Here we observe the seedlings of the classical Christian renewal movement: the distinction between training students how to think versus what to think. Sayers’ diagnosis is that schools in her day had prioritized learning subjects over skills. Her solution: train students to be independent learners through a return to the classical liberal arts, especially the language arts of grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric.

In this article, I want to suggest that Sayers’ prescription for liberal arts education, and more broadly, the classical notion of self-education, is precisely what society is in need of today. Many modern schools have shifted their focus to spoon-feeding students information, teaching to the test, and creating “safe spaces” for students to be protected from opposing ideas. A return to the liberal arts–training students to get into the driver’s seat of their learning–will prepare them to meet today’s challenges with resilience and approach questions with both confidence and charity.

Persons as Self-Educating

Charlotte Mason, a British educator living at the turn of the 20th century, became a major proponent of this notion of self-education. As Karen Glass has helpfully unpacked in her book In Vital Harmony, Mason’s philosophy can be summarized in two key ideas: 1) Children are born persons and 2) Education is the science of relations.

When Mason says children are born persons, she means that they are born with the capacities to grow in knowledge, skill, strength, and character from the very beginning. We should not wait until a person reaches adulthood to begin taking her thoughts seriously. Rather, from a young age, we can begin to help children build a flourishing life. They are not robots to be programmed, sponges to be soaked, blank slates to be written on, or cattle to be herded through the education industry. Children are capable and, therefore, responsible. Our job as parents and teachers is to help children steward their moral choices, helping them gain mastery over their wills, form productive habits, and pursue knowledge from a place of intrinsic motivation, not behaviorist manipulation. As Mason put it, “a child is not built up from without, but from within” (Towards a Philosophy of Education, 25).

The second idea integral to Charlotte Mason’s philosophy is that education is the science of relations. Learning is about seeing how all the different bodies of knowledge in God’s creation connect and then going on to form a personal relationship with this knowledge. For Mason, there is no such thing as emotionless, rote learning or information processing. If a child is really learning, then he is connecting with knowledge at the heart level. In addition, these relations are to be discovered, not created, by the child. We are born into a world designed by God with order and connection. Lifelong learning is about discovering more and more about how these relationships work and forming a synthetic integrated conception of the world.

For these philosophical reasons, Charlotte Mason was insistent that children must do the work of education for themselves. We cannot force-feed knowledge for true learning to occur. She writes, “One thing at any rate we know with certainty, that no teaching, no information becomes knowledge to any of us until the individual mind has acted upon it, translated it, transformed, absorbed it, to reappear, like our bodily food, in forms of vitality. Therefore, teaching, talk and tale, however lucid or fascinating, effect nothing until self-activity be set up; that is, self-education is the only possible education; the rest is mere veneer laid on the surface of a child’s nature” (Towards a Philosophy of Education, 240). This emphasis on the active role students play in their education is key to preparing students to become strong, independent learners.

Tools, not Jigs 

So we want to set up children to be able to educate themselves, but how do we do this? Returning to Dorothy Sayers, the British medieval scholar uses the analogy of tools to help us understand what the classical liberal arts are all about.

In short, the liberal arts empower students to take on any intellectual challenge they face. She writes,

For the tools of learning are the same, in any and every subject; and the person who knows how to use them will, at any age, get the mastery of a new subject in half the time and with a quarter of the effort expended by the person who has not the tools at his command.

This tools metaphor can helpful to hone in on, specifically Sayers’ distinction between a tool and a jig. A tool, such as a hammer, can be used for a variety of projects while a jig has one specific task. For example, I once purchased a very particular cabinet jig to drill new holes in my kitchen cabinets in a uniform manner. Given its specialized use, I have not had need of it sense. Meanwhile, tools like my hammer and drill, with their wide utility across a variety of projects, I use frequently.

Sayers underscores the point:

We have lost the tools of learning—the axe and the wedge, the hammer and the saw, the chisel and the plane—that were so adaptable to all tasks. Instead of them, we have merely a set of complicated jigs, each of which will do but one task and no more, and in using which eye and hand receive no training, so that no man ever sees the work as a whole or looks to the end of the work.

To equip students for self-education is to give them tools, not jigs, the liberal arts, not disparate bodies of knowledge, “…for the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.”

Self-Education in a Coddling Culture 

With this idea of self-education in mind, I want to close with a brief connection to an epidemic in American culture today: the rise of fragile students who are easily perturbed, anxious, and intimidated. Jonathan Haidt, a sociologist at New York University whom I have written on before here, has identified specific falsehoods we have taught children that have contributed to the problem.

In order to raise up resilient students, we can employ the notion of self-education in the following ways:

1. Permit students to experience real moments of struggle. Don’t solve the problem right away, but rather give space for students to wrestle through the challenge.
2. Train students to think logically, using evidence and reasons to support their beliefs. To be sure, emotions are a gift from God to be celebrated and enjoyed. But when one’s feelings become the driver in argumentation and analysis, students struggle to approach challenges with fortitude.
3. Lead by example in seeking to understand the viewpoints of those with whom you disagree. Someone who holds an opposing view should not to be cast as the sworn enemy. Just because you hold a different view from someone else does not mean they are the sworn enemy. We need to be okay living in the tension of disagreement.

If teachers can implement these three ideas in their classrooms, they will help prepare their students for long-term success. In contrast, when students are shielded from struggle, trained to trust their feelings, and embrace the “us vs. them” mentality on complex issues, they will find it hard to adapt and persevere. Haidt writes, “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” (The Coddling of the American Mind, 30).

May we as educators raise up a generation of resilient students who seek the truth with independence and resolve, preparing them to be lifelong learners who can tackle life’s problems and educate themselves with joyful fortitude.

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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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