Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) lived during a time of great upheaval in British society. Hardly a decade prior to his birth, the restoration of Charles II (1658) concluded a period of internal strife in England with the Civil War (1642-1646) followed by the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell (1653-1658). The reign of Charles came to an end at the Glorious Revolution which established William, Prince of Orange on the English throne in 1688, the consequence of which was the constant threat of a Jacobite rebellion throughout Swift’s adult life.

Born in Dublin of English parents (who had fled the Civil War), Swift would have been greatly influenced throughout his life by two powerful political forces. One was the divide between Tories and Whigs, the former generally supporting the Jacobite cause and the latter a more progressive policy. The lines that divided these parties were hardly clear and never consistent, but they led to many intrigues and infighting. A second force was the subjugation of the Irish originally by Cromwell’s Commonwealth. Swift moved back and forth between England and Ireland which indicates a struggle to consolidate his identity with one nation or the other. Ultimately late in his life he became a stanch Irish patriot writing works such as A Proposal for Universal Use of Irish Manufacture (1720), Drapier’s Letters (1724), and A Modest Proposal (1729). It was in this patriotic phase during which Swift wrote Gulliver’s Travels.

The great majority of scholars analyzing Gulliver’s Travels pick up on these political influences. It is noteworthy that Swift in many ways was writing his travelog against the backdrop of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719). Robinson was an emblem of English society, and the plot of the book highlights a view of English colonial power as superior to the natives located in distant lands. Gulliver, on the other hand, is similarly English, but becomes much more skeptical about his English society. He travels to many different lands that have well-formed cultures. He is presented less as a conquering force and more as a learner, pitting each new culture against his own native England.

In my analysis of Gulliver’s Travels, I recognize the importance of these political forces, but would like to set them aside – to the extent that is even possible – in order to draw out the educational themes presented by Swift. Now, even as I set this limitation, it should go without saying that there is an inextricable link between education and politics in the classical sense that a well-ordered polis depends upon the quality of education provided to the populace. In that sense, Swift’s pursuit of an educational ideal actually contributes to his critique of British politics.

Lilliput: Education Based on Class Rank

Lemuel Gulliver’s first destination is the island nation of Lilliput, inhabited by a civilization of tiny people measuring only six inches tall. At first Gulliver is mistrusted by Lilliputians, but soon ingratiates himself, which enables him to learn more about their society. He learns that they are educated based on class rank. It seems that Swift is perhaps providing a critique of the boarding school system in England. He writes:

“Parents are the last of all others to be trusted with the Education of their own Children: And therefore they have in every Town publick Nurseries, where all Parents, except Cottagers and Labourers, are obliged to send their Infants of both Sexes to be reared and education when they come to the Age of twenty Moons; at which Time they are supposed to have some Rudiments of Docility.”

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (Dover, 1996), 35.

Here we have compulsory education of the ruling class who are separated from their family at a very young age. Swift is given to exaggeration, so we should not read into this a description of the actual historical situation he is criticizing. It is possible he has in mind models of education proposed by Richard Mulcaster or Roger Ascham. Both men had a progressive bent, perhaps incited by Queen Elizabeth being herself a well-educated lady. It was desired that all children be educated, and they promoted the education of young ladies as well. They recognized that not all could afford an education but insisted that at the very least the local vicar should be charged to at minimum teach the youths to read their Bibles. The work of Mulcaster and Ascham likely atrophied in the 17^th century into something of a pro-forma educational regimen the left Swift disillusioned with what we might call the Etonian model of education (a boarding school for the elites with almost guaranteed admittance to either Oxford or Cambridge).

The education of the children of the nobility contained training in “Principles of Honour, Justice, Courage, Modesty, Clemency, Religion, and Love of their Country” (35). In short, the ruling classes were trained in the array of virtues necessary to lead the nation. Today we would be wise to espouse these ideals, but Swift goes on to identify how the ruling classes in Lilliput were mired in the idiosyncrasies of political life and the imperial court. For instance, these well-educated leaders of society were of two parties or factions, those who supported the wearing of high heels on their shoes and those who insisted on low heels (25). So, despite the lofty values of the education received by the nobility, it serves little to no purpose in public life.

The distinction between the classes is made evident when Gulliver observes the education of the lower classes:

“The Cottagers and Labourers keep their Children at home, their Business being only to till and cultivate the Earth; and therefore their Education is of little Consequence to the Publick.”

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (Dover, 1996), 37.

Despite the progressive outlook of Mulcaster and Ascham, it seems that by Swift’s time the prominent educationalists of the era had not effected any lasting change. This is genuinely the tragedy of what we might consider old world classical education – the English model coming out of the Middle Ages, refined through the Renaissance, and vivified by the Reformation. Its inability to reform over time left it susceptible to more radical forms of progressivism especially after the turn of the twentieth century. Swift views the educational system of England as brittle and stultified, espousing high ideals that never truly get embodied by the leadership of the nation.

Brobdingnag: A Rudimentary Education

Gulliver – having escaped from Lilliput, returned to England, and crashed once again – lands on the island of Brobdingnag. Here the people are enormous, standing about 70 feet tall. It is an agrarian society that is both simple and peaceable. He is first taken into the home of a farmer and becomes the favorite pet of the farmer’s daughter. As was the case on Lilliput, he is presented to the King, which once again provides him a perspective on the whole of the Brobdingnagian society. As regards education, Swift describes it as “very defective,” indicating his disdain for such a system:

“The Learning of this People is very defective, consisting only in Morality, History, Poetry, and Mathematics, wherein they must be allowed to excel. But the last of these is wholly applied to what may be useful in Life, to the Improvement of Agriculture, and all mechanical Arts; so that among us, it would be little esteemed. And as to Ideas, Entities, Abstractions, and Transcendentals, I could never drive the least Conception into their Heads.”

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (Dover, 1996), 96.

Here we have a system of solid, bread-and-butter education. The subjects described would feed a populace well. But Swift notes how the scope of their education is only valuable insofar as it relates to life, and in particular their agrarian society. He depicts them as a very simple people who are not used to flourishes of intellect. Swift goes on to describe their legal system, an outgrowth of their educational system:

“No Law of that Country must exceed in Words the Number of Letters in their Alphabet, which consists only of two and twenty. But indeed few of them extend even to that Length. They are expressed in the most plain and simple Terms, wherein those People are not Mercurial enough to discover above one Interpretation. And, to write a Comment upon any Law, is a capital Crime.”

