Ashton McCracken

On the End of Education

The students enter the classroom and cross over the threshold into a perilous realm, for education is a means to an end, and its end is the discovery of truth. The ship leaves port and sails out onto the sea’s expanse with the instructor at the helm and the students on the deck. For the horizon the instructor sets the course, and across the bow the students gather in anticipation. They leave the familiar world behind and train their thoughts on that which lies ahead, a land of first principles from which all reality derives and toward which all knowledge tends. Of that land the students do not know, nor the waters over which they sail, though of it they have often heard their instructor speak. Many have since forgotten, but some would whisper, their thoughts turning to longing in their chests, and longing to expectation. And now, leaning in anticipation over the bow, they give no thought to the world they leave behind, nor do they think of themselves. Though of that which lies ahead only the instructor knows. Many perils seek to lure the travelers to their doom and obscure the journey’s end, for to approach the source of all things is a dangerous endeavor, and the one who traverses those waters and treads on that land does not return unchanged. Yet, with feet set and hands steady against the helm, the instructor guides them.

Knowledge of the truth alone, however, is not sufficient to reach the journey’s end, for ahead gather clouds that shroud the horizon and cast the ship and its path in shadow. Against the sails the breeze falters, and ahead the storm roils and thunders. Great gales descend to gust against the bow, thrashing the sails against the mast and turning the sailors back. From below swell waves that break over the deck, rolling the hull from side to side and pitching the prow to and fro. In a panic, the students scatter for shelter across the deck, for veiled is the horizon, and
obscured is the path ahead. Of their instructor and their companions they forget, each turning to himself without a thought of enduring yet. Many abandon the journey for fear of their lives, rowing homeward until only a few remain. Yet even they begin to lose faith in that which is hidden, and for the journey’s end they despair.

But to the deck the instructor leaps to hoist the students to their feet, and he guides them together in actions that they do not understand, for knowledge of the truth, when it is obscured, is only reached by the actions that approximate it. The tattered sails they harness and trim, and the loose rigging they set. And, following the instructor’s lead, they begin to find that their hands know the knots, and against the deck they find their footing. They remember then having learned in their youths the movements they now perform, and they begin to understand the actions by their end. By an intuition now fulfilled as habit they heave and pull the sails taught to tack across the storm, working in unison to right the ship. Glancing up, they see the instructor standing tall at the helm, his gaze fixed above the swales toward the horizon hidden beyond. Only then do they begin to recognize him as their captain, and he recognizes them as his crew.

After a time, the winds lessen and the waves are calmed. Ahead, the clouds disperse before rays of light, and at the stern returns a steady breeze. Without delay, the students trim the sails, and, for the horizon once more revealed, the ship surges. The memory of the storm fades behind, and their minds again train in anticipation and their chests with longing on that which lies ahead. For their lives they no longer fear as all within them turns toward the source of reality that draws near.

And then, rising above the sea, they glimpse the shores of a land that is at once strange and familiar. The students have never seen it before, yet they know it to be their destination. The instructor steers the ship to port, and together they step out onto a country that is more real than anything they have known before. How long they spend exploring its mountains, valleys, rivers, and meadows while laughing for joy all the while they do not later recall, for the journey seems to have been only a moment and the trials upon its waters but a distant memory. Nonetheless, the instructor eventually calls them back to shore, and there they remember the land of their youth far over the sea from which they have come. Their hearts stir, urging them back homeward. But, as they prepare to board the ship, the instructor takes his leave. He bids them tell of the country which they have seen to those in lands far away. And then one day, he assures them, they may return to see it again.

So, as their captain begins his journey far up and into that land of reality, the crew sails homeward, and the passing is swift and easy. Though the waves rise and storms gust over the sea, they are only phantoms of the country that lies beyond. And, having seen it, the crew sails with purpose, tacking against the winds with the course ahead set.

Upon entering their home port, they part ways to tell of the journey and its end. Some who knew them remark upon their changed demeanor, for they left in pursuit of truth and along the way became real men. Though storms obscured the path ahead, they found in their companions and their captain the strength and will to stay the course until the horizon again was revealed, the journey’s end brighter and clearer than ever before. Whether they returned again to make the journey, I cannot say. But of that land beyond the sea they would never forget, for it is the source of all things, and everything that is a shadow in this world is seen in its light. As a means to an end, education is narrative, and it is the essence of narrative that it transforms those who engage with it. When the student enters the classroom, he enters into the unknown. There, he endures many trials, performing actions he does not at first understand, but which are guided by the knowledge of their end. In the process, he learns something universal of Man and the world in which he lives. The student has only to cross the threshold to participate in the grand myth that, at its end, imparts truth, the end of all knowledge.