, and insipid books, classrooms can be vibrant learning communities of discovery, learning from the masters, contemplating the wisdom of the ancients, marveling over the mysteries of mathematics and science, and reading the greatest works mankind has created. This journey into the realm of knowledge and learning promotes imagination and a sense of wonder. Lessons become portals into new and marvelous worlds. We can don our fur coats, pass through the wardrobe, and enter into a kingdom of history as the story of mankind and the stage of good’s triumph over evil, literature as the soul made visible on its quest to God, mathematics as the beauty of patterns, science as the realm of the Creator’s hand upon his creation, verbal arts as the skillful and wise use of language to name our realities and lead souls to truth.

This is the very heart of classical education and of human formation, for it speaks directly to the Imago Dei within every human soul which is made to wonder and marvel in the work of the Creator. Our modern world tells us all that exists is matter and material, facts and figures, means and ends. But Wonder reenchants our minds and souls to see and savor goodness, truth, and beauty. Wonder invites each one of us into the Great True Story. May our classrooms be portals into the Truer Realm.

3 thoughts on “Wonder and Education: An Invitation to the Truer Realm”

  1. Wonderfully written! This is true education. I have experienced the “thin places” as a teacher, parent, and grandparent—-how faith affirming.

  2. Our modern world tells us all that exists is matter and material, facts and figures, means and ends. But Wonder reenchants our minds and souls to see and savor goodness, truth, and beauty. Wonder invites each one of us into the Great True Story. May our classrooms be portals into the Truer Realm- You nailed it! You’re still fabulously incredible!
    God bless you.

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