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (Dover, 1996), 96.

Their education is simple, and their laws are simple. Swift seems to be indicating that such a society founded on a rudimentary educational system cannot have an elaborate legal system, but also doesn’t need one, as the populace is not all that creative in their criminal activity. They are simple people of the earth who are not prone to crime anyway.

Now, we might question Swift on this point, as the gentleman farmer is one of the ideals of a democratic society. Obviously Swift is making a point that the alternative to the class-based system of education in Lilliput is not a return to the simpler times when the populace only needed a rudimentary education. The discovery of the New World and the emerging Industrial Revolution pointed toward new horizons which the Brobdingnagians were poorly equipped to handle. As much as we might pine for simpler times, we must march forward and incorporate new ways of educating our young to meet the new challenges ahead.

Laputa: An Education Based on Scientism

The next destination Gulliver discovers – or actually is discovered by – is Laputa, a floating island that rules over Balnibarbi. The island itself is a marvel of engineering, as it can be steered in any direction over Balnibarbi by magnetic levitation. The King of Laputa uses the floating island to dominate the inhabitants of Balnibarbi by maneuvering the island over any rebellious cities to block any sun or rain from over the city, and to hurl rocks down on the inhabitants below. In extreme cases, the island can be made to slam down on a city. Lindalino is an example of a city that rebelled against Laputa. The rebellion of Lindalino is an allegorical representation of Ireland’s relationship with Great Britain.

As regards education, the Laputans were fond of mathematics, astronomy and technology. They founded an academy to research science and technology that would contribute to the advancement of their society. So enamored are they by their scientific thinking that “the Minds of these People are so taken up with intense Speculations, that they neither can speak or attend to the Discourses of others” (114). Their scientism, in other words, while aiming as the betterment of society in actuality has made them less capable of living meaningful lives through distraction.

Their scientific endeavors are governed by professors who “contrive new Rules and Methods of Agriculture and Building, and new Instruments, and Tools for all Trades and Manufactures” (130). Swift points out that “none of these Projects are yet brought to Perfection; and in the mean time, the whole Country lies miserably waste, the Houses in Ruins, and the People without Food or Clothes” (130). The point Swift is making is that scientific speculation is of no use if it does not actually solve problems that people face in real life. Among the many ridiculous projects undertaken by the Academy of Lagado is a new approach to architecture:

“There was a most ingenious architect, who had contrived a new method for building houses, by beginning at the roof, and working downward to the foundation; which he justified to me, by the like practice of those two prudent insects, the bee and the spider.”

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (Dover, 1996), 133.

In Jason Barney’s twin articles on technicism and scientism, he addresses the same issues we encounter today in a culture where undue focus is placed on STEM without proper attention being paid to how education ought to be cultivating wisdom amongst our students. Without growing in wisdom, the moral framework of care for people’s actual problems is absent from our educational system. This is why STEM wedded to a liberal arts tradition is so powerful.

Now, to be fair, the scientific thinking in Swift’s age directly led to the Industrial Revolution, which in total benefited society in many different ways. But Swift recognized that there is a cost in human terms that perhaps could have been averted had the scientists of earlier generations been more conscientious about the tragic impact on human lives. The same goes for today. Very little ethical planning goes into creation and launch of new technologies. True, our smartphones have become everyday carry for the entire population. Yet, we are seeing the cost in lack of attention (see Nicholas Carr, The Shallows and Maggie Jackson, Distracted) and mental health issues (see this review article in Psychology Today).

The Land of the Houyhnhnm: An Education in Pure Reason

The final destination on Gulliver’s journey takes him to a location that is inhabited by Houyhnhnms and Yahoos. The Houyhnhnms (pronounced “hoo-IN-um” or “HWIN-um”) are talking horses whose intelligence exceeds that of humans. They tend to flocks of Yahoos, who are irrational humans (or human-like creatures). Swift creates a contrast between the Yahoos who represent the worst of humanity and the Houyhnhnms who are noble, rational and peaceable. Gulliver comes to learn the language of the Houyhnhnms and undertakes instruction from them. He is rather looked upon as a brute in most ways similar to the Yahoos, which offends Gulliver.

Gulliver learns that the Houyhnhnms are both noble and virtuous as a result of their education in pure reason. “As these noble Houyhnhnms are endowed by Nature with a general Disposition to all Virtues, and have no Conceptions or Ideas of what is evil in a rational Creature, so their grand Maxim is, to cultivate Reason, and to be wholly governed by it” (202). The purity of their reason is arrived at without disputation or debate. They neither take into consideration “both sides of a question” nor do they put any stock in opinions or disputes. Now, we might consider this a liability as we train our students in dialectic or logic to pit ideas against one another to arrive at the truth. However, a truth once known need not be debated or disputed, it is only necessary to use the tools of dialectic in the search for truth. So it seems the contention Swift makes here is that this equine civilization has used their rationality to ascertain what is ultimately true and have thereby dispensed with dialectic.

The guiding virtues of the Houyhnhnms are laudable. Swift writes:

“Friendship and Benevolence are the two principal Virtues among the Houyhnhnms; and these not confined to particular Objects, but universal to the whole Race. For a Stranger from the remotest Part, is equally treated with the nearest Neighbour, and where-ever he goes, looks upon himself as at home. They preserve Decency and Civility in the highest Degrees, but are altogether ignorant of Ceremony. They have no Fondness for their Colts or Foals; but the Care they take in educating them proceeds entirely from the Dictates of Reason.”

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (Dover, 1996), 202.

Swift looks upon the education of the Houyhnhnms fondly:

“In educating the Youth of both Sexes, their Method is admirable, and highly deserves our Imitation. . . . Temperance, Industry, Exercise, and Cleanliness, are the Lessons equally enjoined to the young ones of both Sexes: And my Master thought it monstrous in us, to give the Females a different Kind of Education from the Males.”

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (Dover, 1996), 203-204.

