In today’s blog, I will make a different argument in support of classical education. Rather than arguing for its practical benefits, I will make the case for something even more important: it is an education in truth. Why send your children to a classical school? Because they will be taught to seek and contemplate what is objectively true. They will gain knowledge of the real world, whether it is practical or not, because one of the surest antidotes to the cacophony of confusion today is to realign ourselves with something as old as the universe itself: the Truth.

A Culture of Dissent

Our dissenting culture is surprised, at best, and angered, at worst, by this talk of objective truth. Skeptics retort, “Given everything we know about all the different religions and cultures in the world, how can you be so arrogant to believe that any one religion or morality is true and not merely useful, culturally constructed fiction?”.¹ As Christian educators, it is our responsibility to respond to this question, not with timid capitulation, but with confident assurance.

If the project of modernism was overly optimistic about human reason’s ability to access truth, postmodernism has fallen off the other side of the horse. Objective truth, we are told, if it exists at all, is out of reach and, frankly not worth the hassle. Enough blood has been shed and wars fought over misplaced forms of righteousness crusading for “the truth.”

Amidst this milieu, students growing up in western countries today need to be reassured that truth exists and the pursuit is worth it. Christ himself declared to be the the way, truth, and the life. Our students need an injection of confidence that our Creator God wove into the very fabric of the universe a sense of order and proper function. The pursuit of wisdom, which is ultimately a journey toward truth, can be understood as an education in how the universe works.

[Read more about the craft of teaching and orienting students toward truth by downloading my free eBook.]

Convenience Over Truth

Unfortunately, research is showing that even amongst Christians, we often choose convenience over truth if given the option. In a recent blog post, author Trevin Wax explores this idea as he interacts with current sociological research on Christian parenting. The research, conducted by Christian Smith and Amy Adamczyk, suggests that many parents raise their children to be religious, not because it is true, but because it is useful. Their primary objective in religious instruction, whether they would admit it or not, is to help their children thrive socially and morally. The upshot is that parents and children inadvertently conceptualize of religion as yet an additional way to practice self-expression rather than a devout exercise in aligning oneself with what is true.

Trevin Wax offers a helpful insight for the problem of this way of thinking:

Not surprisingly, once religion is no longer connected to transcendent truths about the world and is judged primarily by its helpfulness, other priorities easily eclipse religious devotion. Sports, homework, preserving family peace and unity—these activities often take precedent when they come into conflict with religious adherence, even for religious parents in stricter traditions (28). Religion is a useful tool in the life you design for yourself. It can be discarded or relegated to a lower priority once it no longer fulfills or actually detracts from that purpose.

This is a disturbingly accurate observation of common life, especially in suburbia. When we exchange the truth of religion for its usefulness, it becomes yet another item on the menu for us to select or decline based on our present appetite. In order for our students to view their Christian faith and their education, in general, as something other than a menu item, they need to be taught the importance of truth. Their religion, their politics, their interactions with others, their hobbies–all of it stands in relation with truth.

The farther removed from truth we become, the more susceptible we become to falsehoods. As historian Felip Fernandez-Armesto puts it,

Once truth has been devoured, people swallow falsehoods whole. Without confidence in the concept of truth, listeners are disarmed against lies.

Our students need mentoring and training in order to resist the temptation to view the pursuit of knowledge as a mere exercise in utility. They must learn to the love truth and treasure it for all it is worth.

A Statue in the Name of Pluralism

While our contemporary culture may be unique in its dissent for objective truth, it is not the first culture to contest biblical truth. In a recent blog, I observed that in the Book of Daniel, Daniel and his friends received what we might call a Babylonian classical education. They were fed a rich diet of Babylonian literature, the very best mythological potluck the ancient world could offer at the time. The purpose was to enculturate and indoctrinate the young Jewish nobles into the Babylonian way of thinking and living.² 

After resisting the lure to break with their Jewish dietary customs, a few chapters later, the young Jewish men were put to the test again. The king erected a statue in the city for all inhabitants to worship. Interestingly, the biblical text does not give the name or description of the statue. While in the ancient world, it very well could have been a depiction of the king or of a god, the text does not specify. In fact, it does not have to. The point the author seeks to make for his Jewish audience is that the Babylonian statue stands in opposition to everything monotheistic Jews stood for: the sovereignty of Yahweh, the exclusivity of God’s people, and the truth of Torah. It was a statue in honor of the supremacy of the transnational and transreligious Babylonian empire over and against the kingdoms, cultures, and religions it had conquered.

For the purposes of this blog article, we can say that the statue becomes a test in truth. The edict did not require Daniel and his friends to abandon their faith wholesale or to recant a core doctrine. Rather, the edict was an exercise in pluralism. They were permitted to keep “their truth” so long as they yielded to the truth of Babylon. 2,500 years before the religious pluralism we experience today, we can see that God’s people were already being tested to stand up for the truth.

Three Types of Theories About Truth

With all this talk of truth and its importance, it is paramount to take time to consider what we mean by the term. While I will ultimately endorse what is known as the classical correspondence theory of truth, considering alternative theories will strengthen our own understanding.

Philosophers typically differentiate between three types of theories about truth.³ The first type of theory is metaphysical. These theories hold that truth is a property of a proposition. Propositions are rendered true or false depending on their relationship with facts about the world. Truth, in this sense, is the relationship between a proposition and the way the world works, that is, whether it corresponds with reality. On this account, the proposition “the tree is a maple” is true if and only if the tree is, in fact, a maple. 

There are also epistemic theories about truth. Like metaphysical theories, these theories conceive of truth as a property of a proposition, but the focus differs. Instead of focusing on a proposition’s relationship with reality, epistemic theories focus on a proposition’s warranted assertability. That is, a proposition is true on the basis of one’s reasons, or justification, for believing it to be true. On this account, the proposition “it will rain tomorrow” is true if only true if one has it on good evidence that it will rain tomorrow.

Finally, there are deflationary theories about truth. These theories deny that truth is a property of propositions at all. Instead, these theories hold that assertions about truth are either redundant or mere affirmations of a proposition’s usefulness. Thus, truth is determined by what we want to achieve with the proposition. On this account, the proposition “gravity is an invisible force that pulls objects toward each other” is true insofar as it is useful in say, predicting the behavior of the motion of objects with mass.

