Learning as Giving

Recently, I’ve been thinking about education and teaching and those sorts of things. I’m currently under the impression that learning is a kind of giving. And despite the fact that we usually think that learning is a kind of receiving. There are several reasons for my credo: First, we have to understand learning in the context of Jesus learning through his sufferings (Heb. 5:8). Second, learning is imitation of a teacher or teachers (Lk. 6:40). Third, and this kind of adds to the previous reason, subjects don’t exist. The subject of Latin does not exist. Neither does math or literature or science. What we study are people and their particular takes on the world and aspects of its story. This is primarily true of our faith. Christianity is not a subject to find and study. It’s a person to know and imitate (Eph. 4:20ff). And imitation demands giving. We can’t receive a ‘pure’ download of math. We have to imitate someone (in person or in a book) who shows us how to do math.