I regret that I didn’t put more effort into learning Latin. English, rudimentarily a Germanic language, evolved under the influence of the ancient Romans and the medieval Church, the latter the repository of the “dead” language I had to study as a freshman in high school. In fact, I didn’t spend the effort I should have spent in the subsequent years of Latin classes. But years later the Latin I did learn still sticks with me, especially when I search through the etymologies of English words. I also regret not keeping up with what I learned in a graduate course on Old English, that is, Anglo-Saxon. But, again, these many years later some of what I learned remains in those memory cells.
Two nouns and two verbs come mind in the context of what appears to be happening in Virginia school districts. The first is educator, a word that retains its Latin form educator (m.) and eudcatrix (f.), which are cognates of the Latin verb educere, “to lead out” or “to lead away from” (e, or ex, meaning “from,” “away from” plus ducere, “to lead”). Educere, like so many other words, had shades of meaning, but suffice it here to say that for the Romans it meant to rear a child both physically and mentally. That ducere had the prefix e is significant. “Lead out of what?” we might ask. I surmise the answer is ignorance.
The second noun and cognate verb that come to mind are teacher, which derives from the Anglo-Saxon tacen, or guidepost, and teach, (from taecen). And here is where those nouns and verbs merge: Teachers, as the etymology reveals, are guides who lead students out of ignorance. They point the way.
But which way? And that brings me back to Virginia’s agenda-driven educational perspective and practice. Apparently, under the influence of the national teachers’ union, what had been a “leading out” became a “leading into.” The leading into being some limited sense of the world, one in which “equity,” “fairness,” and “social justice” prevail to the exclusion of “merit,” “success,” and “free thought.” And along the path of inward-pointing guideposts, lies guilt—not personal guilt, but guilt for those who came long before, guilt for the thinking and actions of ancestors both known and unknown, guilt imposed on youth ignorant of their ignorance.
While I’m about it, I feel obligated to mention docent, a term used for a museum “guide,” and for a university professor. That word derives from docere, the Latin for “to teach.” It is in the context of these agenda-driven educators also the root of indoctrination, a process that has in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries led to the rise of socialism among other ideologies. Of course, the charge of indoctrination could be leveled at any group with any ideology, from Jehovah’s witnesses, to the Roman Catholic Church, to ISIS. Nevertheless and in spite of any group’s “leading into” an ideology, behavior, or belief, there does seem to be a rather obvious Leftist indoctrination in today’s institutions of higher education. As one who taught in a university, I can say anecdotally that many of my colleagues in the liberal arts seemed to espouse a Left-leaning view of the world that was, ironically, less “liberal” than it was “conforming.” That many of my colleagues were self-proclaimed elites was also ironic, since elite derives from eligere, “to pick out,” “to elect.” The hubris of humanity! Individuals and groups “electing” themselves! But before I am accused of hypocrisy, I’ll say that the nature of university life lends itself to self-apotheosis (Greek apotheoun, “deification”); so, I had to struggle at times to prevent my own thinking that I lived on an intellectual Olympus. Oh! Humility. How hard to find and harder to keep, especially in academia, where a whole class of people, the student body, depends on the whims and will of the elect.
Thus, all the politically correct positions in education amount to a reversal of teachers’ roles in the lives of their students. Those whose original mission was to “lead out of” ignorance found themselves in an elect position with the rise of formal education, and they began a tradition of intellectual elitism that subsequently became a submission to an agenda of inward looking ideas and enforced limitations. Think this way—or else. Walk this way—or else.
Each of us has followed some “guidepost(s)” along the potential paths of life—“paths” because there are more than we can individually walk. Each of us can look back to those signposts that directed us to the present and those, to use Robert Frost’s famous words, that pointed to paths we had “not taken.” Maybe a fortunate few still encounter a tacen that points the way out of ignorance. However, for many in both lower and higher education, the signposts all seem to have the same message, a message that must be followed but that points no individual to a separate and free path out of ignorance.
Two nouns and two verbs come mind in the context of what appears to be happening in Virginia school districts. The first is educator, a word that retains its Latin form educator (m.) and eudcatrix (f.), which are cognates of the Latin verb educere, “to lead out” or “to lead away from” (e, or ex, meaning “from,” “away from” plus ducere, “to lead”). Educere, like so many other words, had shades of meaning, but suffice it here to say that for the Romans it meant to rear a child both physically and mentally. That ducere had the prefix e is significant. “Lead out of what?” we might ask. I surmise the answer is ignorance.
The second noun and cognate verb that come to mind are teacher, which derives from the Anglo-Saxon tacen, or guidepost, and teach, (from taecen). And here is where those nouns and verbs merge: Teachers, as the etymology reveals, are guides who lead students out of ignorance. They point the way.
But which way? And that brings me back to Virginia’s agenda-driven educational perspective and practice. Apparently, under the influence of the national teachers’ union, what had been a “leading out” became a “leading into.” The leading into being some limited sense of the world, one in which “equity,” “fairness,” and “social justice” prevail to the exclusion of “merit,” “success,” and “free thought.” And along the path of inward-pointing guideposts, lies guilt—not personal guilt, but guilt for those who came long before, guilt for the thinking and actions of ancestors both known and unknown, guilt imposed on youth ignorant of their ignorance.
While I’m about it, I feel obligated to mention docent, a term used for a museum “guide,” and for a university professor. That word derives from docere, the Latin for “to teach.” It is in the context of these agenda-driven educators also the root of indoctrination, a process that has in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries led to the rise of socialism among other ideologies. Of course, the charge of indoctrination could be leveled at any group with any ideology, from Jehovah’s witnesses, to the Roman Catholic Church, to ISIS. Nevertheless and in spite of any group’s “leading into” an ideology, behavior, or belief, there does seem to be a rather obvious Leftist indoctrination in today’s institutions of higher education. As one who taught in a university, I can say anecdotally that many of my colleagues in the liberal arts seemed to espouse a Left-leaning view of the world that was, ironically, less “liberal” than it was “conforming.” That many of my colleagues were self-proclaimed elites was also ironic, since elite derives from eligere, “to pick out,” “to elect.” The hubris of humanity! Individuals and groups “electing” themselves! But before I am accused of hypocrisy, I’ll say that the nature of university life lends itself to self-apotheosis (Greek apotheoun, “deification”); so, I had to struggle at times to prevent my own thinking that I lived on an intellectual Olympus. Oh! Humility. How hard to find and harder to keep, especially in academia, where a whole class of people, the student body, depends on the whims and will of the elect.
Thus, all the politically correct positions in education amount to a reversal of teachers’ roles in the lives of their students. Those whose original mission was to “lead out of” ignorance found themselves in an elect position with the rise of formal education, and they began a tradition of intellectual elitism that subsequently became a submission to an agenda of inward looking ideas and enforced limitations. Think this way—or else. Walk this way—or else.
Each of us has followed some “guidepost(s)” along the potential paths of life—“paths” because there are more than we can individually walk. Each of us can look back to those signposts that directed us to the present and those, to use Robert Frost’s famous words, that pointed to paths we had “not taken.” Maybe a fortunate few still encounter a tacen that points the way out of ignorance. However, for many in both lower and higher education, the signposts all seem to have the same message, a message that must be followed but that points no individual to a separate and free path out of ignorance.
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