Correspondence Theory vs. Relativism

While the length of this blog article prevents me from a full philosophical evaluation of the three theories, I will put forward what I believe to be the theory that is most compatible with a Christian worldview: the correspondence theory of truth. This theory is of the metaphysical type, that is, it offers a definition of truth as a property of a proposition. It holds that a proposition bears the property of truth insofar as it corresponds to reality. To put it differently, a proposition is true if, what it asserts to be the case, is the case.

In contrast to the correspondence theory, a common way to think about truth today is that it is relative. That is, a proposition’s truth value is not assigned by its correspondence with reality, but by whether it is believed for the right reasons. In contemporary culture, “the right reasons” most typically promote the free expression of the individual self. This way of thinking about truth is what allows people to make claims like “my truth,” “your truth,” and “what is true for you may not be true for me.”

Needless to say, a Christian worldview leaves no room for a relative view about truth. Either God created the world or He didn’t. Either Christ is Lord or He isn’t. And less significantly, either I am correct that it is Friday evening or I am not. The litmus test for determining the truth value of a proposition is not how sincerely I believe it, but whether my belief corresponds with the reality God created.

A Compass Pointing Truthward

This past week I led an extended discussion with high school students on the question “Why do bad things happen to good people?”. We contemplated the question for almost two hours, debating various points and embarking on too many tangents we foolishly believed would aid the discussion in some miraculous way.

At one point in the discussion, students began to debate whether the eventual answer would only be a matter of perspective. If secularists believe one thing, and Christians another, can we really say that one perspective is right and the other is wrong? While older generations may grimace at this question, I must report that these are the questions Gen Z young men and women are really dealing with. They are bombarded with messages from popular culture that seek to deconstruct the idea that there is objective truth. They are encouraged to embrace the idea of differing and equally valid perspectives.

While respecting varying perspectives is important for charitable dialogue, we must remember that truth does exist. There is a right answer and presumably many wrong ones. We need to encourage students that truth is out there and that it is knowable. My humble conclusion: students need guidance in thinking about truth and I hope this blog article can serve a first step for educators to begin this important work.

Endnotes

1. Garrett J. DeWeese and J.P. Moreland. Philosophy Made Slightly Less Difficult: A Beginner’s Guide to Life’s Big Questions. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2005. 9.
2. Tremper Longman III and Raymond B. Dillard. “Daniel” in An Introduction to the Old Testament. 2nd Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006.
3. DeWeese and Moreland. Pp. 58-62.

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The key to raising strong, independent young people, the authors argue, is not to shield boys and girls from these challenges, but instead to allow for situations in which these experiences occur. This strategic approach, of course, takes courage and discretion. When a child you love is facing a hardship that causes them emotional discomfort, the temptation to swoop in and save the day is hard to resist. But parents and teachers need to see the bigger picture: When challenges are embraced as opportunities for growth, they refine, sharpen, and mold young people to be strong and resilient.

In this blog, I want to reflect on how teachers can go about providing an education in resilience for their students. If you’re familiar with our writings here at EdRen you know that by “education” I don’t mean the mere transfer of information. I mean passing on a way of life. In this way, an education in resilience has intellectual implications, to be sure, but also moral, social, and spiritual. The result of such an education is not a person who has detached herself from the sorrows of the world, on the one hand, or become a victim of such hardships on the other. Instead, it is someone who acknowledges all the challenges and difficulty that life throws at her for what they are, while staying faithful to God’s call.

The Great Untruths

To begin my investigation into an education for resilience, I want to explore what the authors of The Coddling of the American Mind have to say about the contemporary problem of coddling America’s youth. Lukianoff, an attorney, and Haidt, a sociologist, introduce the topic of their book by identifying three “untruths” that are plaguing college campuses, and in turn, American culture today. While these untruths are most obvious in higher education, they invade the life of a student far before college, and live on long after. The authors write,

“The three Great Untruths have flowered on many college campuses today, but they have their roots in earlier education and childhood experiences, and they now extend from the campus into the corporate world and the public square, including national politics” (5).

Indeed, the coddling of a person through the perpetuation of these untruths occurs over a lifetime, even, and perhaps especially, in schools and classrooms across the country.

Untruth #1: What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Weaker

The first is the untruth of fragility. This is the idea that what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker. In other words, the challenges and difficulties one faces are slowly chipping away at one’s shot at a happy, comfortable life. Parents who imbibe this truth are, to put it ironically, relentless in their efforts to shield their children from all setbacks and experiences of disappointment.

The resulting home culture of such parenting is “safetyism,” which the authors denounce:

“When children are raised in a culture of safetyism, which teaches them to stay ‘emotionally safe’ while protecting them from every imaginable danger, it may set up a feedback loop: kids become more fragile and less resilient, which signals to adults that they need more protection, which then makes them even more fragile and less resilient” (30).

The authors are apt to point out that what makes this untruth particularly insidious is that it perpetuates a vicious cycle. When a parent overprotects her child, the child grows more and more fragile, leading the parent to increasingly overprotect. To prevent such a home culture from developing, parents need to cultivate an atmosphere of support in their home that simultaneously permits the challenges of everyday life to impact their children as they normally would. British educator Charlotte Mason, whom we love to read here at EdRen, deems this ‘a natural home atmosphere.’ 

To illustrate her point, Mason cites the discoveries of a biologist making observations about a plant stored under glass. This plant may appear healthy and strong, but due to the insulating protection of the glass, its immune system atrophies over time. The biologist concludes his research, asking, “Is it not the shocks of adversity and not cotton wool protection that evolve true manhood?” (vol 6, p. 53).

We are doing no good for our students by shielding them from the challenges of everyday life. It is precisely these challenges that will make them stronger. Connecting this insight to education, Mason writes,

“But teaching may be so watered down and sweetened, teachers may be so suave and condescending, as to bring about a condition of intellectual feebleness and moral softness which it is not easy for a child to overcome” (53).

Teachers ‘condescend’ their students in a number of ways. For example, they might break up an argument prematurely if they sense it is getting heated for the sake of keeping the peace. Or they may feel the need to bathe a child in false praise if he is not doing well in a particular subject. As one final example, they may over-monitor recess time, eliminating the possibility for children to work out their conflicts themselves.

While it is tempting to intervene as the adult in order to protect the child from hardship, in reality, these are all great opportunities for educating in resilience. Through permitting with ‘masterly inactivity’ (as Charlotte Mason would put it) moments of temporary discomfort and conflict, teachers can stoke the embers of resilience in their students.

