- \n
- The efficient cause is the agent that brings the thing into existence.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The final cause is the purpose or end for which the thing exists.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Together these causes serve as the foundation for whatever knowledge we can know about anything that exists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this article, I will explore the final cause, or purpose, of teaching. It practically goes without saying that there is great confusion in the world today about what the purpose of education is, broadly speaking, and teaching in particular. What precisely is the teaching act and what is its end goal? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Screen-Shot-2024-08-24-at-7.02.01-AM.png?resize=275%2C312&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nLet us take a modern primer on teaching as an example. Doug Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion<\/a><\/em> series of primers on teaching techniques provide excellent advice for equipping teachers to lead effective, efficient, and dynamic classrooms. From implementing tactics like “Cold Cold” to “Least Invasive Intervention,” new teachers can quickly take charge of their classrooms and provide an environment for inspiring learning to occur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the underlying problem with Lemov’s approach is that it fails to provide a satisfactory final cause, or purpose, of teaching. The subtitle for his books continues to point to “putting students on the path to college” as the goal. This objective, though important, is outdated, shortsighted, and paints an incomplete picture of what it means to be human. It is outdated because college is decreasingly the primary target for high school graduates. With the exponential increase in the cost to go to college and the growing attractiveness of trade schools, the traditional college route can no longer be taken for granted as sufficient motivation for PreK-12 education. Second, Lemov’s implicit purpose for teaching is shortsighted because even if college is, or should be, the sole target for high school graduates, it is only preparing them for the next four years. But what about life after that? What about the early years of one’s career? What about marriage and family? What about church membership, community involvement, and civic participation? What about navigating life’s challenges as a son or daughter, uncle or aunt, husband or wife, father or mother? With this wide range of stages and challenges for people to navigate, how can PreK-12 education only focus on college? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This leads to my final point: these techniques, though useful in some respects, paint an incomplete picture of what it means to be human. Not only do they only aim, at best, to prepare students for a four-year phase, the focus on the cognitive domain of a student’s development generates confusion about what it means to be human. To put a sharper point on it, Lemov’s work is not merely a myopic focus on the cognitive domain to the neglect of say, the moral. It is ultimately an economic, or careerist, approach to human development. In our secular world, the focus is on living one’s best life now: on experiencing as much pleasure as possible, accumulating as many possessions as one can, earning as much status as possible, and living with optimal comfort. In this sense, we could just as easily rephrase the Teach Like a Champion<\/em> subtitles to “putting students on the path to an affluent and comfortable life.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a sorrowful and depressing vision for the good life indeed. God created our students for so much more than to merely pursue a comfortable life. Made in the image of God, humans are created with the unique capacities to reason, to create, to cultivate beauty, and, ultimately, to steward their lives, including the people and duties they are responsible for, with excellence. If our students are to fulfill this vocation, their teachers need to grab hold of a bigger vision for the goal of what they do. They need a final cause, as Aristotle would put it, that is worth true dedication to their craft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let us explore, then, some alternative ways to think about the great cause of teaching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Putting the Puzzle Together<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Screen-Shot-2024-08-24-at-6.45.54-AM.png?resize=273%2C435&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nIn The Idea of a Christian School<\/a><\/em> (Cascade Books, 2024), Educational leader Tom Stoner argues that education is one of the most powerful influences in our lives. A key reason, writes Stoner, is that education aids a child in her constructed understanding of the world. The formation of this understanding is like putting together a puzzle. Each piece represents a different bit of information children receive, including ideas, emotions, experiences, facts, and knowledge (2). Schooling plays a major role in the assembly of this puzzle.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So it seems that one way dimension of the goal of teaching is to help a child develop a coherent understanding of the world, one in which all the pieces fit together. Note that even with this cognitive focus, the goal is not college; it is human development. In addition, Stoner will go on to demonstrate that behind the scenes of helping a child “put the puzzle pieces together,” lies a particular vision of the good life. The puzzle, when put together, makes a big picture. What is that picture? Drawing from the classical tradition of the ancient Greeks, Stone believes that this picture, or vision, inevitably dictates a school\u2019s priorities, including what teacherse expected to accomplish in the classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In other words, teaching possesses a cognitive aim, helping a child make sense of her world, and a moral one. The moral aim is to help students grasp a particular vision for human flourishing and desire it. In this way, the goal of teaching, we could say, is not only educational, it is formational. