Introduction

It had been reported by various media that on Friday, January 20, 2018, thousands of Hungarian schoolchildren and university students protested outside parliament in Budapest to demand educational reform. Although protests from such groups are quite common throughout the world, they are usually over specific issues affecting them, such as the soaring costs involved in attending university, or certain social matters or events about which they feel strongly, like racial incidents. This one was focused on the education system in their country, since it was claimed that it was failing to prepare them for life in the 21st century. The student protesters claimed that the system is too rigidly focused on rote-learning and blind memorization of facts and does not encourage critical thinking or creativity. Despite the freezing conditions, according to the reports, they marched on with banners that depicted angry emoticons and messages like, “I can feel I am getting dumber” and “My brain is shrinking.” The prevailing sentiment seems to have been that the education system in the country is generally in a bad state.

What is interesting about this protest, as I see it, was that it was a call for a different vision of education because the strategies and practices being presently pursued, as far as the students were concerned, were not future-oriented. In their view, the long-term goal, and not merely the immediate needs, had to be addressed if their education was to enable them to take up in their place in society. There was something refreshing, in my view, about their demands. The fact that they contend that the process of education should be more than merely learning facts or acquiring knowledge but instead ought to be enabling them to be more critical and creative strikes at the heart of what education is all about. What is also innovative is that the demand for a rethinking on this fundamental concern was coming not from educators or policy-makers but from the educands themselves, inspired by a felt need and genuine concern for the future. It was a movement that once again raises a basic question: what is education all about? However, in this case, it arose from those who are on the “receiving end,” so to speak. It was a demand that those in charge implement the so-called educational mission with a different educational vision, one that involved utilizing and developing one’s human ability to think and to create.²

So how should education prepare one for life, how can it address the concern that the student protesters had voiced out? Educators have wrestled with this issue throughout history. It is one that will continue to challenge all those involved in the educational process. In this essay, using the student protest in Budapest as a contemporary context, I will argue that education is the pursuit of wisdom, and not merely the acquisition of knowledge, the development of competence, and the training of skills.³ In my view, the young protesters had, in fact, grasped this important lesson: they want their critical and creative abilities to be developed, so as to be prepared for their future life in society. They were indeed already utilizing those abilities by their protest but also realizing that more was required in their whole education.

Although this particular protest was significant, it is important to note nevertheless that it is not my intention here to provide a detailed analysis of the realities or comment on the developments in the Hungarian education system. That would necessitate a different kind of essay. What is striking about the student protest in Hungary – and for this reason is a pertinent context for me in linking education and life – is that it recalls an adapted version of what Seneca the Younger wrote in his Moral Letters to Lucilius, ca AD 65: “Non scholae sed vitae discimus” (“We do not learn for school but for life”). This phrase had been modified in Hungary and Germany in the early 19th century, to “non scholae, sed vitae discendum est” (“We must learn not for school but for life”).⁴

Society’s Challenge to Education

Those of us who have been tasked with educating the future citizens of society know, only too well, that the old-age proverb that education is about preparing them for the future – what the student protestors were calling for – is not as straightforward as it might appear to be. Developments in society present a constant challenge to the educative process. As we address this issue today, it can be helpful, certainly, to make the distinction between the immediate future and the long-term development of those we are educating. Prudence would advise that we focus even more closely on the job market, earning capabilities, and professional preparation, thereby facilitating the learners’ entry into a much developed and increasingly more competitive society. Simultaneously, we also need to pay full attention to their individual development by honing in on their innate talents and by providing opportunities to develop these through further training, so that they can enrich their lives or satisfy their needs and thereby contribute to society’s progress.

However, in addition to all of these – and there are others, certainly – the task of education must also be cognizant of the kind of society in which the learners are expected to live and to play a role. Therefore, it is vital that educators become au fait with any developments in society itself. Preparation for the future of the educands thus entails that the educative process should also address the needs, which arise from these developments and remain cognizant of and focused on their development as citizens and human persons.

The Labor Market

One such development in contemporary society has occurred in the labor market. Since education, among its manifold aims, is expected – as has been noted already – to prepare learners for their role in society, an essential consideration for educators is how to meet the changing demands, which have occurred and may occur. While the labor market has featured at all times in any review of education as a preparation for the future, today the phenomenon of globalization and the power of social media present particular challenges. We currently live in what has become known as the knowledge-society and have been made aware of the importance of competitiveness in education.⁵ Indeed, we have already been feeling the impact of this climate of change and the need to prepare learners for a demanding and ruthlessly competitive knowledge-society. There has been an urgent demand on educational institutions to be alert and responsive to this change in the workplace. As expected, there are important implications for our educational programs, learning outcomes, teaching/learning, assessment methods, and so on.