Untruth #2: Always Trust Your Feelings

The second great untruth of our age, suggest Lukianoff and Haidt, is emotional reasoning. This form of reasoning elevates our feelings to the role of ultimate guide of our interpretation of reality (38). In other words, if I am experiencing negative emotions about a particular situation, then the situation must necessarily be bad. I have no cognitive choice in the matter.

In American culture today, we are bombarded with the so-called wisdom to trust our feelings. No doubt, the core of this message is rooted in expressive individualism, the reigning cultural paradigm, which conceives of human identity in terms of the quest for personal happiness. If human identity and purpose finds its fulfillment in an emotional state, then our feelings are necessarily the ultimate litmus test.

The problem with purely emotional reasoning, of course, is that our feelings do not give us the full picture of reality. Nor they do provide infallible guidance for how to act or what to think. This isn’t their purpose. Emotions are intended to accompany people through the highs and lows of life, helping us experience reality in an appropriate and psychologically healthy way. But they aren’t intended to serve as the arbiters for the truth of a matter.

On this point, the stoic philosopher Epictetus writes, “What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance” (Enchiridion, Epictetus & Lebell, p. 7). What Epictetus is pointing out here is that it is our frame of mind, not the actual situation, that triggers our emotions. Two people can respond very differently to the exact same situation because of how they approach it.

There are a couple ways we can help our students not fall into the trap of overtrusting their feelings. First, we should encourage them to believe the best in a given situation. This another way of saying we should train our students to positively interpret situations around them. While this may be difficult for some students (“I’m a natural pessimist”), like most behaviors, mindset is largely a matter of habit (download Patrick’s eBook on habit training here). Through training one’s students to respond positively in difficult situations, you are educating them in resilience. You are subtly teaching them that life, though challenging, is manageable. It won’t destroy them even if it feels in the moment like it will.

Second, we should train our students to always seek the truth of the matter. This is why courses in logic are so important in secondary school education. Students need to be equipped with the skills to discern truth from falsehood and logical from emotional appeals. They need to be able to interpret situations in context and consider all the different perspectives on complex issues. Through logical analysis and critical thinking, students can avoid the untruth of “Always trust your feelings.”

From a biblical perspective, when I think of a resilient mindset in difficult situations, I cannot help but recall the words of the apostle Paul. In Philippians 4, he writes “…I have learned the secret to being content in every situation.” And in 2 Corinthians 4, he writes, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” For a person like Paul, who is locked up in a Roman prison, to make these confessions is nothing short of astounding. He displayed resilience because he trusts in the strength of the Lord inside him. He is able to faithfully interpret his challenging circumstances with hope because he knew that God’s plan in Christ will not be stopped. His outlook is grounded in faith and guided by reason, not his feelings.

Untruth #3: Life is a Battle of Us vs Them

The third great untruth is the “Us versus Them” mentality. The authors explain this false idea to be that life is ultimately a battle between good people and evil people. We find the people who are like us or believe the same things we do–our tribe–and band together against other tribes.

Now, on the one hand, it is completely natural and perfectly harmless for people to bond together over shared interests and even identities. As an alumnus of Harry D. Jacobs High School (located in the golden city of Algonquin, Illinois), I feel an affinity for the school’s constituents by virtue of our shared identity. Moreover, I wish no harm upon on the poor souls who can’t claim this superior heritage as their own. This tribe, I would argue, is a good one, promoting tangible goods of friendship, service, and gratitude.

But on the hand, history is full of examples in which communities devolve into tribes who are then mobilized to attack other tribes and vilify the individuals that make them up. The most infamous example is Adolph Hitler’s vilification of Jews to achieve his plans for a German empire. Today the most common and infamous manifestation of this is identity politics. Identity politics has become a contentious term that refers to “political mobilization organized around group characteristics such as race, gender, and sexuality, as opposed to party, ideology, or pecuniary interest” (59).

The authors suggest that not all identity politics are bad. Positive examples of identity-driven political causes include women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement. The world is a better place because brave leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., mobilized historically marginalized African-Americans to stand up for their civil and political rights.

But all too often identity politics is actually common-enemy politics. They write:

“Identity can be mobilized…in ways that amplify our ancient tribalism and bind people together in shared hatred of a group that serves as the unifying common enemy” (60).

Common-enemy identity politics is bad for students because they create what the authors call a “call-out culture.” A call-out culture is one which people are always on the look out to publicly shame people who offend or aggravate their tribe. The net result is a culture in which people are afraid to speak their mind or try out new ideas lest they be publicly scrutinized.

The solution, the authors suggest, is “an appeal to common humanity, rather than common enemy, for the sake of facilitating real conversation geared toward free inquiry, dissent, evidence-based argument, and intellectual honesty” (77).

For open and honest conversation to happen in classrooms, teachers must resist the temptation of promoting tribalist thinking. As Christians, it can be be tempting to think of life as us against the world and to a certain extent we are correct. St. Augustine himself drew a line in the sand between the City of God and the City of Man. But at the same time, as Christians, God has not called us to make enemies of all those who do not claim to be Christians. Nor does God call us to raise our swords against those who disagree with us theologically, morally, or politically. Instead, we are called to live peaceable in the city and seek its well being (Jeremiah 29, 1 Timothy 2).

In our classrooms, then, we can cultivate a culture of common humanity through sincere inquiry to understand alternative viewpoints. We can train students in the intellectual virtues of charity, humility, and mutual respect. This isn’t to suggest we should downplay the truth or avoid argumentation. On the contrary, when the right ground rules are set, the best debates occur.

Conclusion

Educating for resilience requires a rejection of the three great untruths: Fragility, Emotional Reasoning, and Us Versus Them. If we can train our students in the opposite of these untruths, they will emerge as independent, reasonable, and unifying young men and women. This sort of education takes significant patience and wisdom. It is not easy to know in a given situation when a student needs grace and support or when they need to be challenged. But through careful study, deliberate practice, and the grace of God, we can train our students to face a challenging world with courage, prudence, and resilience. I would take this approach over coddling any day.

For more insights on how teachers can hone the craft of teaching from a classical perspective, while preparing their students for the modern world, you can download my free eBook “The Craft of Teaching.”

