A fascinating and yet easily misunderstood area of research is cognitive load theory. Our brains are set up with systems to retain and use vast amounts of knowledge, and yet they all have systems to reject as much unnecessary knowledge in order to conserve energy. By understanding brain functions as delineated in cognitive load theory, we can apply certain strategies aimed at effective learning. In this article we will set out the theory in basic terms and provide some practices that you can use in the classroom.

Cognitive Load Theory in a Nutshell

Our brains are high efficiency machines. They consume a lot of calories to do things like see in color, plan for the future and organize complex systems of information. If you’ve ever put in the effort to learn a new language, you can literally feel the energy your brain is consuming. For me, there’s a special kind of tired that goes with learning something new. The brain does a lot of work to manage its energy consumption by doing a lot of work up front to discard much of what it deems unnecessary. And this is what has lead to the conceptualization of cognitive load theory.

John Sweller, an educational psychologist at the University of New South Wales, originally launched his understanding of cognitive load theory in the 1980s. The idea is that instructional design should conform to the contours of the brain’s process of information gathering and information storing. In essence, the brain uses working memory to temporarily store information before moving the information it wants to keep into long-term memory. Studies have shown that working memory is quite limited in terms of the amount of information it can hold at one time. If the goal is to get the highest value information into long-term memory, then one has to deal with the limitations of working memory.

Alongside the model of information processing is the idea of perceived mental effort. The amount of effort it takes to get pieces of information into the working memory slots can tax the energy of the learner. For instance, if a student has, say, five slots available in their working memory and the teacher intends to have the class learn five pieces of information, there’s a good match between the effort it will take to get those pieces of information into the working memory slots. However, if there are other stimuli vying for attention, this can interfere with the slots available in the learner’s working memory. Obviously, a distracting environment with stimulating colors and noisy classmates can cause this kind of interference. Yet, even accounting for this, there are other kinds of interference based simply on the way the information is presented. If a learner has to expend energy just to sort out the information from the context it is embedded in, the energy stores of the learner may be depleted before ever putting the information into the working memory slots.

This kind of information gathering effort is referred to as cognitive load. Theorists break cognitive load into three categories: intrinsic, extraneous and germane. Intrinsic load pertains to the level of challenge associated with any given subject being learned. For instance, a math problem has its own intrinsic cognitive load due to the effort it takes to calculate each step. Extraneous cognitive load amounts to any aspects that are irrelevant to the thing being learned. Factors that contribute to extraneous load are poor layout of information, confusing explanations, distracting environments, topics that are tangential, and so forth. Some of these factors are unavoidable, but a teacher who can identify causes of extraneous load can help navigate a student towards the most pertinent topic at hand. Germane cognitive load has to do with the process of moving information into long-term memory by way of the working memory slots available. We could think of this as the neurons at work inside the brain.

There are two take aways from this very basic overview of cognitive load theory. First, when we are working with learners, the more we understand the pathway to long-term memory by way of working memory, we can begin to work with the brain instead of fighting against it. Simply knowing that working memory only has a few slots available makes us that much more aware of what it is we are trying to get into the young person’s brain.

Second, we need to come to grips with different kinds of effort. We should not be afraid of effort or challenge. In fact, as we will see below, we ought to be challenging our students because this is the pathway to growth. Instead, we need to be choosy about what kinds of effort we place in front of our students. It’s the old adage that we need to work smarter, not harder. Some educators who get fixated on the concept of “rigor” have difficulty with this. The perception that students are working hard meets the criteria of “rigor,” but we need to evaluate whether we are accepting wasted effort under the guise of “hard work.”

Reducing Effort through Chunking

The mind can only hold a few pieces of information at once in working memory. Some people with extremely adept working memory can hold up to seven pieces of information, but most people can only hold on average four pieces of information. In Uncommon Sense Teaching, the authors advise using “chunking” to compensate for the limitation of working memory:

“Most students can hold a maximum of four pieces of information in working memory at a time. When working memory can’t keep up, students shut down and tune out. Instead, break your content and skills into bite-size, digestible chunks.” (243)

Let’s illustrate this with a diagram. In the following diagram, the number of blocks is difficult to apprehend.

But with a simple reorganization of the blocks, we can chunk the information so that it is easy to know how many blocks there are.

You can easily see four groups of three blocks plus a group of two blocks to make fourteen blocks in total. The number of blocks didn’t change, but our ability to easily see a pattern did change. You may have felt the difference in mental effort trying to count the first disorganized set and the relative ease with which the “chunked” set could be counted.

Now think about other areas of knowledge from foreign language vocabulary words to scientific terms. If a student perceives these things as a disorganized set of random factoids, they have to spend an inordinate amount of mental effort to “push” this information into their heads. There is no “hook” to hang these things on. It feels arbitrary and that some amount of luck goes into retaining certain pieces of information. But if the student can have the information reorganized or “chunked” so that related concepts are linked together and attached to already known concepts, then there is far less organizational effort, and therefore all the brain effort can be allocated to assimilating the information.

There are two approaches to consider with chunking. The first approach is the teacher-chunked delivery method. This is particularly helpful when something is accessed for the first time. For those using a narration-based lesson plan, the “first little talk” is an excellent time to chunk concepts, lowering the barrier to access for what is about to be read and narrated. The second approach is the student-chunked receiving method. Here we teach students how to break things down. Helping students take something that might seem disorganized and reorganize it for themselves helps them to practice a skill that will enhance their future learning.

Good Effort, Bad Effort

One of the common misconceptions about cognitive load theory is that learners should not experience cognitive effort. This could not be further from the truth. Instead, we should think about how to maximize the effort of learning, distinguishing good effort from bad effort. We might think to ourselves after assigning fifty new vocabulary words that the effort being put in is automatically worthwhile because we want our students to learn how to meet rigorous challenges. However, if we haven’t put in the work ourselves to differentiate the types of effort that need to be put into the task of learning, then we might have just assigned a lot of bad effort, creating massive inefficiencies in student learning.

To get at this, we need to think about our goals. What is the aim we are looking for in learning this set of new vocabulary words? We might say it is to have good recall of the meaning of these words with the ability to use them regularly in the activities we will be doing over the next several weeks. Notice that the goal is not to spend hours pouring over a list of random words. If student effort is devoted to this latter goal, the student puts in maximal effort reading and rereading a list of words with low retention and usefulness. They experience frustration because they don’t have a sense of what this all means in the grand scheme of things. A wise teacher, though, understands that the goal is good recall and usefulness. So she puts in some initial work on behalf of the students to help group vocabulary words by way of synonyms, antonyms, common parts of speech, cognates, etc. The initial work that organizes the raw list into comprehensible units paves the pathway for students to put in more effective work when they review their vocabulary. In the coming classes, the teacher builds in practice not through rote memorization of the words, but by cuing these word groups, by asking for mnemonic devices, or by having them illustrate and act out the new vocabulary words. Their effort is directed towards the goal, making the effort highly productive and therefore more satisfying to the learner.

So, we are not talking about learning without effort. We are talking about learning with the best possible effort while eliminating as much as possible non-productive effort. Think of this as finding the pathway to cognitive efficiency. With this in mind, we can borrow from the world of high performance to consider what effective practice looks like. We could think of athletics or music in this sphere. When an athlete practices their running stride, free throw, or golf swing, doing lots and lots of practice without consideration of technique and correct form will only reinforce bad habits. The same goes for a musician working on the fingering of a difficult passage. Careful, slow progression on the most difficult sequences is how top musicians improve. It’s all about focused practice to improve the weakest areas and then deliberate concentration on high quality repetitions. This is challenging, but notice how it is efficient effort.

Effort-full Learning

Top athletes and musicians are able to perform actions marked by beauty, grace and elegance. It looks effortless. Behind these performances are hours of effort-full practice. Returning to the learning environment, we can model cognitive effort on insights gained from the world of high performance. We actually want our students to engage in effort-full activities that grow their capacity to know and think. Let’s explore a four approaches that can be used in the classical classroom.

First, we want to read the best books possible. Most of the best books have certain challenges in them, whether it is the complexity of the plot, density of language or philosophical ideas that require deep thinking. Charlotte Mason suggests that these books should be a feast of ideas that delight the reader and are deeply interesting. And yet there ought to be some heavy lifting involved as well. Think of the weightlifter who needs to consider how to maximize intensity by choosing a heavier load or additional reps. When thinking about cognitive load theory, we actually want there to be a good dose of intrinsic load in order to enhance the brain effort that will help the learner’s mind grow. And yet, we must clear away any extraneous load that would get in the way of the reader accessing the rich ideas in the text. Here I think of the “little talk” we train teachers to use in a narration-based lesson. The little talk is there to increase interest as well as clear any hurdles that might hinder the reader from making full use of the text. It is not about no-effort reading, but instead reading that is optimizing quality effort.

Second, coach students in what effective learning looks like. This gets into concepts of metacognition, where the learner understands for themselves how they learn. They can be introduced to effective strategies so that they choose for themselves processes that they find most effective in knowing and using what they learn in class. Take the idea of chunking in this article. This is a skill that can be learned and coached. Help students find patterns for themselves. Give them feedback and do debriefs where they work towards mastery in learning strategies.

