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Challenges, not Suffering

Challenges, not Suffering

Last updated on: March 28, 2017 at 11:58 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

Challenges, not Suffering 2017-03-28T23:58:44-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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Teach bright students, get great questions. Teach bright students and eventually they become peers and ask even better questions. Recently one such clever person asked: Does suffering build character and if it does, what is an appropriate way to educate in light of that?

This is a tricksy question and requires some important clarifications before we can start to answer the question.

First, what do we mean by suffering?

There are (at least!) two kinds of suffering. The first sort of “suffering” is a prelude (and even a necessary one) to pleasure. One gets hungry and then eats. One gets thirsty and then drinks. One misses the beloved and then has the joy of the reunion.

This kind of suffering, fasting for a time from pleasure, is not the result of sin or badness in the universe. Since we will feast in Heaven, there is no reason to think we will not get hungry. Nobody will starve, but we will look forward to our food! “I cannot wait!” is a kind of pleasure that is mixed with a sweet suffering. When Plato’s suffering people are led out the cave, the light of the sun dazzles their eyes causing pain, but soon they see reality! This kind of pain or suffering is a prelude or a spice to pleasures.

Let’s call this first kind of suffering: suffering for the sake of pleasure or delayed gratification when gratification surely comes.

The second type of suffering need not exist and does not exist in Paradise. This is gratuitous suffering that in itself does no good. The bad person assaults the innocent person and suffering follows. This is suffering caused for the sake of suffering. Now a person can learn character from this kind of suffering, but it is still not good. One lesson of the Biblical book of Job is that nobody should tell someone else what to learn or how to learn from this sort of suffering.

God will bring good from evil, but the evil remains evil.

Let’s call this second kind of suffering: gratuitous suffering or suffering for the sake of suffering.

First Conclusion: Gratuitous Suffering is Out, the other sort is still tricksy

Gratuitous suffering will come in this broken world, but woe to the person who brings it on a student. That God can bring good from it, does not justify our condoning such suffering or failing to act for justice. The educator should fight gratuitous suffering in the lives our students. That’s easy enough to see, I hope.

If the only reason to do a project is pain, then this is a bad project. For example, having a student dig a ditch for the sake of the pain involved (when the ditch is useless) is not good. What is the pleasure of the project?

On the other hand, delayed gratification is in some necessary in a good education. We learn Greek and it starts as memorizing, working hard, and only later ends in the pleasure of reading Homer, Plato, or John in the original language. The pain (of a sort) leads naturally to pleasure. Many “disciplines” are of this sort.

A good education often consists of desire, delayed gratification, hard work, and then pleasure. Having a student dig a ditch for the sake of a water source for the school, then allowing the student to enjoy the fruit of their labor is good.

However, there seems no reason to maximize the delay or the work just for the sake of “teaching a lesson.” Let the student learn as painlessly as possible and go forward as quickly as possible. The light of learning will dazzle everyone eventually, no teacher need buy a flashlight to shine in the eyes of his students! I have met bad teachers who thought their very obscurity or difficulty was good for the students because it taught them a lesson. Here is the lesson I have learned from that foolishness: a bad teacher always confuses the purpose of suffering and thinks part of his job is to create the suffering. We never suffer for the sake of suffering, but we “suffer” to create the pleasure.

I don’t have to make my students get hungry or intentionally prolong discomfort. Noon and lunch comes slowly and by eleven many are getting ready to eat without my doing a thing! Yet this brings us to a good point: sating the student with food so she never gets a chance to be hungry is bad. Giving out the answers so a student never has to struggle or be confused is worse. We want students to learn that good things come to those who wait, strive, and achieve. As much as possible, education should set reasonable goals that can be reached with work. This work should still allow time for church, family, and play.

Notice that a good education often must be as individualized as possible, because students need to come to the challenges at their own pace. However, not all of education should be individualized since humans live and work in groups! One bit of suffering comes to a fast or bright student, when she discovers that other group members need help. This will cause some suffering (first sort) until the group masters the task and begins to function as a team. As anyone who has ever played a sport, done a team academic project, or been in a play knows: when the team functions well and hits the zone, there are few greater pleasures.

These ideas can be summed up in a general rule for education.

General Rule: Suffering will come and is useful. We should not maximize it or avoid it altogether.

We will face academic hard times no matter how smart we are. Challenges of this sort are good for us and the best teachers will let them come to a student. They might prod, give hints (a few!), or help a bit, but as much as possible, a good teacher lets a student solve this sort of problem for himself.

The key is that the suffering comes from the subject matter and not the teacher. We are not juicing up the difficulty, the hardness is there in the problem. We also do not keep this natural difficulty from our students, not because we delight in the difficulty, but because we want them to experience the pleasure of solving the problem.

Adulthood comes when we can do for ourselves what teachers used to do for us and greatness when we surpass the teacher.

Our job then is to allow the good sort of suffering (for the sake of the pleasure), to minister to the second kind, but never to produce ourselves any suffering. God has built a cosmos more than adequate to do this job! We all will be dazzled by His light of truth, goodness, and beauty, but then . . . what larks!

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