The purpose of education: why we set up J&J
“One person who is more knowledgeable than another can, by asking a series of questions, stimulate the other to think, and so cause him to learn for himself.”
Socrates
For too many young people, society’s approach to education isn’t working. Even at our best universities, many are thriving academically but struggling inside. Too few young people develop an abiding enjoyment of learning. They’re adept at working hard and amassing information, but spend little time thinking about their values. After leaving formal education, they routinely fall into jobs they dislike, that don’t bring them meaning or satisfaction. Too many feel unhappy, unworthy and anxious, even as they appear to be functioning well externally.
It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that stress and mental health problems are skyrocketing among young people. A 2018 survey by the American College Health Association showed 87% of students are “overwhelmed”, while one-third of students surveyed in the UK say they’ve experienced serious psychological issues in the past year. As the writer William Deresiewicz has argued, the pressure to succeed, at all costs, is creating a treadmill of “excellent sheep”, who reliably jump through hoops to success without understanding why. This quest for extrinsic motivation must be playing a role in such widespread unhappiness.
We’re convinced there’s another way. We profoundly believe that true, sustainable, enduring success requires young people to enjoy learning for its own sake - challenging their assumptions and ideas. We are sure that students can thrive academically and intellectually while also retaining a spirit of exploration and fun - a willingness to get things wrong. While also becoming more comfortable in themselves: saner, happier and better prepared to navigate life’s inevitable challenges.
How will we achieve this? We’ve sought out the world’s best tutors - highly-gifted teachers who love what they do and share our vision of effective learning being built around inspiration and mentorship. Our team is working tirelessly not just to make sure students understand subject material, but also that they value their achievements and grow in confidence. Results may be important, but alone they will never tell the full picture. We want to encourage students who are curious, alive to the world and the possibilities of life. We want them to leave our sessions smiling, inspired, edified - their minds expanded. When students are applying to universities, they should think about the exciting possibilities of this next step, rather than allowing applications to become an anxiety-inducing, even debilitating, task.
Our mission, in short, is to incite people to think independently and far beyond their subjects. This is what the best tutors have always sought to achieve. As Socrates put it: “no one can teach, if by teaching we mean the transmission of knowledge, in any mechanical fashion, from one person to another. The most that can be done is that one person who is more knowledgeable than another can, by asking a series of questions, stimulate the other to think, and so cause him to learn for himself.”
We’ve seen this model work time and again with our students over the past decade, including during our teaching experience at top universities like Yale and Exeter. We know that students who enjoy studying, who find applications and essays meaningful and relish the process, will not only do better - they’ll be happier for it too. Education shouldn’t be a struggle or a rat-race to nowhere that destroys confidence and hinders mental health. It’s about expanding minds - showing students they can achieve things they doubted, encouraging young people who care about what they do and derive satisfaction from their work and lives.
And we’re not content with limiting the transformational potential of our 1:1 mentorship. That’s why we’ll be working with excellent students from underprivileged and underrepresented backgrounds, through the J&J Foundation. Our foundation will send our world-class tutors to work in schools where promising students are struggling, teaching pro bono to help those who otherwise wouldn’t have access to such support. We’re committed to helping students achieve their educational goals and life chances, whatever their backgrounds, acutely conscious that education is one of the most powerful pathways to social mobility.
Thank you for joining us on this exciting journey.
Want to read more about the purpose of education?
1. Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be, Frank Bruni. This book is about the mental health impacts of focusing only on top colleges and about the power of thinking more broadly about where to apply, as well as more long-term, about success over the course of a life. Bruni’s ideas are also distilled in this New York Times essay.
2. On the Shortness of Life, Seneca. Written more than two thousand years ago, this wonderful essay by the Roman philosopher on ambition, education, living and busyness will resonate with many modern readers. For all the superficial changes in how we live since Seneca wrote the essay, the core human experience and dilemmas about how to structure our lives, and how to balance competing priorities, are remarkably similar. Seneca writes: “We are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it. Life is long if you know how to use it”
2. Excellent Sheep, William Deresiewicz. The book, as well as this interview with The Atlantic from 2014, covers issues of mental health, ambition, and pursuing intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivation throughout education.
3. Even Artichokes Have Doubts, Marina Keegan - an essay about how to decide what career to work in and to think widely about the options available.