Our English Syllabus by C. S. Lewis

Our teacher Paulo Fernando Ribeiro sent an article for all of his students, they needed to read and think about it. The article is "Our English Syllabus" by C. S. Lewis, and it talks about the process of education, since the kindergarten to the college.

The syllabus that Lewis wrote for his students at Oxford was definitely not a random syllabus. In this certain syllabus, he wrote about the different types of education and learning that there are. There is the education that makes one become 'fully human', and there is also the learning that happens in a particular skill that someone wants to pursue.

The author says that schooling is not at all just for having knowledge taught to a student. He believes that knowledge needs to be pursued by each one. He also says that as students, we have to decide what we are really passionate about. He says, "The proper question for a freshman is not 'What will do me most good?' but 'What do I most want to know?'" He goes on to say, "For nothing that we have to offer will do him good unless he can be persuaded to forget all about self-improvement for three or four years, and to absorb himself in getting to know some part of reality, as it is in itself."

He also says that students needed to specialize in what they wanted to learn about, and learning 'a little bit of this' or 'a little bit of that' wouldn't be helpful in the real world. However, he contradicted this later on. According to this syllabus, he believes that having core classes will build a solid foundation for the knowledge and learning that the student will pursue later on in life, and will often produce more well-rounded graduates than other colleges. In his words, "A perfect study of anything requires a knowledge of everything."

One point that stands out is that the article says that despite learning makes us free and members of society (citizens), have a professional training makes us slaves, labor slaves. The secont point is that the author talks about is the need for man to learn to get what he needs,so he says that the human being is an amateur, while all other animals are professionals at what they do. To sum up, Lewis tells us that there is no formula for the pursuit of knowledge, we have to do this for ourselves, we must have the courage and seek what we are looking for.

If you want to read the whole article, click here.