The book of Proverbs provides the perfect illustration of this. In it we find not only programmatic statements of value like “Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice” (16:8 ESV), but also observations about human nature like “A worker’s appetite works for him; his mouth urges him on” (16:26). As we explained last time, these are truthful opinions worthy of being shared with the young to help them learn to understand the world around them and to value things rightly. 

Early education should be packed with content of this sort, both directly from the mouths of teachers, but across all the subjects of study. Reading and writing instruction should not merely train in skills but should be rich in moral wisdom. In this way, we can sow the seeds of virtue and wisdom in the young. We have already had occasion to remark on the intimate connection between the moral virtues and practical wisdom. They are two sides of the same coin. As Aristotle says, “the function of man is achieved only in accordance with practical wisdom as well as with moral excellence; for excellence makes the aim right, and practical wisdom the things leading to it” (Nicomachean Ethics VI.12; rev. Oxford trans., 1807). And again, “it is not possible to be good in the strict sense without practical wisdom, nor practically wise without moral excellence” (VI.13, 1808). 

We had to go somewhat far afield, with both John Amos Comenius, the great Czech educational reformer of the 17th century, and Aristotle as our guides, during the last article, in order to establish the necessity of laying this foundation of virtue and prudence in early education. In this article, we will put some flesh on the bones of this “good instruction” by teachers of the young through delineating the role of principles and practice, examples and discipline. 

Principles and Practice

First of all, we can pick up again and dust off the analogy between artistry and morality that we explored while introducing our series on Apprenticeship in the Arts. “Excellences we get by first exercising them,” Aristotle asserts, speaking of the moral virtues which are inextricably tied to prudence, “as also happens in the case of the arts as well. For the things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing, e.g. men become builders by building and lyre-players by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts” (Nicomachean Ethics II.1, 1743). Practice, in line with the correct principles, will form a person toward either artistry or morality. 

As in apprenticeship in the arts then, laying the appropriate foundation for prudence involves both moral practice and principles. John Amos Comenius emphasized the preliminary role of practice in craftsmanship, and he does the same for each of the other cardinal virtues. Regarding temperance, he says, in his Great Didactic,

“Boys should be taught to observe temperance in eating and in drinking, in sleeping and in waking, in work and in play, in talking and in keeping silence, throughout the whole period of their instruction.

“In this relation the golden rule, ‘Nothing in excess,’ should be dinned into their ears, that they may learn on all occasions to leave off before satiety sets in.” (212)

Temperance constitutes a guiding principle for the ordering of students’ days that parents and teachers should heed. Notice how Comenius draws from traditional wisdom for a principle that should be actively, rather than passively “dinned into their ears.” 

As modernists and postmodernists we are apt to recoil at such tough love, but we would do well to question our assumptions. Either we order their days, emotions, and minds with an open door to intemperance (e.g., playing video games all day, eating unhealthy foods, staying up late into the night, etc.), or we hold the line and cause them to practice temperance day in and day out. Intemperate habituation is no small issue to worry about; as Aristotle said, “It makes no small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or rather, all the difference” (Nic Ethics II.1, 1743). 

Apparently moral subtlety is not a virtue for an early education in prudence. Instead Comenius envisions a type of moral catechism with answers drawn from scripture and wise men to provide rules for life (answering questions like “Why should we strive against envy?” “With what arms should we fortify ourselves against the sorrows and chances of life?” “How should we observe moderation in joy?” “How should anger be controlled?” “How should illicit love be driven out?”; 216). These provide the guiding principles to accompany the practice of daily life.

Comenius goes on to delineate the reason for this habituation according to the cardinal virtues. It lies in the rational nature of a human being and therefore develops the proper connection between moral habits and the principled deliberation of prudence:

The principle which underlies this is that we should accustom boys to do everything by reason, and nothing under the guidance of impulse. For man is a rational animal, and should therefore be led by reason, and, before action, ought to deliberate how each operation should be performed, so that he may really be master of his own actions. Now since boys are not quite capable of such a deliberate and rational mode of procedure, it will be a great advance towards teaching them fortitude and self-control if they be forced to acquire the habit of performing the will of another in preference to their own, that is to say, to obey their superiors promptly in everything. (212-213)

For Comenius, obedience to a prudent parent or teacher acts as a preliminary stage in a person’s development of prudential wisdom. Since children cannot be entirely rational in consulting about which operation or act to perform, they should obey their elders, who at the same time explain to them the reasons for why one course of action should be preferred to another. 

