I am Matthew Williams and You are Not

The problem in the classroom is that learning has already been started. Learning itself can be thought of in two ways. Learning within the individual and learning within a community. Learning within the community goes as far back as conscious thought in mankind and is passed from generation to generation through social frameworks such as language, culture, and education. Learning within the individual starts as soon as cognition starts in the human mind and is retained via memory as well as reciprocal interaction within a community (we learn from others and are reminded of what we know by living in a world that has patterns and rules). In the classroom, instructors are faced with the task of dealing with the fact that both are present in the minds of each student.

So in this regard, no, the instructor is not the true "prime mover" in strictest aristotelian sense. But for each class, it is a helpful tool to think of it in this way.

For those who are bored enough to know such things, the cosmological argument (or the argument from causation) generally comes in two flavors. Those who assert an in fieri argument and those who assert an en esse one. (in fieri loosely meaning "becoming" and en esse meaning "in existence")

In an en esse formulation of the argument, the reason for existence is that the primary cause exists as a continual cause. In other words, the reason things exist right now instead of not existing is because something is there continually causing it to exist. A good way to think of this is to think of a flame on a candle. As long as the wick and wax exist, the flame will exist. They provide a reason for the flame to burn. If you take away the wax and the wick, or if the fire consumes them, the fire then ceases to exist. For the flame to exist, you have to have the candle. For philosophers and theologians such as Thomas Aquinas, the reason for existence over non existence was God. That is, God is the reason the universe continues to exist.

However, Aristotle, deists, and most contemporary adherents to the cosmological argument (including some big bang theorists) argue for an in fieri formulation of the argument. In this formulation, the causal agent is regarded as an agent in becoming and nothing else. That is, the function of the primary mover is to start things but does not serve as the reason for a continual existence.

To place this as a metaphor, the primary mover is like a house builder. Once that person builds a house, they leave it and the house continues to be a house.

In education, the Instructor centered Paradigm is very much parallel to the en esse formulation of the argument. That is, learning happens because the instructor continually makes it possible.

Conversely, in a student centered environment, the instructor exists as an in fieri cause. That is, the instructor starts things going, but does not keep things going. (Then how does learning continue? If the house is built well, then the laws of physics and geometry keep it from falling over. Similarly, if a class is designed well, what we know about how learning happens and how people interact keep the learning happening).

What is most interesting, however, is that the en esse argument, which is in many regards a theistic argument for god, is similar to how most people view education. Could this be a result of the fact that education is closely aligned with this paternalistic, religious based past that education has come from? After all, the idea that education is a public good is rather new. For most of its history, education happened in the church. People learned to read so they could read the bible. Universities, when they were first coming into existence, existed as training ground for new priests and other members of the religious community.

Yeah. Wrap your mind around that one for a bit.