We are publishing the first collaboration on Recoletos.org by Esther Ruiz Simón, a professor in the area of Theory and History of Education at Rey Juan Carlos University. She teaches in the Primary and Early Childhood Education degrees, as well as in the Master’s in Teacher Training for Secondary Education, Baccalaureate, Vocational Training, and Languages, where she has also held academic coordination responsibilities. Currently, she is the academic coordinator for Proprietary Degrees. She holds a degree in History from the Complutense University of Madrid, a DEA in Contemporary American History from the Ortega y Gasset Foundation, a Master’s in International Relations, and a PhD in Humanities: Language and Culture from URJC, where she received the Extraordinary Doctorate Award in 2022. Additionally, she coordinates the Family Catechesis at Santa Rita Parish in Madrid. In this article, she reflects on the value of educating in beauty as a path towards truth, virtue, and human fulfillment.

Educating in Beauty

Plato wondered in The Republic if what is most beautiful is not also most lovable, and if beauty should be virtuous and harmonious, a heritage of the soul. Similarly, Saint Augustine understood beauty and how it brought one closer to God because it oriented the soul towards goodness, for God is Supreme Beauty and, therefore, the source of all beauty.

Beauty as the Horizon of Education

Education is an art that should aspire to what is beautiful, to what is sublime. In an increasingly immediate and self-absorbed world, driven by tweets and stories told in twenty seconds, educating in beauty offers the opportunity to observe through contemplation, through paused time and deep attention, and to appreciate the detail hidden in every element offered to us for learning.

Education, understood as a historical process, has moved from the syllogism of beauty, virtue, and truth (beauty leads to virtue, and virtue leads to Truth) towards finalistic standards that measure the acquisition of learning outcomes. The essence of the transcendent being defended by authors such as Aristotle, Boethius, or Saint Thomas Aquinas—based precisely on unity, goodness, beauty, and truth—has been subordinated to formative processes that combine content transmission with guidance and evaluation, all marked and measured by quantifiable and executable learning outcomes.

Education in beauty complements this procedural educational concept by providing a more intimate and profound knowledge of reality and by placing all human capacities at the service of education. Contemplation, the capacity for wonder, for abstracting oneself from the self to visualize the whole, requires putting the senses at the service of education to capture the essence of every detail, of what is hidden, of what is sensed and intuited, of what emerges and what is elevated. It is not in vain that, for Saint Augustine, the beauty of the external compels one to look inward and from there to turn towards the Superior.

Recovering Wonder in an Accelerated World

In this entire educational process, which engages the essence of the human being, Catherine L’Ecuyer, when addressing Educating in Wonder (2013), proposes leveraging and fostering children’s innate predisposition to be surprised. Education must reclaim the essence of being, of beauty, and teach us to admire what surrounds us, what makes us be and feel, as a means to achieve excellence. It must challenge both teachers and students and provoke an educational response that permanently commits them to wisdom, Truth, and virtue.

It is necessary to recover the pauses and silence of observation, reflection, and deep thought. For it is in the absence of noise that the essence of things is best heard. An image on a social network once said that “in a world of Kardashians, we should be Marie Curie,” which contrasted an image of immediacy and superficiality with one of dedication and timelessness.

Currently, immediacy prevails over what is convenient and beautiful. Screens leave no room for admiration. The aesthetics and dignity of human beings are measured in “likes” and reproductions, offering a utilitarian, crude, and impersonal way of conceiving the world and people, which distances them from what is beautiful, lovable, and sublime. If there are no networks, one does not exist; if one does not provoke, attention is not captured. And yet, as Dostoevsky said, “beauty will save the world”.