Children thus act as moral apprentices through the habit of prompt obedience, practicing the very thing that they will do in later life when they must subordinate the impulsive and emotional part of them to their rational and deliberate mind. Again it must be reiterated that this is not the possession of prudence itself, but it is, in Comenius’ mind, “a great advance” toward it. A development of his playful analogy, sowing the seeds of virtue, helps him explain why:

“Virtue must be inculcated at a very early stage before vice gets possession of the mind.

“For if you do not sow a field with good seed it will produce nothing but weeds of the worst kind. But if you wish to subdue it, you will do so more easily and with a better hope of success if you plough it, sow it, and harrow it in early spring. Indeed, it is of the greatest importance that children be well trained in early youth, since a jar preserves for a long time the odour with which it has been imbued when new.” (215)

For this reason, we can see as injurious the inclination of many parents and teachers, to say of some vice a young child is displaying, “Oh, he’ll grow out of it.” Weeds do not disappear of their own accord but grow and infest the field. The diligent labor of bringing up children involves, first, sowing well the field, but then, harrowing it, as well, breaking up the ground and tearing up the weeds through proper discipline. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Examples and Discipline

So far we have explained the importance of providing principles alongside practice to prepare the hearts and minds of students for moral virtue and intellectual prudence. In his Great Didactic Comenius reiterates this Aristotelian emphasis on ‘practice, practice, practice’ as he transitions to a discussion of examples: 

We have seen in chaps. xx. and xxi. that it is by learning that we find out what we ought to learn, and by acting that we learn to act as we should. So then, as boys easily learn to walk by walking, to talk by talking, and to write by writing, in the same way they will learn obedience by obeying, abstinence by abstaining, truth by speaking the truth, and constancy by being constant. But it is necessary that the child be helped by advice and example at the same time. (215)

Just as in other skills and arts, practice according to good principles provides the foundation for prudence. In a similar way to training in artistry, where theory should not crowd out the importance of examples and models, so also in prudence moral exemplars hold a crucial role.

When the classicists among us think of moral exemplars, we might imagine Plutarch’s Lives or Aesop’s fables, the well-known figures of history and literature who demonstrate for us right and wrong behavior in the vivid color of a narrative. And this is right, but Comenius reminds us of the even more living curriculum of the lives of people in the school community: “Examples of well-ordered lives, in the persons of their parents, nurses, tutors, and school-fellows, must continually be set before children” (215). Comenius seems to suggest highlighting virtuous and wise individuals in the community through public praise and story-telling. We could imagine this being done in the classroom or assembly-hall, formally and informally. 

Comenius’ reason for valuing living examples resonates with modern research on mirror neurons and our imitative nature as human beings: 

For boys are like apes, and love to imitate whatever they see, whether good or bad, even though not bidden to do so; and on this account they learn to imitate before they learn to use their minds. By ‘examples,’ I mean living ones as well as those taken from books; in fact, living ones are the more important because they make a stronger impression. And therefore, if parents are worthy and careful guardians of domestic discipline, and if tutors are chosen with the greatest possible care, and are men of exceptional virtue, a great advance will have been made towards the proper training of the young in morals. (215)

We might supplement Comenius statement about children “learning to imitate before they learn to use their minds” with reference to the recent research that links imitation to the foundational emotional and artistic skills, say in mirroring the emotions of another through facial expressions or the hand-grasping movements of another simply by observing (see Patrick’s article The Imitation Brain). This monkey-see, monkey-do (or monkey-feel) may be less than the fully blossomed rationality of prudence, but it is a fundamental and therefore necessary step along the way. 

Parents and teachers must remember that their example and influence will have a real and overarching effect on the moral development of the children under their care. This is not an area where “Do as I say, not as I do” is going to be effective (if there is any domain where that works…). Ironically, it is this personal lack of prudence that contributes to parents’ lack of perseverance in discipline. Did you notice how in the block quote above Comenius transitioned immediately from living examples to the necessity of parents as “worthy and careful guardians of domestic discipline”? In his mind these are connected, because the faithful administration of discipline in the little things of the home functions as an overflow of a prudent and godly life.

