Reclaiming Paedeia in an Age of Crises : Education and the Necessity of Wisdom

Education needs to prepare students to have understanding of themselves, of their relationships to others, to have an ability to make good moral and other judgements and to act on these. If education has a role to play in the alleviation of the crises facing the world, then there is some urgency in reflecting on what kind of education is needed in order to prepare young people to tackle these many crises. It is our contention that the major problem with modern education is that it has forgotten that its main task is helping students to learn to be wise. That is, in considering the aims of education, it is proposed that it is wisdom which is the main aim of education. This will be so whatever level of education we are discussing, though much of our discussion refers to higher education.