What is Educating for Freedom?

All parents want their children to become free human beings. Before we consider educating for freedom, however, we have to distinguish what human freedom is and is not. There are different definitions of freedom, some more outer and others more inner. (Although outer freedom from exploitation, racism, etc. is vitally important, it’s not the focus of this particular post.) Here, what we will call “freedom” is a more inner freedom. So, is freedom the license to follow every whim and desire? Is it the ability to pursue one’s deepest wishes?

Human life involves different types of desires. Some relate to survival and others to higher pursuits (like art and love) upon which our physical survival does not depend. It is true that we need food, clothing, shelter, and reproduction (at the appropriate age, of course), among others. However, does the pursuit of survival, about which so much modern philosophy is based, express the totality of human aspiration, as Darwin, Lenin, and others like them have thought?

This distinction matters when educating for freedom. If material pursuits become our gods, they at best they lead to a meaningless existence when we inevitably grow tired of fleeting sense pleasures. At worst, they lead to evil deeds like hoarding natural resources, theft, exploitation, and the like. Modern slavery was based entirely in the fact that western powers, though purportedly Christian, worshipped golden calves and could not see the common humanity in those they enslaved. No, meeting our material needs is not the goal of human life and therefore freedom. It is only a preliminary requirement.

Knowledge of the Human Being is the Basis of Educating for Freedom

So what makes us truly human? To answer that let’s compare humans to the other kingdoms of nature. Stones are inert and dead. Plants ascend the stones by living, growing, and respirating. They do this according to their natural lawfulness which they must obey. A rose cannot become an oak and vice versa. It also cannot pursue the weather it chooses but must endure whatever befalls it. Animals ascend the plants by not only growing and breathing but having desire, instinct, and movement. They CAN get out of the blinding snow. Above all, animals want to survive and perpetuate their species. About this Darwin was quite right.

Humans certainly ascend the stones and plants, but what distinguishes us from animals? According to Darwin and Lenin, nothing. Indeed, much of what we do everyday is like the animals – feeding ourselves, avoiding pain and pursuing pleasure, courting mates, etc. Even our tendency to develop technology is not distinct, for though our tools are far fancier, complex animals also make tools.

So then what, really, is human? It is our ability to become consciously self-aware. While such self-awareness may be dimly present in certain higher animals, it is nowhere close to humans. Nor does animal morphology support self-consciousness, horizontal as their spines are (including higher primates). Humans can become fully self-consciousness and thus develop conscious perception of who we are on a higher level. That is why humans make art, science, philosophy, religion, and all pursuits seeking to unite ourselves with something that transcends mere survival. Human beings are the universe becoming conscious of itself, and we all know it at some level.

How Humans Become Free

Educating for freedom begins when we parents and educators recognize how to become free. I have said, “Humans can become fully self-consciousness,” because I’m not convinced all do. In fact, I believe that is the choice we are faced with everyday, every moment. It’s the double edged sword that issues from the mouth of Christ in the book of Revelation – the paradox of selfhood. What will we do with it?

If freedom is our goal, the only path is the become fully human. Endlessly satisfying animal urges will never suffice. Educating for freedom therefore starts with distinguishing lower and higher drives. Materialism denies the latter which leads inevitably to a physically and soulfully desecrated ecology and society. This not to say we should deny our animal needs, but we should make meeting those needs a detail, not the goal, of our lives. We must in fact put animals needs in service of human needs. This was expressed to me one day when I asked a Zen master, “Why do you eat everyday?” He responded, “For you.”

Sensei, in other words, ate to become human which paradoxically meant realizing a self that extended beyond the one needing to be fed. That is freedom. Put another way, to become human is not to deny the animal in us but rather it is to free ourselves from serving it. Instead, we make the animal serve the human in us. (As expressed in the image of the woman commanding the lion attached to this post).

Educating for Freedom

We educate our student for freedom when we, first and foremost, demonstrate in our own lives what it means to strive for what is “more than animal” in us. We show this through our character and our conduct. Pedagogically, we educate for freedom by:

• Telling our students biographies of extraordinary human beings who exemplify this quality, like St. Francis of Assisi;
• Delivering a science full of living concepts capable of evolving and growing as they mature and understand life better;
• Teaching math such that they realize numbers have sacred qualities and are not mere quantities;
• Giving them a geography that conveys the interconnectedness of all living systems and beings of the earth.

This is exactly what we deliver at Enkindle Academy.

How We Can Help

Enkindle Academy offers prerecorded and live lessons for students in grades 5-9. We teach all academic subjects plus fine arts, creative writing, and empowerment groups for teens. We also offer 1-on-1 tutoring on all subjects including fine arts. Visit our website for more info and for free sample lessons. Remember to subscribe for weekly updates, tips for homeschooling, and special offers.