Third, deliberate practice is a necessary condition of high performance. Therefore, we need to not be afraid of effort and challenge in our classrooms. Yes, we want to eliminate as much extraneous cognitive load as possible. However, our minds and bodies respond positively to challenging stimulus. The authors of Make It Stick spell this out beautifully when they write, “The effort and persistence of deliberate practice remodel the brain and physiology to accommodate higher performance” (184). In fact, what they advise is devising particular kinds of challenge to force the brain to encounter effort to enhance learning. These practices can be summarized with the phrases spaced practice, interleaved practice and retrieval practice. Each of these practices gives the brain a challenge to overcome the mechanism of dropping information out of working memory. By connecting to material in these ways, you are giving your brain opportunities to move information from working memory to long term memory. The authors of Make It Stick conclude their chapter where they introduce deliberate practice by stating, “It comes down to the simple but not less profound truth that effortful learning changes the brain, building new connections and capability” (199).

Finally, narration as a deliberate practice is one of the most effective and efficient ways to maximize attention and effort. A narration lesson is structured to eliminate extraneous cognitive load through the “first little talk” by simultaneously stimulating interest and by clearing any hurdles in what is about to be read. Then the reading of the text occurs in a manageable amount, what Mason called “an episode”—the ideal amount to pay attention well while also having some amount of challenge involved. Then the learner retells without looking, recalling what has just been read. This kind of challenge exercises working memory and gives an initial stimulus to start moving that knowledge into long-term memory storage. Narration is a pedagogical instrument that works well across the curriculum and can be utilized as an operating system to stimulate the effortful learning described in Make It Stick.

Bring the practice of narration to your school by having one of our trainers work with your faculty. Visit our consultation page to learn more and schedule your free 90-minute meeting to discuss how we can help your school achieve excellence.

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The idea behind positive psychology is contained in the adjective “positive.” It’s not about trying to be positive or optimistic. Positive psychology is an intentional departure from a focus almost solely on diagnosing and treating psychological pathologies. This shift saw research begin to investigate concepts like wellbeing, excellence and human flourishing. Instead of viewing every human as containing a set of psychological pathologies, there emerged a view that a human could be coached and counseled towards a better version of themselves.

In this article, we will consider the history and key figures of positive psychology and relate this work to some practical practices we can use in our classrooms. In many ways, positive psychology promotes many of the ideals of classical education and some of the tenets of a biblical worldview. Yet, there may be ways in which we should critically examine this work to capture what is most valuable, while clearly defining points of tension with a Christian perspective.

History of Positive Psychology

We can actually trace the main concepts of positive psychology back to the work of ancient philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle. These philosophers sought to articulate what it means to live a good life, which is aimed at achieving happiness or eudaimonia (εὐδαιμονία). In the Phaedrus, Plato shares the story of a charioteer driving two winged horses each having an opposite character. The charioteer must train the noble horse so that the horse full of vices cannot lead the chariot astray. Similarly, Aristotle in his Nichomachean Ethics lays out the pathway to eudaimonia via the acquisition of virtues which are acquired through the practice of habits. These virtues or excellences (aretai) leading to a life marked by happiness or joy is what modern positive psychology seeks to promote.

Maslow’s Hierarchy

Abraham Maslow, famous for the hierarchy of needs, set a course towards health in his groundbreaking work Toward a Psychology of Being (1968). In this he notes that psychology had up to that point been inclined to treat “sickness.” In the Freudian framework, the individual and the therapist ask the question, “How do I get unsick?” But what if the interior person can be aimed towards higher values and principles? Can a person be pointed towards a new question, “How do I get healthy?” Maslow famously quipped, “It is as if Freud supplied us the sick half of psychology and we must now fill it out with the healthy half” (Toward a Psychology of Being 5). Aiming towards health is a worthy aim and a good corrective to the dominant model of psychology of his time.

What Maslow developed was a theory that aimed to explain human motivations towards peak experiences. Why do some people aim for excellence and actually achieve satisfying results? Most people languish in a state of unfulfilled potential despite having a sense of motivation towards certain goals in life. He developed a hierarchy of needs, depicted with a pyramid in most expositions of his model. The five levels begin at the base with physiological needs like food and shelter. Above this are safety needs such as job security. He identifies love and belonging as the next level, which includes family and friendship. Esteem is the penultimate level including concepts such as respect, status and recognition. Finally the tip of the pyramid is self-actualization where an individual achieves meaningful goals. Maslow did not consider that one progress linearly through this hierarchy, nor that the categories were rigid. Multiple levels of needs can be satisfied, for instance, by landing a job that fulfills physiological and safety needs while also being an achievement of one’s potential.

Christians have not been entirely comfortable with Maslow’s work. The hierarchy of needs, where one must address basic need before arriving at a place of self-actualization seems to miss the mark when it comes to understanding our nature as fallen beings in need of salvation accomplished by another individual—Christ Jesus. McCleskey and Ruddell critically evaluate Maslow’s theory of motivation from a biblical worldview. In their assessment, they find his theory actually offers little of actual help. “So, there is no real hope in Maslow’s approach beyond a vague belief in a secular, utopian, theoretical possibility” (“Taking a Step Back—Maslow’s Theory of Motivation: A Christian Critical Perspective,” JBIB 23 [2020] 14). A fundamental flaw seems to be the individualistic paradigm. Even though connection to others is included in the hierarchy, family and friendship seem to be expressed as a need that support personal achievement. A biblical vision of life fulfilment seems to reverse this, as a deepening walk with Christ brings one closer to God and others.

In fairness to Maslow, he was not aiming to develop a theory that adhered to Christian theology, and in some respects, we can perceive that some basic elements of his theory can be connected to Christian practices. The Bible showcases a variety of personal spiritual disciplines—such as prayer, meditation, fasting, and giving—that foster spiritual growth and a deeper connection to Christ. There seems to be a simplified hierarchy of the disciplined life at the base and greater freedom at the pinnacle. Interestingly, the Christian disciplines seem to promote abstinence from elements of Maslow’s hierarchy—fasting, solitude, humility—on the journey to spiritual fulfilment.

Seligman and Peterson on Core Virtues

A different take on human flourishing was articulated by Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson in the book Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification (2004). Here they apply historical and cultural analysis to identify six core virtues that seem to have a high amount of similarity across different cultures. These core virtues—courage, justice, humanity, temperance, transcendence, wisdom—aggregate other similar virtues, such that we might consider these master virtues that entail other excellence qualities. Whether we fully agree with the listing or definitions of these core virtues, it is interesting to see a shift towards values that would be appreciated within both classical and Christian spheres.

The six core virtues are spelled out in detail by Seligman and Peterson. Courage is “the capacity to overcome fear” (Character Strengths 36) that is manifested not only in the physical sphere, but also in the moral and psychological spheres. They note that courage is not only seen in single acts of courage but also in persistent or chronic spans of courageousness. Additionally, courage is readily seen in heroic examples of the soldierly type, however it is most often an internal state pertaining to things like motivations and decisions.

Justice connotes fairness that is often associated with equity and equality. This virtue can manifest itself differently in collectivist versus individualistic cultures. Concepts of justice can skew towards merit-based reward systems and need-based systems. What seems to transcend this cultural divide is that justice is prevalent in traits like “fairness, leadership, citizenship, and teamwork” (37).

Seligman and Peterson classify the third virtue as “humanity,” defining this as “the virtues involved in relating to another.” Concepts such as generosity and altruism are central to this virtue. They write, “We are quite capable of and often willing to engage in acts of generosity, kindness, or benevolence that are consensually recognized and valued and that elevate those who witness them” (37-38).

Temperance is “the virtue of control over excess.” Seligman and Peterson include in this virtue concepts pertaining to abstinence from various appetites such as eating, drinking and sex, general self-restraint, and the ability to regulate one’s emotions. “Thus,” they write, “temperance is a form of self-denial that is ultimately generous to the self or others—prudence and humility are prime examples” (38). I think their inclusion of the word “generous” provides a positive hue to what might otherwise be construed as potentially harmful to self.

Transcendence can be difficult to define. Seligman and Peterson borrow from Kant and call this “the connection to something higher—the belief that there is meaning or purpose larger than ourselves” (38). People can feel this when they look up at the expanse of stars in the night sky or stand on the beach by the ocean, feeling a sense of the immensity of the universe and our own smallness within it. There is a sense of awe, however, in this perception of one’s insignificance that has an uplifting effect.

Wisdom is a virtue that has classical and Christian traditions associated with it. Seligman and Peterson call wisdom “a form of noble intelligence” that can be described as “knowledge hard fought for, and then used for good” (39). The enumerate strengths included within this virtue such as creativity, curiosity, judgment and perspective.

The turn to virtues as a marker of human flourishing has been found to be more consistent with a biblical worldview than what we found with the hierarchy of needs. We see similar kinds of character traits listed in the virtue lists of Paul’s letters (e.g., Col. 3:12-13). There is a practical wisdom that connects the biblical tradition with the same kind of classical virtue ethic of the ancient philosophical tradition we investigated earlier.

Csikszentmihalyi on Flow

A final figure who has contributed significantly to our understanding of positive psychology is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced “me-high chick-sent-me-high”). Famous for the term “flow,” he has studied the internal experience of high performance. Instead of looking at the character traits we are aiming for (virtues) or the pyramid of requisite conditions to achieve high performance (hierarchy of needs), by looking at the feeling of optimal performance, he has attempted to articulate a common human experience. We often think of high performance as the domain of peak experiences, such as winning a tournament or being awarded a Nobel prize. However, getting “into the zone” is something children experience when they are absorbed in play. This differentiates achievement from the cognitive state of high performance.

