To prepare for a launch year, there are a number of elements for school founders to discuss, care for, and organize into a cohesive plan. These elements, many of which are minute, taken individually may at times feel trivial, disconnected, and unimportant. The truth is, however, these factors and logistics combine to form not simply a plan, but a culture. If school cultures are made up of the habits and routines that together form a school’s identity, then these elements are nothing less than the invisible glue that holds the broader school culture together.

In this article, I am going to suggest five elements new schools want to get right regarding specifically their faculty culture on Day 1. While there are just about a million things founding school leaders could prioritize when building their team of faculty, these five elements will strategically position the school to cultivate a great faculty culture throughout its first year of operation.

1. General Expectations

This is the least inspiring of the elements, so I will address it first. The truth is that any functional work environment requires clarity and accountability regarding the basic expectations all employees will be held to fulfill. What is the dress code? What time should faculty arrive each morning? How long should they remain on campus after school is dismissed? What is proper email protocol for style, formatting, and response time?

These questions may feel mundane, but the truth is that ambiguity in these areas over time chips away at a cohesive culture. As Patrick Lencioni points out in Five Dysfunctions of a Team, a lack of clarity leads to a lack of commitment. While it is important to balance procedural clarity on the one hand with professional independence on the other, upfront communication regarding the general expectations that matter will prevent unnecessary confusion and a lack of commitment in the long-term.

2. Relationships

How are the various constituents of the school going to interact with one another? How will they speak about one another? Schools exist as a unique social conglomeration of children and adults, parents and teachers, with varying levels of authority. It is important for the school to provide clarity for faculty on Day 1 regarding how students will be permitted to speak to their teachers, how teachers will interact with parents, and how teachers will speak about parents.

The two leading values for a healthy relational culture are kindness and respect. Kindness is the disposition of goodwill we all desire to be exhibited toward us, and therefore should exhibit toward others. Kindness begins in the heart and is manifested through action: the words we say, the gestures we use, and the responses we have, especially in pressure-filled moments.

Respect is the due regard we owe one another. In a school setting, there are two general types of respect. The first type is the respect we owe all people based on their personhood and worth as divine image-bearers. In this sense, all members of the school, including children, should be recognized and treated as persons. The second type is the respect we owe various constituents of our community based on their role and position in authority. You can lay the groundwork for a strong faculty culture by taking time up front to talk about the ways different groups within the school will interact and providing specific examples for how kindness and respect should be modeled.

3. Parent Partnership

Parent partnership may sound like a carry-over from “relationships,” but the emphasis is different. Cultivating a faculty culture of parent partnership means forming teachers who understand that parents should be viewed as assets, not obstacles, in the educational journey. The reality is that teachers learn so much about a student in a single year, but this knowledge pales when compared to what the parents know about the child from years in the home. School leaders can promote a faculty culture of parent partnership by instilling good practices for keeping parents informed and inviting them to provide insight into a child’s needs and growth areas.

It is worth mentioning as well that a faculty culture of parent partnership will greatly assist with yearly retention. Parents will choose to re-enroll their children if and when they believe and trust that the school is delivering on its commitments. The primary vantage point parents possess for making this determination is through the relationship they have developed with their child’s teacher. This is all the more reason to prioritize parent partnership for teachers on Day 1.

4. Planning Ahead

This may sound obvious, but again, I return to the importance of details and building institutional habits. In the first year, it is important for schools to establish what kind of school it is going to be, particularly in the classroom. Will it be a school that flies by the seat of its pants, plagued by a lack of preparation, unpredictable decisions, and the tyranny of the urgent? Or it will take time to slow down and prepare, investing the extra time on the front end to sow seeds of preparation and calm?

School leaders, especially in the first year, will not have time to review with teachers every planning detail. My suggestion, therefore, is that they prioritize holding teachers accountable to writing and submitting good lesson plans. A good lesson plan provides the avenue for a teacher to think through the plan for the day, from time-bound procedures to teaching objectives to classroom assignments. Planning in advance will reduce the burden on a teacher’s working memory and allow her to be more present with her students. If a school can establish a faculty culture of planning ahead, particularly through good lesson planning, it will save itself from a plethora of issues down the road.

5. Text-Centered Learning

For a school just opening its doors, it needs to decide what will be the core values of the classroom. What matters most in the daily instruction of students? While there are lots of possibilities to choose from, I suggest that for classical schools specifically, it is important to instill a faculty culture of text-centered learning. Here I mean a form of learning in which the text, not the teacher and not the student, serves as the primary GPS for what will be taught and learned. This is not to suggest that the text is or should be infallible. Nor is it to imply that the teacher’s or student’s opinions do not matter. Rather it is to clarify that amidst all the opinions and ideas swirling around in a particular lesson, we are going to let the text, assuming it is well-chosen, be our chief object of inquiry. This is the surest way to implement the core elements of a liberal arts education.

One practical way to promote a text-centered culture is through narration. Narration, which we have written about extensively at Educational Renaissance, is a teaching method that exposes students to rich content and then gives them the opportunity to share in detail what they recall about the content. This practice instills in teachers and students alike an acute alertness to understanding the text before moving on to exercises in analysis and critique.

Conclusion

If school founders can instill these five elements in their faculty culture, they will be well on their way to not only a great inaugural year, but to a successful first chapter in the school’s short history. Amidst all there is to do and plan, the key is to prioritize what matters most and remain committed to these values. May the Lord lead and guide you as you seek to do the Lord’s work for the sake of your community and the next generation!

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It’s at this time of year that we cultivate a sense of the incarnation with the buildup to the Christmas holiday. We see lots of decorations. There are school performances and church pageants. Our routines change to accommodate a plethora of Christmas parties. Despite the celebrating and decorating, there’s a deep concern about the commercialization of Christmas that questions whether we truly understand the importance of the holiday. We often hear this phrase, “Jesus is the reason for the season.” This article gets at that impulse and questions what exactly we are celebrating. What is it we are doing when we have this big moment in the year that the entire culture celebrates? Furthermore, how does Jesus’ incarnation inform us about the task of teaching. In this article, I argue that we as teachers are performing an incarnational ministry in the lives of our students.

The Incarnate Word

When we celebrate Christmas, we are really celebrating the incarnation of Jesus Christ. It is his bodily incarnation that stands right at the center of God’s salvation plan. The second person of the Trinity took on human flesh and dwelt among us. As Paul writes to the Philippians, Jesus, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” (Phil 2:6-7). The word “form” here must be carefully explicated. It is not as though he “seemed” like God and “seemed” like a servant only by some outward appearance. John Calvin gets at the heart of Christ’s pre-existent form when he writes:

“The form of God means here his majesty. For as man is known by the appearance of his form, so the majesty which shines forth in God is His figure.”

John Calvin, The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians, Calvin’s Commentaries, trans. T. H. L. Parker (Eerdmans, 1965), 247.

In other words, God’s invisible majesty was the quality or the existence that characterized Jesus before the incarnation. After the incarnation, the quality or the existence that characterized him was that of a servant.

Another word that is worthy of comment is the term “likeness.” This echoes the creation of human beings in Genesis 1:26 where God makes man “according to our image and likeness.” There is something about the creation of human beings that makes the incarnation possible. The “divine spark” that resides in all human beings means there is a unique quality that from the beginning of creation pointed to the connection between God and man.

Another passage that speaks to the divinity of Christ and the essential nature of his incarnation in the accomplishment of our salvation is Hebrews 1:3-4.

“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

Hebrews 1:3-4 ESV

We see in this passage the extent to which Jesus was the creative force behind all of creation, both to make it and to sustain it. The author of Hebrews will go on later to reiterate how the creation of the universe by “the word of God” is an essential tenet of faith. We shall explore this concept in just a moment. For now it is important to establish how the eternal Word, the creative force of the universe, the eternal second person of the Trinity was incarnate not as an afterthought or “plan B,” but as the central driving force behind the work of God for our salvation from before the foundations of the world.

I am struck by the poetry of the hymn “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,” rendered in English by Gerard Moultrie based on the Liturgy of St. James. One stunning phrase from verse 1 reads, “Christ our God to earth descended.” Here is a rich statement packed with the meaning we have explored so far. In verse 2, the liturgy goes on to express the theology of the incarnation, capturing the two natures of Christ and the work of salvation accomplished by his bodily sacrifice.

“King of kings, yet born of Mary,

As of old on earth He stood,

Lord of lords, in human vesture,

In the body and the blood,

He will give to all the faithful

His own self for heav’nly food.”

The Word Made Flesh

Elsewhere I have written about the educational heart of God. This concept has to do with God as a communicator speaking in comprehensible ways. It is both that he reveals himself to all of creation, but also that he has made us to be receptive to that revelation. Obviously, there remains a significant amount of who and what God is that is incomprehensible. Yet, he reveals enough that we may know him as he truly is and may know his plan of salvation.

When God created, he did so by speaking words. We first learn of God’s speech acts in Genesis 1. “And God said, ‘Let there be light,” and there was light.” (Gen 1:3). Each day of creation begins with God creating through his divine speech. Throughout the creation accounts, we can observe how much our God is a speaking God. In Genesis 2 he gives commands, speaks to Adam and expects that Adam will comprehend and obey his commands. Later in Genesis 3 we learn that Adam and Eve walked and talked with God in the garden (Gen. 3:8), and then God speaks to them after they have sinned, providing both the curse and the promise of the seed of salvation. These first three chapters in Genesis establish a framework for expecting that God speaks, we can understand when he speaks, and his speech will reveal to us the way of salvation.

Psalm 33 gives us further insight into the role of the “word” referenced in Hebrews 1. In Psalm 33:6, the psalmist expresses how “by the word of the Lord the heavens were made.” This phrasing sets a trajectory that enables us to understand how the persons of the trinity were involved in creation. The second person, referred to as the Word, was the agent of creation, and accomplished creation through speech.

Creation is not the only way we can understand God’s revealing nature. We can think about this in terms of God revealing words to us in Scripture, his written revelation. Consider how Paul advises Timothy to continue to immerse himself in the scriptures, which are “breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” (1 Tim. 3:16). This adds to the dynamic we are describing here. God makes known his thoughts to us in scripture and has created us so that we can understand these truths.

And then his ultimate communication to us came in what John calls the Word, the logos, that became incarnate. God not only revealed his mind through creation and scripture, but he sent himself in the second person of the trinity, his only Son. The opening of John 1 is packed with insights into this essential moment in the history of salvation.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

John 1:1-5 ESV

Here we have the divine nature of Jesus expressed in no uncertain term. He is the Word that was with God and was God. He is also the light that comes into the darkness, into the world that he has made.

The gospel goes on to say, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14). This is the human nature of Jesus. This is the miracle that stands at the center of our salvation. God’s Word takes on human flesh. It is necessary for Jesus to be both fully human and fully divine in order to be offered as a perfect sacrifice for us.

The incarnation, therefore, is a central tenet of our faith. It is one of the two miracles upon which God accomplishes the work of salvation. Incarnation and resurrection together rest upon the divine and human natures of Christ Jesus. He must share the perfect holiness of God to be a worthy sacrifice. He must share our bodily nature in order to fully represent us in that sacrifice.

