What is the purpose of knowledge? What is its draw? What drives us to learn and pursue knowledge about God, the world, and ourselves?
Most educators agree that pursuing knowledge is a primary goal of education. But views diverge soon after, specifically when questions about the purpose of knowledge emerge as well as what fields of knowledge to pursue.
As I have begun working on my first book about the craft of teaching, this question has become of unique interest to me. In particular, as I have been reading Doug Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion 3.0, I have been struck by Lemov’s contagious passion for teaching, learning, and gaining knowledge. This got me thinking, “What drives Lemov? Does the same motivation drive me as a classical educator?”
In this blog, I will present three views on the purpose of knowledge and conclude with the beginnings of a synthesis. Thomas Aquinas, the thinker I have selected to represent the medieval-classical tradition, views knowledge accessed by the liberal arts as the pathway to knowing God, humanity’s greatest happiness. Charlotte Mason emphasizes the moral and psychological impact of knowledge, specifically as it equips the mind to encounter relations between all that we can learn. And Doug Lemov, author of the Teach Like a Champion series focuses on knowledge as the pathway to raising independent students for future opportunities in college and career.
Let us now take a look at each one of these thinkers more closely.
Thomas Aquinas: Knowledge for Happiness in God
As a theologian, Thomas conceives of reality through a God-centered lens. Therefore, according to “the angelic doctor,” the pursuit of knowledge is nothing less than the perfection of humanity, which is happiness found in God.
Thomas writes,
Now, the ultimate end of man, and of every intellectual substance, is called felicity or happiness, because this is what every intellectual substance desires as an ultimate end, and for its own sake alone. Therefore, the ultimate happiness and felicity of every intellectual substance is to know God.
Summa contra Gentiles, Book III, c. 25
Here we see Thomas integrating Aristotelelian metaphysics with his theology to argue that knowledge finds its ultimate purpose in and through knowing God.
How is this knowledge created and justified? From a classical perspective, the answer is the same way all things are made– the arts. Whether one is a carpenter, architect, or painter, she is using a particular art, or skill, to make a new creation. The same is the case for knowledge. Knowledge is fashioned through the arts, namely, the liberal arts.
These liberal arts offer “a particular canon of seven studies that provided the essential tools for all subsequent learning” (Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain, The Liberal Arts Tradition, 2nd ed., 2019, p. 6). The Trivium arts pertain to knowledge about language and the Quadrivium arts pertain to knowledge about number. Together, these arts constitute the seeds and tools of learning.
In summary, knowledge finds its ultimate purpose in knowing God and it is created through the liberal arts, the well-worn paths of learning. By following these paths, students can independently create a vast array of knowledge.
Practically speaking, students learn the arts of language when they are taught reading, hermeneutics, debate, persuasive speech and writing. And they learn the arts of math when they are taught counting, calculation, measuring, empirical discovery, and theoretical proof (Clark and Jain, 7). These arts are, simply put, the skills students need to make sense of the world and cultivate understanding. As the arts are mastered and knowledge is gained, wisdom is the result.
The importance of this final point cannot be missed. Clark and Jain write,
The goal of education is not simply knowledge for knowledge’s sake, however; the goal of true education is for our knowledge of God, man, and creation to come to full flower in wisdom and for this wisdom to help us better love and serve our neighbor.
Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain, The Liberal Arts Tradition, 2nd ed., 2019, p. 7
While Clark and Jain do not explicitly state happiness in God to be the purpose of knowledge as we saw in Thomas, we can observe a similar vision. We pursue knowledge because we believe this knowledge will lead us to God himself, our source of happiness. The result will be the formation of a wise, servant-hearted human person.
Charlotte Mason: Knowledge for the Flourishing Life
Next we turn to Charlotte Mason, a British educator dedicated to educational reform at the turn of the 20th century. While Mason is a devoted Christian, her emphasis regarding the purpose of knowledge is less theological and more moral-psychological. Referencing contemporary neuroscience, she argues that knowledge is food for the mind and the key to a flourishing life.
In her sixth and final volume on education, she writes,
A great future lies before the nation which shall perceive that knowledge is the sole concern of education proper, as distinguished from training, and that knowledge is the necessary daily food of the mind.
Towards a Philosophy of Education, pg. 2
Here Mason emphasizes the distinction between vocational training and a liberal (arts) education, going on to argue that the more educators focus on human formation, “the better will he fulfill his own life and serve society” (3).
While Charlotte Mason completed the volume above in 1922, she had been developing her educational philosophy for decades. In 1904, she published School Education in which she offers a curricular program for children up to age 12. In this volume, she makes the connection we have already encountered between education and wisdom, writing “…for wisdom is the science of relations, and the thing we have to do for a young human being is to put him in touch, so far as we can, with all the relations proper to him” (School Education, 75).