It’s one thing to describe a common shared experience, and another to figure out how one can enter into this state. Flow is a state of complete immersion in an activity such that one experiences a state of effortless concentration and timelessness. Some of the factors the lead to a state of flow come from 1) the optimization of requisite skill and perceived challenge, a state described by Vygotsky as the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), and 2) the amount of personal motivation to engage in a task. In other words, this is a goal-oriented activity that matches skill to challenge. As Csikszentmihalyi describes it:

“The pursuit of a goal brings order in awareness because a person must concentrate attention on the task at hand and momentarily forgoes everything else. These periods of struggling to overcome challenges are what people find to be the most enjoyable times of their lives” (Flow 6).

Notice how the word “struggle” implies that at times there might be feelings of strain or even pain in the experience. Csikszentmihalyi describes how a swimmer might feel aching muscles whilst fully absorbed in training. An author might feel a sense of mental strain while fully absorbed in typing out the next moment in the emerging plot of a novel.

Csikszentmihalyi himself sees connections between the classical tradition and what he calls “the flow of thought.” Jason Barney, in his book The Joy of Learning, expands on this with a view to how to incorporate the concepts of flow in the classical classroom. In many respects, the work being done on deliberate practice stems from the idea of flow. The sense of effortless absorption in a task actually comes through applied effort in skills development.

Practices for Classical Educators

Having looked at the history of positive psychology, especially through an examination of three prominent figures, we can make some generalizations that will be helpful for classical educators. To begin with, the idea that psychology has something to contribute to our understanding of healthy internal processes provides us with some grounding to move away from solely viewing the person as a set of potential psychological disfunctions. Many students and parents self-diagnose things like ADHD, anxiety and depression. Understandably, many people react to negative feelings by trying to understand what is going on at a mechanistic level internally. Regrettably, individuals who lock in on such concepts can rely on misconceptions of these disorders, blaming them for deficiencies in knowledge and skills, and then limit their full engagement in productive practices that would cultivate positive feelings about their work and their selves. This does not mean that we would caution individuals from seeking help from qualified professionals. But interestingly, these professionals would actually prescribe some of the very practices associated with positive psychology—techniques to enhance singular focus, quite meditation, and deliberate practice.

Practically, there are several ways we can bring concepts of positive psychology into our classrooms in highly productive ways. First, cultivate virtues through well-planned habit training. For instance, when we think about temperance, it is rather difficult simply to tell students to be more self-controlled. So we need to put in the work of articulating what this looks like in daily life. We might choose some daily practices like sitting in “ready position” or organizing their locker. We support their efforts by succinctly describing the habit (two feet on the floor, back straight, energetic face) and reinforcing this consistently over the span of several days and weeks. It’s wonderful to see how a positive feeling about their work emerges as they are coached in what it looks like to work effectively in a classroom. Self control leads to self satisfaction.

Second, the disciplined life leads to higher orders of freedom and privilege. I think this may be what Maslow was attempting to describe, even though I think his hierarchy of needs is flawed in many ways. There’s something biblical about a shift in our thinking. The person who disciplines themselves to read scripture and pray daily gains the privilege of a closer walk with God and experiences freedom in Christ more consistently. The same can be said for more mundane aspects of life. The person who learns to effectively budget their income gains freedom to spend their money according to the plan they’ve set out. The athlete who has disciplined their body through regular training can run faster and farther through less effort. So, when we are training our students to “show their steps,” this disciplined approach in mathematics leads to great freedom in understanding mathematical processes and the privilege of working on higher orders of mathematical concepts.

Third, being more rigid on skills development up front leads to the experience of flow later. There are indeed better ways of doing things, and teaching these ways early assist students to fly higher long term. For instance, teaching students how to create flash cards on paper and being insistent on regular daily review is a skill that helps students learn things like vocabulary, math formulas and historical information in a thorough way. I used to think this was a nice add on for students to use if they had time and inclination. But over the years, I’ve seen the pattern that students who really thrive have put this tool into practice regularly. So this, for me, is no longer a nice add on but a first-order practice. You can think of other practices like showing steps in math, formatting a page in MLA format and sentence diagramming that cause early sweat but aim towards mastery, which entails greater ease and joy later.

It is interesting how positive psychology has championed the cause of encountering challenge and doing hard things. An impression some might have of positive psychology is that people need to boost their internal attitudes artificially by maybe telling themselves they’re great. Instead, much of the literature points toward how valuable challenge, grit and discipline are in cultivating a life of ease and happiness. Hopefully this brief overview of positive psychology gives you a few insights and practical tools that helps you to explore this field more.

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As I wrap up this series of reviews, we turn to Students as Persons: Charlotte Mason on Personalism and Relational Liberal Education by Deani Van Pelt and Jen Spencer. One of the key tenets of Mason’s pedagogy is the statement that “children are persons.” This book delves deeply into this foundational philosophical concept by looking at personalist theory and differentiating personhood from individualism. This is an important book that covers a lot of ground in just over 60 pages.

Deani Van Pelt has been a leading voice in Charlotte Mason education, championing school choice in Canada and adding to our knowledge of Charlotte Mason through her research. The is the current board chair for the Charlotte Mason Institute and is Scholar-in-Residence in Charlotte Mason Studies, University of Cumbria, England. Van Pelt is not only the series editor of the 18 monographs in the Centenary Series, this book is one of two volumes she has had a hand in writing in the series. Co-author Jen Spencer has likewise been a leader within the Charlotte Mason movement, having led study groups and founding a school. Her work includes the digitization of Mason archives at the Armitt Museum in Ambleside, England as well as serving as the program director for the Alveary, a curriculum created by the Charlotte Mason Institute. Spencer was recently appointed as a Visiting Research Fellow in Charlotte Mason Studies at the University of Cumbria, Ambleside.

Situating Personhood

It can be difficult to differentiate Mason’s concept of personhood when there are many theories about childhood and learning that surround the work of Mason. A number of key figures and concepts are therefore helpfully presented at the outset of Students as Persons to establish what exactly personhood is and is not. Blank-slate theory as set forth by John Locke views the child as an empty vessel to be filled. Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed in the inherent goodness of the child, meaning that the child should be left untampered. Frederick Froebel viewed the child like a plant to be tended in a Kindergarten. John Dewey viewed education as a socializing process making them fit for democratic society. Maria Montessori considered that children are individuals “who should be left alone to explore specially created apparatus so that their creativity could flourish” (14). Beyond these individual theorists, the industrialists of North America viewed children as a work force and learning as training for a role in the industrial system. In Mason’s own Victorian context, children were viewed as “personal property, better seen than heard” (14).

Through this broad set of ideas, Mason’s statement “children are persons” takes a very different direction. Originally delivered through a series of evening “Lectures to Ladies” in Bradford, England, the ideas Mason set forth were a philosophical alternative to a host of insufficient views of the child. Even more today, this idea has found resonance:

“When education increasingly places emphasis on credentials to be attained and employment to be secured, thoughtful, searching parents, teachers and educational leaders are finding resonance with educational ideas that focus on the child’s whole wellbeing” (Students as Persons 14-15).

The wellbeing of the child is a grand vision that sets forth an educational enterprise that raises up the child “not only for a useful life but also for learning how to live this life in all its fullness” (15).

The Contours of Personhood

Van Pelt and Spencer ground Mason’s concept of personhood in her career working with children. She set forth her thoughts in the Bradford lectures “having had nearly a quarter-century to observe children and work out her thoughts about teaching and learning” (16). It is interesting to note that Mason’s career as a teacher and then as an educational philosopher occurred between that of Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852) and Maria Montessori (1870-1952). In the philosophies of both these figures, children were viewed as requiring special treatment through the use of carefully developed learning tools and environments. However, for Mason, she took the view that “children are not that different from adults and do not need for everything to be specially organized for them” (17). This conception of the child garners an amount of respect toward the child that finds what the authors describe as a “middle way between ‘despising’ children and worshipping them” (18). In other words, our view of children can tend towards an inaccurate view of the child when we do not grant them the respect of personhood due to them.

The British industrial revolution brought children into the workplace, which meant that society was well prepared to afford them the responsibilities of adulthood but had not really granted them their rights as children. Mason’s concept of personhood was connected to the rights of children in her third book School Education. These rights called for children to enjoy the freedoms of childhood, including the rights “to play freely, to work by their own initiative, to choose their own friends, to decide how they would spend their own money, and to form their own opinions” (18). Issuing these rights within the Victorian milieu was something of a crusade for Mason and the PNEU. However, unlike the child-centric models of education proposed by figures such as Rousseau and Montessori, Mason proposed that there is a burden of responsibility upon parents and teachers to “instruct the child’s conscience and help him to train his will and consider ideas carefully, so that he may grow to live with intention and continually work towards becoming the best version of himself as he conceived is” (19-20).

Considered in this way, the personhood of the child assumes that the child has their own will that must be given strength to choose what is good and right. There is a sense that the child will be self-directed and ought to have a diet of living ideas with which to populate a vision of what it means to live a good life.