Incarnational Teaching

It is my firm conviction that the incarnation serves as a model for the Christian life in general and the presence of the teacher in the classroom specifically. I was recently reading a passage in the book Living in Union with Christ, written by Grant Macaskill (who happens to be one of my PhD supervisors). He writes:

“There is … a correspondence between what happened in the incarnation and what happens in us as our corrupt patterns of thought are transformed by the Spirit, our appetites are realigned, and our decisions are sanctified. In both cases, weak flesh is brought into proper communion with God through the work of the Spirit of the Son. That’s where the hope of Christian optimism lies: ‘If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Sprit who dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11).

Grant Macaskill, Living in Union with Christ: Paul’s Gospel and Christian Moral Identity (Baker, 2019), 103.

The Christian life, therefore, has an element of the divine nature of the Son coming into human flesh and dwelling among us through our bodies. In this way, I believe we can view ourselves as teachers in a fundamental way as bringing Christ Jesus into the classroom with us simply because, if we are truly in Christ, his presence dwells within. To put it another way, we become his hands and feet within the classroom.

Apart from simply being Christians in the classroom, I think that as teachers we have a special way we can have an incarnational ministry in the classroom. As teachers, we are enabling our students to learn how to comprehend the truth. Whether it is opening the Bible, a great book, moments in history, mathematical formulas or grammatical terms, there are many truths that we handle in the classroom on a regular basis. We get to stand within a dynamic where we recognize how the Author of truth has made himself known through what he has revealed in the universe and in the scriptures. It is also the case that we have in our midst these young minds, specially made by God to be receptive to the revelation he his provided.

Obviously there is a role that the Spirit plays in the lives of our students. We cannot assume that by applying a method our students will become heartfelt believers singularly devoted to the Lord. However, in this incarnational role we have, I do believe that by being the hands and feet of Christ, the way we live out our faith bears much weight in the eyes of our students.

So, this Christmas as we celebrate the baby Jesus with lights, the decoration, the presents, the festivities, let us meditate on the importance of the incarnation. This miracle is central to God’s salvation plan. It also happens that we ourselves as teacher can follow in the footsteps of Jesus, the great teacher, to enable our students to follow Jesus more closely.

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The sole true end of education is to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.

As educators, we get excited when classrooms come alive: Hands shoot up. Eyes brighten. And body language across the room broadcasts that discovery is underway. 

The other day I stepped in to sub for our science teacher and experienced a fresh taste of these kinds of moments. The class had been studying insects all semester and the topic of the day was beetles. Now, my background is in the humanities, not science, and my teaching experience is not in science instruction. As I studied the lesson plan and scanned the text, the wheels in my mind began to turn. On the one hand, I felt inadequate. What did I know about beetles and the broader field of entomology? How could I step in with minimal prep and pull off an excellent lesson? But on the other hand, all was well. Despite my lack of expertise, I knew what I needed to do: lean on the teaching techniques I had accumulated over the years.

Teaching is a craft. It requires a set of complex skills that, when carefully honed over time, come together with mastery to create something new. These skills in turn can be broken down into techniques. 

For example, cultivating a strong classroom culture is a skill. It takes thought, sustained effort, and experience to lead a group of students to interact, collaborate, study, and speak a certain way. It takes practice to learn the secret to holding students to high expectations while letting them never doubt for a second that you support and care for their well-being. If you were to ask a master teacher how she does it, she may not be able to tell you at first. She may even attribute the culture to great students or just getting lucky. But if you press her on specifics, or better, take the time to observe, you will learn that the specific things she does and says to make the culture come alive. In other words, techniques.

Another example: supporting each student to reach his or her full potential as a learner. We probably all have memories growing up of certain teachers who were “easier” than others. Perhaps they would not grade very rigorously or they would let you just get away with napping in the back. In these classrooms, only a small percentage of students actually cared, and an even small percentage applied themselves fully. Most students were not called up to reach their full potential. Sadly, this sort of classroom is probably more often the norm than the exception. But it does not have to be that way. Again, when teachers are equipped with the right techniques, they can pretty quickly make small adjustments and transform students from passive spectators to engaged learners.

Going back to my science class on beetles, I committed right away to using two techniques. First, I committed to a technique from Teach Like a Champion 2.0 called Cold-Call. Instead of calling only on students who raised their hands, I called on students at random. No student could hide. No student could take a pass. All students were invited into the learning experience.

Second, I committed to asking questions more often than providing answers. To some extent, of course, I did not have much of a choice. Having studied entomology all semester, these students knew much more about insects than I did. If I entered the classroom with the intent to wax eloquent, I would not last long. However, even if I did happen to be an amateur beetle expert, I would not have shown it. My strategy to facilitate strong engagement would be to spark student conversation around the topic. To do this, I would resist sharing what I knew and instead ask good questions. For example: “How do you know?” “How does this relate to other insects you have studied?” “Help my understand why…” Through this question-asking exercise, the class quickly ignited into a firework show of ideas, thoughts, and new thought-provoking questions.

Expand Your Tool Belt

If you are a teacher in need of some fresh techniques for your tool belt, I invite you to register for my live webinar on the topic in a couple weeks. I plan to walk through five top techniques that you can implement in your classrooms or homeschools immediately. These techniques will enhance your teaching ability and will do so in a distinctively classical way: getting to great ideas, pondering time-tested values, and honing skills in the liberal arts.

While the end of the year is winding down, now is a great time to receive some fresh inspiration to make it this last stretch of the year. Our students are worth it!

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If you’ve been following Educational Renaissance for some time, you might remember my history of narration series from last year. During the third article of the series I had a short section on narration in John Amos Comenius’ work, relying primarily on Karen Glass’s brief quotations in Know and Tell. At the time I was only beginning to read Comenius’ The Great Didactic in full, and I had not yet procured his Analytical Didactic. Now I have read and digested both, coming away with more narration gems to add to the history. Even then I wrote that “more remains to be said on Comenius and narration,” and now I am excited to expand that section on Comenius into an article or two of its own.

Returning to this topic is timely for me because the week before last I trained both my own faculty at Coram Deo Academy, and the faculty of The Covenant School of Dallas (what a privilege!) using this stunning passage on narration from Comenius’ The Great Didactic. So the practical application of it in our modern classical schools is fresh on my mind.

The great Czech educational reformer, philosopher, pastor and theologian, John Amos Comenius, sometimes called the father of modern education, represents the next stage after Erasmus in the history of narration’s rebirth during the Renaissance and Reformation era. The opening statement of his stunning work on teaching methods, Didactica Magna or The Great Didactic, promises much in terms that are familiar to advocates of narration:

“Let the main object of this, our Didactic, be as follows : To seek and to find a method of instruction, by which teachers may teach less, but learners may learn more; by which schools may be the scene of less noise, aversion, and useless labour, but of more leisure, enjoyment, and solid progress; and through which the Christian community may have less darkness, perplexity, and dissension, but on the other hand more light, orderliness, peace, and rest.”

John Amos Comenius, preface to The Great Didactic

As I have noted before, activities like narration that turn students into active learners are more likely to produce flow, thereby attaining for the student both “enjoyment” and “solid progress”.

Charlotte Mason found in narration an ideal “method” for realizing Comenius’ golden key of education: teachers teaching less and learners learning more. Whether consciously or unconsciously, she likely drew some of the details of the practice itself from him (in addition to other sources like John Locke).

As well, Comenius’ profoundly irenic Christian vision of how Christian education might contribute to healing the immediate wounds of Christendom’s strife and divisions (like the Thirty Years War) accords well with Mason’s educational leadership and the classical Christian education movement’s high hopes for renewal in the church. Education is not just for the training of individual Christians, but for the benefits experienced in families, churches and communities.

Rivulets Flowing Out

Comenius’ use of narration has a number of unique features and a flexibility and philosophical completeness that is hard to find in other educational thinkers. Therefore, it is likely to him that we owe the fundamental shift from narration as a progymnasmata or preliminary training exercise for rhetoric to a central learning method or strategy. He states the principle in global terms, while at the same time practically endorsing modern techniques like partner-narration:

Whatever has been learned should be communicated by one pupil to the other, that no knowledge may remain unused. For in this sense only can we understand the saying, ‘Thy knowledge is of no avail if none other know that thou knowest.’ No source of knowledge, therefore, should be opened, unless rivulets flow from it.”

John Amos Comenius, The Great Didactic, “Thoroughness in Teaching and Learning”, 155

This entire section on thoroughness in teaching and learning is essentially a tribute to narration, or more particularly the classical principal identified by Chris Perrin of Classical Academic Press through the Latin phrase docendo discimus (“By teaching we learn”) in his course Introduction to Classical Education. (I wonder where Perrin himself derived this Latin phrase from…. Was it from Comenius or an earlier thinker in the tradition? Or is it a phrase he himself quipped to represent a traditional conception?) Similarly, I have often referred to the classical principle of self-education (see my SCL presentation from 2020), citing Charlotte Mason’s quip that there is no education but self-education and Dorothy Sayers’s remarks about students learning how to learn in “The Lost Tools of Learning”.

The imagery of a fount of knowledge, a spring, being opened up and rivulets naturally flowing out to surrounding streams is evocative. Comenius is claiming that knowledge must be shared; it is a communal inheritance passing from one mind to another. For him it is as if there were a sacred commandment inscribed into the nature of the cosmos that knowledge is no mere personal possession, but a social trust.

On its own this claim holds the teacher to a high standard with regard narration and narration-like activities. Not a single source of knowledge opened (!), Comenius says, without students at least telling one another what they have learned. And yet how much “material” is “covered” by the average teacher without an opportunity for the student to become the teacher, in this splendidly ironic transformation that Comenius envisions as part and parcel of learning.

Collection, Digestion and Distribution

Comenius solidly anticipates the modern research that supports retrieval practice, spaced practice and mixed practice, but he does so through his prevailing method throughout The Great Didactic of drawing analogical wisdom from the created order:

From this it follows that education cannot attain to thoroughness without frequent and suitable repetitions of and exercises on the subjects taught. We may learn the most suitable mode of procedure by observing the natural movements that underlie the processes of nutrition in living bodies, namely those of collection, digestion, and distribution. For in the case of an animal (and in that of a plant as well) each member seeks for digestion food which may both nurture that member (since this retains and assimilates part of the digested food) and be shared with the other members, that the well-being of the whole organism may be preserved (for each member serves the other). In the same way that teacher will greatly increase the value of his instruction who 

(i.) Seeks out and obtains intellectual food for himself.

(ii.) Assimilates and digests what he has found.

(iii.) Distributes what he has digested, and shares it with others. (156)

If we pair Comenius’ call for “frequent and suitable repetitions” of the subject matter with The Great Didactic’s opening principle of teachers teaching less and learners learning more, then it becomes clear that by repetitions he is not envisioning a simply review process where the teacher goes over the facts again before a test. Instead, it is the students who will be repeating the content back, and as becomes clear later in the passage, not just in summary, but in full detail.

