Why we don't educate plants

With my students last night we discussed the relationship of education to art.

Art education.

Philosophers have puzzled over what "art" is for centuries. But you would think education is easier to define. Not really.

It is widely accepted that educating someone about a work of art -- in the sense of giving him or her more information about that work (say, the Mona Lisa) -- would result in increased appreciation of the artwork.

But the puzzle is this: it is equally agreed that art, in essence, involves indeterminate realities -- meaning things that cannot be defined in a fixed manner. Feelings, for example, are indeterminate realities, as opposed to, say, mathematical calculations: 2+2=4 is a determinate affair. You learn it once and it's fixed in your mind.

But how do you teach indeterminate realities to someone with the result that his or her appreciation of art is measurably greater?

This is why art education is more a matter of cultivation. Appreciation for art has to be cultivated, not exactly educated. Unless of course education is cultivation.

Ah ... education equals cultivation. This is a comforting equation because it touches on the essence of education in general.

Truly educating someone is cultivating that person. Cultivation ... the same word we use when we grow a garden.

We don't educate plants, we cultivate them.

When something is living, you don't educate it; you cultivate it.

This is why teaching is an art.

Logos2Go

1 Corinthians 15.33 Do not be misled: "Bad company corrupts good character."