Personhood Today

The study of personhood today interacts with insights gained from sociology, philosophy and theology. Van Pelt and Spencer bring to bear a number of recent authors to spell out how personhood has developed in our contemporary setting in ways that are consistent with Mason’s original expression of personhood.

They begin by drawing up on the work of Christian Smith, a sociologist at the University of Notre Dame, in his 2010 publication What is a Person? Amongst several points worth consideration, Smith concurs that personhood is on full display from the start of life:

“Persons do not emerge out of capacities and bodies at some chronologically delayed time, only after some crucial development has taken place. Persons exist at the start of life and are their own agents of development and emergent being across their entire life course” (Smith 457, quoted in Van Pelt and Spencer 29).

This agency on the part of the child is something worthy of respect, even though we as grown ups have a burden of responsibility to nourish and train the young person. Personhood also entails a sense of purpose “to develop and sustain our own incommunicable selves in loving relationships with other personal selves and with the nonpersonal world” (Smith 85, emphasis added by Van Pelt and Spencer 30). This is consistent with Mason’s concept of the science of relationship whereby the child develops three kinds of knowledge—knowledge of God, knowledge of man, and knowledge of the universe.

Based on this understanding of personhood, in distinction from individualism, our authors explain the implications of what this means pedagogically.

“Indeed, it is not to liberal individualism that Mason turns for her anthropology but to relational personhood. Had she rooted her anthropology in the child as individual rather than the child as person, child-centeredness could become a concept leading to license rather than to liberty of the child. It would also have brushed over the relational nature embedded in personhood and it sets one up at best as autonomous and at worst as isolated, free-floating, untethered, and alone” (32).

Thus, the child is a responsible agent learning how to relate as a person with other persons, instead of somehow trying to get off the grid, so to speak, of dependence on other individuals.

Personhood, then, is distinct from individualism, but it is also distinct from collectivism. For this distinction, our authors turn to the philosopher Juan Manuel Burgos, professor at the University of San Pablo in Madrid, in his 2018 publication An Introduction to Personalism. The person, according to Burgos, is a “subsistent and autonomous but essentially social being” (Burgos 32, quoted in Van Pelt and Spencer 34). Burgos goes on to differentiate personalism from that of collectivism and individualism:

“It was distinguished and separated from the egocentric individual by stressing the moral obligation to serve others and the community, but it did not fall into the collectivist orbit because, due to his intrinsic dignity, the person possesses an absolute and noninterchangeable value and a series of inalienable rights” (Burgos 32).

In this understanding of personalism, each person is able to experience true freedom while also maintaining a sense of connection to others that is morally responsible.

Grounding these sociological and philosophical insights is the theological concept of the divine image. Van Pelt and Spencer bring alongside the aforementioned Smith the bioethicist John Kilner, founding director of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, in his 2015 publication Dignity and Destiny. Human dignity stems from God’s creation of humanity in his own image (Genesis 1:26-27). For Kilner, the imago dei, or being created in the image of God “has played a significant role historically in freeing people from the ravages of need and oppression” (Kilner 7, quoted in Van Pelt and Spencer 36). This is the central claim of the theist ground for human dignity. Kilner also notes how oppression and exploitation stem from what he “would call a non-biblical understanding of God’s image” (Van Pelt and Spencer 37).

There is a sacredness to human personhood based on the special relationship all humans have with their Creator. Instead of the autonomous individual or collective humanity, personhood implies the value and dignity of every human being while also promoting the ability people have to relate to their Creator.

Personhood and Self-education

Mason’s view of the personhood of the child is foundational to a constructivist approach to learning, according to Van Pelt and Spencer. To put it simply, constructivist theory posits that the learner actively builds knowledge through their own experience of and interaction with information. John Mays in his 2022 article “Thoughts on Teaching” pits constructivism against essentialism, which helpfully provides categories for us to consider. In essentialism, there is a body of core knowledge and skills delivered to the learner by the teacher. Mays, while spelling out the differences, finds that these philosophies of learning are a false dichotomy. One of the benefits of Van Pelt and Spencer’s book is a fuller understanding of this central debate in education. As classical education untethers itself from conventional education to promote a love of learning, there is a need to engage the learner in ways that Mason directly connects to the dignity and agency of the learner.

The constructivist ideal is best expressed by Mason in her final volume, Towards a Philosophy of Education, where she wrote, “The children, not the teachers, are the responsible persons; they do the work by self-effort” (241). So even someone committed to a teacher-centric approach should recognize that the dissemination of information only goes out into the blank void unless a responsible and motivated learner is there to capture what is sent. Van Pelt and Spencer compare Mason’s constructivism to that of other models. In particular, they review the cognitive constructivism of Jean Piaget, the social constructivism of Lev Vygotsky, and the radical constructivism of Ernst von Glasersfield. We can see, therefore, that the categories are fairly nuanced. Our authors critically examine these three models and conclude that Mason’s “aligns most comfortably among the social constructivists” (46). In this social constructivist model, children learn “by interacting with others, with our culture, and with our society” (45). Again, the personhood of the child in this sense is responsibly related to others, not as an autonomous individual nor as an indiscriminate part of a collective.

An important point made by Van Pelt and Spencer is that knowledge is made personal by each learner. When the personhood of the child is honored as something sacred, then the very form of our assessment must account for the personal. For instance, when listening to or reading through students narrations, we are looking not simply for an accurate record of what the author has said. We are also accounting for the ways in which the child has personally assimilated this knowledge.

“Factual accuracy was not the sole important thing about assessment to Mason. It was equally important to her that each child had engaged with people, places, and ideas as best they could and according to their personhood. In this way, each student’s response contained originality” (49).

Not the both-and within this statement. It is important for students to have an accurate understanding of the information that they have assimilated. But for those of us who deem it important for this education to be formative, we must also take into account how knowledge has shaped character, moral reasoning, spiritual insight, and human understanding.

In all, I found this book to be a fine representation of research into Charlotte Mason. It furthers our understanding of her philosophy by bringing to bear good exemplars of modern thinkers so that we can gain insight into how her methods have relevance and utility today. I could see many benefitting from the thoughtful and engaging prose in this volume, even though some of the ideas are challenging to grapple with. Thankfully, Van Pelt and Spencer have done most of the heavy lifting, so that we as readers can wrap our mind around so many of the key elements of Mason’s philosophy surrounding the personhood of children.

The post The Personhood of the Child: Book Review of Deani Van Pelt and Jen Spencer’s Students as Persons appeared first on .

The next volume is one that is perhaps my favorite in the series. In Field Notebooks and Natural History Journals: Cornerstone of Outdoor Learning, Lois Mansfield makes the case for the pedagogical importance of field notebooks and nature study within Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education. Lois Mansfield is Professor of Upland Landscapes at the University of Cumbria in Ambleside, England as well as Director of the Center for National Parks and Protected Areas. She argues that field work not only helps children learn about how to care for creation, but that they also cultivate observational skills that transfer easily to other domains of knowledge.

Nature study is a hallmark subject in a Charlotte Mason education, and at times nature study has been misunderstood. Mansfield clarifies many of the cognitive skills that are developed through the use of field notebooks in nature study, helping us better situate this subject within the wider curriculum. In addition to clarifying the role of nature study with Charlotte Mason’s educational vision, I think this book also helps classical educators understand the role of natural history within the liberal arts tradition.

Field Notebooks in the History of Science

Mansfield situates field notebooks within the development of scientific inquiry. She notes how “there has been a shift from biological field observations to laboratory work, modelling, and theoretical investigation” which has coincided with the decline of the study of natural history (18). We can picture scholars with notebooks in hand traversing diverse landscapes taking notes and sketching specimens. This is a tradition that goes all the way back to the ancient world, with figures such as Herodotus, Aristotle, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder contributing to our knowledge of the natural world (20-21). Collectors of plant and animal specimens in the Victorian era were celebrated for adding knowledge of new worlds (21).

Much of the development of medical knowledge comes from the field observations of generations of scholars, particularly in the Middle Ages in both Europe and the Middle East (21-22). We can see the connection between field observations and the development of the scientific method during the Enlightenment with figures such as Francis Bacon and Carl Linneaus codifying and systematizing the domain of scientific knowledge. Mansfield summarizes the work of natural historians:

“Trained naturalists were able to employ empirical observation through the scientific method along with accurate record-keeping through written accounts and illustration in notebooks and journals.” (24-25)

It seems like something was lost in the transition to laboratory and theoretical work that has diminished not only an exciting arena of learning, but also a vital connection with the outdoor world that ought to be reconsidered by educators today.

Charlotte Mason’s Use of Field Notebooks

The students who attended the Charlotte Mason’s House of Education in Ambleside were required to keep a field notebook, where they recorded observations about the surrounding landscape. Mansfield gives us a sense of the development of skills at the training school:

“They recorded anything and everything related to the natural world, be it geology, landform, landscape, plants, animals, insects, or other things. Many notebooks were richly illustrated with brush drawings using watercolours to support their written observations, but like all student work, content started slowly and developed over the two years of their training.” (25)

These notebooks were assessed by a panel of external examiners, and certificates were awarded for satisfactory completion of the notebooks. These inspectors would take the students on a yearly nature walk, providing in-depth instruction, with the result that entries were lengthier and more detailed as a consequence (27). This gives the impression that the field notebooks were not simply a hoop to jump through on the journey to certification, but a genuine learning exercise cultivating a rich connection to nature that left an indelible mark in the lives of these future teachers, who themselves would teach children to use field notebooks.