At first, the analogy from nature about the collection, digestion and distribution of “intellectual food” may seem to have awkwardly shifted topics. Now we are talking about the teacher grazing for knowledge himself? But in the following paragraphs Comenius will zero in on that third part, distribution, to detail his full method of narration. In the meantime, we can note that Charlotte Mason’s favorite metaphor about the mind feeding on living ideas is not, in fact, of her own coinage. For Comenius too there is a process of assimilation of knowledge that involves narration. But he stresses it as a communal endeavor, with teachers serving as the honeybees gathering sweet pollen for the production of honey and distribution to the younger members. Charlotte Mason, by contrast, is more inclined to minimize the collection and digestion process of the teacher (though she did write a stirring appeal to her ‘bairns’ encouraging them to foster their own intellectual life through avid reading), in keeping with her own focus upon the “living books” curriculum that she herself carefully selected.

But this contrast between Mason and Comenius could be overplayed, given Comenius’ ironic twist of the student becoming the teacher. So while teachers themselves should engage in the collection, digestion and distribution of knowledge, Comenius immediately shifts this application to the student-become-teacher through recourse to a well-known Latin couplet:

44. These three elements are to be found in the well-known Latin couplet:–

To ask many questions, to retain the answers, and to teach what one retains to others;

These three enable the pupil to surpass his master.

Questioning takes place when a pupil interrogates his teachers, his companions, or his books about some subject that he does not understand. Retention follows when the information that has been obtained is committed to memory or is written down for greater security (since few are so fortunate as to possess the power of retaining everything in their minds). Teaching takes place when knowledge that has been acquired is communicated to fellow-pupils or other companions.

With the two first of these principles the schools are quite familiar, with the third but little; its introduction, however, is in the highest degree desirable. The saying, ‘He who teaches others, teaches himself,’ is very true, not only because constant repetition impresses a fact indelibly on the mind, but because the process of teaching in itself gives a deeper insight into the subject taught. Thus it was that the gifted Joachim Fortius used to say that, if he had heard or read anything once, it slipped out of his memory within a month; but that if he taught it to others it became as much a part of himself as his fingers, and that he did not believe that anything short of death could deprive him of it…. (157)

Comenius’ main point is the incredible power of teaching others as a learning tool. Where Comenius has recourse to the anecdote of Joachim Fortius for support, modern research can confirm through studies the value of retrieval practice combined with the elaboration necessary for the act of teaching. This effortful combination of research-informed strategies essentially makes for the most durable and flexible learning, such that the new knowledge has become part of oneself.

Repeated Narrations of the Teacher’s Explanations with Corrections

This brings us to Comenius’ specific recommendations for narration, which are unmistakably surprising to those who are only familiar with Charlotte Mason’s advice. Note as we go the focus on the teacher’s lecture or explanation (just as with Erasmus), but also the repetitions and corrections. (We can observe as well that Comenius does not have our modern scruples about politically correct descriptions of students who struggle….)

This would certainly be of use to many and could easily be put into practice if the teacher of each class would introduce this excellent system to his pupils. It might be done in the following way. In each lesson, after the teacher has briefly gone through the work that has been prepared, and has explained the meanings of the words, one of the pupils should be allowed to rise from his place and repeat what has just been said in the same order (just as if he were the teacher of the rest), to give his explanations in the same words, and to employ the same examples, and if he make a mistake he should be corrected. Then another can be called up and made go through the same performance while the rest listen. After him a third, a fourth, and as many as are necessary, until it is evident that all have understood the lesson and are in a position to explain it. In carrying this out great care should be taken to call up the clever boys first, in order that, after their example, stupid ones may find it easier to follow. (158)

The teacher’s explanation here becomes the rich or living text, complete with examples in a particular order. The students are transformed into teachers, endeavoring to reproduce as exactly as they can the full substance of the teacher’s explanation. To make clear that he intends this as a global practice or central learning strategy, Comenius deliberately begins his description of the method with the phrase “in each lesson”. Instead of avoiding corrections during the narration, as Mason recommended, Comenius has the teacher actively correcting and expecting other students to get all the details right in subsequent narrations. While this is clearly not a word-perfect memorization, it edges in that direction and away from Mason’s insistence on a single reading and letting the students take what they do but trusting the process over time.

Interestingly, in commending the “exercises” and “repetitions” of narration, Comenius hits upon a few of the same rationales that Mason would later borrow to commend her practice of narration (e.g., the habit of attention; supporting “dull” students, to use Mason’s term; the love of learning; and self-possession in public speaking):

46. Exercises of this kind will have a fivefold use.

(i.) The teacher is certain to have attentive pupils. For since the scholars may, at any time, be called up and asked to repeat what the teacher has said, each of them will be afraid of breaking down and appearing ridiculous before the others, and will therefore attend carefully and allow nothing to escape them. In addition to this, the habit of brisk attention, which becomes second nature if practised for several years, will fit the scholar to acquit himself well in active life.

(ii.) The teacher will be able to know with certainty if his pupils have thoroughly grasped everything that he has taught them. If he finds that they have not, he will consult his own interest as well as that of his pupils by repeating his explanation and making it clearer.

(iii.) If the same thing be frequently repeated, the dullest intelligences will grasp it at last, and will thus be able to keep pace with the others; while the brighter ones will be pleased at obtaining such a thorough grip of the subject.

(iv.) By means of such constant repetition the scholars will gain a better acquaintance with the subject than they could possibly obtain by private study, even with the greatest intelligence, and will find that, if they just read the lesson over in the morning and then again in the evening, it will remain in their memories easily and pleasantly. When, by this method of repetition, the pupil has, as it were, been admitted to the office of teacher, he will attain a peculiar keenness of disposition and love of learning; he will also acquire the habit of remaining self-possessed while explaining anything before a number of people, and this will be of the greatest use to him throughout life.” (158)

Comenius is happy to use social pressure as a motivator to improve students’ learning, especially since he has abandoned the widely accepted corporal punishment of his day. Students’ natural desire not to appear “ridiculous” before their peers is arguably a more powerful and immediate spur to the effort of learning than an abstract symbol system like a grade. And while not wanting to seem foolish may not be the highest of ideals it does go some way toward creating a culture of learning among human beings as socially embedded and embodied creatures.

It is clarifying to hear Comenius indicate “several years” as the appropriate timeline for training students in this habit of “brisk attention” that will fit them for an “active life”. Likewise, the help afforded the teacher through opportunities to clarify and re-explain accords well with the real challenges of communicating effectively to students. Comenius gives every indication of having practiced what he is preaching, discerning the ins and outs of teaching and learning through philosophical reflection and practical experience.

As with Erasmus, it may be that the teacher is here supplementing or acting as the mediator between the students and the curriculum books. We might imagine a generally older set of students than Mason envisions, but he is undeniably more focused on the teacher as the initial distributor of knowledge. The repetitions seem designed to help students understand hard truths or difficult and complex ideas that are not easily grasped on a first hearing. Corrections, then, might be justified as a necessary safeguard to prevent students from confusing one another with incorrect explanations. We might ponder as well whether Mason’s advice not to “tease [young students] with corrections” focused more upon style and grammar, i.e. not attacking the endless string of ‘and’s that children often start out with. Perhaps she would have sympathized with corrections on matters of fact, when other students might become confused by another student’s misleading explanation.

As stated, Comenius’ variant on narration embodies the golden key of his Great Didactic by turning the student into the teacher after a teacher’s “demonstration” or “exposition”. It thus follows Erasmus in focusing on a spoken lecture or explanation by the teacher rather than a text. The new development present in Comenius is to emphasize the ironic transformation of student into teacher. In a future article we will look at material from Comenius’ Analytical Didactic to see how he developed his recommendations for narration later in life.

“Why the History of Narration Matters” series:

Part 1: Charlotte Mason’s Discovery?

Part 2: Classical Roots

Part 3: Narration’s Rebirth

Part 4: Charlotte Mason’s Practice of Narration in Historical Perspective

The post Expanding Narration’s History with Comenius: Narration’s Rebirth, Stage 2 – The Great Didactic appeared first on .

In order to escape the technological addiction that has mystified the 21st century, it is not enough to take smartphones, laptops, and video streaming services away. They must be replaced with something better. Something deeper. Something more satisfying.

In this blog, I will put forward one compelling alternative to digital saturation. It isn’t the only alternative, nor is it a sufficient one. But it is necessary. Here I have in mind cultivating the intellectual life. By this I mean the world of story and imagination. Thoughts and ideas. Concepts and principles. The life of the mind. 

The Road to Recovery

Sadly, like some prehistoric species, the intellectual life is all but extinct in some minds. I don’t mean this in a condemning sense. It is merely a diagnosis. We have become so acquainted to consuming that the idea of cultivating the intellect sounds incredulous. At best, it sounds boring. Why think when one can switch to auto-pilot?

In theory, people are first taught to cultivate an intellectual life in school. Or are they? For most of us, school was a pragmatic transaction from day one. First-graders may be six, but they are not dull. Their social acumen is developed enough to pick up on what matters in the classroom. The usual suspects include grades, prizes, and teacher-approval. 

Imagine, however, if the first day of school was an orientation to cultivating the life of the mind. No talk of a syllabus, grade criteria, or course objectives. Instead, the teacher begins by comparing one’s mind to a garden. Gardens don’t pop into existence weed-free and fruit-bearing. They must be tended, weeded, watered, and cultivated. As does the mind. The intentional teacher, dedicated to her craft, inspires her students to cultivate an Eden in order to discover that the labor is its own reward.

People coming from schools who implement traditionally modern methods to motivate learning may struggle to cultivate the intellectual life at first. “What will I get out of it?”, “This is boring”, and “I would rather do something else” are all common reactions. But if one can move beyond these initial obstructions, there is hope for recovering interest in intellectual matters. It will take time and effort, but it is possible.

The Importance of Self-Feeding

Once the intellectual life is conceived, it requires self-feeding for sustenance. This is the brilliant insight of educator Charlotte Mason. She insisted that the life of the mind will die if it remains dependent upon the sustenance of others. This is because the mind is like an organism, a living thing that needs to take care of itself. A nascent organism that depends on other organisms will be parasitical at best and fizzle out at worst. It is up to each individual to cultivate the life of the mind through feeding it regularly.

How does one feed the intellect?

This may sound surprising to some but reading, generally speaking, is not the precise answer. There are two reasons for this. First, not all books nourish the mind in the same way. Tech addiction is one major obstruction for cultivating the intellectual life and another is a diet of shallow books. Stories that are morally vacuous, sensationalistic, and stylistically weak fall into this category. These books won’t nourish the intellect any more than a sugar-glazed donut will nourish the physical body (even if it tastes good).

Good books must be chosen for self-feeding and, subsequently, they must be chewed upon. This is the second reason that reading is not, generally speaking, a sufficient path to the self-nourished intellectual life. Our minds need to act upon that which has been read. They need to do something with the knowledge that has been encountered. How often do we read something, probably too quickly, and try to recall it later with no success? We never gave our minds time to assimilate, or digest, that which has been encountered.

For Charlotte Mason, narration is the ideal way for students to assimilate knowledge. Give children the opportunity to narrate the text without looking back, after a single-reading, and the process for self-feeding begins. The mind comes alive as it processes in real-time what it ingested moments ago. The ideas of the text become part of the mind of the student. 

