"Education is one of the most religious things we do." — Douglas Wilson, Excused Absence
All education is religious. It is impossible to escape. The question isn’t, “Does religion have a place in the classroom?” The question is, “What religion will be placed into the classroom?” All curricula are catechisms. All lessons are liturgical.
To educate anyone is to begin with an end in mind. The word "educate" means "to lead out of" which begs the questions, "Out of what?" and "Into what else?" You cannot educate someone unless you have both a place you want to take them and a reason to think that they need to be there. Presupposed, of course, is that they are not yet there, that you are, that you have the ability to lead them, the authority to do so, and an obligation to intervene. In this sense, education always has a telos. It must have an end game. In other words, it must believe in last things in order to lay down first ones. It must serve an Omega before it serves up the alphabet.
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