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Previous articles in this series, Training the Prophetic Voice:

Part 1: The Educational Heart of God

A Sweltering Day in August 1963

His white, button-down shirt with rolled up sleeves shows a man working diligently. With pencil in hand, he revises some thoughts that had been rehearsed in small settings over the course of the preceding years. This is the calm before the storm. A simple office provided to Martin Luther King, Jr. offered a little space to think and to write on the eve of the March on Washington, August 28, 1963. It’s an image of Rev. King alone, cerebral and dispassionate. According to legend, the prepared notes had no reference to the phrase “I have a dream.”

It was in this setting that a masterpiece was prepared. Rev. King referred extensively to the Bible, with allusions to the Psalter, Isaiah, Amos and Galatians interspersed, anchoring his speech to the biblical prophetic tradition. American patriotism rings through as well, with references to the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the national hymn “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.” Literary allusions permeate the speech, with a deft rephrasing of one of Shakespeare’s famous lines in Richard III. The man was clearly a well-educated minister, perhaps seizing a moment of national television coverage to showcase his rhetorical sophistication.

Contrast the staid moment of solitude with the thronging crowds on the National Mall gathered near a body of water (the Reflecting Pool) looking at the mountain of steps leading up to the Lincoln Memorial. It was a full day, with numerous speakers and singers preceding Rev. King. The recently deceased John Lewis had spoken earlier in the day. Many celebrities and dignitaries turned out for the event. This was a charged moment, so much so that Rev. King caught a moment of lightning that took his prepared notes to another level.

As legend has it, Mahalia Jackson, who had sung “How I Got Over” earlier in the program, called out in the middle of speech, “Tell them about the dream, Martin.” Rev. King departed from his notes and improvised with cadences of “I have a dream” punctuating the speech about two-thirds of the way through. It became something more than a speech. Martin Luther King, Jr. experienced a moment of transcendence that crystallized what the civil rights movement was all about. This speech directly contributed to a wellspring of support for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation and outlawed discrimination.

Speaking Truth to Power

The phrase, “speaking truth to power,” is the essence of the prophetic voice. The nature of truth is funny, though. The Correspondence Theory, as expressed by Aristotle in his Metaphysics, says that a statement or proposition is true to the extent that it corresponds to the way the universe actually is. If I were to say I live in Chicago, the truth of that statement would have to correspond to factual reality. For most people living outside the Chicagoland area, to say I live in Chicago is good enough. It is an approximate reality, because Chicago is the nearest major city to where I live. But in fact, I don’t live within the city limits of Chicago. My proposition doesn’t correspond to the world as it actually is. So have I actually told a falsehood?

The power of this little fact of where I live is fairly minuscule. Thus we might call it a little, white lie. It’s fairly inconsequential in most circumstances. It’s also not the kind of truth we’re talking about when we consider what it means to speak truth to power. One of the limitations of a formal definition of truth is the inability to handle subjective values, such as goodness, beauty, justice and so forth. But it is exactly these kinds of values that we mean when we speak about truth in the context of enacting meaningful change in society.

Aristotle is once again helpful, this time drawing upon The Art of Rhetoric. In his opening chapter, he begins a definition of rhetoric through comparison with dialectic. In both dialectic and rhetoric, one poses two or more points to be examined and debated, with the view of arriving at the truth through a process of logical evaluation. Aristotle writes:

“Rhetoric is useful, because the true and the just are naturally superior to their opposites, so that, if decisions are improperly made, they must owe their defeat to their own advocates; which is reprehensible. Further, in dealing with certain persons, even if we possessed the most accurate scientific knowledge, we should not find it easy to persuade them by the employment of such knowledge. For scientific discourse is concerned with instruction, but in the case of such persons instruction is impossible; our proofs and arguments must rest on generally accepted principles, as we said in the Topics, when speaking of converse with the multitude.”

Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1.1.12

What Aristotle is saying here is that truth and justice, although obviously better than falsehood and injustice, are not always decided upon by those who advocate for certain policies in society. Moreover, even if we were able to produce scientific facts, we would need to instruct the “other side” as though we were educating them. However, we often don’t have that kind of time, so the art of persuasion must be used to convince the “other side” of the truth and justice of one’s perspective. Aristotle continues:

“Further, the orator should be able to prove opposites, as in logical arguments; not that we should do both (for one ought not to persuade people to do what is wrong), but that the real state of the case may not escape us, and that we ourselves may be able to counteract false arguments, if another makes an unfair use of them.”

Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1.1.12

Here Aristotle suggests that the one speaking truth to power should be able to take on board the opposite viewpoint, in order to point out and counteract falsehood. This begins to get at the heart of our nature as human beings. In our search for truth and justice, we are prone to error and corruption. Therefore we need such arts as dialectic and rhetoric to challenge our thinking as individuals and as a society so that truth might emerge despite our limitations.

Truth in a Free Society

Perhaps the most cherished freedom in our society is the freedom of speech. Given what has just been stated about our human nature, the freedom of speech is actually the freedom to be wrong. It would be impossible to make people pass a truth test before they could speak freely. For one, who could pass such a test, knowing the limits of our knowledge and the complex motives that stand behind our utterances? More concerning would be the question of who gets to make the test that would grant freedom of speech to others. That kind of power would mean that certain people could set a standard based on their own limited understanding of what they think is true. This would be unjust and tyrannical. Therefore a free society must allow all people to speak freely, which means most free speech will be wrong to some degree.

So where is hope to be found, if everyone is basically wrong to some degree? The implication of freedom of speech is that our society would be a place of discourse where ideas are put forward equitably such that the best ideas – those that are true, good and just – would prevail. Certain ideas rise to the top, with a majority persuaded of its virtues. However, these ideas must simultaneously be challenged by those who hold the minority position. It is interesting to examine how the framers of the U.S. Constitution sought to protect the minority viewpoint through mechanisms like the separation of powers, checks and balances, a bicameral legislature, and term limits, to name a few.

Western democracies have established discourse and debate as a means to providing the greatest possible common good by validating the role of the individual’s right to speak freely, even if what is spoken is incorrect or offensive. In keeping with Aristotle’s rhetorical theory, it is best to have people speak out what they actually think, so that we can fully examine the truth or lack thereof. We can trust that if a person speaks falsely or offensively, people will let them know. This is the hope of Western society; that truth can be spoken even by those not in power.