In our modern cultural imagination we picture the pickiness of a hot-tempered and unpredictable parent when we think of domestic discipline: e.g., the surly father who corrects his son’s eating habits or messy room when he himself is in a bad mood from work. But for Comenius and the Christian tradition (“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” -Ephesians 6:4), “domestic discipline” involves consistency, emotional warmth, and a sensitivity to the child’s needs and abilities. In another counter cultural move (for us anyway), Comenius agrees with Charlotte Mason that children should “be very carefully guarded from bad society, lest they be infected by it” (216). Apparently, the idea that “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with” has a deeper moral point to it. Comenius also believes that ‘idleness is the devil’s playground’ for the young, who are apt to “be led to evil deeds or contract a tendency to indolence” through it (216). They should therefore “be kept continually employed either with work or with play” (216). 

It is important to note the Christian coloring that Comenius has given discipline in its role in developing prudence, at the same time as we consider the tradition’s questioning of corporal punishment in school. Quintilian, the famous Roman rhetorical teacher, for instance, had ruled against the use of corporal punishment in his Education of an Orator as tending toward a slavish disposition in students and abusiveness on the part of the tutor (I.3.14). Comenius, likewise, seems to have a lighter approach, remarking famously on the natural curiosity of children and the easiness of the way he recommends. However, when it comes to moral and spiritual matters he has a Christian seriousness that we must reckon with. He begins by noting the inevitability of discipline: “Since it is impossible for us to be so watchful that nothing evil can find an entrance, stern discipline is necessary to keep evil tendencies in check” (216). 

The whole work of sowing the seeds of prudence is for Comenius elevated to the spiritual plane of reference, when we view it from a Christian worldview–a fact that increases the need for watchfulness and careful treatment of moral maladies through timely discipline:

For our enemy Satan is on the watch not only while we sleep, but also while we wake, and as we sow good seed into the minds of our pupils he contrives to plant his own weeds there as well, and sometimes a corrupt nature brings forth weeds of its own accord, so that these evil dispositions must be kept in check by force. We must therefore strive against them by means of discipline, that is to say, by using blame or punishment, words or blows, as the occasion demands. This punishment should always be administered on the spot, that the vice may be choked as soon as it shows itself, or may be, as far as is possible, torn up by the roots. Discipline, therefore, should ever be watchful, not with the view of enforcing application to study (for learning is always attractive to the mind, if it be treated by the right method), but to ensure cleanly morals. (216-217)

Comenius’ measured approach stands between the extreme positions of our time and his, where the sterner forms of punishment (and even the name of punishment) is either neglected or over-used. His little phrase, “as the occasion demands,” endorses the prudential use of varied types of rebuke or consequence in a way that fits the students’ moral misstep.

If we are to recover the Aristotelian goal of prudence, we must reconsider the details of discipline as a part of a moral education. Principles and practice, examples and discipline form the appropriate web of “good instruction” that functions as a preliminary training in prudence, with the ultimate goal that students internalize right and wrong and a true sense of the value of things in the moral and spiritual universe from a God’s-eye perspective.

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Amusement is a passive state of entertainment. At its core, it is a form of distraction. People seek amusement when they are bored, when they seek to delay or avoid more difficult tasks, or when they have simply grown habituated to use their time unproductively. At times, amusement can serve as a form of escapism. When the pressure-points of life become exceedingly great, people seek to distract themselves temporarily from the present. Finally, and oddly enough, amusement can serve as a classroom management tool. Teachers implement techniques of amusement when they feel the attention of their students slipping and need to maintain control until the bell rings.

In this blog, I want to put forward an alternative to amusement: the discipline of study. Study is the act of intellectual reflection on something of substance–a person, an event, an idea, a book, and so forth. It entails getting to the real nature of something through sustained contemplation. Study takes work–deep work–as habits of attention and careful thinking are cultivated over the long-term. Educators, whether at school or at home, would do well to pursue the discipline of study in both their personal lives and in their instruction.

What is Study?

Unfortunately, we tend to think of study in modernistic terms as merely a form of academic production. For example, we instruct students to study the previous chapter for an upcoming test. Why? So they will be prepared to perform well on the evaluation, to produce high-quality results. Study in this context is less concerned with cultivating an integrated inner life as it with maximizing academic output.

In Leisure: The Basis of Culture (Ignatius Press, 1952), Josef Pieper puts words to the feeling of uneasiness we experience about this view of study. Following thinkers in the Middle Ages, Pieper differentiates between ratio and intellectus as definitions of understanding. 

