This Old Schoolhouse

A Worthy Restoration Project

Restoration of old homes marred by time and tacky decorating trends is satisfying and soul-nourishing. It is gratifying to witness the original form and beauty slowly reemerge from under the layers of careless or crude attempts to update or improve a grand structure over the years. Restoring proper education that has been similarly spoiled and distorted by fleeting fads and movements can be just as satisfying. It will nourish the souls of the students and educators who stand to benefit from it.

Old home restoration teams typically undergo a process before tearing anything out or removing any part of the structure. This process begins by understanding the original design and purpose of each part of the home. Knowing and appreciating intent is necessary to restore the house to its original character. A similar process must occur if education is to be restored.

Returning to some of the earliest and greatest “architects of education” is necessary before restoration can begin. It’s essential to understand the original intent. Socrates believed “the object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful.” Plato thought education should “help people develop their reason, achieve justice, and become virtuous.” According to Aristotle, the cultivation of virtue and the pursuit of knowledge were the primary purposes of education.

Some will argue that those notions about education are outdated and from a different era. Those thinkers, teachers, and philosophers couldn’t have imagined the high-tech world we live in today; therefore, their beliefs about education are irrelevant. Nothing could be further from the truth. In a time where young people seemingly have access to unlimited information all the time, thanks to our tech-saturated world, it is vital that their education develops reason, cultivates virtue, and teaches them to love what is true, good, and beautiful.

Unsurprisingly, our Founding Fathers, well-acquainted with and heavily influenced by those great thinkers and philosophers, held similar views of education. Noah Webster believed education should “be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty.”

John Adams, when reflecting on education, highlighted the importance of cultivating virtue when he wrote, “It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue.”

Fast forward to our current education system and the ideas about education in America, and it is abundantly clear that we’ve “remodeled” and “renovated” what was once a beautiful structure to the point that it is almost unrecognizable. We removed the load-bearing walls of virtue and knowledge and replaced them with unstable ideas such as student-centered learning, culturally responsive teaching, and restorative practices. Progressive notions like these may sound good in theory, but each time another one is adopted and incorporated into mainstream education, the structure is weakened, and students are in danger of the walls of their future caving in.

Often, when these harmful ideas result in a lack of student learning and out-of-control behavior, the response is not to return to what has worked in the past but rather to cover up or make excuses for the results. It’s analogous to putting another layer of wallpaper or coat of paint over the cracks created by removing the load-bearing walls. It temporarily masks the evidence of the much deeper issues of bad pedagogy, vacuous curriculum, and inconsistent discipline.

Once the house restoration team understands the original design and what changes were made over time, they can begin the revitalization process. Often, that requires the painstaking task of tearing out walls and taking things down to the studs. This may also be necessary to restore education to its original design. Removing the notion that schools are meant to solve every social problem, be the sole providers of every physical need of students, or make all aspects of learning fun or engaging is a necessary step. Stripping away all the things that have hidden the issues or made them worse will be a complex process, but the end result will be a restoration of authentic education as it was meant to be.

The process of revitalizing and restoring old homes can be slow, tedious, and fraught with hurdles, but the beauty of the final product is entirely worth the effort. Restoring excellent education that cultivates virtue, passes on knowledge, and teaches students to appreciate and pursue the good, true, and beautiful is an even more worthy revitalization project that deserves the most extraordinary effort.