This attention to the demands of the labor market is hardly surprising, given the nature of education. To some extent, all these changes are inevitable and even necessary, and one wonders whether academics and institutions should simply accept the situation and adapt accordingly, whether enthusiastically or grudgingly. For some, however, the crucial question here is whether the marketplace or the labor arena should serve not only as the context but also the criterion for our educational task. There has been much criticism of the so-called “business model” being imposed on the academic community.

Before probing into that criticism, however, we may need to examine, first of all, whether the basis for the call to academic institutions to focus more sharply on the marketplace or the labor arena as they review their role and place in contemporary society is really contrary to what university education is about. After all, universities and institutes of learning – whether funded publicly or privately – originate, develop, and flourish within society. Consequently, they do have a social role and responsibility.⁶ That society to which they belong and are accountable, whether we like it or not, includes the marketplace and the labor arena. In fact, it may even be argued that it is predominantly of that nature, since finance and business are the ones that regulate our daily lives. It would be unimaginable to survive without them. The marketplace and the labor arena are indeed the context in which we play out our roles in academia. While this was true in the past, it is even more so in our times.

But does that mean that the so-called “business model” of such a context should also regulate and evaluate our schedules, our performance and our outcomes? To this question, let me offer a typical philosophical answer: yes and no. Yes, because to some extent that context directs us to our co-players, as it were; namely, the business and commercial world. Academia needs to be able to not only live with but also to communicate with these co-players in language to which they are attuned. We need to live with and in the agora of our day. As the saying goes, we need not just to talk the talk but also to walk the walk!

On the other hand, the second part of my answer to the question as to whether the business model should also regulate and evaluate us was “no.” In brief, academia is not the business world. It has a distinctive status in society and makes a specific contribution to it. Earlier, I had referred to academia’s responsibility to society. The value of that word “responsibility,” aside from its common meaning of accountability, is that it also reminds us that it is a “response,” not merely an “implementation.” Academia, in its endeavors to fulfill its role within society, may need to challenge and critique the marketplace, the labor arena, and the business world. While academia needs to address common concerns, it can offer another valuable perspective framed by its traditions, widened by its studies, and grounded in its values.

Knowledge, Competence, and Skills

The demands of the labor market resulting in the focus on knowledge, competence, and skills – the so-called “learning outcomes” that somehow have become the objectives of education today – mean that we need to look more closely at how that expectation relates to what we are doing in education, particularly in our present context. When the end products seem to have become more important than the process itself, then there is a need to take stock. When the success of educational endeavors is measured in terms of empirical evidence, the so-called “hard outputs,” that the learning outcomes have been achieved – all of which justify the academic award – one begins to wonder to what extent we are committed to simply ensuring that we reach our targets. All along one would be forgiven for wondering whether education has become too oriented toward producing the right products – as indeed some have already been alerting us to, whether in the printed media or in academic circles.

Those of us who have looked at education as the process that begins in wonder but ends in wisdom – no doubt, influenced by ancient Greek philosophy’s conception of itself – can become disoriented and even aggrieved at this changed focus of education. And if you add to that view the claim that education is really educere, and is about “the leading out” of the learner from darkness to the light, then one begins to have misgivings about the emphasis on the actual results rather than on the attempts or the efforts of both the educator and the educand. And one will suspect that the destination has become more important than the journey, robbing all of the excitement, and the ups and downs as they move toward the light.

Nonetheless, as I have indicated previously, there are good reasons for this shift. Not only is it called for and even required by the authorities to whom, among others, our educational task is accountable, but also because it is crucial that students are prepared by their academic institutions with appropriate knowledge, skills, and competence to enable them to meet the present demands of society. The task of educating our students today takes place in a society that is fast changing, complex, and diverse features, which place significant demands on educators. Every society and every generation, indeed, has its own set of characteristics and problems that require different responses from educators. This has been so throughout history. However, in my opinion, today’s society, with the values that it upholds, has a particular challenge for those of us who are involved in educating today’s students.

I have defended as the context of our academic work the labor market (or if you prefer, the agora, just as it was in ancient Greece). The reasonable demand that we take account of the labor market or that we consult our stakeholders whenever we propose or review our academic programs rightly forces us to remain relevant and competitive. It is very much worth our while to keep the end result in sight. The same can be said of the view that lifelong learning, which is what education is really about, should be marked by recognizable stages. Each stage has a definite goal. A goal is worth pursuing when it has tangible features. In insisting that we clearly identify the learning outcomes for each of these stages, we are recognizing and acknowledging the achievements at each stage of the learning process. Knowledge, competence, and skills are important to enable our students to take their rightful place in society. It is also our responsibility as educators to facilitate that process.