Ratio is the active process of the mind to actively and discursively pursue understanding. It entails logical thinking and argumentation in order to reach some final conclusion. Ratio has very much consumed the modern way we think of study in which the mind is bent on some final result. Intellectus, on the other hand, is the receptive state of the mind to contemplate, similarly to the way the human eye beholds a landscape (28). It is not active, but passive, insofar as it awaits with anticipation to be moved by Truth.

The discipline of study, as I am thinking of it here, should be understood as a way of cultivating intellectus. It is the sustained act of contemplation, but in a restful and expectant sort of way. It is not weighed down by a future evaluation or the burden of production. Rather, when one engages in study, she peacefully wades into the intellectual deep, allowing her mind to contemplate what is true, good, and beautiful.

This act of reception, paradoxically, is easier said than done. Study, as Richard Foster observes in Celebration of Discipline (Harper and Row, 1978), can be difficult. It is is a skill developed through sustained effort until it becomes habit. But both the content of what we study and the very act of studying have the potential to form us. Foster writes, “What we study determines what kinds of habits are to be formed. That is why Paul urged us to center on things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and gracious” (55).

The Conditions for Study

Study is a discipline of the inner life. It allows us to get closer to knowledge of reality itself: more intimate understanding of ideas, events, relationships, ourselves, and most importantly, God. But there are a couple conditions for study. A slower pace is one of them. Time for quietness and stillness is another. These conditions are not common in the modern world, especially in modern schools.

Educators today try to cram as much as they can in a given day. Whether the pressure comes from administration, state objectives, accreditation standards, or from within, educators have become masters of efficiency. They map out the schedule with the detail of an engineer, ensuring that no minute be wasted or block be deemed futile.

Unfortunately, this approach to scheduling leaves little room to cultivate the discipline of study. Study requires quiet time for reflection. It calls for silence, simplicity, and at times, solitude. These conditions are rare in the modern world, much less in the classroom. But, then again, a deep inner level is rare. If we are going to cultivate it, we must be willing to go against the grain.

Study as Christian Formation

One specific benefit of the discipline of study is that it strengthens the integrity of one’s intellectual and spiritual lives as one unified whole. In Romans 12:2, the apostle Paul calls believers to “…be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (English Standard Version). Likewise, in Philippians 4:8, Paul calls Christians to contemplate whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable and excellent. In short, Paul calls Christians to cultivate one’s intellectual life through study with the assumption that this practice brings spiritual growth.

And yet, study does not seem to be a common practice in Christian educational circles today. Christian schools offer Bible courses, organize chapels, hire Christian teachers, and lead morning prayers, but the cultivation of intellectus in their students is noticeably absent. For true Christian formation to occur, Christian educators should make time for the discipline of study. Study, when led by the Holy Spirit and accompanied with other disciplines, helps transform the whole person.

Towards an Education in Rest

At a plenary session at the Society for Classical Learning’s annual conference, Christopher Perrin argued convincingly that we need to recover an education in rest. Schools are busy and anxious, he observes, and students need relief from the chaos. In conclusion of this article, I suggest that cultivating the discipline of study is a natural first step in offering the sort of education Perrin has in mind.

While it is all too common today to blame technology as the reason for our fragmented lives and hurried schedules, the reality is that the problem is much deeper. It is moral and spiritual in nature. In this way, the problem is ultimately ourselves. We have embraced amusement as a primary approach for how to spend our time both at home and in the classroom. We have allowed the fast-paced nature of the modern world to infiltrate our lives, classrooms, and schools.

But, like all things, there is hope. God remains faithful to His people and strives to help them grow through the aid of the Holy Spirit. If we can lead our communities to cultivate the discipline of study, by God’s grace, we will see more young people become receptive to divine truth as they contemplate the deeper meanings in the world God created. Ultimately, we pray, they will come to center their minds on God himself, the Maker and Perfecter of all that is good, true, and beautiful.

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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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We are adults – for many of us, the only adult in the room for long stretches of time. We have a cadre of young people enter the four walls of our classrooms with all their wonderful curiosity, their endearing innocence, but also their deeply vexing immaturity. You would be hard pressed to find a teacher who did not at some point want to pull out her or his hair through sheer annoyance at childish ways of acting and speaking. Our task is to inform their ignorance, to support their weakness, and to challenge their rebellion. Yes, we are the adults in the room, but we often are confronted with our own immaturity, making us feel hypocritical when we need to instill moral fortitude in our fledgling flock. Peterson describes well the paralysis parents feel when it comes to discipline.