Social Media, Ideological Possession and Echo Chambers

One of the tragedies of our society has been the erosion of genuine debate and discourse. We get the false impression that we are engaged in debate and discourse through social media. But what we most often find on Facebook feeds or in the comments sections of websites is something more like a drive-by shooting. Facts and opinions are fired from the protected silo our devices provide. We rarely have to look a person in the eye, but instead type up charged communiques with a sense of our own anonymity. Social media exacerbates the lack of serious engagement of issues due to its ever-present and instantaneous nature. We are lured into thinking we are engaging in civil discourse, but in actuality it is anything but civil.

Into this environment we can place the concept of ideological possession. I have written a bit about Jordan Peterson in the past. In an interview with Helen Lewis, Peterson described what it looks like when a person is beholden to a particular ideology:

“So, you’re not … integrating the specifics of your personal experience with what you’ve been taught, to synthesize something that’s genuine and surprising, and engaging in a narrative sense as a consequence. And that’s the pathology of ideological possession. It’s not good. And it’s not good that I know where you stand on things once I know a few things. It’s like … why have a conversation? I already know where you stand on things.”

Interview of Jordan Peterson by Helen Lewis for British GQ

This is the kind of person who has taken a position on a particular set of issues, yet most of the thought has not been original. They have downloaded a set of ideas from a prominent voice on the right or on the left. The prepackaging of the ideas from favored media outlets makes it convenient for individual to not actually think but react. This is different from the person who has carefully worked out a theory or philosophy on their own. They posses their ideas rather than ideas possessing them. The effort to work out a theory or philosophy means they are skilled at considering new information and either synthesizing it or countering it in a thoughtful way.

An echo tells back what we have spoken. One of the liabilities of politically aligned news outlets is that people can live within echo chambers that reinforce their ideological possession. lt feels like thoughtful interaction with the news of our day. But without listening to ideas and viewpoints that challenge us, we are liable to reinforce a conception of truth with no assistance to root out the error of our thinking. Being loud and proud about things we think we know (but is probably only just what we heard on YouTube) is very different than speaking with a prophetic voice.

Training the Prophetic Voice

Let’s return to the two images of Martin Luther King, Jr. One image is of the man preparing. The other is of the man exercising his prophetic voice. For me this models our educational program. The second image is of a person at the right place, at the right time, with the best opportunity to deliver a compelling message challenging injustice and calling for reform. This is quite rare and not to be expected by all rhetoricians or by every would-be prophet.

It is the first image, the man in solitude gathering the thoughts of many centuries. Rev. King assimilated into himself the wisdom of his biblical faith and the wisdom of his Western heritage. The ideas of Western civilization were the means by which he perceived a way to correct the corruption of that very same Western civilization.

This is what we are doing now in our classrooms. We are giving our students the tools they need to assess and evaluate the cultural heritage we are imparting to them. I mentioned in our teacher training recently that in educating our young ones, we are passing the cultural baton to the next generation. That’s why it is so important to teach the Greeks and the Romans, the Italian Renaissance, Shakespeare, the U.S. and French revolutions, the World Wars, the Civil Rights movement and so one. We are providing them with the best authors and the best ideas our society has produced. But we do so knowing that for as good as that tradition is, it is also a corrupt tradition. We remain the kind of society that would enslave or murder if given the chance. But we are equally the kind of society that would emancipate and protect the vulnerable if given the opportunity. We pass on our cultural heritage saying, “We tried our best to root out some of the corruption, but there’s still some there. Now you try the best you can.”

Training students to have a prophetic voice means that we are validating and supporting the personhood of each individual student. We are calling them to seek for truth wherever it can be found. And when they find it, they will utilize the resources and skills they’ve acquired to promote and defend the truth in a society that needs their contribution to the great discourse.

Other articles in this series, Training the Prophetic Voice:

Part 1: The Educational Heart of God

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

The post Training the Prophetic Voice, Part 2: Speaking Truth to Power appeared first on .

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

The post Training the Prophetic Voice, Part 1: The Educational Heart of God appeared first on .

So what do we mean by Western civilization? Today we equate the “West” with Europe (predominantly Western Europe), and its offspring in the New World (especially the United States). However, Western civilization goes all the way back to the ancient world, grounded in the Middle East and the Mediterranean, from Mesopotamia and Egypt to Greece and Rome. At the foundation of Western civilization, the Americas were unknown and our current understanding of global politics and economics was incomprehensible. Yet all the seeds of the distinctive culture of the west were present in the ancient context.

Important to our understanding of Western civilization are three key pillars that make it distinctive in the world: the Judeo-Christian tradition, democracy and rationality. I’m using these three concepts to carry a lot of freight, so I will spend the better part of this essay developing what I mean by these. Along the way we can evaluate why learning Western civilization is so important to our educational goals today, while also addressing some misconceptions that have undermined the perceived value of an education based on Western civilization.

Judeo-Christian Tradition

The religious traditions flowing from the Old and New Testaments represent the monotheistic base from which Western civilization has operated. This monotheistic base won out over its polytheistic context largely because of its correlation to the logical singularity of truth itself, which we will explore further when we contemplate rationality below. This singularity of truth corresponding with divine singularity is most prominently expressed through divine revelation. The divine logos functions as an expression of truth through God’s self-disclosure to the world. (Many will be able to hear echoes of Jordan Peterson’s work, which I reviewed previously) From outside our terrestrial systems, the voice of the creator and sustainer of the universe brings a perspective unachievable from our limited and finite vantage point. The Judeo-Christian matrix of beliefs promotes certain understandings of human existence and experience that are unique to Western civilization.

In Genesis 1-3, we learn that humanity has divine attributes, yet is fallen in nature. All people are created in the image of God. This makes us unique creatures in the universe, because we are steeped in divine qualities within our being. Yet the story of the fall of Adam and Eve explains how chaos and corruption taints and twists that divine spark. Worse than the devil outside of us is the devil inside us all. Sin causes enmity between people and God, between individuals, between people and creation. This aspect of our nature is often reflected in literature through narrative conflict. The idea of the fall explains why life is a path of suffering. At the core of both Jewish and Christian faith is sacrifice. To atone for sin, sacrifice is necessary. In the Old Testament, the rhythm of regular sacrifice upon the altar framed the narrative of individual and corporate sin. Sacrifice eradicated evil, and thereby the people aligned themselves with a holy God. “Be holy for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44). The emblem of the cross is paradigmatic for Christianity because it represents a solution to the problem of sin in the form of God entering into our humanity to accomplish the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf. Salvation is accomplished not through our own effort, but through someone coming from outside our closed system to do what we could not do. The infinite takes on finitude to save the finite. Both Judaism and Christianity promote essential moral values based on the holiness of God. The moral law is bestowed on the world by a moral law giver who alone is holy and capable to proclaim what is just and right.