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One Goal in Seven Laws<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Screen-Shot-2024-08-24-at-6.54.38-AM.png?resize=223%2C349&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nJohn Milton Gregory, author of The Seven Laws of Teaching<\/a><\/em>, seems to agree. In the opening pages to his book, Gregory puts forward a vision of human flourishing that find its culmination in \u201cthe full grown physical, intellectual, and moral manhood, with such intelligence as is necessary to make life useful and happy, and as will fit the soul to go on learning from all the scenes of life and from all the available sources of knowledge\u201d (11). The goal of teaching, for Gregory, is the work of transforming a child into a mature and intelligent human.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Interestingly, however, Gregory does not stop there. In his exposition of the seven laws of teaching, Gregory offers clues for the ways the different elements of the teaching process fit together to achieve this purpose. For example, the first law focuses on knowledge and the importance of the teacher knowing that which she would teach. The second law focuses on the role of learner, a pupil who attends with interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If we put all of Gregory\u2019s laws together into a singular formulation of the goal of teaching, it might go something like this: The goal of teaching is to cultivate a student\u2019s growth in wisdom and virtue through the dynamic interrelation of teacher and student as they conjointly pursue knowledge for ever-deepening understanding.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tried and True<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Screen-Shot-2024-08-24-at-6.51.41-AM.png?resize=345%2C481&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nSo far in this article, I have examined one primer on teaching, the Teach Like a Champion<\/em> series. More recently, Daniel Coupland, professor of education at Hillsdale College, published his own primer: Tried and True<\/a><\/em> (Hillsdale College Press, 2022), \u201ca teaching manual of best practices for sound pedagogy.\u201d This book seeks to introduce the fundamentals of teaching for a new teacher through fourteen \u201cimperative statements.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Interestingly, Coupland himself does not articulate an overarching goal of teaching. He therefore does not align with Lemov on a college-preparation approach, but nor does he offer an alternative. No doubt, in interest of his primer remaining brief and practical akin to Strunk and White’s grammatical primer The Elements of Style<\/em>, he avoids the philosophical. The result, however, is that the book comes across as overly focused on the cognitive, that is, the head knowledge without the heart (moral and spiritual formation).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To his credit, Coupland does spend a chapter on connecting one’s teaching to the broader purpose of one’s school. His first imperative statement is to \u201cFollow the School\u2019s Mission.\u201d Certainly whatever the goal of teaching is, it is inextricably linked with the purpose of the school in which it occurs. Insofar as the school’s mission does articulate a purpose for what happens in the classroom, this could provide a satisfactory goal for teaching. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another way the primer points to a broader goal of teaching is Coupland\u2019s seventh imperative, \u201cPlans Lessons Purposefully,\u201d in which he advises teachers to focus on student learning. Here he distinguishes between the nebulous phrase \u201ccovering content\u201d and actually teaching it. Coupland encourages teachers to craft objectives for each lesson regarding the knowledge, skill, or experience they are aiming for their students to obtain. This emphasis on the cognitive aspect of teaching is not dissimilar from Gregory\u2019s. The chief difference is that while Gregory goes on to articulate a moral dimension of the goal of teaching, Coupland remains focused on the cognitive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What Bloom Gets Wrong<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Barney-Bloom.webp?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nHere, of course, I cannot help but think of Jason Barney\u2019s recent work on Bloom\u2019s taxonomy. In Rethinking the Purpose of Education<\/a><\/em> (Educational Renaissance, 2023), Barney offers a critique of Bloom\u2019s organization of the cognitive aims of education and proposes a replacement through retrieval of Aristotle\u2019s intellectual virtues. In doing so, Barney helpfully points out that the training of intellectual abilities and skills is at best an incomplete picture of what it means to educate humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Chapter 4 specifically, B\u200b\u200barney maps out a correspondence between Bloom\u2019s six objective categories in the cognitive domain with Aristotle\u2019s five intellectual virtues, including the seven liberal arts. After commenting on this correspondence and then offering a restructured approach in which Bloom\u2019s is filtered through Aristotle\u2019s virtues, Barney writes, \u201cIn summary, then, Aristotle\u2019s intellectual virtues restore the intellectual virtues of the body and heart, the educational importance of beautiful craftsmanship and skill, as well as the moral wisdom of a life well lived. In addition, the virtue of philosophic wisdom clarifies a new crowning achievement of true education that Bloom\u2019s Taxonomy does not have the resources to grasp\u201d (72).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this way, through returning to an Aristotelian framework, Barney proposes a profound and deeply human purpose of education, and by extension teaching, that will prepare students for a life, not mere college experience, of flourishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In this article, I have explored various ways to think about the final cause, or goal, of teaching. If we are to train teachers well in the craft of teaching, they need to understand the purpose for this craft. While teaching primers are valuable for providing techniques and practices for immediate implementation in the classroom, if they are disconnected from the final cause of teaching, the work will grow stale. In this way, we could say these primers address the material and formal cause of teaching, but do not address the efficient cause (the teacher) or the final cause (the goal). My hope is that through reading this article, you have gained an expanded vision for what this goal could be and the implications teaching possesses for helping students experience a full and flourishing life. In the end, the cause of teaching is not merely final, it is truly great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Prophetic-Voice-Promo-Draft.png?resize=1024%2C1024&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Screen-Shot-2024-08-24-at-7.03.44-AM.png?resize=525%2C574&ssl=1\")