“Modern parents are simply paralyzed by the fear that they will no longer be liked or even loved by their children if they chastise them for any reason. They want their children’s friendship above all, and are willing to sacrifice respect to get it.”

Peterson, 12 Rules, 123

This is also true of teachers as well. We want to create a loving and caring environment, and somehow it feels like discipline would be too harsh, killing the rapport we are trying to build with our students. However, this misunderstands discipline for two reasons. First, discipline is a loving action. It is not an expression of love to leave a child wallowing in their immaturity. It is truly loving to challenge that child so that they can become empowered to grow toward maturity. Second, discipline is not something we do to the child, but for the child. It is a good thing to promote the child’s wellbeing. There is a fear lurking in the back of our minds that discipline is brutal and degrading. But when properly considered, true discipline gains for the child something valuable and indispensable. Discipline is correction, bringing a child back from error, so that they can live in harmony with the world around them. Peterson gets at the heart of what correction is.

“Without that correction, no child is going to undergo the effortful process of organizing and regulating their impulses, so that those impulses can coexist, without conflict, within the psyche of the child, and in the broader social world. It is no simple matter to organize a mind.”

Peterson, 12 Rules, 126

The greatest difficulty teachers encounter with discipline is finding proper methods. Physical discipline carries the connotation of abuse. A long talk amounts to a lot of hot air on our part with little impact on the child. I worked with a student once who gave frank and open feedback that all he needed to do was sit through another lecture, and then he could go right back to doing what he always did. When we see a child doing wrong, our own emotions often get involved, clouding our ability to discipline effectively. Peterson is perceptive in his understanding of what our response ought to be.

“It is an act of responsibility to discipline a child. It is not anger at misbehavior. It is not revenge for a misdeed. It is instead a careful combination of mercy and long-term judgment. Proper discipline requires effort – indeed, is virtually synonymous with effort. It is difficult to pay careful attention to children. It is difficult to figure out what is wrong and what is right and why. It is difficult to formulate just and compassionate strategies of discipline, and to negotiate their application with others deeply involved in a child’s care.” (pg. 124)

Peterson, 12 Rules, 124

Despite the difficulties discipline entails, we know we must discipline. Understanding that children aren’t born with an innate sense of how to comport themselves in academic settings helps us to perceive the nature of our task. “They do so,” that is to say, push against the boundaries, says Peterson, “to discover the true limits of permissible behaviour.” (pg. 126) When we push back, we are telling our students that they have gone beyond the limits. They need to hear “no.” It needs to be clear, direct, unflinching and uncompromising. Children should learn how to respond to “no” well, without tantrums, negotiations or deviancy. This is the boundary. Cope and adjust.

Beyond the “no,” children also need to learn how to receive correction. Teachers should begin by giving students specific, honest feedback, without emotion. Teachers should be constantly watching everything their students are doing. Don’t let anything go unnoticed. Even better, be noticed noticing. In other words, tell your students what you are seeing. Note the chair tipping, the slouch in the back row, the line that’s not straight, the knowing glance between the girls, the goofy drawing a student is trying to hide under the math textbook. After only a few callouts, the students will know quickly that nothing gets by you. This is of first priority, far above the content you’ve planned to cover for the day. Clearly set your standards. No tipping in your chairs means absolutely no tipping. Otherwise, don’t make the rule in the first place.

Charlotte Mason teaches about natural consequences, which I think is an idea in concord with Peterson’s thoughts here. Too often we think about meaningless rewards (a sticker on a completed assignment, or candy distributed for good work) and harsh punishments (with visions of Victorian rods in the hands of robed lecturers). Natural consequences, though, provides a means of supporting proper habit acquisition without the pitfalls of the less natural alternatives. Mason writes about discipline, or the dealing out of rewards and punishment.

“[Discipline] has its scientific aspect: there is a law by which all rewards and punishments should be regulated: they should be natural, or, at any rate, the relative consequences of conduct; should imitate, as nearly as may be without injury to the child, the treatment which such and such conduct deserves and receives in after life.”