The contours of the Judeo-Christian tradition have shaped the west such that our legal traditions, our moral sensibilities and our understanding of individual rights can be tied to this heritage. It should be noted that the west is not the only locale where Christianity took root. We can trace from the earliest centuries historic churches in Ethiopia or India, for example, which maintain a living tradition today. Christianity has never been equivalent with Europe or fair-skinned culture. But for some reason Christianity took hold in the west in such a way that it fairly comprehensively became enmeshed within the narrative of the west in ways it didn’t in Asia or Africa. As we witness something like the fall of Western culture, it should not be surprising, then, that biblical Christianity has grown in both Asia and Africa.

Democracy

Since the time of ancient Athens, the ideal of governance by members of the populace has been one of several political experiments in Western civilization, and has ultimately gained broad consensus as a hallmark of the west. The fundamental idea has been to involve as many people as possible in self-government, with the assumption that individual liberties are best protected when individuals have a voice in policy making.

The Enlightenment sought to ground human experience in natural laws, leading to an articulation of fundamental human rights. This promoted a shift in thinking about government. The divine right of kings was questioned in light of authoritarian or incompetent monarchies under which human rights were disregarded. One need not listen to the vox populi when one is God’s sovereignly appointed authority on earth. The wars of religion (less of the people and more the monarch’s religion) left a distaste for state mandated religion. If individuals were not able to speak their mind to enact reasonable changes in policy, if they were not allowed to worship based on conscience, if they were not permitted to enjoy their basic rights as human beings, then government must change. The revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries challenged the established monarchical model of government in favor of a more democratic form, with human rights as the driving force.

In the American experiment of democracy, the founders quickly realized that one could exchange one form of tyranny (the authoritarian monarch) for another form in the many tyrants of unstructured democracy. Republicanism, or representational government, struck the middle ground between authoritarianism and anarchy. The enduring quality of the US Constitution reflects the depth of thought that went into the founding of the US republic. James Madison, the primary author of the constitution, relied heavily on classical texts and ideas as well as the thoughts of Bacon, Descartes and Locke. In the same years as the ratification of the Constitution, France experienced its own revolution, swinging radically from the authoritarian control of government by Louis XVI to the Reign of Terror by revolutionary republicans. Napoleon was able to step into the leadership vacuum left by these upheavals, with France only able to establish a lasting republic after years of aimless warfare. The American and French fights for democratic governments are emblematic of a centuries-long consideration of self-governance by a knowledgeable populace. Self-government was initially limited to landowning males with expansions of suffrage emerging during and after the industrial revolution. The ideal of popular sovereignty was that government would derive from the authority of the governed who participate in government primarily through voting for representatives based on their knowledgeable participation in public policy debates. People would have to hold in tension their own personal liberties and the common good to enact laws that both protected individual liberties and promoted the welfare of all. There are many forms that democracy has taken, and they have largely cohered in a mutual identity over against authoritarian and communist forms of government during and after the Cold War.

Education has been at the heart of this distinctively Western understanding of government. If people are to participate in self-government, they should be well educated in order to understand the rule of law, to engage in public policy debate and to contemplate the ethical values that bear upon individual and corporate well being. The transformation of education in the aftermath of the industrial revolution to focus predominantly on technical knowledge and job skills has gone a long way toward undermining what has been the chief aims of education in enabling the citizenry to participate in self-government with knowledge and insight. The loss is felt throughout society, as the voting base is often duped by logical fallacies and emotionally charged sound bites. If the fall of the west has drawn nigh, it has occurred due to the erosion of its democratic ideals. And the erosion of democracy occurred through educational reform that gutted it of its value as an instrument to provide a well-educated populace, able to participate meaningfully in self-government.

Rationality

At the very foundation of Western culture is a philosophical commitment to ground belief and truth claims in rational thought. Quite simply, rationalism is the view that human intellect is utilized to acquire and test knowledge. From the time of Aristotle, methods have been developed to hone intellect so that we can arrive at truth by way of deduction. (Jason has written extensively on Aristotle, which you can see here and here.) The syllogistic logic developed by Aristotle enabled thinkers to examine statements and draw conclusions deductively. The scholastics of the middle ages expounded Christian theology by using dialectic to extent philosophical and theological by way of inference based upon the authorities of scripture and the church fathers. The rebirth of classical thought during the Renaissance contradicted the scholastics’ dependence on Aristotelian logic, favoring rhetorical categories of argumentation over abstract syllogistic reasoning. However, dialectic remained the fundamental vehicle for Renaissance and Reformational thought despite humanists’ aversion to scholasticism’s dependence on Aristotle.

During the Enlightenment, Descartes challenged the empiricism of the scientific method by applying a method of doubt, or skepticism. Our senses can be inaccurate, therefore, the acquisition of knowledge must be attained through pure thought; by the application of deduction. Doubt can even be applied to our own existence. We may perceive that we doubt our own existence, but, as Descartes reasoned, something must be having the thought that we perceive as doubt. The thinker that is doing the doubting must exists, therefore I must exist. Cogito ergo sum. This methodological skepticism, then, utilizes doubt to tear away irrational thought in order to acquire foundational or a priori knowledge.

