Character formation and "eulogy virtues"

Yesterday, I attended the funeral of a colleague and friend who was taken from us suddenly, and much sooner than any of us would have expected. Cameron was only 61 years old and had retired from a long career as a teacher just over a year ago.

As I listened to the wonderful eulogies that were offered by Cameron’s two children, his brother and sister, two close friends and his wife, I was reminded of David Brooks’ book, “The Road to Character” (2015) in which Brooks distinguishes between what he calls “eulogy virtues” and “resumé virtues”. Perhaps you have read the book? If you haven’t, I would certainly recommend that you do.

Brooks defines the resumé virtues as those attributes that seem to be most important in the workplace, the ones that “contribute to external success”. In contrast, the eulogy virtues are those “that exist at the core of your being – whether you are kind, brave, honest or faithful; what kind of relationships you formed”. As I listened, it was obvious that Cameron had prioritised the cultivation of eulogy virtues, and it was these that were remembered by the hundreds of people present. Not only was he an exemplary teacher, but he was also a really good man, husband, father and friend.

Brooks goes on to make the bold claim that “our education system is certainly oriented around the resumé virtues more than the eulogy ones”. ?If true, then I believe that is a greater indictment of our education system than whatever it is that the latest NAPLAN data might indicate. One of the things I most appreciated about my friend Cameron was that he shared my view that education ought to be focussed on the type of people that our students are becoming, at least as much as on what academic knowledge and skills they are acquiring.

Perhaps “eulogy virtues” is not the phrase we ought to be using when talking to young people; after all, we hope they have long lives ahead of them. However, the truth remains that all of us, including the students we teach, need the wisdom to discern what really matters in this life. Brooks goes on to say (p xi) that “we live in a society that encourages us to think about how to have a great career but leaves many of us inarticulate about how to cultivate the inner life … that teaches us to promote and advertise ourselves and to master the skills required for success, but that gives little encouragement to humility, sympathy, and honest self-confrontation, which are necessary for building character”.

I suggest that, in all the talk around what an education fit for the 21st century looks like, we need to re-visit some timeless truths, including the notion that (as JKA Smith puts it), human beings are more than “thinking things” and learning is more than “depositing ideas and beliefs into mind-containers”. Rather, (again quoting Smith[1]), “To be human is to be animated by some vision of the good life, some picture of what we think counts as flourishing”.

I suggest that all teachers and school leaders ought to be able to articulate what it really means to be human and, therefore, what a flourishing human life looks like. Similarly, I suggest that all schools – most especially Christian schools – need to give more than lip-service to character development and spiritual formation. At the end of the day, we (students and teachers) are all more than simply “thinking things” and, at the end of our lives, we should be hoping that people will remember our character, rather than simply our achievements.

[1] “You are what you love”, 2016