Charlotte Mason, Home Education, 148

When a child is grown, the adult world doesn’t provide stickers for completed work or strike blows for indolence. The reward for hard work done before deadline is leisure time. The consequence for missed deadlines may be the loss of a sale or the mistrust of a colleague. How do we apply this idea of natural consequences in the life of the student? Mason speaks most often about the loss and gain of free time. A student disrupting class during a lesson would spend time in the classroom while the rest of the class goes out for recess. The child who finishes all exercises in math can now spend time reading their favorite book or drawing. The severest natural consequence is a poorer life due to the inability to take responsibility. But the long view is difficult for a child to take in the immediacy of the present disobedience. So we must think creatively about ways to impress upon the child the consequences of their actions. I recall a time one of my colleagues took a group of boys who couldn’t keep their shoes tied to spend their lunch tying and retying their shoes. Another example is the teacher who expected lines in the hallway to be straight and silent. The consequence? Repeat the journey as many times as it takes to get it right.

Peterson’s rule to not let children do things that cause us to dislike them sounds like it is centered around our preferences and sensibilities. But underlying the rule is the wellbeing of the child. A child in disobedience causes an impulse in us, and we should respond to that impulse by investing time and effort in the correction of that child.

Enabling children to take responsibility for themselves is the basis of rules 2 and 4. There comes a point where they need to supply their own energy for their own improvement. Rule 2 states, “treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping” and rule 4 states, “compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.” How one deals with oneself makes a big difference in gaining confidence and a sense that one’s life has purpose and meaning.

As teachers, we are called upon to help our students. We help them to understand new ideas, we help them to acquire new habits, we help them to bring order to the chaos of their daily routines. But we do them a disservice if they never help themselves. There must always be a transfer of responsibility from us as teachers to them as people developing toward maturity. We help them because it is impossibly complex to acquire all that is to be learned all at once. We map out a course of instruction to help them building on what they know and encounter what they don’t yet know. Peterson explores this idea by contrasting chaos and order.

“You can’t tolerate being swamped and overwhelmed beyond your capacity to cope while you’re learning what you still need to know. Thus, you need to place one foot in what you have mastered and understood, and the other in what you are currently exploring and mastering. Then, you have positioned yourself where the terror of existence is under control and you are secure, but where you are also alert and engaged. That is where there is something new to master and some way that you can be improved. That is where meaning is to be found.”

Peterson, 12 Rules, 44

Peterson’s reasoning is sound. It points to an understanding of education as bringing order to chaos – the chaos of human existence. And once students have caught the idea that they are the ones who bear the burden of responsibility to shape the course of their lives, they are able to find meaning in their lives.

This blends into the other rule, to “compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.” Personal, incremental growth is really what matters, not whether I’m better or worse than the person next to me. There will always be someone taller, smarter, or faster than me. Get over it! It doesn’t matter. Whether I have done something – anything – to improve myself is fundamentally my point of comparison. We live in a competitive world, and there is no shortage of data ranking us against others, whether it’s standardized tests or how many “likes” we get on our latest posts on social media. We want to win, and we feel it keenly when we lose. But there are more important things in life than winning.

“I should be winning at everything. But winning at everything might only mean that you’re not doing anything new or difficult. You might be winning, but you’re not growing, and growing might be the most important form of winning.” (pg. 88)

Peterson, 12 Rules, 88

The growth mindset is a superior goal to the static/fixed mindset, according to Carol Dweck. This is exactly what Peterson is pointing to. Effort, consistent and concerted, is what makes a person stronger academically and physically. Unfortunately, most students think of themselves in terms of a fixed self image. “I’m not really a math student.” or “Music is my thing.” These static ideas have underlying them the idea that the person can win at music but not at math. Instead, redirecting students to the idea that you can grow both as a math student and as a musician will benefit the student long term.

I find this idea most hard to implement when handing back tests. As soon as there’s a big red number on a paper, students rank themselves against the numbers their classmates received. Obviously, we all need to learn how to handle competition. There’s no denying that there are winners and losers in all kinds of fields of endeavor. However, helping them to see how their score relates to their personal growth trajectory instead of how they rank against their peers would be a more meaningful piece of feedback.

Obviously, this impacts us as well as teachers. How often do we compare ourselves to our colleagues? I’m reminded of Jason’s post on practicing education. I might find my lesson plans inferior to someone else’s, but are they at least better than they were yesterday? I might be struggling to get the level of discussion out of my class that I see other teachers getting. How do I make a plan for myself, though, the gets some forward movement where tomorrow’s discussion is at least a little better than today? Ultimately, the value of Peterson’s book is that it impacts us as teachers, because we are both modeling what it means to live a meaningful and purposeful life as well as training our students towards these same ends.

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