Great IdeasKnowing and thinking
Teaching and learning
How people learn, and what an education is for.
The question
What is education for, and how do people really learn?
How the books answer
Oldest first. Each stop is our own short summary of what the author argued; follow the link to the rung for the whole lesson.
c. 385 BC
Plato, Meno
Socrates asks an enslaved boy questions about a square, without telling him the answer. Step by step the boy discovers how to double the square's area. Socrates says learning is drawing out what is already in the soul, and Plato calls it recollection.
c. 375 BC
Plato, The Republic, Books VI–X
Plato says education is not putting sight into blind eyes but turning the whole person toward the light. He lays out years of study, from music and gymnastics to mathematics and philosophy. The goal is people who can see the good and rule wisely.
AD 396–426
Augustine of Hippo, On Christian Doctrine
Augustine was a teacher of speaking before he became a bishop. He advises Christian teachers to use the skills of good speakers: to teach clearly, to delight so listeners keep listening, and to move them to act. He also tells students to learn useful arts and sciences wherever they are found.
““To teach is a necessity, to delight is a beauty, to persuade is a triumph.””
1532–1564
François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel
Rabelais mocks old-fashioned schooling, where the giant Gargantua memorizes books backward and learns nothing. His new tutor fills the day with reading, talks on walks, games, music, science and looking at the stars. It is comedy, but it carries a real hope for a fuller education.
1580–1595
Michel de Montaigne, Essays
Montaigne says a child's head should be well made rather than well filled. A good teacher lets the student judge, question and put lessons into practice. Students should digest what they learn the way bees turn flowers into their own honey.
“Bees cull their several sweets from this flower and that blossom, here and there where they find them, but themselves afterward make the honey, which is all and purely their own, and no more thyme and marjoram ...”
1605
Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning
Bacon defends learning against those who say it makes people proud or useless. He surveys all the branches of knowledge to show what is known and what still needs work. Learning, he argues, should serve both the mind and the good of all.
1890
William James, The Principles of Psychology
William James, who taught teachers as well as students, explains how attention and habit work. You can't learn what you don't attend to, and attention wanders. Good teaching connects new things to what the student already cares about.
“Every one knows what attention is.”
1916
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Joyce follows Stephen Dedalus from a small boy at school to a young man choosing his own path. His strict schooling gives him great learning, and he ends by setting out to shape his life as an artist. The novel's style grows up as Stephen does.
Go to the rung: Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
1938
John Dewey, Experience and Education
John Dewey, a leader of new kinds of schools, warns against both old drill and careless freedom. Real education, he says, comes from experiences that lead to further growth, chosen and guided by a thoughtful teacher. Learning by doing must still be learning.
For young readers
Education means learning. You learn at school, but also at home, outside, from books and by trying things yourself.
Socrates taught by asking questions instead of giving answers, so his students figured things out for themselves. Montaigne said learning should be like bees making honey: you gather from many flowers and make something that's your own. Try teaching someone a game by only asking questions!
Talk about it
- What is the best thing you've ever learned? How did you learn it?
- Socrates taught by asking questions. Is that a good way to learn? Why?
- Montaigne says a well-made head is better than a full one. What do you think he meant?
- What makes a teacher great?
- What do you want to learn next?
Where else on the site
- Why Rereading Fools Us
- Meaning Makes It Stick
- Asking Good Questions
- You Can't Remember What You Didn't Notice
- Square Roots and Perfect Squares
Every rung tagged with this idea:
- How to Read a Great Book
- The Great Conversation
- Plato: Meno
- Plato: The Republic, Books I–V
- Plato: The Republic, Books VI–X
- Nicomachus: Introduction to Arithmetic
- Augustine: On Christian Doctrine
- Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel
- Montaigne: Essays
- Bacon: The Advancement of Learning
- Dewey: Experience and Education
- Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
These pages are our own short synthesis, written for families. They were inspired by Mortimer J. Adler's Syntopicon, the index of great ideas in volumes 1 and 2 of Great Books of the Western World, but the questions, summaries and groupings are ours, not the Syntopicon's. Short excerpts come from public-domain translations, credited where they appear.