Making Time for Quiet

To cultivate the intellectual life , one must first recover and nourish it. Then one must sustain it intentionally. 17th century polymath Blaise Pascal famously wrote, “All of man’s problems stem from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Pascal’s observation is more than relevant for us today as we inhabit this present age of distraction. Technology is one contributing factor for incessant distraction, as I have already suggested.

Another factor is that most of us live in suburbs or cities. We are surrounded by people, pets, activities, stores, restaurants, and things to do. It is very difficult to find a place that is quiet and unoccupied. Professionally speaking, our work may not be physically laborious, but it mentally exhausting. And more often than not, our personal lives provide no respite. We are constantly on the go, bumping into people and things like electrons.

The solution to such mental crowdedness in order to sustain the mind is to carve out space for solitude. To be sure, minds can be nourished in social settings. Engaging thought-provoking questions, spirited debate, and penetrating discussion are all worthwhile intellectual activities. But the mind also needs time alone with no immediate distractions. It needs time to slow down, process, and reflect. It needs time to be alone.

Of course, this is easier said than done. Most of us begin feeling antsy after sitting still with no distraction for more than a few minutes. Our minds grow nervous, eager for something new to seize our attention. In reality, however, what the mind needs, even if it doesn’t realize it, is space to think. Perhaps surprisingly, making time for the mind to work brings unexpected rest.

The Benefit of Such a Life

Despite what has been written thus far, some readers may continue to struggle to see the value of the intellectual life. “What benefits will it bring?” they will wonder. “How will this support my personal advancement?” 

Questions like these miss the mark. To be sure, there is productive value in the intellectual life. I have already alluded to some examples. The nourished intellect, on average, will be more resilient than one that has been depleted. It will be more efficient in work settings. It will more effectively grapple with everyday problems. 

But here lies the paradox. The real benefit of the intellectual life is the joy of learning. One in pursuit of a nourished intellect for the sake of external benefits will eventually fizzle out. The work will grow too difficult and the benefits will no longer be perceived as worth it. Joy must accompany the process for the intellectual life to remain viable.

The good news, though, is that there is grace. As humans, we often begin our pursuit of good things for wrong, or imperfect, reasons. But amidst these mixed motivations, God can use these moments to transform us. He graciously conforms us to His image, revealing to us the goodness of Himself and the eternal reward of life with Him. When it comes to cultivating the life of the mind, we pray for God to reveal truth to us through the Holy Spirit and shape our affections to desire it and Him more and more.

Conclusion

As the apostle Paul writes in his closing remarks to the Philippians:

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you (Phil. 4: 8-9 ESV).

Amidst the busyness we all face in the modern world, may we make time for the intellectual life, reflecting on what is true, honorable, lovely, and just. Ultimately, as we engage in such reflection, may our minds turn to Him who is the manifestation of all these, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word who became flesh.

Recommended Reading:

Mind to Mind: An Essay Towards a Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason and Karen Glass

Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal’s Pense’es by Blaise Pascal and Peter Kreeft

Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport

Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster

The post Rest for the Weary: On Cultivating the Intellectual Life appeared first on .

As we saw, narration has its roots in the classical era with rhetorical teachers like Aelius Theon and Quintilian, where its goals included the development of memory, fluency and style for future orators. It was particularly powerful as a practice because it fused the natural oral story-telling of pre-literate cultures with the refinements of classical Greek and Roman rhetoric. Before moving to the rebirth of narration in the Renaissance and early modern era, I have to admit to an unfortunate gap in my own knowledge. 

I cannot claim to know that narration was absent from medieval pedagogy. In fact, I suspect that it was not. But I have not (as yet) found any direct evidence of it. There are undoubtedly more places to look than I have had the opportunity of doing so to date. So I would encourage any interested readers to keep an eye out and let me know if you find mention of any narration-like practices occurring in the Middle Ages. However, for the purposes of this series I will have to temporarily conclude that, like much of the tradition of classical rhetoric, narration went into dormancy during the Middle Ages. 

After all, the political situation changed drastically after the fall of Rome, and as a result rhetoric training itself underwent a shift. Without democratic political bodies to convince of a particular course of action, ceremonial and legal rhetoric predominated and crystalized into a more literate and scholastic form. As George A. Kennedy, a leading rhetorical scholar, put it: 

“With the end of orderly civic and economic life not only did public support of education disappear, but the reasons for rhetorical education in its traditional form declined. Fewer councils remained in which an orator could speak, and legal procedures were disrupted; on the other hand, barbarian kings easily acquired a taste for being extolled in Latin prose or verse, even if they did not understand what was being said.” (Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition, 2nd ed.; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999; 196)

The golden age of oratory had passed. It was no wonder that grammatical training predominated, followed by the refined logic of scholasticism. And likewise, it is no wonder that, when the tides turned toward the Renaissance and a return ad fontes (“to the sources”), back to the rhetoric of the classical era, that we would see narration reborn as well.

Narration’s Rebirth, Stage 1: Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)

I owe to Karen Glass my awareness of the first two stages in narration’s rebirth: Erasmus and Comenius (see Know and Tell: The Art of Narration, p. 16). However, the context of Desiderius Erasmus’ work is enlightening, because it illustrates just how indebted he was to the grammatical and rhetorical tradition. The chapter leading up to his mention of narration reads like a passage out of Quintilian. In fact, Erasmus himself references his dependence on Quintilian, saying,

“As regards the methods of the rudiments—that is, of learning to talk and knowing the alphabet—I can add nothing to what Quintilian has laid down.”

Desiderius Erasmus, Concerning the Aim and Method of Education, translated by William Harrison Woodward (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1904), p. 168

Erasmus affirms the value of teaching students to speak both Latin and Greek as the main sources of all the important knowledge then available. Then he gives instructions for exercises in composition, followed by how the teacher should guide students through reading classic texts. His composition exercises are based on the classical principle of imitation: “The Master in the course of his reading will be careful to note instances which present themselves as models suitable for imitation” (170). He then recommends the more challenging exercises of Quintilian, like “paraphrasing poetry into prose and the reverse process” (171). 

While we judged this exercise of Quintilian’s to be an extension of narration, in which the student would write a paraphrase from memory rather than with constant reference to a text, it is almost certain that this is not the case for Erasmus’ recommendations. One clue comes in his recommendations for translating from Greek into Latin and vice versa in the same section—what Walter Ong might call an art of high literacy and one which almost certainly relies on being able to reference the text itself (see Erasmus, Aim and Method of Education, 171-172).

Given the invention of the printing press before Erasmus’ lifetime, highly increasing availability of texts, we are probably right to assume that the educational situation of Erasmus’ day was quite different from the Roman era. Narration of texts from the teacher’s single reading would have become more counterintuitive because texts were cheaper and more accessible. Why would one narrate merely the text itself when it is there at hand?

We might bemoan this fact as the fulfillment of Plato’s dire predictions in the Phaedrus (see the final section of the previous article). However, the challenging composition exercises that Erasmus proposes would have probably compensated for the loss. And this isn’t even to mention how Erasmus himself transformed narration into a practice for assimilating the teacher’s lecture in a passage that out-flanks Plato’s objection:

“The master must not omit to set as an exercise the reproduction of what he has given to the class. It involves time and trouble to the teacher, I know well, but it is essential. A literal reproduction of the matter taught is, of course, not required, but the substance of it presented in the pupil’s own way. Personally I disapprove of the practice of taking down a lecture just as it is delivered. For this prevents reliance upon memory which should, as time goes on, need less and less of that external aid which note-taking supplies.”

Erasmus, Aim and Method of Education,177-178.

Here we can see narration endorsed as “essential” in the case of the teacher’s lecture, rather than with texts. Of course, we have to remember that Erasmus has already discussed imitative composition exercises on topics taken from the classic texts that the students would read. So it is not as though there would be no opportunity for students to assimilate the subject matter of texts through their own writing.

What may be more surprising is Erasmus’ stance against note-taking during the teacher’s lectures and in favor of narration. His reasoning involves the training of the memory and the reduction of an “external aid” over the course of a student’s education. For Erasmus “note-taking” is a crutch, or better yet, corresponds to the use of training wheels for the memory. They should be taken off as soon as possible. 

Narration, then, in the first stage of its rebirth, has shifted its focus from the text read aloud to the spoken lecture on the text. In a similar fashion, the training of a student’s rhetorical style has been almost entirely subsumed in the training of the memory for content (note “the substance of it presented in the pupil’s own way”), and the narration is most likely a written enterprise, since it causes “time and trouble to the teacher,” most likely because of the extra work involved in reading and assessing the students’ narrations. 

Narration’s Rebirth, Stage 2: John Amos Comenius (1592-1670)

The great Czech educational reformer, philosopher, pastor and theologian, John Amos Comenius, sometimes called the father of modern education, represents the next stage in the history of narration. The opening statement of his stunning work on the philosophy of education Didactica Magna or The Great Didactic promises much in terms that are familiar to advocates of narration:

“Let the main object of this, our Didactic, be as follows : To seek and to find a method of instruction, by which teachers may teach less, but learners may learn more; by which schools may be the scene of less noise, aversion, and useless labour, but of more leisure, enjoyment, and solid progress ; and through which the Christian community may have less darkness, perplexity, and dissension, but on the other hand more light, orderliness, peace, and rest.”

John Amos Comenius, preface to The Great Didactic

Charlotte Mason found in narration an ideal “method” for attaining Comenius’ golden key of education: teachers teaching less and learners learning more. Of course, the extent to which Comenius anticipated Charlotte Mason, or Mason followed Comenius, is an area ripe for more study, at least for me. 

My Head of School Dave Seibel and I are planning to read Comenius’ Great Didactic together starting this January to see what we will make of it. Classical Academic Press also has a short introduction to Comenius in their Giants in the History of Education series, which I plan to purchase and read as well. But I already know from Karen Glass that Comenius recommended that “every pupil should acquire the habit of acting as a teacher. This will happen if, after the teacher has fully demonstrated and expounded something, the pupil himself is immediately required to give a satisfactory demonstration and exposition of the same thing in the same manner” (as qtd in Glass, Know and Tell, 16). Glass quotes from another of Comenius’ works The Analytical Didactic (trans. Vladimir Jelinek; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953; 193), in which Comenius “reinterpreted the principle of nature that he had described in The Great Didactic as a principle of logic” (John E. Sadler, “John Amos Comenius” in Encyclopedia Britannica; accessed January, 2021). 

As stated, Comenius’ variant on narration embodies the golden key of his Great Didactic by turning the student into the teacher after a teacher’s “demonstration” or “exposition”. It thus follows Erasmus in focusing on a spoken lecture or explanation by the teacher rather than a text. The new development present in Comenius is to emphasize the ironic transformation of student into teacher. Chris Perrin of Classical Academic Press has referred to this pedagogical idea as the classical principle Docendo Discimus (“By teaching we learn”) in his course Introduction to Classical Education. (I wonder where Perrin himself derived this Latin phrase from…. Was it from Comenius or an earlier thinker in the tradition? Or is it a phrase he himself quipped to represent a traditional conception?) Similarly, I have often referred to the classical principle of self-education, citing Charlotte Mason’s quip that there is no education but self-education and Dorothy Sayers’s remarks about students learning how to learn in “The Lost Tools of Learning”.

