Our English Syllabus

The syllabus that C.S. Lewis wrote for his students at Oxford was definitely not an ordinary 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.

Lewis says that schooling is not at all just for having knowledge taught to a student. He believes that knowledge needs to be pursued. 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." In order to be a well-rounded individual, we must each have knowledge of both facts and wisdom about the world.

One part of this essay that really jumped out as me was when Lewis talked about taking more general courses not related to a student's specific major, also known as core classes. At first while reading this essay, I thought that Lewis was putting down the idea of core classes that a liberal arts college like Calvin requires their students to take. He seemed to be saying 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." Reading about this made me rethink what I have always thought about my core classes. The mindset of core classes seems to be that they are a hassle, and we often talk about "getting some core out of the way" either online or during the summer. However, when looking at it this way, core classes that aren't related to our major might be a blessing. This way, we can have a broader view of the world, and also a broader spectrum of knowledge of things that we normally would not study at all. And, we don't completely know what God's plan is for us. Even if we have a major planned out, maybe one of our core classes will get us really excited about some other field. Lewis uses a great metaphor when he says, "How do you know that in that very river which I would exclude as poisonous the fish you specially want, the undiscovered fish, is waiting?" We might never find what God truly wants us to do if we don't look at the whole playing field.