In these quotes we see Swift holding up a moral standard against the prevailing educational model of his time and finding it wanting. The educational vision is simultaneously traditional in its use of reason to acquire virtue – the Houyhnhnms upon learning about Socrates “agreed entirely with his sentiments” (202) – and yet progressive in that it is equitably dispensed to all. This is not to say that the Houyhnhnms did not have their faults. They are so rational as to lack compassion or any scruples about what we would consider propriety. For instance, they had no qualms about trading their children at the annual meeting so that each household had an equal number of boys and girls. One might be reminded of Spock from Star Trek, although his humanity at times wins out over the rational Vulcan half of his ancestry.

The most telling aspect of Gulliver’s relationship with the Houyhnhnms occurs after he returns to England. Gulliver struggles to relate with other humans, even his own family. “I must freely confess, the Sight of them filled me only with Hatred, Disgust and Contempt” (220). From the time of his departure from the Land of the Houyhnhnms, he refers to humans as Yahoos and his experience as “my unfortunate exile.” To compensate for this, he purchase “two young Stone-Horses, which I keep in a good Stable.” He writes:

“My Horses understand me tolerably well; I converse with them at least four Hours every Day. They are Strangers to Bridle or Saddle; they live in great Amity with me, and Friendship to each other.”

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (Dover, 1996), 221.

This is a bookend to the introductory letter in which Gulliver refers to his to horses as “two degenerate Houyhnhnms” (meaning they lack the speech of the actual Houyhnhnms) who influence him such that “I still improve in some Virtues, without any Mixture of Vice” (xi).

I think this indicates how the Houyhnhnm episode presents the author with an educational ideal absent in the prevailing educational model then current in the British Isles.

Renewing Our Educational Ideals

Swift’s book provides a really thoughtful engagement with what we might consider the ultimate goals of education. As such, we can productively engage with this reading to ask ourselves how we might understand and critique our own educational moment. Here are a few thoughts.

First, Gulliver reveals the vital importance of moral virtue. The simple morality of the agrarian Brobdingnag is cast in a positive light, even though it is not well informed by any high standard of intellectual engagement. Better is the Houyhnhnm set of virtues as it is connected to truth ascertained by reason. When we extract these ideas from the satirical setting of Swift’s world, there is much that we would want to establish as our own educational ideal. We ought to have as our chief aim to train our students thoroughly in virtuous living. They ought to be able to live with nobility and grace as a result of their educational upbringing.

Second, science and technology clearly have a place in education, yet it sits uncomfortably in an educational system. The humanities provide our students with a moral intuition that takes a long time to form. Moral reasoning is slow, while technological advancement is rapid. By the time the next technology burst on the scene, we are already decades late in our ability to think through the moral implications. IPads are already in the hands of toddlers, and we have not even considered whether this is a good thing. The educational system has approached STEM not as a way of thinking (scientific experimentation) nor as a means to solve meaningful problems. STEM needs to be taught such that it is properly situated within a liberal arts framework. The floating island of Laputa is a cautionary tale that still speaks today.

Finally, one of the elements drastically missing from Swift’s tale is any sense of spirituality. It is a fairly secular book that seeks utopia but cannot deliver apart from any recognition of God. The noble vision Swift provides actually falls flat (at least for me) in the absence of any notion of redemption. We truly ought to take seriously the moral vision of virtuous living. But we need the moral exemplar of Christ; to follow in his footsteps, as it were (1 Peter 2:12). My hunch is that a great deal of the ills that befell the prevailing model of education in the British Isles was a tired and impotent form of Christianity that had become overly politicized in the aftermath of so many years of political turmoil. Both England and Ireland would have felt these effects. Swift’s search for an answer looked everywhere without addressing what I would consider the root cause, the British Isles had so contested different forms of Christianity, that it had missed the Christ who could redeem them all. That is likely an overgeneralization, but perhaps one that Swift fell prey to. In our day, with social media rants befalling us from the right and the left, are we likewise susceptible to lose sight of Christ? Any educational ideal apart from Christ is likely to go off the rails. Our educational renewal movement must keep this at heart.

The post Exploring Our Educational Ideals: Following along Gulliver’s Travels appeared first on .

The second event came later that year on September 18^th. Booker T. Washington gave a speech at the Atlanta Exposition. In this speech, presented before a predominantly white audience, laid out an educational plan that would aim at the advancement of blacks in vocational or industrial trades. Washington first advised “the friends of my race” to make “friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.” (Washington, “Address” 18 Sept. 1895) His was a message of reconciliation, spoken deep in the South, sounded the right note for those in attendance. The worry was that racial tensions would erupt in Atlanta, since Georgia had been adopting Jim Crow laws during the 1890s. It was only the following May that the Plessy v. Ferguson decision was made in the Supreme Court, upholding “separate but equal” segregation in the South.

What Washington meant by “making friends in every manly way” he immediately spells out in his speech:

“Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour, and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.”

Booker T. Washington, “Address by Booker T. Washington“

(For teachers interested in investigating primary sources, you can access the manuscript of the speech at this Georgia Historical Society webpage and listen to an audio recording Washington made in 1908 of excerpts from his speech available at this Library of Congress webpage.)

The Atlanta Compromise

For Washington, the strategy to make black lives better is to forgo such things as campaigning for government positions or contending for positions in the ivory tower of colleges and universities. It is a strategy that makes sense. Catch the wave of the booming industrial economy in the South and ride that wave to a better future. Washington’s speech became known as the “Atlanta Compromise” in part due to the cooperative program he laid out, but also because it caught the industrial wave, but also the wave of Jim Crow laws and segregationism.

Despite the rivalry that soon emerged between Washington and W. E. B. DuBois, the Atlanta speech was at first celebrated by DuBois. In a brief letter dated 24^th September of 1895, DuBois writes:

“Let me heartily congratulate you upon your phenomenal success at Atlanta—it was a word fitly spoken.”

It is not altogether clear exactly what DuBois is congratulating here. Was he particularly impressed by the content of the speech or did he recognize the emergence of a new leader to take up the mantle of Douglass? DuBois was himself an emerging leader although he was over a decade younger than Washington. Perhaps the heart of DuBois’ message to Washington centers less on the content of what was spoken and more on DuBois’s recognition of the role Washington could play as the heir to Douglass. No matter how we read the praise DuBois sends to Washington, it did not take long for DuBois to reconsider his position on black education and to challenge the very message of the “Atlanta Compromise.”