I am confident that more remains to be said on Comenius and narration, but I have not as yet been able to procure the rarer work that Karen Glass quoted from (though a used copy is now in my Amazon shopping cart). However, for now we can conclude that in Comenius’ hands narration of the teacher’s lecture became the mechanism for learners learning more and teachers teaching less. The narration most likely occurred orally, given the internal logic of the student becoming the teacher, but we cannot be sure without looking closer at the context.

Narration’s Rebirth, Stage 3: John Locke (1632-1704)

John Locke represents a final and perhaps unconnected stage in narration’s rebirth. To suppose that he did not engage with either his partial contemporary Comenius, or with the famous Erasmus, would probably be going too far. But his early modern Enlightenment philosophy no doubt registered itself in his treatise, Some Thoughts Concerning Education (Hackett, 1996; orig. published 1693). I have already expressed my view elsewhere that he, like Erasmus, was directly dependent on Quintilian (see the author’s A Classical Guide to Narration; CiRCE, 2020; p. 96, n. 122). So his recommendations on the topic are best categorized as a part of narration’s renaissance or rebirth. 

For Locke narration is the solution to a problem with the “classical” education of his day. He begins his section on rhetoric and logic with a defense for speaking so little of them up to this point in his treatise:

“The reason is because of the little advantage young people receive by them. For I have seldom or never observed anyone to get the skill of reasoning well or speaking handsomely by studying those rules which pretend to teach it; and therefore I would have a young gentleman take a view of them in the shortest systems [that] could be found without dwelling long on the contemplation and study of those formalities. Right reasoning is founded on something else than the predicaments and predicables, and does not consist in talking in mode and figure itself.” (140)

In objecting to “rules” rather than practice, Locke continues a theme that he has already established in the book about training young children by habit rather than memorized rules. In A Classical Guide to Narration I pointed out that this error of the “classical” training of Locke’s day amounts to a misunderstanding of the classical distinction between an art and a science: 

“The rhetoric teachers of Locke’s day had been treating the art of rhetoric as if it were a science that could be mastered through acquiring knowledge about the art: various names of figures of speech and rules for types of speeches. But without the facility with with language based in practice and cultivated habits, all of it was useless! (A Classical Guide to Narration, 96)

Of course, this antagonism toward logic and rhetoric might make John Locke seem anti-classical in his philosophy of education. But this would be a misunderstanding. Locke is simply endorsing the renaissance humanist stream of classical education over the encrusted scholasticism of the late medieval era. He was refocusing attention on the great authors of the past (ad fontes) and on imitation of worthy models. As he goes on to say, 

“If you would have your son reason well, let him read Chillingworth [an Oxford scholar and churchman, who was a skillful debater, mathematician and theologian]; and if you would have him speak well, let him be conversant in Tully [Marcus Tullius Cicero, the great Roman orator and statesman] to give him the true idea of eloquence, and let him read those things that are well written in English to perfect his style in the purity of our language.” (140)

Developing the arts of reasoning and eloquence, for Locke, come by reading the right authors to provide ideas and models of proper thought and speech. But it also comes by practice, as he says later:

“They have been taught rhetoric but yet never taught how to express themselves handsomely with their tongues or pens in the language they are always to use: as if the names of the figures that embellished the discourses of those who understood the art of speaking were the very art and skill of speaking well. This, as all other things of practice, is to be learned not by a few, or a great many rules given, but by exercise and application according to good rules, or rather patterns, till habits are got and a facility of doing it well.” (141)

Locke’s point accords well with the modern research on elite performance that Anders Erikson and others have brought to light in delineating the value of deliberate practice (as well as near proxies like purposeful practice) for acquiring high level skill. The arts are complex skills and are best trained through coached practice, not mere comprehension of concepts, however true and inspiring. 

Locke’s narration recommendations remarkably embody the principles of effective practice, including the importance of critical feedback, specific focused efforts on improving one aspect of performance at a time, and systematic development of mental models. The entire passage is worth sharing here:

“Agreeable hereunto, perhaps it might not be amiss to make children, as soon as they are capable of it, often to tell a story of anything they know, and to correct at first the most remarkable fault they are guilty of in their way of putting it together. When that fault is cured, then to show them the next, and so on, till one after another all, at least the gross ones, are mended. When they can tell tales pretty well, then it may be time to make them write them. The Fables of Aesop, the only book almost that I know fit for children, may afford them matter for this exercise of writing English, as well as for reading and translating to enter them in the Latin tongue. When they are got past the faults of grammar and can join in a continued coherent discourse the several parts of a story without bald and unhandsome forms of transition (as is usual) often repeated, he that desires to perfect them yet farther in this, which is the first step to speaking well and needs no invention, may have recourse to Tully and, by putting in practice those rules which that master of eloquence gives in his First Book De Inventione §20, make them know wherein the skill and graces of a handsome narrative, according to the several subjects and designs of it, lie.” (141-142)

Like Quintilian, Locke begins with young children telling stories, though he is content for them to tell “anything they know” at first, as the tutor or parent simply plays the role of coach: correcting one fault at a time, as the child practices telling again and again. Instead of focusing narration on the content to be learned, like Erasmus and Comenius, Locke has brought into sharp relief the skill of story-telling and the fluency of speaking gained thereby. While he does recommend Aesop’s fables, like Quintilian, the shift to written narrations form the main focus, and fixing the student’s “faults of grammar” and “bald and unhandsome forms of transition” is his main concern. 

In essence, Locke has restored narration as the foundation stone of rhetorical training, rather than as a method for learning content in any subject. Narration is, for him, the backbone of an English gentleman’s practical skill in speaking and writing that will equip him for the duties of his life. Daily practice in imitating classic authors and especially in learning to write letters (“The writing of letters has so much to do in all the occurrences of human life that no gentleman can avoid showing himself in this kind of writing.”) form the bedrock requirements for his education (142).

Readers who are familiar with Charlotte Mason’s practice of narration alone may be surprised by some of these different applications of narration. Whether it’s narrating from a teacher’s lecture, or correcting the faults in a student’s narration with a focus on skill rather than content, narration’s rebirth through Erasmus, Comenius and Locke defies the standard assumptions of Charlotte Mason’s practice of it. After all, Charlotte Mason seems to almost exclusively envision students narrating from texts without stylistic corrections but a primary focus on content.

In the next and final article in this series, we’ll compare Charlotte Mason’s pedagogy of narration with its classical roots and its renaissance rebirth. Our aim will be to distill some further conclusions for educators today, both practically in terms of how we should use narration in our 21st century context, but also philosophically in what this all means for the classical Christian education and Charlotte Mason movements today.

Other articles in this series:

Part 1: Charlotte Mason’s Discovery?

Part 2: Classical Roots

Part 4: Charlotte Mason’s Practice of Narration in Historical Perspective

The post Why the History of Narration Matters, Part 3: Narration’s Rebirth appeared first on .

(See Jason’s article on CSI “7 Steps to Narrating the Bible”!)

In biblical studies we seek to cultivate the habits of reverence, humility, submission to the text, and other qualities of faithful scholarship. But I propose another goal should rise to the top: enjoyment. The enjoyment that students have in reading a novel, or an eerie poem, or an adventure epic. 

When students are engaging with the Bible, we should hear laughter and gasps. We should see quizzical eyebrows and wide-eyed shock. I love to see students jumping out of their seats to be picked to identify a ‘hidden’ motif of Joshua. To see awkward blushes and grins, in unfolding the romance of Ruth and Boaz. To see shock and dismay over the violence of Genesis. And I had to laugh at my student’s obvious frustration, annotating her way through the book of Judges, with its noted cycle of idolatry: “Oh no… This is so wrong… Oh why? … That was cruel… This is just sad… Be smart and think!… Not again!”

My students read through the entire biblical canon in community, and their literary enjoyment of it is a memory that will last. Whether visually depicting the imagery of a Psalm or orally narrating the downward spiral of Genesis, students will remember Scripture as profound, holy, and artistically compelling. St. Augustine quipped, 

“Perhaps someone inquires whether the authors whose divinely-inspired writings constitute the canon, which carries with it a most wholesome authority, are to be considered wise only, or eloquent as well. A question which to me… is very easily settled. For where I understand these writers, it seems to me not only that nothing can be wiser, but also that nothing can be more eloquent.” 

 On Christian Doctrine, section 9

Why have we often missed the literary beauty of the Scriptures? Why do we move so quickly to “personal application,” while failing to linger in the episodes and the larger, sweeping narrative? Many a theologian has noted that we throw out good reading skills when it comes to the Bible—cutting the text into bite-size daily chunks, reading without context in mind, failing to find the author’s key themes and motifs. 

We have our modernity to blame. Theologian Peter Leithart depicts the Enlightenment and subsequent theological disputes as having moved evangelicals toward only half of the equation: unfolding the literal meaning and the moral application. But in Rehabilitating the Quadriga, Leithart explains that modern readers have missed out on the riches of Scripture by overlooking the medieval fourfold approach. We have ignored allegorical (or typological) reading and anagogical (or forward-looking reading, in light of final things). He urges us to recover more ancient ways of reading Scripture. 

Many modern advocates of theological interpretation of scripture are seeking to revive the more ancient, literary and typological approach to Scripture, and the good news is that we can implement this in K-12 Bible classes, even without personal training in the field. We can apply best-practices from teaching other literature as we study the canon. Here are 5 practical tactics to cultivate an enjoyment of scripture through a literary approach:

1. Annotating a Reader Bible 

This methodology revolves around close-reading and annotating of the text, so it is crucial that students have their own copy of a simple pew Bible or reader Bible to serve as their consumable textbook. Most reader Bibles are published in 4-6 volumes to complete the canon, and they are available in most translations. Students will build a personal library of the whole biblical canon. The embossed hardcover on these reader Bibles simply say “Pentateuch” or “Poetry,” but inside, the Bible looks like a novel or set of poems. 

Students are taught to treat this book as the valuable resource it is—to mark it, underline, and annotate neatly in pencil. A black-and-white composition book completes the required resources. Students will add quotes to this commonplace book over the six years that they read through the canon. It is a solid setup for a literary approach: a hardcover “novel” plus a growing journal of quotations. 

2. Seeking Simplicity: Multum non Multa

In keeping with the classical principle of “much, not many things,” we should cultivate long-term focus on a text rather than jumping between many resources. Students can sustain attention through a whole book or whole canonical section.  

To strip away distractions, students are asked to read with a pencil on the text, annotating their way through a full book. But there are two ways to practice sustained attention: 

1) Close reading of dense chapters, full of meaning. (Read at least twice.) Or

2) Longer periods of reading through several chapters in one sitting. 

“Long form reading teaches the students to follow a plot, poem, or letter from start to finish,” noted Zach. “It also sharpens the students’ attention span by requiring them to work and remain focused. Long form reading isn’t done every class period, because we take time to dive-deep at key moments, but either way, students should interact with the text first-hand prior to the teachers dispensing information.”