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Atchison","author_link":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/author\/kolbyatchison\/"},"uagb_comment_info":1,"uagb_excerpt":"In Aristotle\u2019s writings, the philosopher famously articulates four causes, or explanations, for why a thing exists: Together these causes serve as the foundation for whatever knowledge we can know about anything that exists. In this article, I will explore the final cause, or purpose, of teaching. It practically goes without saying that there is great…","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa7K1D-183","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3001,"url":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/2022\/05\/28\/what-is-a-learner-reading-charlotte-mason-through-aristotles-four-causes\/","url_meta":{"origin":4343,"position":0},"title":"What is a Learner?: Reading Charlotte Mason through Aristotle\u2019s Four Causes","author":"Patrick Egan","date":"May 28, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The goals and aims of our educational renewal movement center not on the quality of our curriculum or the quality of our teacher. Instead, the quality of learning is the true test of whether we are providing something of lasting value and worth. 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While the classical education renewal movement has led to a resurgence in a fresh vision for the purpose of education and even suggestions toward an ideal curriculum,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Modern Research"","block_context":{"text":"Modern Research","link":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/category\/modern-research\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Teacher.jpeg?fit=630%2C420&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Teacher.jpeg?fit=630%2C420&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Teacher.jpeg?fit=630%2C420&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2062,"url":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/2021\/05\/15\/6-tips-for-teaching-classically\/","url_meta":{"origin":4343,"position":2},"title":"6 Tips for Teaching Classically","author":"Kolby Atchison","date":"May 15, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"This past fall, I announced the launch of my free eBook \"The Craft of Teaching: 'Teach Like a Champion' for Classical Educators.\" I am now excited to share that this summer I will be presenting a workshop on the same topic at the Society for Classical Learning's Annual Conference (you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Classical Tradition"","block_context":{"text":"Classical Tradition","link":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/category\/classical-tradition\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/classical-education.jpeg?fit=998%2C667&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/classical-education.jpeg?fit=998%2C667&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/classical-education.jpeg?fit=998%2C667&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/classical-education.jpeg?fit=998%2C667&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2756,"url":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/2022\/03\/12\/good-to-great-helping-schools-find-their-hedgehog-concept\/","url_meta":{"origin":4343,"position":3},"title":"Good to Great: Helping Schools Find Their Hedgehog Concept","author":"Kolby Atchison","date":"March 12, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"In a world of seemingly endless opportunities for educational innovation, it can be difficult for school leaders to know where to focus. Should they prioritize the building of a successful sports program? How about offering generous packages of financial assistance? Will the school be known for its impressive musical productions,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Educational Leadership"","block_context":{"text":"Educational Leadership","link":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/category\/educational-leadership\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Good-to-Great.png?fit=800%2C663&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Good-to-Great.png?fit=800%2C663&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Good-to-Great.png?fit=800%2C663&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Good-to-Great.png?fit=800%2C663&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3717,"url":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/2023\/04\/22\/the-classical-notion-of-self-education-for-today\/","url_meta":{"origin":4343,"position":4},"title":"The Classical Notion of Self-Education for Today","author":"Kolby Atchison","date":"April 22, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"In her lecture at Oxford in 1947, Dorothy Sayers remarked, \"Is it not the great defect of our education today, a defect traceable through all the disquieting symptoms of trouble that I have mentioned, that although we often succeed in teaching our pupils 'subjects,' we fail lamentably on the whole\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Classical Tradition"","block_context":{"text":"Classical Tradition","link":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/category\/classical-tradition\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Raising-hands.jpeg?fit=612%2C417&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Raising-hands.jpeg?fit=612%2C417&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Raising-hands.jpeg?fit=612%2C417&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4396,"url":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/2024\/09\/14\/the-search-for-great-teaching-a-comparison-of-teach-like-a-champion-3-0-and-christopher-perrins-pedogogical-principles\/","url_meta":{"origin":4343,"position":5},"title":"The Search for Great Teaching: A Comparison of Teach Like a Champion 3.0 and Christopher Perrin’s Pedogogical Principles","author":"Kolby Atchison","date":"September 14, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"One interesting addition to Doug Lemov\u2019s Teach Like a Champion series in his third edition (Teach Like a Champion 3.0) is his notion of a mental model. He introduces the idea like this: \u201cIn a typical lesson you decide, often quickly. Then you decide, decide, and decide again. 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