Here is a helpful clue to Mason’s view of knowledge and its purpose. It is primarily a relational endeavor in which children make contact physically, affectively, and intellectually with the world around them. She writes,
When we consider that the setting up of relations, moral and intellectual, is our chief concern in life, and that the function of education is to put the child in the way of relations proper to him, and to offer the inspiring idea which commonly initiates a relation, we perceive that a little incident like the above may be of more importance than the passing of an examination.
School Education, 78
To help understand Mason’s point about relations, imagine two children. One has been educated in the way she describes. He has encountered a rich array of knowledge since a young child. He knows about birds and plants, geography and history. He navigates life with a sense of vivaciousness, intrigue, and curiosity. The world is bright, colorful, and of utter fascination to him. Each day is a fresh opportunity to learn, explore, and make new connections.
Now compare this child with one whose education or upbringing has been stultified. The birds around him are unknown to him, both intellectually and relationally. He was never trained to take notice of the plants outside his house or to observe how they bud each spring. He has not been read the great stories found history and literature. As a result, the child’s ignorance breeds only more ignorance, and, ultimately, disinterest about the world around him.
The contrast between these caricatures is startling. What is the difference? Knowledge. Knowledge fuels the mind and animates the soul. Its purpose is to inspire a student to live a flourishing life. Knowledge and knowledge alone is the intrinsic motivation that will inject a person with meaning and purpose, according to Charlotte Mason. She writes, “The matter is important, because, of all the joyous motives of school life, the love of knowledge is the only abiding one; the only which determines the scale so to speak, upon which the person will hereafter live” (245-246).
Doug Lemov: Knowledge for Future Opportunity
Lastly, we look at Doug Lemov, an educational leader in the public charter school movement. His experience has been primarily focused on inner-city schools that are under-resourced and statistically less successful in terms of graduation rates and college readiness than their suburban peers.
In his introduction to Teach Like a Champion 3.0, Doug Lemov writes,
…there are teachers who everyday without much fanfare take the students who others say “can’t”–can’t read great literature, can’t do algebra or calculus, can’t and don’t want to learn—and help, inspire, motivate, and even cajole them to become scholars who do.
Teach Like a Champion 3.0, xxxvi
Here we see a small window into Lemov’s drive for knowledge. It is oriented towards helping students overcome social and individual obstacles getting in the way of their learning in order to help them become scholars with future opportunities. His book is full of techniques to enable students to do the work of learning and, thereby, become independent knowledge seekers.
In the third edition of Teach Like a Champion, Chapter 1 provides five principles, or mental models, through which the subsequent teaching techniques can be contextualized. Each of these principles, often backed by research in learning science, are geared toward helping students become independent learners and preparing them to be successful throughout school, in college, and beyond.
For example, the first principle focuses on the distinction between building long-term memory and managing working memory. He writes,
A well-developed long-term memory is the solution to the limitations of working memory. If a skill, a concept, a piece of knowledge, or a body of knowledge is encoded in long-term memory, your brain can use it without degrading other functions that also rely on working memory.
Teach Like a Champion 3.0, p. 8
Lemov’s point here is not to pooh-pooh working memory, but to help readers understand that both are essential to the learning process. By keeping working memory free, teachers equip students to more fully connect to the world around them and integrate the knowledge they are learning.
I have mentioned one principle on which Lemov’s techniques hang for increasing student knowledge. The others are equally valuable and worth exploring at a later time. For now, I simply list them for the reader’s benefit:
- Understanding human cognitive structure means building long-term memory and managing working memory.
- Habits accelerate learning.
- What students attend to is what they will learn about.
- Motivation is social.
- Teaching well is relationship building.
Conclusion
Each of these figures offers an important aspect of the purpose of knowledge. Knowledge enables us to know God, our greatest happiness. Knowledge propels us to thrive in the world God created. And knowledge enables us to more fully connect with the world around us, becoming more engaged scholars for whatever opportunities God puts before us.
Each of these purposes can serve as drivers to learn in their own right. To conclude, I want the emphasize a common thread I observed in all three views: the importance of fully-integrated, inter-relational knowledge development. Whether it is the classical tradition’s emphasis on holistic wisdom, Charlotte Mason’s idea of the science of relations, or Doug Lemov’s emphasis on the power of long-term memory, it is clear that a unified knowledge base is key.
At a recent staff meeting, our colleague read aloud from Ephesians 4, “…one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.” At the risk of sounding heretical, perhaps in our schools, we can add one more to the liturgy: one knowledge, granted from above, worth of our pursuit, and the source of our true in happiness when it is ends in Christ.
Want to go deeper with Educational Renaissance?
We have compiled a variety of resources for as you as you take the next step in your teaching journey. Read great books. Listen to our podcast. Download webinars. Join us to keep the renaissance spreading!
