The Chicken or the Egg: The Feedback Loop in Faculty Development
What exactly is meant by faculty development? How is it related to the big picture of classical Christian education? Do good faculty make good students? Do good students make good faculty? Which comes first, the faculty or the student? Perhaps the clearest answer to the issue behind those questions is that good faculty do make good students and vice versa, but why is that? Well, it might be because there is virtually no difference between the two when they are fully formed.
In classical Christian education, we seek to educate ourselves and others, engaging in what has been called Christian paideia, the continuance of a culture under the headship of Christ. It would be nonsensical for us to presume to educate the young toward a life we do not share with them. It would be equally nonsensical for the young so educated not to anticipate a sort of human completion that includes entry into the very community that brought them to maturity.
Another way to consider this is that, through all of our efforts to educate, we must be educated. This is reflected in the fact that we must recognize that we teach the young to embody the ideals that we model for them. The result is that they become like us, striving to embody those ideals before us and others, themselves contributing to the propagation of paideia.