A Study in Contrasts

Washington and DuBois could not have been more different, and perhaps that accounts for the difference in their perspectives on education. Booker T. Washington was born into slavery on a plantation in Virginia. He was nearly ten when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, about which he writes that “some man who seemed to be a stranger (a United States officer, I presume) made a little speech and then read a rather long paper—the Emancipation Proclamation, I think. After the reading we were told that we were all free, and could go when and where we pleased.” (Up from Slavery 20-21) As a freedman, Washington worked in the coals mines while attending Hampton Institute. At the age of 25, Washington was appointed as principal to what is now called Tuskegee University in Alabama. Tuskagee was a place where Washington could put into practice his “head, hearts, and hands” approach so that students were trained “to return to the plantation districts and show the people there how to put new energy and new ideas into farming as well as into the intellectual and moral and religious life of the people.” (Up from Slavery 160).

DuBois, on the other hand, was born into a free black family in Massachusetts, attending integrated schools during his childhood. He went to Fisk University where he encountered racism and segregation for the first time. After Fisk he went on to earn another bachelor’s degree from Harvard and then completed graduate work at the University of Berlin. He returned to the States and became the first black to earn a PhD from Harvard. DuBois was offered a position at Tuskagee, which would have seen him working alongside Washington, but instead took a position at Wilberforce University in Ohio. Later he taught at Atlanta University and developed a prominent voice domestically and internationally in scientific sociology. It is no surprise, then, that, as an academic tour de force himself, DuBois would champion a very different educational vision than Washington. He focused on the liberal arts with a view to raising up leaders within the black community who would be able to take up prominent positions in politics and business to enact real change in society.

The Talented Tenth

The thesis DuBois developed took on different nuances over time. In an essay entitled “The Talented Tenth,” DuBois lays out his philosophical conviction that the object of education must be the formation of the person rather than money-making or technical skill.

“Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of schools—intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it—this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life.”

W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Talented Tenth,” 33-34.

He goes on to demonstrate that through the generations leaders rose up even during slavery to provide leadership that ultimately led to emancipation. These were exceptional people, which proves his point that the training of exceptional leaders is what will continue to lead equality of the races. DuBois lays out the program of study for students at his Atlanta University.

“Here students from the grammar grades, after a three years’ high school course, take a college course of 136 weeks. One-fourth of this time is given to Latin and Greek; one-fifth, to English and modern languages; one-sixth, to history and social science; one-seventh, to natural science; one-eighth to mathematics, and one-eighth to philosophy and pedagogy.”

W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Talented Tenth,” 49.

This sounds very much like the liberal arts education we have promoted in the classical Christian educational renewal movement. From DuBois’ perspective, it is the liberal arts that will train up the next generation of black leaders who will transform society.

Not So Different

Now the delineation of these two educational programs has thus far been expressed in stark terms. Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise” emphasizes industrial training while DuBois insists on a liberal arts education for the “Talented Tenth.” It is all too easy to draw lines between these pedagogical models in hindsight. Yet there are many ways in which we may see overlap between these two. Yes, the divide between DuBois and Washington was exacerbated by the essay DuBois wrote in The Souls of Black Folk entitled “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others” in which he was critical of Washington’s autobiography Up from Slavery. However, DuBois later gave perspective to exactly what was at the heart of their disagreement. It was not the educational program, per se, but the trust that dutiful, diligent work would lead to acceptance of a black work ethic among whites in the South. He writes:

“I realized the need for what Washington was doing. Yet it seemed to me he was giving up essential ground that would be hard to win back. I don’t think Washington saw this until the last years of his life. He kept hoping. But before he died he must have known that he and his hopes had been rejected and that he had, without so intending, helped make stronger — and more fiercely defended — a separation and rejection that made a mockery of all he had hoped and dreamed.”

“W.E.B. DuBois,” The Atlantic Monthly, Nov. 1965

The hopes and dreams of Washington were dashed not because of a blind faith in his educational program, but in his faith that respectable work would be universally praised by a watching world. If we were solely to look at the educational results in the lives of the individual students, a different perspective emerges. Creating educational programs with the aim of making radical changes in society misplace the actual educational aim. Developing human beings as whole persons is a more fundamental aim, and we are probably safe in saying the programs developed by both Washington and DuBois met this aim.

Moral Formation

My claim that Washington and DuBois are not so different rests not in the details of their program of study, but in the importance both men placed in the moral formation of students. Washington’s technical education placed emphasis on the moral and religious aspects of educations.

“We wanted to give them such an education as would fit a large proportion of them to be teachers, and at the same time cause them to return to the plantation districts and show the people there how to put new energy and new ideas into farming, as well as into the intellectual and moral and religious life of the people.”

Up from Slavery 160

We get a similar hint at moral and spiritual development in The Souls of Black Folk. For instance, DuBois writes, “sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skin.” (The Souls of Black Folk 261) In his essay “The Talented Tenth,” he delineates two main objectives for education in a post-emancipation society:

“If then we start out to train an ignorant and unskilled people with a heritage of bad habits, our system of training must set before itself two great aims the one dealing with knowledge and character, the other part seeking to give the child the technical knowledge necessary for him to earn a living under the present circumstances.”

“Talented Tenth” 58

Although DuBois was critical of Washington’s compromise, we see here a recognition that educated people must make a living. Yet, the first of the two great aims is knowledge and character. On even a cursory reading of DuBois, one is struck by his thorough knowledge of the Western canon, or what we might call the traditional liberal arts. So by “knowledge” we are not talking about a mastery of facts and figures prominent in an industrial age, but of the long tradition of great authors and ideas. This is knowledge that DuBois sees as transcending racial divide, even though it has come to be thought of as a collection of dead white men’s thoughts. Indeed, DuBois sees this long tradition as the foundation for character and creating a moral society.

So, where we find overlap in the Washington-DuBois debate is on this concept of morality. And it is on this concept we should give serious consideration to the ideas both men propound. These two men were seeking a Renaissance in their time, and in many ways they were the architects of a flowering of black culture. I am quick to add that their reflections on education are instructive not only for a minority culture, but promote global considerations that are crucial for us to get right in our current educational renewal movement.

