Aquinas and his understanding of teaching and learning

Abstract

The nature of teaching and learning is hotly debated and the purposes of education remain fiercely contested. In more recent times, teachers at all levels have been challenged to justify why they teach the way that they do and in many universities, statements have been formulated that try to prescribe what is meant by effective teaching and to describe effective learning. Many of these statements show little connection to any underlying philosophy of education, let alone of teaching. In this essay, I provide an elaboration of the approach to teaching and learning that Aquinas articulates in a number of his works. For Aquinas, God is the central aim of education and He is at once our Teacher. This does not mean that human beings cannot teach each other, but it shapes what we understand by knowledge and what we mean when we say that someone has learnt. Aquinas shows himself to be anything but doctrinaire in his restless search for truth and wisdom; sometimes he is a rationalist and sometimes an empiricist. He never loses his enthusiasm to know and to understand. In this he is the model teacher.