Deep Learning and Field Notebooks

One might think that nature study is a lighter subject, something along the lines of a free play or recess. Mansfield demonstrates that in fact nature study is a mean to deep learning and the development of key skills. She writes:

“These notebooks operated at a number of levels through the application of different learning styles in a complex interrelationship of consecutive, synchronous, and asynchronous approach, which are of value today.” (30)

One of the learning styles Mansfield highlights is the domain of kinesthetic learning. Alongside visual, auditory and reading/writing, kinesthetic learning provides a more physical engagement in learning. In the creation of field notebooks whilst out in nature, students are learning and processing in ways that are unavailable in the classroom or lab.

“They [field notebooks] were, in point of fact, a form of embodied cognition, where all senses and motor skills were employed to experience and learn about natural history to make sense of our perceptions, which can contribute to memorisation abilities.” (30)

The kinesthetic “embodied cognition” connects to experiential learning where students encounter items in their natural setting and transform this experience through observation, conceptualization and experimentation. (33-34) Mansfield demonstrates that the student who asks “Here is a new insect I do not recognize; how do I identify it?” (32) is processing information is a way that utilizes these experiential learning skills in new and ever-changing natural settings.

Through observation and recording, Mansfield identifies how students are engaged in reflexive learning. This differs from reflective learning, where a student “analyzes what has happened.” With reflexive learning, the students “automatically self-assesses and reacts to synchronous circumstances.” (35) In other words, the child is placed in a natural setting where they encounter something in real time and use a variety of thinking skills to interact with something right in front of them.

This deep learning occurs via processes that carry a low cognitive load. Field experiences and the keeping of a field notebook draws upon previous learning by providing students with models and diagrams that enable the identification of specimens in such a way as to reduce cognitive load. (36-38) (Cognitive load theory is something I plan to delve into in a future article to further situate the concepts here within the whole curriculum.)

Developing Observational Skills

One of the distinct advantages of field work and the keeping of a field notebook is the efficient development of observational skills. Mansfield sees this as a hallmark of field notebooks within Mason’s methods. Nature notebooks “formed a cornerstone for out of door life for children and arguably are the fundamental building block to gaining scientific knowledge to understand the world.” (38)

Mansfield clarifies that observation is not merely looking at something. Instead, one applies knowledge and reflexive thinking to understand what one is looking at. She differentiates how a child observes when compared to a trained botanist:

“[Expert botanists] collect observations about various morphological structures and compare it to other plants where they have seen similar diagnostic features, and are able to identify it drawing on their a priori (previously known) knowledge of taxonomy, plant morphology, and ecological context. Children, on the other hand, do not have this prior knowledge to draw upon, so their observations focus on surface features in front of their eyes to start, until they begin to build associated knowledge.” (39)

This comparison between novice and expert helps us to see where we as teachers provide coaching and training to help develop observational skills. Consider how a child that is given lessons in the basic leaf shapes, bark textures, branch patterns of trees will be able to use this knowledge in their observations of trees. In their field notebooks, we would be able to track growing observational skills as they use these identifying characteristics to specify what it is they are seeing when out in nature.

Mansfield includes a set of sample student work from one of Mason’s students in their nature notebook entries:

“April 23^rd On climbing up near Dungeon Ghyll we saw several snails amongst the bracken and rocks.”

“Dec 27^th There were more than a dozen Peewits [Vanellus vanellus] collected together in the free wide open space of a field. In flight the wings are short and rounded at the ends, they flap slowly and heavily. A Peewit flied forward for a few yards, then turns suddenly and seems to tumble right down almost to the ground, then another turn and he is flying close to the ground, or upwards to descend again suddenly.”

Not only did the entry in the notebook become lengthier, we see more specificity in the second entry, with the student using the flight pattern of the bird to confirm her identification of this species.

Contemporary Field Notebook Methods

When it comes to using field notebooks today, there are a few different methods that Mansfield shares. She highlights the work of John Muir Laws (55-56), who has written a number of guides teaching nature journaling. His work promotes a joyful and artistic approach to field work, encouraging children to illustrate, write and measure the natural world around them. For those wanting an entry-level guide, his 2016 publication, The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling is a great place to begin. Teachers might like his How to Teach Nature Journaling (2020), co-written with Emilie Lygren.

Next Mansfield discusses the Grinnell method (56-57), named after the biologist Joseph Grinnell. This is the method used by universities and museums, which is a more technical and standardized procedure for keeping a field notebook. It may be that this method due to its rigorous standard is best learned by advanced students. High schoolers going into fields such as geography, geology, environmental sciences and ecology may find it useful to learn the Grinnell method. Yet, even with a foundation in basic approaches to field notebooks will establish a good foundation for the skills of observation and data collection.

Field Notebooks in the Classical Tradition

Hopefully by reviewing this book, we who are part of the classical renewal movement will gain an appreciation for the role field notebooks played within the liberal arts tradition. From the ancient world through the middle ages and even into the post-Enlightenment era, field notebooks were the means by which great minds interacted with the natural world. Teaching students to use this tool connects them to a rich tradition of inquiry and creative engagement with creation. Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain call for poetic knowledge in the natural sciences.

“Thus, natural philosophy values poetic insight, intuition, and imagination in addition to rational demonstration. This approach interweaves the objective and subjective into a transcendent unity. It also acknowledges that our understanding of an object, while true, never exhausts the intelligibility of the object. A foundation in the seven liberal arts provides the common reason that is required to adjudicate the truth of arguments and justify or demonstrate the claims of reason. Natural philosophy offers students today a critical opportunity to hone their arts of reason in discussions of the natural world. When all the arts are employed, natural philosophy teaches students to think properly and promotes true wisdom.” (Clark and Jain, The Liberal Arts Tradition, 114)

What this amounts to is an engagement with the natural world that integrates the imagination and emotions. This harkens back to the work of James Taylor’s Poetic Knowledge who calls for a non-analytic approach to education. We do not need to necessarily adopt an anti-analytic approach to gain value from what might best be described as a hand-on pathway to the mind. In fact, the poetic knowledge available through a rich and varied field notebook containing ample personal encounters with the natural world (full of illustrations, quotations of literature, emotional responses, spontaneous expressions of praise to God for his creation, etc.) comes alongside a highly analytical approach to categorizing, measuring and identifying objects. This is truly the classical foundation for the natural sciences.

And so I highly recommend this book as a means to explore the implementation or refinement of a program at your school or homeschool that utilizes field notebooks in nature study or science. Mansfield provides a deep understanding of the key role field notebooks played in the history of natural philosophy while also providing concrete examples of what these might look like for younger and older children.

Watch an in-depth training session by Jason Barney on how to use the teaching tool of the apprenticeship lesson plan. Learn how to use a time-tested approach to coaching students in the acquisition of a new skill.

Gain practical skills to help your students develop mastery of a process that can be replicated, whether solving a problem, performing a task, or applying one of the liberal arts. You will have the opportunity to ask questions as you aim to implement the apprenticeship lesson plan.

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Next up is a volume written by Deani Van Pelt and Camille Malucci entitled Charlotte Mason’s Great Recognition: A Scheme of Magnificent Unity. Mason describes in her book Parents and Children her trip to Florence where she encountered the frescoes of the Spanish Chapel in the basilica Santa Maria Novella. This event and its significance are the subject of this monograph. In roughly 70 pages, this addition to the Centenary Series provides ample information and insight into a key moment in the development of Mason’s philosophy of education.

Deani Van Pelt has been a leading voice in Charlotte Mason education, championing school choice in Canada and adding to our knowledge of Charlotte Mason through her research. The is the current board chair for the Charlotte Mason Institute and is Scholar-in-Residence in Charlotte Mason Studies, University of Cumbria, England. Van Pelt is not only the series editor of the 18 monographs in the Centenary Series, this book is one of two volumes she has had a hand in writing in the series. Co-author Camille Malucci resides in Williamsburg, Virginia and is a homeschooling mother of six. She is not only a Charlotte Mason practitioner, but also a student of her philosophy with a particular interest in the great recognition.

Visit to Florence in 1893

We have all felt the need for a holiday when after a time of great enterprise the body simply needs to be reenergized. The authors chronicle how Mason had been building a number of institutions such as the Parents’ National Education Union (PNEU) and the House of Education in Ambleside. In 1890 the PNEU began publishing The Parents’ Review, and the Springfield property opened in 1892. Such monumental efforts took their toll on Mason:

“The House of Education opened at Springfield, Ambleside, UK, in January of 1892 with four students, and this was also the year that she completed the last of her six geography volumes. Then, in early 1893 a period of illness began.” (18)

A three-month trip to Italy was therefore undertaken with her friend Julia Firth, who had recently begun to give Saturday morning talks at the House of Education. John Ruskin, whom Firth knew personally, had recently published a series of travel guides, directing readers to take in the great cultural artifacts on their visits to places such as Venice, Amiens and Florence. It was his Mornings in Florence (1875) that Mason and Firth used as they explored Santa Maria Novella in Florence.

The authors capture how this visit to Florence coincided with events in Mason’s life that made the visit to the Spanish Chapel such a poignant moment for her, especially as regards the ongoing development of her educational philosophy.