Ideas not Ideology

Washington and DuBois both seek to promote the great society; one in which racial lines are erased and mutual respect leads to intellectual, moral and technological advance. Both men sought to utilize great ideas as a means of train young men and women. Great ideas are not the domain of one class, sect, race or people. They challenge us and through that challenge transform us through what we might call the dialectical process. We weight different ideas, discerning and discriminating, in order to arrive at a synthesis. Great ideas generate new ideas, transforming not only our minds but also our characters.

Contrast this with ideology. An ideology is a system of ideals often accepted uncritically and unquestioningly. Our current political and social landscape is rife with conflicting ideologies. The impact of the conflict of ideologies is that camps – whether to the right or to the left – attempt to commandeer institutions, whether that be media, government or schools. No longer is our society marked by discourse, dialogue and debate. Instead, ideology forces compliance with a set of preformed beliefs. Education becomes a method of indoctrination. Now one must be careful here, because there are sets of true propositions enfolded in these ideologies. The problem is that nothing is up for debate. Questioning the ideology is the same as denial of the ideology, and one becomes excommunicated from the “group think.”

As an educational renewal movement, there is a temptation to offer a counter set of agendas. “Okay, fine,” we might say, “the public schools are promoting the agenda of gender fluidity, then we’ll promote the alternative agenda.” I’m struck, however, that this was not the strategy of DuBois or Washington. Despite racism and segregation, they sought to train students in intellectual and moral skills that would enable them to enter into the discourse of the greater society. Classical Christian schools must avoid the allure of ideological agenda and remain true to training students in the logic and rhetoric that will prepare our graduates to take up nuances positions and speak persuasively from a place of well-developed convictions.

Hand, Head, and Heart

The classical Christian school movement might be more inclined towards the DuBois educational program. He, after all, promotes the very same liberal arts tradition we call home. However, DuBois himself saw the liability of creating an elite class that becomes self-perpetuating; enamored of its own self-importance rather than utilizing its position to raise all of society. Thus, a Washington-DuBois synthesis is well worthy of consideration.

The phrase “hand, head, and heart” comes from Washington. (Up from Slavery 85) This is a valuable triad to frame a fully embodied philosophy of education. I really like this phrasing pulled from the website of the Ecclesial Schools Initiative, “A classical education beckons learners toward goodness, truth, and beauty, wherever it may be found, integrating faith into all areas of learning, and helping students acquire the habits of heart, body, and mind that are essential for living a flourishing human life.” Kevin Clark, founder of the Ecclesial Schools Initiative, is one of the authors—along with Ravi Jain—of The Liberal Arts Tradition (reviewed here). Technical skill is recognized in this book as a “wholly legitimate pursuit.” In other words, we cannot be so singularly focused on the intellectual and moral development of our students that we leave no room for skills development. Clark and Jain write:

“The liberal arts are only intended to be the tools of learning to be used in all other studies. The three branches of philosophy and, in addition, theology, then contain the integrated tapestry of all other knowledge as represented by the innumerable particular sciences, such as biology, ethics, economics, and chemistry. Moreover, professional degrees, to be acquired later, recognize that other skills (arts) are needed for one’s vocation.”

Clark and Jain, The Liberal Arts Tradition, 7

To this might be added apprenticeship in a trade as opposed to professional degrees. More and more the collegiate landscape has become overly expensive relative to its waning value due to the ideological agendas present in higher education. Graduates from classical Christian schools might be better placed in trade apprenticeships or military service. All of this to say that the liberal arts are a necessary element in learning the knowledge and character required to live a flourishing life. That life, though, needs to be embodied in vocations that support and promote flourishing. I highly recommend reading through Jason’s article “Apprenticeship in the Arts” where he explores professions and trades in light of Chris Hall’s Common Arts Education.

Educational Renewal in Light of 1895

The momentous occasion of Washington’s “Atlanta Speech” in 1895 marks a period of reflection and debate over education, particularly between Washington and DuBois. It is striking to note that 1895 was also the year when the first professional American football match was played (Sept. 3), the first automobile race occurred (Nov. 28), and the first moving picture film was shown (Dec. 28). When we consider how much society has been transformed by the onset of these modern artifacts, we can see that a significant aspect of what Washington and DuBois were wrestling with was not just racial in nature, but also pertained to how modernism eroded conceptions of individual character and community cohesion.

The impact of modernism has left us with a society that is fractured and hurting. Hopefully by tracing the debate between Washington and DuBois, we can see lines of constructive thought that invigorate our own educational renewal movement. We have in both Washington and DuBois compatriots who are deeply concerned to cultivate virtue in students for the betterment of society. If Up from Slavery, The Souls of Black Folk or “The Talented Tenth” are not yet in your curriculum, I highly recommend their adoption. Perhaps this review of their work has inspired you to consider ways to broaden your understanding of the outcomes for classical Christian education. Perhaps our students, trained in the liberal arts, are exactly what our society needs to lead us out of our current political catastrophe. Perhaps our students, educated holistically in hand, heart and head, will embody the lives of flourishing that is the true outcome of a good education.

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But it is important to acknowledge the value of Bloom’s project, especially in contrast to the rampant postmodernism that has swept through education since (see 2nd post). The benefit of Bloom’s taxonomy lies in its recognition of the need for clear targets. Without knowing where we are aiming at in education, we are like Alice wandering in wonderland with no sense of where she wants to go. We may get somewhere, but not likely to the true destination of education.

Bloom’s taxonomy may be reductionistic, but at least it lays out and defines a clear set of goals that educators might pursue. Modernism thus has a leg up on post-modernism, in that the house swept clean of all overarching values and metanarratives (except rampant individualism), then becomes subject to the seven demons more wicked than itself that our Lord spoke of. The clean house at least looks nice and could be used by different sorts of inhabitants in the future. But this analogy may seem to strike a more ominous note against postmodern education than I intend. Simply put, when clarity is away, ideologies come out to play.

In a way then, our critique of Bloom’s project is a simple one: Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues should not have simply taken modern educators’ own language as their starting point for their taxonomy of educational objectives.

