The Purpose of Teaching

I sometimes wonder what I want to achieve with my students. When I started teaching in 2000, at the mature age of 23, I primarily taught for the pleasure of teaching. I also did it to help students acquire the knowledge required by the course and subsequent courses. At that time, I taught C++ programming, and the next course for the students was Data Structures, so I wanted to prepare them to succeed in the next class.

Then something happened. I received training in higher education pedagogy and curriculum design. My view of teaching shifted. There were two major changes: I realized, first, that skills were more important than content and, second, that my course was not an isolated island in the curriculum but part of an intricate fabric of interconnected courses. Skills became the forefront of my goals as a teacher; after all, in computer science, content changes as quickly as the seasons. The skills, however, will let students adapt to any change that comes their way.

And I still wonder. What do I want to achieve with my students? When I pivoted from content-oriented teaching to constructivism and then to competence-based learning, it was because I received training in pedagogy and curriculum design. Some other things have also changed since. I now teach at a Christian university, and artificial intelligence is everywhere and broadly available.

I am still teaching students the concepts they need to know, how to apply these concepts, how to utilize tools to build software using these concepts I also teach them how to learn on their own new concepts, new development techniques, and new tools. That should be it, right?

Perhaps that is not enough. My question has recently become: Am I helping them to be happy and flourish as human beings?

I have pondered whether that was something I was even supposed to do. I answered myself the following: 1) I have never seen myself as their professor but as their guide, 2) I am a Christian, therefore a disciple of Jesus, and that implies that I am supposed to love people. Loving people is not about having a “fuzzy feeling,” but about making a conscious decision to desire and work for people’s good. And, what is the ultimate good? Union with God. How do we achieve this? For starters, I can help my computer science students get started on their path to human flourishing and provide a guide on how to achieve flourishing.

This is harder to teach than to teach how to code! First of all, what does it mean to be happy? What does it mean to flourish as a human being? Can I dare to say that I have the solution? To be honest, I am also trying to be happy and flourish as a human being myself. This means I am in the same boat!

I want to make this abundantly clear: I am not talking about the worldly concept of happiness. The world sells the idea that to be happy is to have power, pleasure, and material possessions. I am talking about the happiness we were made to have as children of God. The happiness of knowing we are loved and are taken care of. The peace that comes from being guided by a good God who is working out all things for good. (Rom. 8:28) I am talking about the happiness of fulfilling one’s purpose and of living a full life according to the way we were designed.

What does it mean to be happy?

Aristotle taught that everything that humans do is oriented to some good, and that eudaimonia, often translated as happiness, is humans’ ultimate goal. It is useful, I think, to start with the concept of happiness, which Aristotle describes as living in a manner consistent with reason and virtue. This resonates with the Socratic teaching that happiness comes from virtue, rather than wealth or pleasure. It follows that to be happy, one needs to become virtuous.

Therefore, we need to know what virtue is. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines virtue as “a habitual and firm disposition to do the good.”¹ As the next paragraph continues, human virtues are “stable dispositions of the intellect and the will” that govern acts and can be grouped around the four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.²

Virtue is then a trait of a person’s character, etched into their soul, to make it second nature to act in a morally good way.

The question, then, is how do I etch that second nature into my students?

Making virtuous students

The short answer is that I can’t. I can’t even make my own children virtuous. What I can do is to become virtuous myself. My students deserve virtuous teachers; they need good examples to follow. Apart from that, it may appear then that there is little to do in the quest to help the students find happiness.

Actually, there is work to be done. Here are the steps that I am proposing and that I am currently following in my courses.

First, I need to teach them the concepts and skills necessary for them to grow in the discipline. But while doing so, I need to let them know that they are loved. This is a very “abstract” statement, so to make it more concrete, I need to let them know that I love them. Additionally, I need to act accordingly by giving them the time and attention. They may ask, Why do I love them? So, I share that I love them because I was loved first by my dearest friend, Jesus.

I also let them know they are infinitely valuable. It is not their grades, their salary, or their social status that determines their value, but the fact that they are made in the image of God. I let them know they are intentional, not random accidents. They were loved into existence, and they were made to be happy and whole.

Once this framework is set up, it is time to introduce the virtues. I think there are two ways to approach this: one is to introduce the virtues and then their associated vices, or the other way around. Here, I will start with vice and then move to virtue. Sin is an action that goes against our nature, against our design. If we sin repeatedly, it becomes a habit, which leads to a vice. For example, the vice of pride prevents me from learning new things. Since I consider myself more than what I am, and better than everybody else, I can’t learn from others. Similarly, the vice of despair prevents me from finishing my projects. Once I lose hope of finishing my projects, I stop trying.

Virtue is the cure to vice; it is also the prevention of vice! Once again, if I repeat a good action enough times, it will become a good habit. Then, as it becomes second nature, it is etched into my soul, helping me grow in virtue. The virtue of humility allows me to recognize truth, what abilities I have, and what abilities I don’t have. This allows me to learn from others and grow and knowledge and friendship. The virtue of hope allows me to desire the good, as a theological virtue, it helps me to desire heaven and the promises of our Lord Jesus Christ. As a natural virtue, it helps me to believe in the light at the end of the tunnel and helps me to desire finishing what I have started.

This is worth repeating. It is indispensable to keep repeating these concepts to the students. They need to know the concept of the virtue and how to apply it in their respective disciplines. They need to talk about it, to think about it, to write about it, etc. And they need to do it in every class they take.

I admit that this virtue formation is a work in progress. I foresee some challenges as I work more on this. The first challenge is implementation across the whole curriculum. It is necessary that the students hear this message from all their professors, different applications of different virtues. Different approaches to the vices and their consequences vary according to the subject matter. Everybody needs to be on board. Secondly, in an ecumenical Christian university such as mine, there are bound to be differences in the definitions of virtues. Evidently, I draw my definitions primarily from Catholic sources. I think it is also necessary to establish a common ground so that we don’t contradict each other, at least not too much.

Even as a work in progress, this is good work to be done. As a Christian, I believe sharing Christ and His willingness to help us on the road to eudaimonia—and eventually to heaven, or eternal happiness—is a worthy endeavor.

1. Ascension, Catechism of the Catholic Church, Ascension Edition (Ascension Press, 2022), CCC 1833.
2. Ascension, Catechism of the Catholic Church, Ascension Edition (Ascension Press, 2022), CCC 1833.