On the other hand, education is much more than that. And with all the calls for a “knowledge-based society,” we are at risk of forgetting that point. I believe – and this is a conviction that comes from several years of being closely involved in education in Ireland, Britain, the USA, and for shorter periods in various other countries – that this wider vision of education is just as true for students in the sciences, business, engineering, and other professional schools as it is in the humanities. This is because I firmly believe that education, in whatever form or context, should ultimately be grounded in the development of the human person.⁷ It is a belief that has been nurtured, tested, and developed by my philosophical pursuits and contextualized, facilitated, and deepened by my involvement with various academic institutions throughout the world.⁸ Whitehead (1967) talks of the need for “the liberal spirit” in technical education and science. This observation is rooted in the claim that human nature, rather than simply culture, is the basis of education.

Education and the Pursuit of Wisdom

Education for me – and I would hazard the hope that many would agree with this understanding – is first and foremost the pursuit of wisdom.⁹ I suspect that the student protesters in Hungary sense this inasmuch as there was an outcry for more critical and creative thinking. It is a view that requires some qualification as well as clarification. I have already remarked on the present tendency, one that is particularly evident in our market-driven and technological society, to associate college or university education with the acquisition of knowledge and the development of skills. Let me repeat that this is not only understandable but also crucial if the education that an institution provides is to be found appropriate and relevant. But this has to be contextualized. Something is amiss if the entire focus of the educational task becomes too narrowly directed at this consideration, important though it may be. The pursuit of wisdom as the educational task, understood as the active participation in our full development as human persons, highlights certain essential features that do not always stand out with the other conceptions mentioned earlier. It is also something that needs to be repeatedly emphasized today, while taking into account contemporary needs, as we reflect on “what it is that we are doing when we are educating our students.”

Because the term “wisdom” itself is understood in different ways, I should like to explain how I understand it in this context. Wisdom, as will have been noted from my earlier comments, is not just the acquisition of knowledge or the development of skills and talents, although these are an integral part of the pursuit of wisdom itself. Nor is it, as is sometimes narrowly interpreted, the development of one’s individuality, particularly when one associates it with the description of “a learned individual.” These interpretations fail to take into serious account the fullness of our humanity – which is the basis of education. Wisdom ultimately is rooted in our nature as human beings and the various dimensions of our humanity: intellectual, emotional, ethical, spiritual, aesthetic, social, creative, and others. The pursuit of wisdom is the attempt to recognize, integrate, and develop all those dimensions. Or as Wilhelm von Humboldt puts it, “the complete training of the human personality” (Sia & Sia, 2019).¹⁰ It is also an awareness that our identity as human persons is shaped and nourished by the community to which we belong. In turn, our own activities, decisions, and commitments have an effect on the community.¹¹ Plato, Confucius, and Buber, among others, drew our attention to this understanding of wisdom when they wrote about the importance of the development of one’s moral character in connection with the search for wisdom (Sia, 2015).¹² Education toward wisdom is thus a holistic process because the goal and its foundation are themselves holistic.

If indeed the educational task entails the pursuit of wisdom as described above, I regard the role of an educator as one who enhances, that is to say, evokes, provokes, invokes and convokes, that process among the learners.¹³ In and outside the classroom, in informal and formal contacts with the learners, in creative and scholarly activity, one should strive to keep that task in mind. The students’ voice heard at the protest in Budapest needs to be listened to and heeded. It is a reminder that teaching is neither a “pouring of information” nor merely “an intellectual exercise.” Nor should it be seen as primarily preparing learners for the exams that will lead to an award.¹⁴ Rather, it is a journey or an exploration whereby the learners and the educator address the questions that they are asking, evaluate their significance, and draw on various resources for possible answers.¹⁵ Moreover, the process (of searching for answers) is just as important as any answers that they may arrive at because the very act itself of pursuing wisdom already enhances our development as human beings. The process is also important because hopefully it transforms us into better human beings because we have taken the time (inside and outside the classroom) to delve deeper into those questions and to face up to their implications. If wisdom is indeed the development of the whole person, then the spiritual dimension cannot be ignored either. There is a transcendent side to the human person, and if we are to do the human person justice, then it becomes an important factor in the pursuit of wisdom. The various service activities and the active cultivation of an ethos, an integral part of the program of education, further the pursuit of wisdom. Moreover, they contextualize that pursuit as we broaden our vision of what it means to be a human person in the diverse and multicultural community that we find ourselves in and serve today.

This understanding of one’s role as an educator should thus inform and substantiate the objectives, content, and methodology of one’s teaching. Because an educator has journeyed toward wisdom, and continues to do so, he/she can be an effective guide in the learners’ pursuit of wisdom. Whitehead talks of the importance of taking into account what he calls “the rhythm of education” (Whitehead, 1967, pp. 15–25) as well “the rhythmic claims of freedom and discipline” (Whitehead, 1967, pp. 29–41). Moreover, that role can be complemented and supported by scholarly, creative, and professional endeavors. The questions we ask and the answers we gather from various sources need to be pursued even further. They need to be investigated with rigor at a deeper level (Sia & Sia, 2010). What prompts scholarly and creative work is similar to that which motivates teaching: the pursuit of wisdom. An educator wants to share with others the excitement, as well as any discoveries, as he/she undertakes his/her own journey. As Whitehead puts it, “it is the function of the scholar to evoke into life wisdom and beauty which, apart from his magic, would remain lost in the past” (Whitehead, 1967, p. 98).