They state this explicitly in Bloom et al., Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals, Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain (Ann Arbor, Michigan: David McKay Co., 1956), 6: 

Insofar as possible, the boundaries between categories should be closely related to the distinctions teachers make in planning curricula or in choosing learning situations. It is possible that teachers make distinctions which psychologists would not make in classifying or studying human behavior. However, if one of the major values of the taxonomy is in the improvement of communication among educators, then educational distinctions should be given major consideration.

Even if their taxonomy brought clarity, definitions and examples to the teaching and testing process, they relied on the average American teacher or examiner’s assumptions about what education was all about. Instead of recovering the best of the liberal arts tradition on the nature of the mind, virtue and wisdom, they solidified a lowest common denominator philosophy of education. Teachers and curriculum writers are mostly talking abstractly about knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation, so we’ll detail and define those, provide some examples of examination questions and call that education. They justified this questionable move by modelling their project on the hard sciences and appealing to the philosophical pragmatism that had come to dominate educational philosophy in America. 

Perhaps the greatest irony in their approach is that they thereby furthered the divide between education and life. Classical education may sometimes be critiqued as an ivory-tower intellectual exercise, but its traditional focus on virtue, wisdom and the good life puts the lie to this claim. The liberal arts too are eminently practical, if we understand the word ‘practical’ appropriately. What could be more helpful in life than the ability to read, reason, persuade, calculate, chart, navigate and sing?

Aside: This list of activities might seem like a reductionistic vision of the seven liberal arts, but I do not intend it that way. Instead I am attempting to reinstate the classical distinction between ‘art’ and ‘science’, recognizing Aristotle’s and others’ emphasis on arts as activities producing something in the world. I have for some time been envisioning a project that would look at the seeds of the liberal arts to recover their practical origins and purposes (working title = Free to Serve: Rediscovering the Liberal Arts as Practical Tools, coming once I have the time to devote to it).

Modern education in the tradition of Bloom’s, on the other hand, is the real culprit, abstracted as it is from a proper relationship not only to the working world, but also to a moral and communal life. Education becomes about preparing to perform on a modern standardized test, regardless of the ensuing life of the individual who either fails, passes with flying colors or is confirmed in mediocrity.

So then, we can break down the bad of Bloom’s under two headings: 1) its scientistic philosophy obsessed with objectivity and measurability, and 2) its social scientific focus on neutrality, rather than a holistic embrace of traditional moral philosophy.

Bloom’s Scientism: Objectivity and Measurability

In a way we should hardly be surprised at the scientism of Bloom’s taxonomy. After all, the idea of a taxonomy itself was borrowed from the biological sciences, acting as a vivid signpost of the larger project that so many in education and other “social sciences” found themselves swept up by during that era: to reframe the subdisciplines of traditional moral philosophy on analogy with the wildly successful hard sciences. Understood under this heading, the opening sentences of the foreword come sharply into focus:

Most readers will have heard of the biological taxonomies which permit classification into such categories as phyllum, class, order, family, genus, species, variety. Biologists have found their taxonomy markedly helpful as a means of insuring accuracy of communication about their science and as a means of understanding the organization and interrelation of the various parts of the animal and plant world. You are reading about an attempt to build a taxonomy of educational objectives. It is intended to provide for classification of the goals of our educational system. It is expected to be of general help to all teachers, administrators, professional specialists, and research workers who deal with curricular and evaluation problems. It is especially intended to help them discuss these problems with greater precision.

Bloom et al., Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, 1.

I am not in any way retracting my praise of the value of clarity, when I remark that Bloom’s project relies on a false analogy between education and biology. Our educational goals may not, in fact, organize themselves neatly into a manageable number of orders and species, if we only provide clear definitions. Aristotle himself might have observed that such a discussion

“will be adequate if it has as much clearness as the subject-matter admits of; for precision is not to be sought for alike in all discussions, any more than in all the products of the crafts.”

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Book 1, Ch. 3, 1094b.12ff., in The Complete Works of Aristotle, vol. 2, The Revised Oxford Translation, ed. By Jonathan Barnes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 1730.

It may be that the real objectives of the craft of education cannot be so precisely distinguished and classified, let alone tested, without some damage being done to the nature of the subject itself.

We can imagine Benjamin Bloom and his fellow committee members, who were all college and university examiners, as well as the many educators who participated in the conferences from 1949-1953 that helped develop the taxonomy, being attracted by the idea of a taxonomy of educational goals tested by their examinations. Perhaps by classifying and standardizing terminology, they might have thought, we can do away with the subjectivity of all these K-12 schools and their teachers. Perhaps we can finally make our tests objective and do away with the immeasurable criteria by relegating it to the affective domain, which we can tip our hats to as valuable, while functionally ignoring it as subjective and too fraught with controversy.

I would not press my imputation of their motives too far, but there seems to be legitimate indications in this direction in their statements about their “progress” in the affective domain, Bloom et al., Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, 7:

A second part of the taxonomy is the affective domain. It includes objectives which describe changes in interest, attitudes, and values, and the development of appreciations and adequate adjustment. Much of our meeting time has been devoted to attempts at classifying objectives under this domain. It has been a difficult task which is still far from complete. Several problems make it so difficult. Objectives in this domain are not stated very precisely; and, in fact, teachers do not appear to be very clear about the learning experiences which are appropriate to these objectives. It is difficult to describe the behaviors appropriate to these objectives since the internal or covert feelings and emotions are as significant for this domain as are the overt behavioral manifestations. Then, too, our testing procedures for the affective domain are still in the most primitive stages. We hope to complete the task but are not able to predict a publication date.

It may be that our authors express this hope with the utmost sincerity, but they have framed the task with such “difficulties” and in such a way as to make meeting their requirements all but impossible, because of not accepting the level of precision that the subject-matter properly admits of (contra Aristotle).

After all, these college examiners would likely have been temperamentally inclined to providing greater precision, just as they would have been socially pressured to model their social science after the hard sciences in the middle of the 20th century. 