The idea of first principles can be applied to all fields of study: mathematics, ethics, politics metaphysics, etc. Rationalism was essential to the founding of the United States, as the revolutionaries based their call for independence on basic, self-evident truths that are natural laws giving human beings certain rights. As an example, take freedom of speech. Spinoza argued that human beings have the innate ability and the natural right to think their own thoughts and to express them verbally. A government that protects free speech for everyone does not undermine its own authority. If it were to attempt to limit expression the government would actually promote rebellion, since human thought cannot be controlled externally without violating a natural law. Therefore, government ought to protect and promote freedom of speech with the one caveat that speech not lead to harmful action, since the government has authority to maintain law and order. (see Spinoza, A Theological-Political Treatise, Part IV, 20.70-76)

A tension exists, though, between the pillars of Christianity and rationality in Western culture. Rationality, by only accepting human intellect as a source of knowledge, rejects divine revelation and spiritual insight as sources of knowledge. The skepticism of Enlightenment thinkers runs counter to belief as the basis of Christian doctrine and experience. Nevertheless, Judaism and Christianity have historically lived within the tension of faith and reason. The Old Testament has frequent appeals to human intellect. The rational application of the ten commandments to all aspects of life is at the heart of OT law. The wisdom tradition champions the acquisition of knowledge: “An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge” (Prov. 18:15). The prophet Isaiah proclaims the divine message, “Come let us reason together, says the Lord” (Isa. 1:18). In the New Testament Jesus often utilizes reason, with examples of scriptural interpretation from the Sermon on the Mount coming to mind. Numerous times in Acts, Paul uses reason and persuasion in his preaching (see for example Acts 17:1-4). In 1 Peter, the apostle calls his readers to have a defense prepared for anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that resides within (1 Pet. 3:15).

This tension between faith and reason saw the Christian church at various times draw upon the thought of Plato or Aristotle. Augustine in his Confessions reflects at length on the harmonization of faith and reason, yet recognizes the limits of pure reason:

Since we are too weak by unaided reason to find out truth, and since, because of this, we need the authority of the holy writings, I had now begun to believe that thou wouldst not, under any circumstances, have given such eminent authority to those Scriptures throughout all lands if it had not been that through them thy will may be believed in and that thou might be sought. For, as to those passages in the Scripture which had heretofore appeared incongruous and offensive to me, now that I had heard several of them expounded reasonably, I could see that they were to be resolved by the mysteries of spiritual interpretation. The authority of Scripture seemed to me all the more revered and worthy of devout belief because, although it was visible for all to read, it reserved the full majesty of its secret wisdom within its spiritual profundity.

Augustine, Confessions 6.5

If reason is limited apart from faith in divine, authoritative revelation, faith is likewise enhanced by reason. Anselm’s famous motto, “faith seeking understanding” (fides quaerens intellectum) articulates the view that faith can be grounded in first principles and is ultimately consistent with rational thought.

A Rationale for Western Civilization

Having explored to some extent the unique qualities of Western civilization, we may now be in a position to understand why it is so important to place it so prominently within our school curriculum. Students need to learn their story. The Western story is a complex story, unique and meaningful. It is not a superior civilization nor is it without its flaws. One only need consider the crusades or the slave trade to see that Western civilization has taken its wrong turns along the way. But there is genuine value in learning the deep structures of Western culture despite being flawed, and because it is flawed. Churchill’s loose quotation of Santayana would seem to fit here, “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” However I take a more positive view. There is something precious to be learned that if lost does harm not only to individuals but also the whole society. The deep structures of Western civilization are ideally suited to train the hearts, souls and minds of students who will lead our churches and cultural institutions.

When it comes to the organizing principles of Western civilization, all who have been raised in the West will find their own perspective reflected in its history. Those with a Christian perspective will want to analyze the history of Western interaction with Judeo-Christian ideas: the lineage of theological thought centered around monotheism, divine revelation and the covenantal relationship between God and man. Those who are committed to democracy and human rights as fundamental values will want to engage Western civilization to understand its development and the tensions that exist between individual rights and the good of society. Those who are committed to the flowering of rationality, including modern invention, science, humanities and the creative arts will want to mine its riches and understand it deeply. Let this be an invitation to mine the Western tradition for all it is worth.

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Truth

Peterson grounds truth in the biblical conception of the Divine Logos as the creative force behind the universe.

“In the Christian tradition, Christ is identified with the Logos. The Logos is the Word of God. That Word transformed chaos into order at the beginning of time. In His human form, Christ sacrificed himself voluntarily to the truth, to the good, to God. In consequence, He died and was reborn. The Word that produces order from Chaos sacrifices everything, even itself, to God. That single sentence, wise beyond comprehension, sums up Christianity.”

Peterson, 12 Rules, 223

As a consequence, truth is what orders the universe. To live in harmony with the universe is to encounter truth, brutal as that may be at times, and to abide by truth in speech and conduct. Peterson takes us to the prison camps, both Soviet and Nazi, through the accounts of Solzhenitsynn and Frankl (pg. 215) to see that truth often comes at great personal expense, and that untruth corrupts at all levels of society. For both the individual and society, “lies war the structure of Being.” (pg. 215). Knowing the truth will set us free, according to the words of Jesus in John 8:32, who calls us to abide in his Word. Centering our lives around truth is not easy, but the alternative is a life that lacks freedom, even though lies entice us through the deception that we can attain freedom through them. Peterson’s advice in rule 8 is “Tell the truth – or, at least, don’t lie.” As educators, this advice orients us to assisting our students in the acquisition of truth, and challenging them to root out deception.

Educators often fall prey to the urgent needs of the moment. Grades are due, the students need to be prepped for the annual performance, or we’ve simply fallen behind in our unit. We figure delivering content efficiently is the best solution. Content delivery, that is the teaching of the facts and figures in our curriculum, is not the same as centering our classroom on truth. Surely, we are telling true things to our students, but the content is more likely to glance off the surface of their minds. To be truly centered on the truth, we must recognize the transformative nature of truth. Truth needs to be reflected upon. Truth needs to be expressed. Truth needs to be committed to. These are necessities that take time and effort in order for truth to take its full effect in the lives of students. I appreciate Peterson’s vulnerable self-reflection, recognizing how to detect truthfulness and deception within himself.

“If you pay attention to what you do and say, you can learn to feel a state of internal division and weakness, when you are misbehaving and misspeaking. It’s an embodied sensation, not a thought. I experience an internal sensation of sinking and division, rather than solidity and strength, when I am incautious with my acts and words. It seems to be centred in my solar plexus, where a large knot of nervous tissue resides. I learned to recognize when I was lying, in fact, by noticing this sinking and division, and then inferring the presence of a lie. It often took me a long time to ferret out the deception. Sometimes I was using words for appearance. Sometimes I was trying to disguise my own true ignorance of the topic at hand. Sometimes I was using the words of others to avoid the responsibility of thinking for myself.”

