The Importance of Education: What is a proper education?

In case you are new to the series, you can start at the series opening or the first series post.

A proper education can be defined by many things, but most importantly is the retention of facts learned and the ability to speak and write coherently. To achieve these things, a few basic principles and subjects must be employed.

Similar to the way unit studies connect multiple subjects to one basic theme, a proper education should be connected across the curricula so as to help the child better connect ideas and remember them. The way to achieve this is through the proper study of history. Almost every subject can be connected to history: music, art, science, literature, writing, even math problems. And the best way to study history (and consequently, the other subjects) is chronologically so that the child can place events in their proper context and also better remember past events that may be connected.

Rote learning, a technique used to memorize facts is a simple way to retain information. The major practice is repetition. One way to accomplish this through history is to break the chronology of history into four parts and repeat them through the school years. In the Well-Trained Mind, Susan Wise Bauer breaks history down in this way: ancient times, Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation, and modern era. As history is repeated, more details are learned and since history is learned chronologically, events such as wars are better understood.

A proper education also includes phonics, instead of whole word (or sight word) reading. Children are better able to read and learn new words faster and easier when they know the proper sounds for each letter or group of letters. I do not understand how the phonics method could have lost its appeal in the school system!

The use of logic and rhetoric are extremely important in a proper education. This gives children the ability to organize information properly and express their thoughts articulately, while making a sound argument. It also gives them the ability to see through fallacies and propaganda.

A study of Latin will complete the education by giving the ability to increase vocabulary and spelling. Latin words and derivatives comprise close to fifty percent of the English language, and English grammar is based upon Latin. French, Spanish, and Italian are also related to Latin and will therefore be easier to learn. From the Catholic standpoint, Latin is important in the Church and many documents, prayers, and songs, as well as the Tridentine mass and the Vulgate are in Latin.

The Importance of Education: Why do we need an education?

In case you are new to the series, you can start at the series opening.

I know you are thinking this title sounds a little odd, but when I finish with this series, I hope to show you that the reasons we need an education are not why compulsory education is in place today and children are not learning much in school anymore – hence the recent article in the newspaper about “No Child Left Behind” and its failure to increase performance.

Education is immensely important, and the education system we have today is severely lacking. Why is it that children not long ago were prepared to attend college at the age of 14-16 and were able to speak, read, and write in multiple languages, including Latin, by their teens? How is it that children today can graduate high school without even being able to read properly or do more than simple math? The proof comes in the form of this quote from the article linked above: “Critics say the law carries rigid and unrealistic expectations that put too much of an emphasis on tests for reading and math at the expense of a more well-rounded education.” How is an emphasis on math and reading a bad thing, when those are two of the most important subjects taught in school and reading especially is essential for learning all other subjects! After 14-15 years of school (including pre-k and kindergarten), our school system has effectively worked more like a babysitter than an educational institution.

The old teaching techniques such as rote learning (memorization) and phonics have been cast aside in favor of new ideas like “whole word” learning. Teaching a child to read by sounding out the letters that make up the word is apparently a bad idea.

So, to answer the question, what do we need an education for? Well first of all, we need to be able to read and write properly (and we already know that our schools are lacking on this), but we also need to think logically, critically, and connectedly and be able to express ourselves clearly to others. Most importantly we need to learn how to continue learning.


To better understand this post, I recommend reading (at least the beginning section) of Dorothy Sayers’ essay “The Lost Tools of Learning”.

The Importance of Education

You may think that my series title sounds self-evident, but throughout this series I hope to show you not only how important education really is, but how our current educational system and even most homeschooling methods are completely lacking the ability to teach children how to learn. I will also talk about homeschooling: how unoriginal it is, how Catholic it is, and how necessary it is for a complete education. Lastly, but not of least importance, I will introduce you to the idea of “classical education”.

As Dorothy Sayers says, “we have lost the tools of learning,” and with them, our ability to think, reason, speak, and write articulately and logically.

Posts in this series are as follows, but as always, I am sure this list will grow by the time the series is complete.

Post Topics:
Why do we need an education?
What is a proper education?
How do we achieve this?

Homeschooling (sub-series):
A Brief History of Homeschooling
Why is homeschooling so important?
What makes homeschooling different?
The Dreaded “S” Word
Homeschooling and Catholicism
A Short Look at "Unschooling"

Classical Education (sub-series):
What is Classical Education?
The Trivium
The Quadrivium
What All This Means

References: Browse for more information. I will add more as I find good sources.
The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise
Catholic Education: Homeward Bound by Kimberly Hahn
The Catholic Homeschool Companion ed. by Maureen Wittmann
The Read-aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease

Dorothy Sayers’ 1947 essay “The Lost Tools of Learning”
The Well Trained Mind (website)
Homeschooling Catholic (website)
Five J’s (a homeschool blog)