Thoughts on Teaching and the Creation of a Teaching Order

Recently, I have shared my plans and thoughts on advocating for and creating a monastic teaching order for a new Anglican boarding school "St. Dunstan's Academy." I will express my culminated thoughts related to this in a few words. There have been several influences for me reflecting on this. These have been, in short, a renewed interest in the monastic tradition, a changed view on education in light of classical education tradition, the need for quality teaching, my desire to devote my own life to teaching Christian youth, and finally an epiphanic realization of the necessity of something like teaching orders in our very day. For those unaware, a teaching order would be a monastic order of either monks or nuns whose purpose stood primarily serving the church by the education of children.

Situating Our View of Education 

Some may be familiar with the history of teaching within the Christian West and that schools were primarily attached to either monasteries or cathedrals around the 9th century. This of course made sense. The classic education model (and truly, all education) only makes sense within a Christian context. For, the role of a teacher overlaps with three other persons found in the child’s life. The teacher is like a parent, a mentor/master, and a clergyman.

A parent, insofar as the teacher –in a way– treats the student as his or her own son or daughter. Quintilian (a 1st century Roman Rhetorican) urges as much when he says “Let [the teacher] adopt, then, above all things, the feelings of a parent towards his pupils and consider that he succeeds to the place of those by whom the children were entrusted to him.”

A mentor or master, insofar as the teacher treats each student as a kind of disciple which he pours his wealth of knowledge and care into. I believe the sense of this is embedded in the words used for teacher and student in both Latin and Greek. In Latin, the terms “magister” (teacher/master) and “discipulus” (student/disciple/pupil) are used and carry this relational idea in their very meaning, that between a master and disciple, mentor and pupil, student and teacher. Likewise in Greek, the verb “to learn” “-μάνθανειν” is tied to the word for disciple which is μαθητής, thus a μαθητής would ἔμαθεν from a teacher. 

A priest, insofar as the teacher cares for the general and spiritual health and formation of the student. Ideally, the same teacher who leads his student in Greek or Latin prose can lead the student in the recitation of the daily office, the creed, the Lord's prayer, etc. All of these roles are seen in a teacher. The linguistic and practical connection is clear enough here to establish these different roles, but just considering how teaching occurs, one can see all of these naturally effulge. 

The Ideal Teacher is the Virtuous Teacher

Consider again the wisdom of Quintilian who says,

“Of these professors, the morals must first be ascertained… because the very age of the pupils makes attention to the matter still more necessary... Greater care must in consequence be adopted with regard to them in order that the purity of the master may secure their more tender years from corruption and that his authority deter their bolder age from licentiousness.”

And later in his Institutes on Oration,

“The orator must above all things study morality and must obtain a thorough knowledge of all that is just and honorable, without which no one can either be a good man or an able speaker… But will that man be temperate who does not even know what temperance is? Or will that man be possessed of fortitude who has used no means to free his mind from the terrors of pain, death, and superstition? Or will that man be just who has entered into no examination of what is equitable and good...?”

Notice the wisdom here, the virtue of the teacher is annexed to the ability and care of the student. Now, with this in mind, who better fulfills this role than the priest or the monk? Who is like a father but the one who is named “father” by his spiritual flock? Who is more devoted to pursuing holiness and striving for the image and likeness of Christ than these kinds of people? And we must ask, if such as these are the ones who are the answer to our rhetorical questions, then why should any other person take up this role? Now, here, I am not suggesting that no one who is not a monk or priest by vocation couldn’t teach, I am only speaking generally of what could be sought.

These considerations of what a teacher is will lead us to consider the correct τελός of education, i.e., it is both properly and rightly directed toward the cultivation of virtue and the growth of the entire child, chiefly seen in their intellect which informs all other faculties of the soul. In a word, the proper end of education is to instill rectitude. 

Potential Concerns 

I believe a teaching order would best facilitate the kind of revival that is needed in education. Extraordinary, rigorous, and polarizing devotion is needed to accomplish this. Some may shy away from such an idea as being too extreme. It is this mentality that has led to the spiritual drought in the modern age. No one can be “too devoted," no one can be “too holy,” and no one can go too far in the pursuit of virtue according to pure religion. After all, it is this kind of holiness that is commanded by our savior, our Lord says that we are to strive for perfection itself. “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect” - this is rooted in the levitical exhortation given by God to the nation of Israel, “Be Holy as the Lord your God is holy”.

Indeed, many do not have the calling to take up the vocation into religious orders, but the notion that this is too far, or too much for some to take, is nothing short of ridiculous. It assumes that the Holy Spirit, the same one who made such amazing saints in centuries past, has left his bride and no longer will instill and create this kind of holiness in the faithful, either this or that he is unable to do so, both of these are not possibilities.

We can no longer look fondly back into the past and dream of the days when the church was replete with such resplendent devotion and sacrifice. The only function the past serves is to remind us of what the Lord has done, what he will do, and what we need to do. It primarily teaches and exhorts, it does not exist merely for our eyes to look over with a reminiscent gaze.

I understand a difficult obstacle needs to be addressed... the lack of desire among young adults to join, no much less consider, these orders or even the idea of monasticism. The only way this can be changed is by a paradigmatic shift. How can this occur? Firstly, it can begin by learning about the history and beauty of the monastic tradition within the Western church, secondly, with learning specifically about individual saints who took up this calling, thirdly, the disposition of the clergy and public teaching about it, with an admiration for the beauty of modern-day monks and nuns along with the fruit produced in their service to the church, fourthly, a call to holiness and advocating for this being a legitimate vocation, fifthly, actual opportunities for lay people to join orders (after all, you cannot join what does not exist). Finally, there needs to be clarification that what the monastic life demands is not boring, or too demanding beyond ability, but should be portrayed as admirable and laudable. I am sure there are more elaborate reasons to consider and more ways to influence the change of mind over young adults and the like, but this will suffice for the scope of what this article seeks to do.

I do wish I was more eloquent in speech and more masterful with what I want to convey, but the Lord will use even the simplest of language to move in the soul.