It is best to read in a good translation, to follow-along on a hard-copy as a skilled reader reads relatively swiftly, and then stop and do a close reading at key moments. Since they wouldn’t stop after every paragraph of the Iliad (because it’s lengthy), they keep up a similar pace with much of the Bible’s historical narratives. Otherwise, it can be hard to finish! 

Both reading methods seem . . . basic. Does this reduce the role of the teacher or eliminate direct instruction? By no means. But it does mean that the teacher’s role switches from lecture to hands-on coaching in skills. “Students benefit from habits and routines,” Zach explained. “Learning to read Scripture is like apprenticeship. The teacher is the lead learner and should model habits that the students will acquire over time, after much repetition. Good biblical reading should be seen as training.” 

3. Embracing Literary Skills 

Students at Veritas Christian Academy (the school where I teach Pentateuch and OT historical books) quickly learn that they will utilize literary skills daily in Bible class. There is no way to follow a complex text without using tools of genre, structure, precise vocabulary and synonyms. 

Precise attention to language is also how biblical theologians do their work. Many insights found by scholars are missed by average readers only because one’s literary understanding has to be increased to see the connections. Bible study tools that have been discussed for decades (“Listen for repetition”) only work when students understand the range of synonyms for a given word. 

4. Connecting with Ancient History

Since the canon is a collection of texts written in ancient Hebrew and Greek, we need to spend more time entering into the world of ancient history. Zach notes,

“Those who authored the biblical text had many similarities to us, but they also saw the world differently and we should learn from their worldview. It requires the reader to take on an ancient imagination.”

But discussing ancient history doesn’t have to be a dry, scholarly affair. In fact, since Veritas’ reader Bibles don’t contain scholarly footnotes or commentary, students have to use class discussion to work out their existing knowledge of ancient cultures and enter into “what this probably meant.” 

And don’t underestimate how much ancient knowledge is gained simply through broad reading of the Old Testament. The importance of land, agriculture, fertility, offspring, local gods, and differing gender-social roles is evident directly in Genesis.

Unleash your students’ creativity in wondering what life was like before the modern era! How did the ancients pass on writing, produce needed goods, utilize power, or reason about natural and supernatural forces? Even a bit of ancient background and ancient imagination goes a long way. 

5. Unleashing a Hunt for Imagery

Recurring words and images create through-lines across the Bible. Teach students to listen for repeated ideas, even if they don’t use the exact same word, and even if they seem like a minor concrete detail. These details will add up to a richer, more beautiful story when we keep track of them. But because motifs lie under the surface, we have to act like detectives. Have you heard repetition and wondered, “Is this a whole-Bible motif?” Check a scholarly work like the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. Then do some thinking: What would this image mean to ancient people? Where did we see this motif earlier? Does it run all the way from Genesis to Revelation?

“We can be a lead learner, training students as apprentices,” Zach encourages. “Equip them with skills they need to be those with ‘eyes to see’ and ‘ears to hear’ God’s words, and then let them experience their own journey. My students often see aspects of the biblical text that I haven’t even noticed. I appreciate how we get to journey toward truth together.” 

A literary approach to the Bible lays a rich feast of manifold, complex meaning. What better could we spread before our students? Yes, they will have the choice as they grow, whether to go on believing. But I don’t think people want to walk away from a feast of meaning that is so very rich. When you start to see everything in existence illuminated by the light of Christianity, with all these layers of meaning—every concrete thing having a deeper, poetic, symbolic meaning. That is very hard to walk away from. It would constitute a loss to move from sacred, poetic living into non-meaning. Bare atoms. Nothingness. The richer the theology, the more lasting the faith. The imagery of the Bible can fuel new imagination for a kingdom way of living.

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The Human Capacity to Learn

First, when God looks upon humanity, what he sees in us is the capacity to learn. He has made us to crave knowledge and understanding. Our minds absorb information. While it is true that other animals think and learn, there resides in the human mind the capacity to think creatively and implicationally. We have the capacity to imagine abstract realities beyond our day-to-day material existence. We can contemplate our consciousness and existence in the world. We can take the information we receive and fit it into larger conceptual frameworks. We are able to consider a personal future and imagine how our present actions contribute to the future. By contrast, a squirrel can identify a nut, bury it for later use, and remember where he left it. That’s pretty complex as it is. But we can take our need for nuts and formulate a plan to cultivate nuts on a grand scale for the benefit of society. We can envision what it would take to deny ourselves the immediate nut for our future wellbeing. We can also take that nut and exchange it with others for goods or services. We might also reflect on what it means to be the kind of person who eats nuts. This example really only scratches the surface of our intellectual capacity. The point is that God validates the depth of our learning capacity in his act of communication to us.

Making the Incomprehensible Known

Second, God fits his divine knowledge to our capacity. In theology, this concept is called accommodation. Even though God is infinite and incomprehensible, he has chosen to express himself to us in language that meets us according to our natures as finite beings. We can comprehend God because he has communicated to us in ways we can understand. John Calvin expresses it this way:

“Thus such forms of speaking do not so much express clearly what God is like as accommodate the knowledge of him to our slight capacity. To do this he must descend far beneath his loftiness.”

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. J. T. McNeill, trans. F. L. Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 1.13.1.

This idea of bringing divine knowledge down to our level is fundamentally an educational enterprise. This is similar to a mother cooing and using baby talk with her toddler. We are able to comprehend true things about God and about his plans because, to put it colloquially, God has put the cookies on the bottom shelf for us. God places in our hands that which he wants us to know about him, about ourselves, and about the nature of life. Much that we need to know can be understood at a very early age. Jesus tells his disciples to “let the little children come unto me.” From our earliest days, God sees in us such tremendous value as persons.

Teaching Salvation

Third, God has given us sufficient knowledge to understand him and his salvation plan. All nature reveals truth about God, such as his power, goodness, beauty or justice. Theologians refer to this as general revelation, in that it reveals truth in very general terms. The act of creation, therefore, can be deemed an educational enterprise. There are lessons all around us, whether looking to the stars or following a trail of ants. A different theological concept – special revelation – gets at the highly specific, direct revelation God provides to humanity. Salvation is only possible through this second kind of revelation. Through verbal communication and the incarnation, God specifies our bondage to sin, the impending judgement of our sins, the gift of eternal life, the atoning sacrifice of Christ Jesus, the appropriation of God’s saving grace through faith, and the sanctifying power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. God teaches us so that our lives can become reordered to conform to his gracious plan. There is much that we don’t know and will never know. Yet he has given us enough to comprehend all his work on our behalf. As an educator, God teaches us what we need to know in order to truly live, a point that leads to my next thought.

The Transformational Power of Truth

Fourth, God has educated in order for people to be transformed. His school is a formative environment. He teaches us not so that we remain the same, but that we are changed into the image of his Son. There is a forward-moving drive to God’s teaching. We are not just learning fun facts or jumping through institutional hoops. I suppose there is a standardized test inasmuch as all have fallen short of the glory of God. God as a teacher is deeply concerned about our life-long welfare. This means there are moments of brutal honesty that must pierce through our thick skulls and our hardened hearts so that we might know the truth, and it might set us free. You and I are the resistant kid in the back of the classroom. Yet God seeks us out because he fundamentally believes that all people are capable of being transformed, even though not all will ultimately receive the gift of salvific transformation.

The Delight of God’s Truth

Finally, God, having made us in his image, has made us teachers as well. We teach because he first taught us. There is this impulse we have to make known to one another what we have learned. Think of the three-year-old who runs to his mother to share his discovery of a bird’s nest. He wants to share what he has learned. We educators have merely formalized this impulse. In creating any educational system, the danger is always present of robbing truth of its transformative power. It is therefore important to maintain this connection to God as educator to vivify our own teaching. When our teaching is seasoned with wonder and awe, our students get drawn into the transcendent nature of truth, and then truth can have its transformative effect in their lives. I like how Charlotte Mason differentiates the stale lesson from something that becomes a sure foundation for the child:

“Therefore, let the minds of young children be well stored with the beautiful narratives of the Old Testament and of the gospels; but, in order that these stories may be always fresh and delightful to them, care must be taken lest Bible teaching stale upon their minds. Children are more capable of being bored than even we ourselves and many a revolt has been brought about by the undue rubbing-in of the Bible, in season and out of season, even in nursery days. But we are considering, not the religious life of children, but their education by lessons; and their Bible lessons should help them to realise in early days that the knowledge of God is the principal knowledge, and, therefore, that their Bible lessons are their chief lessons.”

Charlotte Mason, Home Education, 251.

Our charge as teachers is to present truth to the minds of our young charges so that they may delight in the truth and be transformed. This begins to get at what it means to teach with a prophetic voice.

The prophetic voice is first and foremost about speaking the truth. Truth spoken can correct error and it can redirect our paths. It can meet an individual in a moment of need, and it can alter the course of human events. As we delve deeper into the concept of the prophetic voice in this series, we’ll see how we as teachers can cultivate the prophetic voice in our students. We’ll see some biblical examples of how the prophets exemplified the prophetic voice. We will especially need to overcome a misunderstanding of prophecy as merely predicting the future. We will understand how we as teachers can view our task as something prophetic. And we will ultimately gain a perspective on how our students can become truth tellers to a world in desperate need.

Before we can develop any of these further thoughts, we must see how God himself is prophetic. God speaks the truth, and never speaks anything but the truth. God has spoken truth into the world, whether it was the initial creative logos that made all things or the divine utterances that have guided us. God’s prophetic voice is the theological bedrock from which the rest of this series builds. I conclude by quoting the Psalmist:

“Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth;

unite my heart to fear your name.”

Psalm 86:11, ESV

Other articles in this series, Training the Prophetic Voice:

Part 2: Speaking Truth to Power

Part 3: The Schools of the Prophets

Part 4: Jesus as Prophetic Trainer

Part 5: Internalizing the Prophetic Message

Part 6: Classical Rhetoric for the Modern World

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But will they? How will families adapt in such a crisis? And how will they ensure their children’s learning continues while at home, far removed from the influence of their teachers?

The Stoics, a philosophical school originating in ancient Greece, gained a place in the annals of history for their fierce resilience in moments like these. Stemming from their determinist outlook on life and commitment to holding personal affection at arms-length, they refused to let the storms of this world throw them off-kilter. Rather than viewing obstacles to their plans as indestructible barriers, they instead saw them as signposts pointing toward a new way forward. As the great Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius, wrote:

“The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way” (Meditations, Book 5.20).

As inspiring as this response may be, most readers of this blog are not Stoics. But many of them are Christians. And like Stoicism, Christianity contains the conceptual apparatus to receive life’s curve balls, even crises, with peace and mental fortitude. What is more, Christians can continue to live their daily lives amidst challenging circumstances with faith (a virtue the Stoics do not share), as they trust in God’s faithfulness and sovereign will over all situations.

With this quiet but stable confidence in God Almighty, Christians need to remain focused on the present calling on each of our lives, which for parents at this time, includes the oversight of the education of their children. Whether a parent of public, private, or home school education, this article will offer both vision and encouragement for what this period of education can look like at home.