“Thus, the circumstances surrounding Mason’s standing in the Spanish Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, Italy were probably characterized by a growing passion for picture study, a deep emotional ache, the satisfying exhaustion of establishing multiple institutions, and the imminent responsibility of maintaining and growing them.” (18-19)

It stands out that the methods deployed in Mason’s pedagogy, and in particular here we can focus on picture study, were not deemed only fit for children. She herself practiced these methods alongside children and teachers. Living ideas, at whatever age or stage of life we might access them, are a means to deep and meaningful insights into life. And this is exactly what Mason found as she focused her attention to the artwork contained within the Spanish Chapel.

The Frescos of Santa Maria Novella

As the authors trace the steps of Mason accompanied by Firth, there are several points they draw out that help us to see why exactly the frescos of the Spanish Chapel were so important to Mason’s educational philosophy. First, the Dominican order that commissioned the paintings were founded with a mission that emphasized education and study. These paintings were first and foremost inspired by this mission and therefore served as a means of inspiration and contemplation for the order. “As it was a room mostly reserved for the order, the paintings commissioned within it were aimed to remind the brothers not only about the story of Christ, but also the special mission of the Dominicans to bring Christ’s teachings to the people through education and preaching in the common tongue.” (19) There is an educational rationale behind the paintings’ provenance, a rationale that would immediately resonate with Mason.

A second important philosophical point centers on St. Thomas Aquinas. As a leading scholar and theological amongst the Dominican order early in its history, the frescos play out a philosophical point made by Aquinas in his work On the Unity of the Intellect, Against the Averroists. The ideas of Averroes (1126-1198) had spread in Western Europe and had promoted an anti-Christian dualism. The authors explain the significance of the Thomistic argument for both faith and reason working together.

“His argument for faith and reason being gifts from a good God, meant to work together for the good of man, would be conclusive and indisputable. He wrote that God wrote two books: the Book of Creation, available to all, and the Book of Scripture, available to those willing to accept divine revelation. This was a unified vision of knowledge and its appropriate uses.” (23)

The unified vision of knowledge would have a profound impact upon Mason’s thinking that she call “the great recognition.” We shall see that this is one of the driving forces in her epistemological statement regarding the “science of relation” or the educational philosophy that all areas of knowledge are related to one another.

A third point draws upon the schema portrayed by the artist Andrea di Buonaiuto. Virtually every surface is covered with paintings organized around the principle of the unity of knowledge that emanates from the mind of God and points back to God. The authors walk us through the four walls and vaulted ceilings following the steps of Mason and Firth with quotes from Ruskin’s guide—north, east, south and then west. The western wall is the culmination of the theological and philosophical expression represented on the walls. The eyes begin at the point of the vault where the Holy Spirit descends upon Mary and the apostles, beneath whom the devout of every nation are gathered (29).

The combined frescoes—The Descent of the Holy Sprit in the vault above the west wall and The Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas on the west wall—make a theological statement in a highly organizes manner, as ranks upon ranks of individuals cascade down the wall. The authors devote attention to each grouping, particularly those on the west wall. The theological and cardinal virtues (31-33) fly above the seated Aquinas (33-34), who is flanked on either side by biblical figures (34-36). Bowing at Aquinas’s feet are three heretics whose errors are refuted by the teachings of the church (36). Below the biblical figures are two sets of seven thrones upon which are seated figures representing the seven sacred sciences and the seven natural sciences (36-38). Below these allegorical figures are historical individuals associated with each science. There is a handy appendix with a table of all the figures in the fresco (68-70).

We have rushed through some very interesting detail to arrive at one of the main points the authors dwell on having to do with the seven liberal arts. Among the important points made by the authors are that, working from the outside in, the trivium is listed as grammar, rhetoric and then logic. They write:

“Note that the fresco does not list Rhetoric, the ability to speak and persuade, as the third aspect of the trivium, as do other classical versions of the trivium. It is speaking that leads to clarity of thought. One wonder: Is this another reason for Mason prioritizing oracy and narration in her educational philosophy?” (40-41)

It is a point well made, although one also wonders whether the liberal arts have always had an amount of flexibility in them such that we should be cautious about making too great a point about the ordering here. One can equally question whether the rigidity with which some classical educators hold to grammar, logic and rhetoric as stages was somewhat fabricated in the famous Dorothy Sayers essay. Bonaiuto’s fresco should go some way towards revising our thinking to see that these arts fit into a larger schema such that each component is in a sense interwoven with the others (whether that be horizontally with the other arts and sciences or vertically with biblical revelation). Our authors conclude this section with an explanation of the quadrivium—music, astronomy, geometry and arithmetic—alongside the trivium (41-44). Together the natural and sacred sciences make for a wide and varied curriculum that “represent the Book of Scripture and the Book of Creation.” (36)

The Great Recognition for Mason

Mason’s visit to Santa Maria Novella had an indelible impact on her emerging philosophy of education. By the time of her visit, Mason had only written the first volume in her education series, Home Education (1886). We learn of her visit to Florence in the second of her six volumes on education, Parents and Children (1896). The visit to Florence is clearly still present in her thinking in the third volume, School Education (1904) as well as her final work, Towards a Philosophy of Education (1925). Certainly this moment in time arrested her attention such that something crystallized in her thinking about education.

Van Pelt and Malucci develop a number of key insights in the Great Recognition. The initial insight has to do with the emergence of scientific atheism that powerfully altered the aims of education after the Enlightenment and had especially taken root in the Victorian era in which Mason worked. The Great Recognition cuts across the dualism of the era, creating a sacred-secular divide. They quote Mason, “Many of us are content to do without religious education altogether; and are satisfied with what we not only call secular but make secular, in the sense in which we understand the word, i.e. entirely limited to the uses of this visible world” (Mason, Parents and Children, 270). Mason certainly had her finger on the pulse of a dangerous problem in education for society and had gained insight when she encountered the frescos in the Spanish Chapel. The authors rightly highlight the importance of this moment in Mason’s philosophy:

“She knew this was a false dichotomy. She had noted the dove in the tip of the vaulted ceiling, over all—implying an often neglected source of unity.” (Van Pelt and Malucci 45).

God, then, is the source of all knowledge, and all truth emanates from him as it exists in all creation (general revelation) as well as in scripture (special revelation). Mason realized that a secular educational enterprise was not being honest with itself at a deep epistemological level.

The authors provide another interesting insight based on the role of the liberal arts. The Latin root word, liber, means free in the sense that a liberal arts education is one that makes one free from bondage. Anyone who has read the autobiography of Frederick Douglass understands this principle inasmuch as he considered he had gained freedom through self-education well before he was emancipated from slavery.

There was once a sense that the liberal arts were intended for those who are free, meaning the leadership class or those who were free from the constraints of financial dependence. But Mason envisioned an education available to all, or an education that is liberally spread throughout all society.

“It [liber] is where we derive our word liberty from as well. A liberal education makes a person free from the shackles of ignorance. She also uses the word catholic not as a religious term, but because it means universal. This is an education for all: men and women, rich and poor, people of all backgrounds and races—just as we see at the top of the fresco, it is for people of every nation (Acts 2:5).” (46)

Alongside this vision of a liberal education from all, we have a spiritual affirmation that the Holy Spirit is the one who accomplishes the work of teaching. There is an intimacy one notices about this claim, as each individual can have live-giving knowledge presented through the inner work of the Holy Spirit. Mason’s educational philosophy views God as an active agent through the ministry the Holy Spirit who is active in all areas of knowledge. “The Holy Spirit, in His infinite wisdom, is ready to tend to each soul for the entirety of its lifetime and offer knowledge, consolation, wisdom, and peace with abundant measure.” (47) The authors consider this the “golden thread” of Mason’s teaching and writing. “The Holy Spirit is our teacher and we find not only ultimate unity in this Trinitarian God, but also unity on earth when we recognize the reality of His Lordship here.” (48) As the authors demonstrate in a brief coda to this section, there is multiple attestation to these theological principles through the Bible and the many Christian traditions that would find value in Mason’s voice today.

Conclusion

Van Pelt and Malucci have written an accessible and exciting treatment of one of the most important moments in Mason’s development as an educational philosopher. In a little over fifty pages we are taken along a journey with Mason to examine the frescos of Santa Maria Novella afresh. I appreciate their closing sentences:

“This fresco has spoken to generations of viewers spanning 570 years. It continues to invite us—each in our own generation—to engage its wisdom as it points us toward the recognition and promise of a magnificent unity.” (56)

Perhaps this volume will entice you to study Mason in greater depth, to explore the Great Recognition for yourself and your school, and to examine not only the Florentine frescos but numerous other works of art for their inherent inspiration for our contemplation of the truths that God has disseminated throughout his creation.

Are you ready to bring narration to your school or to implement habit training? Bring one of our trainers to your school. Visit our consultation page to learn more about our one- or two-day faculty training packages. Email us for a free initial consultation.

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Up first is a volume written by Elaine Cooper entitled The Power and Neglected Voice of Charlotte Mason: A Coherent, Holistic Approach to Education for Our Times. Her thesis is many ways is captured by the two adjectives in the subtitle: coherent and holistic. I could see this book being a centerpiece for introducing parents and teachers to Charlotte Mason who may have only a passing acquaintance with her life and work due to the far-reaching scope of such a succinct volume.

