Christian's Corner: In Search of a Natural Education

The ancient Greeks were fascinated by the idea of a "natural" way of life or ethic. Zeno of Citium (modern day Cyprus), for example, held that humans ought to live according to nature and that a life lived according to nature would be a happy life. The problem with appealing to "nature" has always been, however, that most of us have very different conceptions of what living naturally might look like.

For some, it is natural not to eat meat (vegetarians would insist on this point); for others, it is natural to eat as much meat as possible (fans of the Atkins diet would agree here, I think). And there are other problems with appealing to nature too. How far should we take it? Are clothes unnatural? What about plastic? Is it a natural product? It quickly becomes difficult to draw the line between culture, with its technology, and nature in any kind of sharp way.

Nevertheless, it does seem to me that there is something to be said for living "with the grain of the universe" as John Howard Yoder once put it. For example, it seems odd to me that students are now only weeks away from what is effectively a period of mental hibernation, more commonly referred to as summer. Nature is waking up just as students are preparing to power down. Is the academic calendar out of sync with the natural calendar? I'm not sure.

There is something to be said for hibernation though. It has the power to transform us: high school students become first-year students, first-year students become sophomores, sophomores become juniors, juniors become seniors, and seniors become hard-working independent adults (in the happy case at least) all through the magic of hibernation.

But at some point this week it struck me that we need not hibernate during the summer. We don't have to go to school from September to April. In fact, much of how we have come to "do education" could be different. Early morning classes, for example, seem unnatural; they are possibly even the result of fallen principalities and powers who seek to ruin our lives, or at least our evaluations. We have to have some structure, of course, and that raises the question what would a "natural" educational structure look like? I suggest that it could take on a more Mediterranean shape: certainly no classes before 10 a.m., lunch and possibly a long siesta from 2 to 5 p.m., and then classes until 10 in the evening.

Well, it is fun to dream anyway…have a happy hibernation!

Email: christian.early@emu.edu