Learning Outcomes or Learner Outcome?

This leads me to make the claim that in highlighting the importance of identifying and achieving learning outcomes at various stages, we should not forget the fundamental reason for this task, namely, the development of the person. Therefore, perhaps, we should be describing the “learner outcome,” awkward though that phrase may be. The question which I believe should be addressed by academic institutions is: “What kind of a learner do they want to leave their trusteeship?” – inasmuch as these institutions have been entrusted with their education? Rather than seek to attract certain individuals (to gain greater prestige), academic institutions, if they are really intent on showing their worth, should concentrate on the kind of graduates whose education they have had the responsibility of providing. Lest this be misunderstood, my point is not so much the compiling of graduate data showing the jobs, careers, achievements or further opportunities of their graduates, but rather supporting the kind of persons who have “emerged from their portals” as it were. An ancient inscription over a library captures my point succinctly: “Intra sapiens, exi sapientior.” The students in the Budapest protest seem to have grasped this important lesson.

In this instance, let me return to an earlier point which I had made – that academic institutions have also an important role in challenging and critiquing society. We have already noted the changing expectations of academic institutions as a result of a changed society. However, we need to be forcefully reminded that education is not just about outcomes, performance, and standards. Ultimately and fundamentally, it is about the learning process, one that involves the learner and the educator. It is about the human person, individually and collectively, and the human condition. Here is where academic institutions are in a particularly strong position to bring these considerations to the notice of society and to work for its well-being – and to critique it when this important consideration is overlooked or neglected. I should like to think that it is what was behind John Newman’s model: that education is about the person, not just the worker, the laborer, the technocrat, business individual, etc. Focusing on the humanity of the learner reveals a multifaceted task, since the human person is a multifaceted reality.

As we celebrate our creativeness and genius in the changing emphasis in education, we can lose sight of humanistic values. We can exploit others to our advantage so as to further our interests, unmindful of their dignity as human beings. This is what Moltmann (1970, p. 13) means when he wrote that “we have created a bureaucracy which condemns the individual to impotency” and echoed by Fromm (1968, p. 2) when he asks whether we have to produce sick people in order to have a healthy economy. For though “science has made possible many marvelous things…[it] has helped to produce a technological society wherein man is reduced to the level of machines.” (Bradley, 1970, p. 136). Unless we succeed in putting human goals in this technological society of ours, so that we do not remain fascinated exclusively by the accumulation of economic potencies that urge us to “produce more – consume more” then, as Moltmann rightly observes, the very progress we witness today will devour our very humanity and leave us slaves adjusted to prosperity (Moltmann, 1970, p. 13).

Conclusions

In what way can we deal with this challenge? What distinctive contribution to society today can those of us in academia make? How can the study of humanities – traditionally the preserve of universities – convincingly show that the knowledge, competence, and skills acquired by the learners are relevant? To what extent can all these be made credible to the marketplace, the labor arena, and the business world? How can one respond to the call of the students for more critical and creative thinking in the educative process so as to prepare them for life in the 21st century?

Undoubtedly, these questions will continue to challenge the task of education. In this essay, I have acknowledged the importance of the marketplace, resulting from changes in society, as the context of education today. However, I have also argued that the process of education, while heeding the call and the proposals from various quarters which accept that context, should not neglect a very fundamental consideration, namely, that education is about the development of the human person – as indeed the student protesters in Budapest insisted. It is for this reason that in looking at society and education today I have reminded ourselves that wisdom, and not just knowledge, skills, and competence should dominate our considerations and strategies.¹⁶ To put it another way, academia indeed needs to adapt. However, it should continue to transform society and not just serve it. Academia should not be enslaved by the agora. We need to acknowledge the climate of change, but we would also want in some respects to change the climate. We have transitioned from the information-society to the knowledge-society (Sia, 2015).¹⁷ Let us hope that we will soon move to the wisdom society because of the work that we do in academia, especially in the humanities. Society will then, perhaps only then, be a community – with and because of learning.

About the Author

SS has retired as Professor and Dean of Philosophy of Milltown Institute, National University of Ireland. He was Professor of Philosophy for several years at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, USA. He is the author of several books and scholarly papers in the philosophy of religion, ethics, education and other subjects, and the recipient of a number of academic awards and degrees, including the PhD from the University of Dublin and the DLitt from the National University of Ireland.