The Call of Parenting

While it may be difficult, parents should embrace the reality that supporting the continuation of their children’s learning while at home during this period is a great calling and opportunity. This calling is found in scripture, for example, when the apostle Paul instructs fathers in the Ephesian church to bring up their children “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4 ESV). Discipline, or training, requires dedicated effort and intentionality on the part of both parent and child. It does not come by accident. And effective instruction, the meeting of minds around wisdom and knowledge, requires the instructor “to know that which he would teach,” as educator John Milton Gregory put it in The Seven Laws of Teaching (26). Most importantly, the discipline and instruction Paul refers to is to be “of the Lord,” that is, God-centered and in line with scripture.

In Parenting: The 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family, Paul David Tripp provides some clarity for what God-centered parenting looks like in contrast to human-centered parenting. In particular, he identifies two contrasting parenting mindsets: ownership parenting and ambassadorial parenting.

Ownership parenting begins with the premise: “These children belong to me, so I can parent them in the way I see fit” (13). As Tripp observes, this tends to be the perspective most modern parents fall into. It is motivated by what parents want for their children and from their children. It is fundamentally rooted in a subtle form of selfishness. As a result, this approach tends to distort how parents think about self-identity, work, success, and reputation. Too easily, they begin to locate their self-identity and inner-sense of well-being in their children. They view their work as harnessing the power to turn their children into something, be it their own image or the image of someone else.  

Over time, their view of parenting success morphs into whatever the world deems as success. Popular options include academic achievement, athletic accomplishment, musical ability, or social likeability. Ultimately, this mindset leads parents to fuse their reputations to the “final product” of their parenting: their children become trophies. Needless to say, ownership parenting is not God-centered, biblical parenting and it will ultimately lead to frustration, disappointment, and inevitably, a relational fracturing between parent and child.

Tripp contrasts this human-centered approach of ownership parenting with the God-centered approach of ambassadorial parenting. In international relations, the purpose of an ambassador is to represent the message, methods, and character of the one who sent him (14). In the case of parenting, God has given parents the mission of disciplining and instructing his children. Tripp summarizes it well:

“Parenting is ambassadorial work from beginning to end. It is not to be shaped and directed by personal interest, personal need, or cultural perspectives. Every parent everywhere is called to recognize that they have been put on earth at a particular time and in a particular location to do one thing in the lives of their children. What is that one thing? God’s will. Here’s what it means at a street level: parenting is not first about what we want for our children or from our children, but about what God in grace has planned to do through us in our children” (15).

Parents who adopt the ambassadorial mindset of parenting can rest in the fact that they are not autonomous but instead report to a higher authority. They are therefore not obligated to create, develop, and execute a self-proposed plan for their children, but instead need simply to follow the marching orders of God as presented in scripture. I use the word “simply,” but don’t mistake simplicity with ease. Biblical parenting is far from easy. It requires rigorous training, instruction, and the pursuit of godliness.

But when parents can reach a place in which the leadership of their homes ultimately is dependent on and rooted in the grace of God, incredibly blessing is the result. It allows parents to support their children in all sorts of worthwhile pursuits and cultivation of skills, including music, sport, art, and crafts such as carpentry, from a posture of confidence in God rather than a spirit of anxiousness.

Now that I have laid out the calling for God-centered parenting, let me know turn to the topic of education, which is particularly relevant at this time when so many parents are unexpectedly finding themselves responsible for continuing their children’s education at home.

Rather than offering parents guidance on how to educate (see other articles on our website), I want to instead offer some motivation for why education continues to be so important in the modern world. It therefore is not a responsibility parents should take lightly, but instead should seize as an exciting opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of their children.

Educating for the 21st Century

In Wisdom and Eloquence: A Christian Paradigm of Classical Learning, authors Robert LittleJohn and Charles T. Evans remind their readers how much is at stake in equipping students to face the unique challenges they will encounter in the 21^st century (see Patrick’s Review). In particular, Littlejohn and Evans identify three major developments in the world today that engender the need for both an enriching and strategic education. They aren’t referring to developments that have merely emerged in the last few weeks, but rather, in the last several decades. These developments are important for parents to be aware of as they begin to temporarily step into the role as home educators.

The first development is an economic one. While there will always be a need for men and women to work particular trades, the majority of the workforce today can be characterized as “knowledge workers,” a term coined by management expert Peter Drucker. This sort of work calls for highly creative and adaptable individuals who are able to pick up new skills quickly and teach themselves new concepts without much guidance (11). These individuals need to be able to think on their feet and outside the box, and not be intimidated by a field of knowledge they have not yet studied. Moreover, with the unprecedented rise in technological advancement, the economy calls for not a small minority of these men and women to be fluent in the languages of math and science, computer programming and engineering (12). In other words, the need for sharp minds and piercing intellects is arguably greater than ever.

The second development in the world today which requires a unique education to face it pertains to morality. The explosion of economic progress in the West has brought with it a host of corporate scandals fueled by unrestrained greed and shameless deception (12). At the same time, traditional assumptions regarding marriage, sexual ethics and gender identity have been called into question. Over the last century, the western world has undergone various iterations of secularization, leaving its constituents to figure out for themselves which moral compass, if any, they will choose to follow. If the sociologists are right, then Gen Z, the generation of students born between 1997 and 2012, truly is the first post-Christian generation.

The third development LittleJohn and Evans identify as significant for educators to consider today is the broad philosophical movement from modernism to postmodernism. In modernism, particularly with the dawn of the Enlightenment, truth was assumed to be objective and knowable. While there was certainly debate over the most reliable source of truth (science, history, economics, psychology, or religion), it was hardly called into question whether objective truth was out there and accessible. In the present moment, however, what some cultural analysts have called postmodernism, it is no longer generally assumed that objective truth exists, much less whether it is knowable. The intellectual hubris of modernism has been replaced with an unexpected humility, though it is a humility rooted in an apathetic, insidious relativism: “You believe your truth and I’ll believe mine.”

In light of these three developments, parents need to be strategic regarding the education they choose, and in some cases provide, for their children. In particular, Christian parents who desire to equip their children to be culture makers, and not simply cultural critics, need to take seriously what tools are needed to face the unique challenges this third millennium poses. As ambassadors of God, heavenly envoys called to represent and embody his mission, parents have a real opportunity to shape the lives of their children in a God-centered direction. This opportunity begins, first and foremost, in the home.

Life Together at Home

So far in this blog, I laid out a vision for parenting from a biblical perspective and planted some seeds for thinking about the sort of education parents should seek for their children in the 21st century. Of course, for us at Educational Renaissance, this education is going to be Christian, classical education. Now I would like to close by offering a practical place for parents to start: the cultivation of Christian community in the home.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian-turned-spy during the Nazi regime, actually wrote a short treatise on the significance and contours of Christian community, called Life Together. Reflecting on his own experience in Finkenwalde, the seminary Bonhoeffer led amidst opposition to Hitler, Bonhoeffer reminds us that Christian community should never be taken for granted or perceived as human-earned. Bonhoeffer explains:

“It is easily forgotten that the community of Christians is a gift of grace from the kingdom of God, a gift that can be taken from any of us any day…. Therefore, let those who until now have had the privilege of living a Christian life together with other Christians praise God’s grace from the bottom of their hearts. Let them thank God on their knees and realize: it is grace, nothing but grace, that we are still permitted to live in the community of Christians today.” (30)

Bonhoeffer penned these words after Finkenwalde had been finally shut down by Nazi occupation. He had experienced authentic, life-giving Christian community and now understood what it is like to live on the other side of it. Parents likewise should not take this opportunity to shape Christian community in their home for granted. While it will be difficult, no doubt, especially during this period of home isolation, it remains a channel of blessing, a vehicle through which parents and children alike can experience the goodness of God. In fact, one example of Christian community Bonhoeffer has in mind as he writes this is family life. He explains that God gives various measures of the gift of visible community and that one example is “…the privilege of living a Christian life in the community of their families” (30). 

So what does Christianity community look like for Bonhoeffer?

It is a community centered around Jesus Christ in which the Word of God rules. It is characterized by service and agape love rather than self-centered ambition. The sort of service he has in mind is simple and humble, rather than occurring in a searching, calculated fashion (38). It entails mutual submission to one another rather than the pursuit of subjugation over others. 

Ultimately, of course, it is a community of grace that is received, not earned, through Jesus Christ. As Bonhoeffer puts it,

“Christian community is not an ideal we have to realize, but rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. The more clearly we learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all our community is in Jesus Christ alone, the more calmly we will learn to think about our community and pray and hope for it.” (38)

Of course, we must not conclude that, because community, like other elements of grace, is an unmerited gift from God, there is no injunction or personal responsibility on our part to cultivate it. The apostle Paul, who adamantly teaches that salvation is a free gift from God simultaneously enjoins the Philippian church “…to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12 ESV). It is the responsibility of each parent to lead their home into this community of grace and instruct their children how to live life together. We should not expect this to be easy. There will be conflict, acts of unkindness, and moments of selfishness that surface from time to time, every day even. But amidst these challenges, there will also be moments of forgiveness, love, joy, peace, patience, and all the fruits of the Spirit.

My prayer for families during this extended period of home isolation is that they would grow closer together as they learn to love, serve, and teach one. For parents who now find themselves in the surprising role as home educator, remember, you are first and foremost an ambassador, called by God and equipped to complete his mission. So do your best, train your children in good habits, teach them living books through the practice of narration, and leave the results to God.

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Broadly speaking, I like how Waitzkin frames the book from the vantage point of the learner. As educators, we can become immersed in the headspace of the teacher as we work on our craft. This in itself is a good thing, since there’s much to practice and hone as teachers. But Waitzkin’s book provides a helpful reminder that the work of the student learning is our primary goal. He gives ample insight into his own learning, first as a chess player (he was the subject of the book and subsequent movie Searching for Bobby Fischer), then as a martial artist, becoming a world champion in Tai Chi. While Waitzkin is a top performer in multiple (and disparate) fields, the book focuses more on the process of learning, only incidentally referring to his accomplishments. As we’ll see below, process is way more important that results.

Jason has written extensively on the concept of flow.

(See The Flow of Thought series: Part 1: Training the Attention for Happiness’ Sake; Part 2: The Joy of Memory; Part 3: Narration as Flow; Part 4: The Seven Liberal Arts as Mental Games; Part 5: The Play of Words; Part 6: Becoming Amateur Historians; Part 7: Rediscovering Science as the Love of Wisdom.)

This is a major concept that weaves through Waitzkin’s book. While some readers might not take on board some of his examples from Eastern mysticism, much of what he writes about illustrates and exemplifies how important flow is to top performance as a learner. (For what it’s worth, and perhaps this can be a future article, for almost every point at which Waitzkin draws upon Eastern ideas, I was able to think of a biblical passage that effectively communicated the same concept. For instance, Waitzkin beautifully describes the child-like nature of learning [p. 80], which reminded me of Matthew 18:3 “unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”)

This book is a great read, and I encourage you to read it thoroughly for yourself. Here I will unpack four principles that are central to Waitzkin’s understanding of the art of learning. If you’ve been following Educational Renaissance for some time, you will hear many resonances with articles we’ve written elsewhere. The four principles are growth mindset, deliberate practice, discipline AND love, and routines.

