The Tutor-Pupil Contract
The way education is currently implemented in the United States did not emerge until the 19th century. Prior to that, and throughout ancient history, children of families who could afford it sought the services of “tutors,” who were responsible for their children’s formal education. Some famous examples include Aristotle, who tutored Alexander the Great in 343 BC when Alexander was 13 years old, and Descartes, who tutored Queen Christina of Sweden in 1649 when she was 19.
It wasn’t until 1870 that most children aged 5–14 were enrolled in public schools in the US, and as recently as 1970, only 55% of students completed high school. It wasn’t until 2017 that 90% of Americans 25 and older had a high school degree. As of 2021, the percent of Americans with college degrees rests at 54%. And that’s according to the information we actually have about those living within the borders of this country.
Universal education is a goal worth pursuing, but why?
Before we can aim to educate our people, we must attempt to convince them of the importance of why—we are in a democracy, after all. Federal dollars (we don’t technically even have) could be spent to alleviate any number of societal ills. Why education? Technological advancements, including AI, are threatening many jobs to extinction, but beyond the harsh economic threat, what’s the upside?
Back in Ancient Greece, when people were still interested in questions of morality and living a good life, Plato set forth a theory of the tripartite soul consisting of logos, thymos, and eros, loosely translated as reason (head), spirit (chest), and desires (stomach). Without an exercise of “reason,” the population is doomed to a life of chasing after physical pleasures.
We have all experienced physical pleasures, I am sure, and the one characteristic of these types of “highs” is that they are ephemeral, and do not last. Once consumed, we must continuously acquire more, only to consume that which we have so exhaustingly pursued, after which we are, once again, left with a feeling of emptiness, and a renewed desire for more.
That is the cycle of a life centered around addiction, consumerism, and superficiality that I am afraid a large portion of society is currently engaged in, particularly among our youth. After a good few hours of scrolling on social media, you might find yourself feeling quite “empty” (and not in the nice, Buddhist sense of the word).
Not only is this rampant cycle not good for the planet (our resources will eventually run dry with this type of greed controlling our masses), but also it is a detriment to the soul and to all the possibilities of living a thriving, human life.
It also starts to get pretty dull.
The mind is capable of going to many diverse places, those of wonder and excitement, and those of deprecation and desperation—hell, if you will. Education can help you open the doors to your mind’s ability to build the muscle you need to stand up against some of society’s corrupting influences, which the government has not been able to control for you due to First Amendment Rights and extensive lobbying.
What does tutoring have to do with all of this?
Education is best received through a one-to-one relationship, because unlike traditional schooling, where one teacher attempts to communicate a lesson the best he/she can to a crowd of students, a tutor can customize the delivery of the message to the student in front of him/her.
The only way for a message to stick with you is if the message already existed in your mind. Actually, our minds are complex enough that our ability to “comprehend” anything is very great, and a good teacher is able to find the exact place where to insert the desired information so that it will truly resonate. That is the beginning of trust, in a pedagogical sense.
The tutor-pupil contract is that each party promises to engage in this relationship for the benefit of both parties. The tutor gains a deeper and truer understanding of the concept which he/she is explaining, and the pupil undergoes a revival of his or her mental life.
The moment one “learns” something cannot be expressed as anything other than miraculous. If you take as potentially accurate that the observable actions and consequences which are perpetually occurring in the realm of “reality” were all once inchoate thoughts in the mind of one person or another (or a collective “mind,” if you prefer), then the only way to effect change in society is to win through changing the way people relate to the thoughts that emerge in their own minds.
Although we have zero control over what thoughts appear in our minds, we have every degree of power over what we choose to do with them. The mental muscle of manipulating ideas in our heads—through exercises such as mathematics or reading—is the exact skill we are teaching our students that will allow them to better understand themselves.
With an ability wrestle with ideas, our youth will learn the virtues of self-control and selflessness, requirements to the lofty goal of morality. Without morality, we cannot really call ourselves “humans” with any sense of pride in the term, because we would be no better than worms.
