Welcome to The Six Virtues of the Educated Person website. The main premise of the book is that educated people are those
whose intellects are Understanding and Imaginative;
whose characters are Strong and Courageous;
and whose spirits are Humble and Generous.
Whenever I go to a virtue website, I ask, “Why these virtues and not others?” If that question is not addressed, the website’s point is simply, “You should develop these arbitrary virtues.” This is not useful because we already know people should be virtuous. It’s in the meaning of “virtue.”
My answer to “Why these six virtues?” is in the book, but the short story is that they are like the ingredients of a cake. You can have sugar, flour, eggs, butter, salt, and milk without having a cake, but you cannot have a cake without those ingredients. It’s the same with the six virtues. They are the ingredients that make all virtues.
For example, you can have understanding and strong character without perseverance, but you cannot have virtuous perseverance without understanding and strong character.
Another example is patience. You can have understanding, imagination, strong character, and humility without patience, but you cannot have patience without these “ingredients.” Patient people (1) understand several sides of the situation, (2) imagine their needs may not be as immediate as another’s, (3) have the strength to suppress those needs, and (4) have the humility to do so graciously.
The six virtues are the three capacities (understanding, strength, humility) and the three capabilities (imagination, courage, generosity) that make one educated. If there is a more fundamental virtue, send it to me so I can revise the definition.
Public schools define “educated” as being knowledgeable and skillful, which leads to endless debates about the value of different knowledges and skills within faculties, school boards, state legislatures, and the US Department of Education. The six-virtues are prerequisites for the development of all knowledge and skill, so they should be at the heart of every school curriculum, regardless of which knowledge and skills are valued.
The six virtues also define the good teacher because good teachers are models of the educated person. The Wonder Years episode entitled “Goodbye” beautifully illustrates this idea. Watch it at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1o_IMpm9cM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9Rnaslr21M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=468h7-R1awU
Read about this episode’s allegory at
http://sixvirtues.com/blog/2010/08/13/review-of-wonder-years-goodbye/
You can also go to “Blogs” to read about how our national discussion about improving education has become unnecessarily complicated. After reading you might want to submit a story about a time when the virtues made a situation better. Click on “Email Casey Hurley“. Put an email or telephone number in your message and I will contact you to record your story for possible inclusion in a book of six-virtue stories.
Finally, you can click on “RockNRoll Poetry” to share your favorite rock and roll lyrics (the poetry of our baby boomer youth) and read about the favorites of others.
Philosophy and poetry should be fun. If we’re not having fun, we’re doing something wrong.