Peterson, 12 Rules, 224

My mom taught me something similar to what Peterson describes here. She called it the “uh-oh” feeling. I now call it my conscience. Our students need to learn how to feel and respond to their consciences, and to know when they are exhibiting the strength of truthfulness or are succumbing to deception. This takes time, and peace, and quiet. It also requires of us a level of commitment to the student that is challenging. We often want to detach ourselves from our students at the most opportune moments for learning to take place: namely lunch and recess. But these are the moments when we most get to live together with our students in meaningful ways. We’ll explore meaning a bit further below.

In the classroom, though, we can be mindful of two pillars that ground study in truthfulness. First, is the assumption that others have something to teach us. Peterson’s 9th rule states, “Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t.” Intellectual humility is a virtue our society desperately needs. Intellectual humility is the disposition a thinker has that recognizes the limited nature of the individual’s knowledge. It is learned in the classroom not only when we read new texts. In some ways a student is more willing to listen to the books we read because there is an innate trust they have that the school will put before them something valuable. Beyond this, though, is the interchange between students through discussion and debate. Helping our students to listen effectively to their classmates is so important to developing an awareness that they don’t know everything. I would love for students to even know that they barely know anything at all, but that would be asking too much. Even while I say that, I also recognize my own need to listen effectively to my students, because there are plenty of times that the ethereal knowledge comes through the mouths of babes.

The second pillar of truthfulness is to mark the words you speak very carefully. Peterson’s 10th rule is to “be precise in your speech.” The classical tradition of liberal arts education promotes this ideal. The three forms of the trivium – grammar, logic and rhetoric – trained individuals to become competent language users through the acquisition of the mechanics of language, thought and persuasive speech. Precision in language gives us a means of accurately perceiving the world around us. Peterson describes Adam in the garden naming the animals. In an exposition on Genesis, he makes the point that “We can’t really get a grip on something before we have a name for it.” Precision in language helps us come to terms with the world that already exists around us. But it also affords us the creative potential to make something of the world around us. Language is the means by which we create narratives and poetry. Words can alter our perception of reality, creating order where once there was chaos.

Clear language is the heart of excellent teaching. This idea is similarly expressed by John Milton Gregory in his The Seven Laws of Teaching. His third law — the law of language — is condensed into the statement, “Use words understood by both teacher and pupil in the same sense — language clear and vivid alike to both.” The words we use in our lessons should be precise, and we then look for precise language from our students. This pertains not only to academic stuff, but also to our general speech. I don’t permit loose words in my classroom. Any students who drops a fake swear word will be guided to consider what it truly means and why one would choose to use it. These have become a rarity simply because they know they have to be careful in their speech, or at the very least will have a lengthy conversation about the etymology of their colorful language.

Meaning

Precise speech not only enables us to accurately perceive the world around us, but it also assigns meaning to our reality: “We don’t see valueless entities and then attribute meaning to them. We perceive the meaning directly” (Peterson, 12 Rules, 261). This leads us to a consideration of life as meaningful. We teach not merely so students can learn facts. The words we learn aren’t merely a set of definitions. Our students are acquiring the ability to make sense of their world and to find meaning through their experience of the world. The last rule we will consider in this series is Peterson’s rule 7, “Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient).”

There really are two alternatives for each and every one of us. One can do nothing except that which would enable one to keep doing nothing. Or one can do something. Once that choice is made, you are either on a path of nihilism or on a path of meaning. The most frustrating thing to encounter as a teacher is the student who chooses the first path. We want all the best for them, but dance, sing, cajole as we might, they will only be satiated by their own wants and desires. The homework is unfinished yet again, only to find out they spent the better part of the evening playing video games. Or the child falls asleep in the middle of class yet again, only to find they stayed up most of the night binge watching an inane series on Netflix. The child clearly doesn’t care. There may or may not be concerned parents equally mystified by the behavior. Prodding doesn’t work. Rewards don’t cause lasting change. What’s to be done? Probably nothing. Nothing is what they’ve chosen.

Fortunately, this rarely occurs to the greatest extreme. But we see gradations in all of our classrooms. “Life is suffering,” Peterson states right at the outset of the chapter (pg. 161). One way to cope with that reality is to simply live for the moment.

“Follow you impulses. Live for the moment. Do what’s expedient. Lie, cheat, steal, deceive, manipulate – but don’t get caught. In an ultimately meaningless universe, what possible difference could it make?”

Peterson, 12 Rules, 162

The lure of meaninglessness beckons our students more and more. Hours can be spent on meaningless scrolling through memes and YouTube videos. Time has passed and nothing meaningful has been done.

“There is no faith and no courage and no sacrifice in doing what is expedient. There is no careful observation that actions and presuppositions matter, or that the world is made of what matters.”

Peterson, 12 Rules, 200

The subtle lie behind the choice to live according to expedience is that you get to avoid suffering. That can never be.

We must be careful as educators to not shy away from meaning. Every class and every subject holds great potential for our students to encounter meaning. How sad it would be to come away from reading Homer without the student understanding in a personal way what it means to live a heroic life through personal sacrifice! History shows us over and over that tyranny must be opposed by people who value life and liberty. What just cause will capture our students hearts, propelling them into the world to make it a little bit better as they see it? Unfortunately, our students aren’t evaluated according to virtue or wisdom on their standardized tests. Yet, the quality of their lives most corresponds to their sense of value and worth. My concern with the state of education today, borrowing from the outdated factory model, is that its chief end is employment. But life is so much more than a job.

Education ought to be transformative in the lives of our students. As young people, they already experience suffering. If school is to truly equip them for life, we ourselves as teachers must be in touch with matters of vital interest to our students in acquiring for themselves a life of meaning. This only comes about by caring about something. Charlotte Mason’s educational method is founded on living ideas. We present to our students a vast array of possible interests about which they can develop care.

“We owe it to them to initiate an immense number of interests. ‘Thou hast set my feet in a large room,’ should be the glad cry of every intelligent soul. Life should be all living, and not merely a tedious passing of time; not all doing or all feeling or all thinking––the strain would be too great––but, all living; that is to say, we should be in touch wherever we go, whatever we hear, whatever we see, with some manner of vital interest. We cannot give the children these interests; we prefer that they should never say they have learned botany or conchology, geology or astronomy. The question is not,––how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education––but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care?”

Charlotte Mason, School Education, 170-171

Bringing students to a place where they care for a great many things sets them on a course to experience a life of meaning. Will they still suffer in life? Most assuredly. But will they find purpose and meaning through the suffering? Absolutely. And they will be better people for it.

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