Education and Augustine Installment 1

Photo by K.L.R.

This is installment one of three on the topic of education.

Education fascinates me.
Growing up I loved to play school, but I always said I would never be a teacher.
My reason: I love kids, but I do not have the patience to teach.
Just before my senior year of high school, I decided I wanted to teach.  I wanted to influence students to love reading and writing.  I wanted to be their friend.
A year and a half into the program at CIU, I was losing the passion.
I heard one of our instructors say during a department chapel, in order to be an excellent teacher we needed to have passion for teaching (I paraphrase).  I became worried because I realized I didn't have that passion.
The next semester I studied in Germany.  It reawakened what I loved as a child.  History, literature, art, etc.  It caused me to like philosophy.  I spent hours thinking about what solution would fix my dilemma of what to study.
I finally decided to become a Humanities student.
Best. Decision. Ever.
The major, the classes, and the professors under whom I studied influenced me more in the year and a half than the two years I spent in Teacher Education.
I've come to see the importance of a Classical education.

The classics are scattered through the centuries of writing and art, allusions connecting the generations.