In a way, Bloom’s taxonomy is simply the dictum of Galileo Galilei as applied to testable goals in education: “Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.” In Galileo’s defense, he probably did not envision the cannibalization of moral philosophy by the sciences. We should be careful again to affirm the value of measuring more in “social sciences” like education, psychology, and politics, than we had done in earlier eras. Measurements, like the abstract grading system commonly used in contemporary education, have almost certainly improved some things, but they have also had their share of negative effects—an observation that I hardly have to argue for, given the testimony of the countless parents of anxious or disengaged teenagers. 

Social Sciences vs. Moral Philosophy

But what really is the problem with the social sciences approach vis-a-vis traditional moral philosophy? Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain break this development down admirably in The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education (version 2.0):

The methodologies of the contemporary social sciences implicitly critique traditional moral philosophy by suggesting it relies on assumptions about human nature and human purpose that are not rationally or empirically verifiable. They have reduced the sphere of moral philosophy to the isolated study of ethics, dissociated from the social sciences. This can only be effectively argued for when reason itself is truncated. Reason is truncated in the sciences when it is only allowed to consider efficient or material causation (simple cause and effect or material composition). By doing this, reason is made to ignore key aspects of moral reasoning such as explorations of meaning and purpose (formal and final cause). Instead these aspects of reason are now condemned as irrational because they involve judgments made by communities of tradition and faith. (132)

Aristotle’s willingness to ask philosophical questions about the meaning and purpose of human beings, just as of animals or man-made objects like tables and chairs, stands in stark contrast with Bloom and his colleagues, whose decided preference is for a veneer of neutrality, objectivity and pragmatism. This is part of why I am proposing the replacement of Bloom’s taxonomy with Aristotle’s intellectual virtues, as primary goals of education. Because with Aristotle, at least, the intellectual virtues find themselves within a committed philosophical system that, even if imperfect, has been harmonized fruitfully with Christian fundamental principles before. (Aquinas comes to mind, amidst a whole tradition.)

Bloom, on the other hand, is content to punt on questions of meaning and value, the ultimate purpose of human beings and therefore of education itself. Human values and schools of educational philosophy can be safely avoided to gain widespread acceptance of a secular public discipline. As they freely admit in their foreword:

It was further agreed that in constructing the taxonomy every effort should be made to avoid value judgments about objectives and behaviors. Neutrality with respect to educational principles and philosophies was to be achieved by constructing a system which, insofar as it was possible, would permit the inclusion of objectives from all educational orientations. (6-7)

The house must be swept clean of non-objective, non-scientific value judgments, so that anyone can use it. Such a plan of attack is perfectly comprehensible for modern secularists (on their way to embracing pluralism). I am hardly criticizing their vantage point, given their worldview. But for contemporary Christians who embrace the tradition of moral philosophy, not to mention a classical philosophy of education, it certainly leaves something wanting. 

What after all is education really about? Mere training in intellectual abilities and skills? Or is human flourishing, moral virtue, wisdom for life, or even a relationship with the Creator God a proper goal? And what if such things cannot be easily measured? Should we therefore abandon them? Or perhaps, if we truly followed Galileo’s dictum, we would advance and not retreat. Perhaps we should work harder to make these goals measurable, even if we accept that such measurements might not be as precise as some others. That is the goal of this project. Advance into the fray of making measurable what truly matters in education. 

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Some, no doubt, will respond to this critique with raised eyebrows. After all, the movement has unlocked a rich treasure chest full of wisdom and insight from master teachers throughout the centuries. These riches include Hebrew wisdom literature, Plato’s dialogues, catechesis practices of the church fathers, the rhetoric schools of Rome, and all sorts of reflections on education throughout the Middle Ages and Enlightenment era. So what’s the problem? 

One core challenge is that many teachers aren’t equipped to go out into the fields of old to glean. It is difficult to pick up a book from several centuries ago and comprehend it, much less know how to apply it in the 21st century. Even if a teacher develops a sense for how things were done once upon a time, it can be difficult to implement those practices in a modern day classroom.

Recovering these lost tools of learning, of course, is one of the challenges and joys of being a classical educator. Those of us who have wandered into this small but growing corner of the educational universe often feel both inspired and humbled by this old-but-new reality for how we ought to think about and practice education. Reading Aristotle on virtue formation, for example, can be both rewarding and perplexing. Sometimes the philosopher uses language that is unfamiliar or draws upon antiquated analogies. Nevertheless, reading Aristotle within a community of curious educators can lead to fresh insights and inspiring dialogue on the craft of teaching. The challenge is worth it. 

An Educational Renaissance

The aim of Educational Renaissance is to help promote a rebirth of ancient wisdom for the modern era. We seek to achieve this through engaging in rigorous exegesis of both ancient texts and modern research. If modern education made the error of jettisoning the insights of education before, say, 1900, an equal but opposite error exists: dismissing all the insights about education that come after 1900. In order to avoid both extremes, we need to view the history of educational philosophy as it truly exists, as one extended conversation across time and space in search of what is true, good and beautiful. This is what scholars call the Great Conversation. 

One primary way we have sought to join and contribute to the conversation here at EdRen is through retrieving the educational writings of Charlotte Mason. Mason lived one hundred years ago, at the turn of the 20th century. Her years of teaching experience in Britain equipped her with striking insight regarding what education is and what it could be. 

[If you haven’t already, I encourage you to download Jason’s and Patrick’s free eBooks on Charlotte Mason, one on the practice of narration and the other on habit training.]

The foundational premise of Mason’s philosophy is that children are persons made in God’s image, created with a unique capacity to think, relate, and ultimately, live. For her, the notion that children are persons serves as the ultimate litmus test for what educational methods are and are not permitted. Methods which take seriously the eternal value of the minds, hearts, bodies, and souls of students should be embraced. Methods that view students as clay to be formed or cattle to be herded should be shunned. 

Educating Persons, not Economic Producers

Fortunately, we inhabitants of the 21st century are situated comfortably away from those dehumanizing methods of a bygone era. Through modern educational theory and public policy reform, children, at least in the United States, have been rescued from working brutal hours in unsafe conditions and given a proper education.

Or have they?

Certainly children today have it significantly better than children ever did in the history of the world. This claim can be verified both quantitatively (the overall percentage of students enrolled in schools today) and qualitatively (the knowledge and skills students learn). And yet, it remains to be seen whether “a proper education” is, in fact, provided. Proper for whom?