The Art of Learning Principle 1: Fixed vs. Growth Mindset

Carol Dweck is best known for her book Mindset. So it was interesting to see Waitzkin draw upon her work to describe a key aspect of his own learning (Art of Learning, pp. 30-33). Dweck argues that individuals can be placed on a spectrum of views pertaining to their own intelligence. Those adopting a fixed (or entity) mindset view their intelligence as an innate quality. For instance, the student who thinks, “Well, I’m not good at math,” has adopted the fixed mindset. The liability is that the individual perceives herself as something that will be perpetuated into the future, which short-circuits growth. Contrast this with the growth (or incremental) mindset in which the individual takes on the view of self as in a state of development. It’s important to note that these mindsets aren’t adopted consciously, and an individual needs to be observed to determine where they fall on this fixed vs. growth spectrum. The reflective learner, though, once their mindset has been identified, can modulate towards the growth mindset.

Waitzkin draws out an important point from Dweck’s work, which is the learner’s response to failure. He writes:

Children who associate success with hard work tend to have a “mastery-oriented response” to challenging situations, while children who see themselves as just plain “smart” or “dumb,” or “good” or “bad” at something, have a “learned helplessness orientation.”

Art of Learning, p. 30

What Waitzkin is talking about is how fixed-mindset students want to avoid failure because it is received as a definition of their innate ability, whereas the growth-mindset student invests in failure because it reveals an area for growth–a place where the student is not at the level they want to be at yet. The “mastery-oriented response” means that the student sees initial failure as a challenge to work hard toward mastery.

At a later point, Waitzkin develops the idea of “investment in loss” that expands upon the growth mindset (pp. 107-113). It can be difficult to take on a growth mindset in part because it hurts when our pride gets bruised due to failure. We want to resist the learning process, finding it easier to adopt a fixed mindset and assume that’s just the way it is. He writes,

“In order to grow, he needs to give up his current mind-set. He needs to lose to win.” (p. 107)

Giving yourself to the learning process means that the learner must actually embrace loss and failure. Failure leads to humility as our pride is chipped away. Failure also leads to growth, step by step. Adopting the growth mindset means accepting the long journey to maximizing one’s ability in any given field. Yet more often than not, we are operating at suboptimal levels. That’s just the nature of life. As Waitzkin states,

“It is essential to have a liberating incremental approach that allows for times when you are not in a peak performance state.” (p. 113)

In other words, the growth mindset can simultaneously recognize that one is not working at the top level and still invest in the opportunity for growth.

A corollary to the fixed vs. growth mindset is the result vs. process approach. Waitzkin, who is a top performer in multiple fields, believes that results are harder to come by when you are results oriented. Instead, we should focus on setting up a “process-first approach” (pp. 44-47). I’ve heard other performance experts talk about setting systems rather than setting goals for long-term success. What I appreciate about Waitzkin is that he balances both result and process approaches. He writes,

“While a fixation on results is certainly unhealthy, short-term goals can be useful developmental tools if they are balanced within a nurturing long-term philosophy.” (p. 44)

So as teachers, we can set small benchmarks to track progress, but these benchmarks should not detract from the sense that we are establishing a process or system.

The Art of Learning Principle 2: Deliberate Practice

Anders Ericsson is a pioneer in high performance research and is perhaps the first to express the idea that the key to expert performance rests not in innate qualities but in extended periods of deliberate practice. He writes in an article published in Psychological Review,

“We argue that the differences between expert performers and normal adults reflect a life-long period of deliberate effort to improve performance in a specific domain.” (1993, Vol. 100. No. 3, pg. 400)

Deliberate practice has obvious connections to the growth mindset, so it’s not surprising to find Waitzkin incorporating concepts of deliberate practice.

Learning effectively takes time. As Waitzkin describes sessions of deep absorption in the world of chess, he provides us with an image of the kind of learning students need to take on board in order to become really effective in any domain.

“Sometimes the study would take six hours in one sitting, sometimes thirty hours over a week. I felt like I was living, breathing, sleeping in that maze, and then, as if from nowhere, all the complications dissolved and I understood.” (Art of Learning, pg. 74)

The satisfaction and joy of understanding is a profound experience, but it only comes after time spent in deep work. Waitzkin expresses the concept of deliberate practice as “numbers to leave numbers.” When we are confronted with highly technical information, it needs to be assimilated in such a way that it becomes integrated into our intuition. A concert pianist doesn’t think about scales and arpeggios while performing on stage. This would detract from her expression. What we can assume when watching a virtuosic performance is that hours upon hours have been spent internalizing scale patterns so that the finger patters are simply part of her being. There is no thought of scales or of fingerings, simply of music. She has studied scales to leave scales, which is what Waitzkin is expressing here.

As teachers it can be difficult to help students catch the bug of deliberate practice, especially when our goal is not necessarily expert performance in one domain, but merely steady progress in multiple simultaneous domains. Our students are predisposed to be highly motivated in some subjects and less than motivated in others. The joy of understanding feels too remote and hours of deep absorption is the last thing they want to be assigned. Good coaching is one aspect (and we will delve into this below shortly). Another concept that will guide us is reduced complexity.

Waitzkin uses the concept of “smaller circles” to get at this essential idea:

“Over time expansiveness decreases while potency increases. I call this method ‘Making Smaller Circles.’” (p. 120)

Perhaps we can be forgiven of thinking of Mr. Miyagi training Daniel LaRusso with his “wax on, wax off” techniques. Mr. Miyagi was using “smaller circles” by breaking down karate moves to its component parts that were learnable through garden-variety exercises. The vast expanse of knowledge in mathematics, history, literature and science require deliberate practice in order to gain competence, let alone expertise. Such a task is way too overwhelming for a teacher, let alone so many students with different dispositions. Yet, breaking down the complexity into small steps provides a way to train students in deliberate practice. Additionally, some of the complexity occurs because we try to move quickly through content. Some skills, though, are built best when practiced slowly.

“We have to be able to do something slowly before we can have any hope of doing it correctly with speed.” (pg. 120)

As an example, for our students who will be taking AP tests in May, I have them practice a few problems slowly and deliberately early in the training process. This builds certain skills they will need with regard to understanding the nature of multiple choice questions, how to eliminate incorrect answer, how to avoid trick questions, etc. Later they can operate at a more rapid speed because we’ve taken the time to thoroughly comb over a few example questions multiple times. (For what it’s worth, I have mixed feelings about the whole AP enterprise. Forgive me for viewing the College Board as the Galactic Empire.)

A seemingly contradictory concept is “chunking” or “the ability to assimilate large amounts of information into a cluster that is bound together by certain information into a cluster that is bound together by certain patterns or principles particular to a given discipline” (pg. 138). Yes, we want to break massive complexes of information and skills down to small steps absorbed slowly, but we can also recognize that the mind works like a supernetwork to systematize all it knows into meaningful relationships. By letting new information bump up against other closely related information, the brain can absorb it more easily than if it is completely disconnected from everything else.

As educators, we can help our students capitalize on their natural interest in specific domains by connecting other areas of knowledge to those domains. Modern education fractures domains of knowledge into separate arenas. It is no surprise then that students become fractured beings, thinking of themselves as math people or art people. Therefore, we need to provide students a means of putting their being back together again, a unifying theory of reality and existence occurs when we understand all learning as interrelated.

The Art of Learning Principle 3: Discipline AND Love

Waitzkin describes many of his different chess teachers. Some challenged him to become more disciplined while others wanted him to express his natural game. There’s a balance between discipline and love that needs to be considered carefully. In describing his first teacher, Bruce, Waitzkin writes,

“He had to teach me to be more disciplined without dampening my love for chess or suppressing my natural voice. Many teachers have no feel for this balance and try to force their students into cookie-cutter molds.” (p. 9)

This is one of the great tensions all teachers face. We have a tendency to slip to one extreme or the other according to our personalities and propensities (especially when we ourselves are stressed). We need order and we need warmth in the learning environment.

I think the imagery Waitzkin provides by way of his mother beautifully describes the way we as teachers can build an alliance with students. He explains two ways of taming a wild horse. One way is to break it:

“The horse goes through pain, rage, frustration, exhaustion, to near death… then it finally yields.” (p. 86)

This dominance approach can be highly effective, but our response is that something damaging happened to that horse. It lost something of its nature by being broken. An approach defined by extreme discipline lacks love of the beautiful creature being trained.

Waitzkin’s mother, on the other hand, is a “horse whisperer.” The trainer creates an alliance with the horse by petting it, grooming it, stroking it.

“So you guide the horse toward doing what you want to do because he wants to do it.” (p. 87)

Notice that the horse whisperer hasn’t give up all discipline, but the discipline comes through love. Training students takes the same kind of indirect approach of leadership rather than manipulation. If students are going to operate at their best, the can be broken, submitting to the rigors of the system, or they can be groomed to desire for themselves their personal best. When we are growth minded and process oriented as teachers, we can help our students gain for themselves a growth mindset and process approach.

The Art of Learning Principle 4: Routines

The last concept I want to draw out from Waitzkin’s book is the concept of routines. Effective learning occurs when we have established healthy patterns. Imagine what a school day would look like if every student ate right, got to bed on time and ordered their books nicely each day. Waitzkin describes his involvement with the Human Performance Institute in Orlando. We associate the Institute with high caliber performers like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, so it is striking that they brought in a chess player to study high performance beyond athletics. One of the key concepts gleaned from his experience is the importance of routines.

High performers often incorporate routines as a means to maximize their effectiveness. We often hear of inspiring stories of top athletes who get to practice before their teammates to put in that many more reps that later pay off on the field. These athletes created a routine; the routine of getting to practice early. Effective routines enable top performers to get into the right frame of mind, especially when they have to operate under pressure. As a Chicagoan growing up in the Jordan era, I recalled that Michael Jordan would regularly ask for the ball in clutch situations. He wanted the ball when the game was on the line. He had a winning frame of mind that was cultivated through routines.

Students can create routines that help them to function at their best as learners. Waitzkin advises working backward from the desired state to identify a “trigger” that initiates a four- or five-step routine (p. 188). For example, a student experiences anxiety whenever a test is handed out. She wants to calm herself so that her anxiety doesn’t adversely impact her test. Working backwards from her desired state (calm), she decides that she will take a deep breath, after stretching her arms, after sharpening her pencil, after getting a drink of water. The trigger for this four-step routine is the transition to test time. By laying out this routine, she is taking control of her emotional state with the goal of being in the right frame of mind to do her best on the test.

What Waitzkin is describing here is very similar to what Charlotte Mason teaches about habit training. We gain a vision of some inspiring idea that we would like to attain (for example, focused attention). We delineate a few key steps to the habit. And then we practice that until it is internalized. This is obviously an overly simplified description of Mason’s philosophy, but as teachers one of our primary tools is habit training. We can lovingly enable our students to acquire the discipline to live masterful lives through our support.

Speaking of habit training, a couple weeks ago I finished writing my eBook on habit training! It should be coming out in the next few weeks. So stay tuned. There you will find a much fuller treatment of habit training from a Charlotte Mason perspective.

In the comments let us know how you are applying these concepts (growth mindset, deliberate practice, discipline AND love, and routines) in your work as an educator!

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