Cooper has been at the heart of the Charlotte Mason revival since the 1970s, working alongside Susan Schaeffer Macaulay to establish the Child Light Trust to promote Charlotte Mason education in England. In 2004, Cooper edited the book When Children Love to Learn (Crossway), bringing together leading voices in the US and England to provide practical applications for Mason’s philosophy. Cooper was also involved in the start of Heritage School in Cambridge, England, which opened its doors in 2007.

Biography

Cooper begins her work with a succinct biography of Charlotte Mason. The contours of this biographical sketch of Mason follows the work of Margaret Coombs, who published Charlotte Mason: Hidden Heritage and Educational Influence in 2015. I appreciate how Cooper retraces the hidden childhood of Mason without dwelling on her birth out of wedlock or the potential influence either parent or their families might have had on her subsequent achievements. Mason rarely mentioned her upbringing, which could be due to her embarrassment of that upbringing. But equally, she could have just as easily viewed those years as irrelevant to the person she became as an educational thinker. To that end, Cooper’s sketch devotes the bulk of the section to her experiences in teacher training schools and posts at Birkenhead, London, Worthing and Chichester.

One of the important points Cooper brings out pertains to the collapse of the positivism of late Victorians progressivism. World War 1 had swept away much of this positivism, and with it many turned to modernist views of education. Cooper writes:

“But the horrors of the First World War and the disillusionment with western civilisation sent shock waves through society. Many educators and leaders at the time felt that old ways of thinking and doing needed to be swept away, and the new be emphatically implemented for the 20^th century. Mason’s educational vision and model for a full and abundant life binding knowledge and virtue and shaping Britain as a righteous nation no longer fitted in.” (19)

From this we may derive two insights. First, this factor demonstrates how in the height of Mason’s reach within British culture—she had established the House of Education in Ambleside, she was a respected author, moved in important circles in society, and a growing number of state schools were adopting her methods—she became almost anonymous and forgotten in history. It wasn’t due to a deficiency in her educational philosophy or pedagogical methods, but rather to a radical turning away from traditional values. A turn, one might add, that demonstrably was for the worse not only in Britain but throughout the world, as a Second World War so soon after the First would confirm.

Second, Cooper hints at the fact that Mason is well grounded in the liberal arts tradition. This is something that Cooper identifies at various points in the book. Many advocates for educational renewal, particularly in the classical educational landscape, doubt Mason’s compatibility with classical education. Cooper spells out that at a fundamental level, Mason shares convictions with proponents of a renewal of the liberal arts tradition.

Philosophy of Education

Cooper next develops Mason’s philosophy of education by highlighting the core tenets of her work as well as spelling out interactions she has with numerous other philosophers of education. She grounds Mason’s philosophy within a Christian perspective, meaning that Mason’s “understanding of the world and the person” fit squarely “within a Christian metaphysical framework” (22). I think this points to an aspect of the coherent and holistic approach Mason provides in her approach to education. In a modern world driven by technology and economic outcomes, grounding education in scripture and a vital connection to God is essential.

The singular foundation to Mason’s philosophy of education, according to Cooper, is the personhood of the child. After quoting Mason, who views the child’s mind as complete—“his mind is the instrument of his education and his education does not produce his mind” (Mason, Philosophy of Education, 36)—Cooper expands upon this view of the personhood of the child:

“In her view—Mason’s understanding of identity and personhood—someone, rather than something is located in the imago dei, bearing the image of a personal, creator God. Children are separate and complete beings even in their dependency, capable of reflecting some of God’s attributes. They have language and reason and imagination. Each one exists as a real physical and metaphysical entity—an embodied self, a spiritual being with a soul and the powers necessary to appropriate knowledge, beauty and goodness.” (Cooper 24)

Grounded in the biblical concept of the image of God, the personhood of the child means that we are not educating blank slates and manipulating them to become something of significance at a later stage in their lives. They are born with capacities to learn and grow, and thus our job is to provide suitable means for them to acquire knowledge and wisdom. The respect due to the child as a learner with a powerful mind well equipped to assimilate what is to be learned is not only a foundational aspect to Mason’s work, but sets her apart from other modern educational theorists. After quoting Martin Marty, University of Chicago professor, regarding the shortcomings of modern approaches to childhood education, Cooper concludes regarding the personhood of the child that there is a “need for thoughtful and critical evaluations of popular developmental and educational theories, suggesting there is much more to understanding the child and person than hitherto assumed.” (27)

To this end, Cooper segues into a series of educational theorists with whom Mason grappled in the development of her own educational philosophy. The list of interlocutors is substantial—John Locke, Johann Friedrick Herbart, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Friedrich Fröbel, Maria Montessori, Herbert Spencer, and William James—and indicates a wide range of thought and power of mind on the part of Mason. Cooper’s development of each interaction is succinct yet helps develop in compelling ways Mason’s concern with “the increasing influence of intellectual rationalism and scientific reductionism flowing out from the Enlightenment.” (27) Seeing Mason in light of this series of educational theorists makes it difficult to simply categorize her as an educational reformer in the progressive mold of Rousseau or Dewey, and yet she is not merely a traditionalist unwilling to take on board, for instance, Pestalozzi and Fröbel’s insistence on the natural capacities of the child. In fact, Mason proved herself quite capable of incorporating modern research into psychology and neurology while also breaking the mold of traditionalist conceptions of class, making a liberal arts educational available to all.

A thorough educational philosophy relies not only on a the quality of the anthropology—a high view of the child in Mason’s case—but also on a sound epistemology. For Mason, the mind does not emerge as a property due to education, the mind is what acts upon knowledge to produce the education person. There is a “spiritual nature of mind” that “requires the food of ideas for its daily bread” (45). The mind is active and seeks out knowledge, according to Mason. This differs from the empirical views of philosophers such as Locke and Herbart who view children as empty slates or sacs to be filled with knowledge. Mason abhorred predigested information and desired children to read books full of living ideas that would feed not only the minds of children, but also form their character. The goal of education, therefore, is to give every opportunity for the child to experience the wide array of insights available in a rich and generous curriculum.

To that end, the qualities of the materials Mason sought to present to children are in keeping with the best cultural artifacts produced across generations. Cooper connects this with the classical liberal arts:

“Mason ([Philosophy of Education] 1925) was passionately concerned to education all pupils broadly in the classic, liberal arts tradition—‘the joy of the Renaissance without its lawlessness’ (p. 9)—a holistic tradition which could cultivate imagination and good habits, train judgement and engender wide interests, after which anyone would be able to master the intricacies of any profession. (Cooper 50)

Methodology

Having established the main contours of Mason’s educational philosophy, Cooper then develops the key elements of Mason’s educational methods. The two keystones here are narration and habit training. What I like about Cooper’s work here is that she connects the dots, so to speak, between philosophy and method.

For instance, with regard to narration—the ability “to individually narrate back, in their own words, what they had heard” after a single reading—Cooper connects narration to the power of the mind, or the high view of the child explored in Mason’s philosophy:

“Narration was founded on her belief in the intrinsic and natural power of mind, through attentive listening, to recall knowledge gained from a single reading or seeing or doing, and the fact that such direct recollection makes so deep an impression on the mind that it remains for a long time and is never entirely lost.” (60)

Thus, narration is an active outworking of the high view of the child. Not only do we view the child as capable of assimilating knowledge, we place those capabilities in the driver’s seat of the child’s learning. Cooper shares a delightful quote from Comenius, the Czech reformer and educational philosopher, “teachers shall teach less and scholars should learn more.” (61 quoting The Great Didactic (1907), 4). In other words, the energy of learning is rightly placed within the sphere of the child, rather than energies being wasted by a teacher who overprepares and overdelivers materials that the learner can access directly through living books.

Regarding habits, Cooper again connects method to the high view of the child. Each child is naturally equipped to follow certain pathways when the parent or teacher rightly guides them along those pathways. There are physical habits (cleanliness, tidiness), moral habits (obedience, kindness), and intellectual habits (attention, accuracy), which must actually make life easier for the child. The temptation exists for parents and teachers to consider these habits as burdensome and therefore neglect to properly instill them, yet worse habits will be fixed within the child, making life ultimately harder for the child.

The rich curriculum of living books gives feet to Mason’s epistemology since the mind craves living ideas. Cooper notes how these living books are “written in literary language” or in a “narrative style.” (63) Some of the hallmarks of a Charlotte Mason education are the inclusion of nature study, picture study, composer study, and architecture, all of which Cooper situates within the methods of Mason.

Conclusion

Cooper wraps up her volume by evaluating the legacy of Mason. As someone who has been part of the Mason revival, she suggests an exciting potential outcome in the flourishing of homeschools and schools that adopt her philosophy and methods:

“It is possible that widespread interest could spearhead both a faithful and contemporary understanding of her applied Christian philosophy of education, backed up by the practical evidence of thousands of children educated in over 300 of her schools and many home schools in early 20^th-century Britain and beyond.” (69)

I for one agree that this revival of interest in Mason is having profound effects in North America. I am grateful that Elaine Cooper has put this very readable book together. For anyone wanting a clear and concise overview of Mason, this book is essential reading. If you provide leadership at a school using Charlotte Mason’s philosophy and methods, this is a great book to give to new faculty as part of their onboarding.