In today’s technocratic, scientistic, and pragmatic society, the vision for modern education is clear: a cohort of college-educated, high-earning, tech-savvy, numbers-driven careerists. To achieve this vision, one must simply follow the steps of the celebrated recipe: Train students in college-prep skills. Make STEM the central component of the curriculum. Focus on what is most expedient. Take college entrance exams over and over. What you bake is what you make: students stepping into high-earning careers. 

Now don’t get me wrong: this vision does have its merits. College is important. STEM skills are as valuable now as they ever have been. Earning a living wage to support one’s family is admirable. We ought to glean the good contained in this vision for all that it is worth. But at the same time, we must recognize its shortfalls. This vision fails to take seriously the full-orbed humanity and personhood of its students. People are worth more than the sum of their W2’s and careers are not the only things that count as callings. 

In other words, today’s educators aren’t simply teaching tomorrow’s economic producers. They are educating future fathers and mothers, neighborhood volunteers, city council members, and church congregants. Potential for these roles can’t be summarized in a GPA, but preparation for them can occur during the school day all the same. This is a humanizing education with a humanizing goal: to make good humans. Not “good” in the moralistic, pharisaical, compliant sense. Actually good: honorable, virtuous, noble.

Good Bankers or Good Humans: The Goal of Classical Education

In his own way, C.S. Lewis makes precisely this point. He writes that a proper education transforms a student from “an unregenerate little bundle of appetites” into “the good man and the good citizen” (Image and Education: Essays and Reviews, ed. Walter Hooper, 24). Lewis goes on to differentiate between this sort of humanizing education and mere training. Such training, he writes, “aims at making not a good man but a good banker, a good electrician, . . . or a good surgeon” (22).

Now certainly we cannot do without good bankers, electricians, and surgeons. Nor could we get very far without scientists, engineers, and computer programmers. But we must not mistake the preparation for these disciplines with education. True education frees (Latin: liber) a person from appetitive instincts and equips her for self-rule. This is another way to talk about the goal of a humanizing education: liberating humans for a life of seeking the good. Along this road to virtue, humans can pick up all sorts of different skills and training, in consonance with their God-given abilities, careers, and vocations, including banking. But this sort of training should always come second to a greater purpose.

Interestingly, psychologist Jordan Peterson touches on a similar point in his bestseller 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. After refuting Rousseau’s doctrine that children are born innocent and only become evil through the corrupting influence of society, Peterson goes on to argue that children must be morally shaped and informed in order to thrive (122). It is the parent’s responsibility to discipline a child, indeed, parent rather than befriend, and provide the structure for a self-regulated life. Job preparation is not enough, nor are temporary states of happiness. Children need to be called to pursue a certain standard, a standard of goodness, and they need support from a loving adult to help them along the way. This is equally true both in the home and at school. 

Insights from “Teach Like a Champion”

Recall what I wrote earlier: there are two pitfalls when examining the history of educational philosophy. One is to ignore all the insights that came before 1900 and the other is to ignore all that came after. In this spirit, I want to conclude this article by introducing a handbook on teaching practices that was published in 2015: Teach Like a Champion 2.0 by Doug Lemov. In articles to follow, I intend to distill helpful practices and principles from this book for the classical classroom.

Admittedly, the subtitle of this book is reminiscent of the pragmatic vision of modern education I decried above; it reads: 62 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College. One may judge based on this messaging that the content of this book would have little that is beneficial for the moral purpose of education for which I am advocating. However, beyond a cursory reading, it becomes clear rather quickly that there is, in fact, much gold to be mined.

But first, a word about the book’s background. Teach Like a Champion 2.0 is a product of the broader charter school movement. Charter schools are private schools that receive public funding for the purpose of introducing school choice to families in typically low-income areas. Since they operate semi-autonomously from the state, charter schools don’t have to follow the same curricular policies as public schools. Doug Lemov, the author of the book and former director of Uncommon Schools, is a seasoned teacher and administrator in this movement.

Lemov begins the introduction to Teach Like a Champion 2.0 with the fundamental insight that great teaching is an art and that great art relies on “the mastery and application of foundational skills, learned through diligent study” (1). In other words, a four-year degree in education isn’t enough to produce great teachers. It can be a great foundation, to be sure, but great teaching requires what all great art demands: practice, experience, and careful study of the discipline. 

But how do you coach great teaching? This is Lemov’s fundamental question and it connects back to the introduction of this article. In the classical education renewal movement, the true purpose of education has been highlighted, but not the practice. It is one thing to laud the merits of classical education; it is quite another to implement it in the classroom.

Ideology-Driven Advice

Lemov suggests three general drivers for the typical advice offered for coaching teachers: ideology, research, and data (6). For now, I will focus solely on the first driver: ideology.

Ideology-driven advice tends to focus on some predetermined vision of what a classroom should look like and is usually followed up by a checklist for teachers to follow. In classical classrooms, much of the advice is ideology-driven. Schools espouse their convictions about a morally formative education and a liberal arts curriculum and teachers are instructed to follow suit.

Somewhat predictably, Lemov critiques this approach. He writes, “Ideology-based guidance contributes to the development of schools where teachers are always trying to do lots of things that people are telling them to do, instead of using their insight, problem-solving abilities, and a wide array of tools to achieve specific goals. The result, often, is an administrator with a checklist” (7). In short, this method prioritizes the adherence to principles over tangible outcomes. 

We need to tread carefully here. On the one hand, Lemov’s critique is a reflection of modern education’s obsession with technicism and its notion of success. Jason and Patrick have both written articles on this obsession and provide wisdom for avoiding its pitfalls. It is all too easy for educators today to be lulled into a false sense of confidence regarding their educational efforts through examining “the data.” 

But on the other hand, Lemov has a point. Even if we agree with the ideological driver in question (e.g. classical education), we can fail to take outcomes seriously. Noble intentions are to be praised, but we must not be afraid to look behind the curtain and determine to what extent actual learning is occurring. How we measure this determination, of course, requires wisdom and prudence. But it is important nonetheless.

Sorry to end on a cliff-hanger, but my time is up. In my next article, I plan to continue this discussion on optimal coaching advice for teachers and then move into teaching techniques presented by Doug Lemov that are amenable for the classical classroom.

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