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Introduction to Ourselves

Within the six-volume series on education written by Charlotte Mason, her book entitled Ourselves is unique unto itself. It is written directly to the student unlike the other books which are written to educators. The intention is to teach students about themselves so that they have a deep understanding of their own inner working. She likens the person to a kingdom—the “Kingdom of Mansoul.” Even this analogy teaches the young person that they are to master themselves. Mason aims to equip young people with knowledge of themselves in order to make good choices in life and to be of good service to God and the world.

The book is highly structured, falling into two major parts: self-knowledge and self-direction. Within the first part, there are four main headings—body, mind, heart and vocation—each addressing aspects of personhood in keeping with the kingdom analogy by casting these aspects as offices within a ruling counsel or cabinet. Then in the second part, there are three main headings—conscience, the will and the soul. Throughout the volume there are references to the Bible, literature and poetry, which ornament this imaginative approach to Mason’s work. I have found it to be an enjoyable read and has the feel of a spiritual classic such as Pilgrim’s Progress or The Interior Castle.

Our selected chapter comes towards the end of the book, as part of self-direction within the soul. Mason defines the soul as a temple dedicated to “the service of the living God.” (174). Living out our Christian faith takes practice, so one can hear in this section advice for the young person to heed in terms of the dangers that would beset us and the ways we ought to practice gratitude.

Thanksgiving: The Nine

Mason begins with the story in Luke 17:11-19 of the ten lepers who were cleansed. Only one of the ten, a Samaritan, returns to give thanks to Jesus. The one who gave thanks was honored, but Jesus questioned, “Where are the others?” In our fallen condition, are we not like the nine when we neglect to give thanks.

The Nine: “Whoso offereth Me thanks and praise, he honoureth Me,” saith our God; and we are abashed when we realise that it rests with us to add honour to the Highest, and that we refrain our lips.

“Were there not ten cleansed, but where are the nine?” Alas, how often are we among the nine, the poor, pitiful souls who received everything and gave nothing, not even a word of thanks! It is worth noting that “the unthankful and the evil” go together in that list of lost souls which we find in the last book of the Bible. Even if we have our moments of thankfulness, when we cry,

“When all Thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view I’m lost,
In wonder, love and praise”

our fault, and our very great misfortune, is, that we fail to take at regular intervals that survey of our life which must indeed cause us transports of gratitude. We fail to give thanks, partly because we are inert, partly because we are preoccupied with some fret or desire of the moment, and partly because of the petulant turning away of the shoulder from God which is our danger. But let us take time for the survey, if only on the Sundays, or, less frequently still, at the great seasons of the year. (191-192)

As we train our children and students, we can highlight the preoccupation that distracts us from reflection and offering our thanks to God. Moreover, there should be times set aside, even if it is only once a week, to spend in reflection and to articulate thanks to God.

Thanksgiving: My Rising Soul Surveys

Next, Mason helps to shape our gratitude towards God around the common things of life. Notice how she is cultivating the affections very much in the tradition of Augustine. The simple things that cause us delight are the springboard towards the upward thoughts that rise to the Father.

‘My Rising Soul Surveys:’ How good is life, how joyous it is to go out of doors, even in the streets of a city! Surely a pleasant thing it is to see the sun! How good is health, even the small share of it allotted to the invalid! How good and congenial all the pleasant ways of home life, all family love and neighbourly kindness, and the love of friends! How good it is to belong to a great country and share in all her interests and concerns! How good to belong to the world of men, aware that whatever concerns men, concerns us! How good are books and pictures and music! How delightful is knowledge! How good is the food we eat! How pleasant are the clothes we wear! How sweet is sleep, and how joyful is awaking!

The Soul that surveys these and a thousand other good things of our common life is indeed a ‘rising soul,’ rising to the Father,––who knoweth that we have need of all these things,––with the gratitude and thanksgiving that are forced out of a heart overflowing with love. Even an occasional act of thanksgiving of this kind sweetens the rest of life for us; unconsidered thanks rise from us day by day and hour by hour. We say grace for a kind look, or a beautiful poem, or a delightful book, quite as truly as for a good dinner––more so, indeed; for it is true of us also that man doth not live by bread alone. (192)

The goal of habit training is to instill the best practices of life so that they easily flow as a matter of course. Consider how the habit of reflection on the simple events and happenings of the day followed by an expression of thanks to God can support the spiritual life of the child throughout the rest of his life.

Thanksgiving: We Honor God by Thanking Him

Mason rounds out her thinking about the habit of thanksgiving by contrasting the thanks we offer in exceptional circumstances with the daily thanks we offer for simple things. It reminds me of what the ancient philosophers taught about virtues such as courage or prudence. We ought not to wait for exceptional circumstances to show courage, for in those moments, we might not have the strength to withstand such circumstances. Better to practice the virtues daily in simple circumstances so that we are well acclimated to the virtue at the hour of need. The same holds true for offering thanksgiving to God.

We honour God by thanking Him: But we think so little of ourselves that it does not seem to us to matter much whether or no we thank God for all His surprising sweet benefits and mercies towards us.

Indeed, we should not have known that it does matter, if, with the condescending grace that few earthly parents show, He had not told us that He is honoured by our thanks! How impossible it seems that we should add anything to God, much less that we should add to His honour! Here is our great opportunity: let us give thanks.

Perhaps most of us fall on our knees and give thanks for special mercies that we have begged of our Father’s providing care––the restored health of one beloved, the removal of some cause of anxiety, the opening up of some opportunity that we have longed for. For such graces as these we give ungrudging thanks, and we do well; but the continual habit of thanksgiving is more;––

“Not thankful when it pleaseth me,
As if Thy blessings had spare days,
But such a heart whose pulse may be,
Thy praise.”

HERBERT. (192-193)

Three Practical Applications

As we think about these concepts from Charlotte Mason, I think there are many practical applications for us as teachers in our classrooms. Here are three that seem most immediately applicable.

First, schedule time in your classroom each day to have students reflect on the simple thinks and offer thanks to God for those things. This can be a great practice at the end of the morning or the end of the day. As students trace back over the day, have them notice people, events, activities or objects that catch their attention. Once they have something in mind, then coach them on appropriate ways to express thanks to God. A moment of prayer at the end of the day can occur in small groups or as a big group.

Second, gratitude journals can be a helpful tool in cultivating the habit of thankfulness. Designate a line in a homework steno or a section in a copybook for writing short expressions of thanksgiving. Start each day by reminding students to be on the lookout for opportunities to express gratitude for simple things in their gratitude journals. These journals can feed into an end-of-day gratitude session, by having students review their journals to populate their minds with occurrences from the day.

Third, lead by example from the front of the classroom. Find things to be grateful for and express your thanksgiving regularly. You can set the tone for this habit by demonstrating what it looks like to be a person who gives an “occasional act of thanksgiving” to sweeting your own life as well as the atmosphere of your classroom. Furthermore, by acknowledging and honoring God in this way, it serves as a regular reminder of His presence in our midst.

Watch an in-depth training session on how to apply Charlotte Mason’s method of habit training in your classroom. Dr. Egan briefly reviews the basics, and then takes you to new levels of understanding that has practical benefits for students of all ages.

Learn practical strategies to cultivate attention, piety, penmanship, and other specific habits. Whether you are a classroom teacher, administrator or homeschool parent, you will find helpful tools to take your craft of teaching to the next level.

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Making the decision about where to go to college and what to study in college has a lot of weight during the high school years. There can be a lot of anxiety and fear surrounding college choice. Students feel like if they don’t make the absolutely right decisions, they could not only ruin their chances to get into their top college, they could ruin their life. The aim of this article is to remove some of the fears surrounding college choice and redirect the energy given to the college decision process towards some meaningful projects that students can work on that will provide direction and understanding, not just about colleges, but about themselves.

What is Vocation?

So what exactly do we mean by vocation? The Latin word voco means “I call,” and from this we can say that a vocation is a calling. What one does in one’s life has this sense that God is calling someone to something. It is a pursuit that calls us forward. In the Bible, we often see moments where God specifically calls people to something, calling them to an office of kingship or prophecy. But we all can have that sense of life direction, a sense of where we’re going and what we ought to be doing with our lives. For students in high school, this can feel like a very remote experience. What does it look like to be a grown up and to have a job, to have a family, to have a sense of what to do with this life that God has given. All of this feels so far off on the horizon. How could a high school student possibly know what their calling is?

However, in my many years of working with middle and high school student, I have observed how deeply spiritual these students can be. Thus, I think it entirely possible for students to have a sense of life mission or calling. We who are guiding these young people need to shift our questions from, “What college do you want to go to?” or “What would you like to do when you grow up?” to different questions such as “How are you going to show up in the world?” and “Why has God put you on the planet?” This shift in question moves us away from occupation to vocation. It begins to address the matter of what kind of person are you becoming instead of asking what kind of job will you have. It enables the student to cast a vision for what life will be like – the kind of person will they marry, what kind of parent or grandparent would they want to be, what will people remember them for when they attend their funeral. These are really weighty questions and point to the ways in which a single life will touch hundreds, thousands, millions of other people. So we need to help students thinking ahead in different ways than has been the case in conventional college guidance. While GPA and test scores still factor in when it comes to the college journey, the questions that will best help students solidify their sense of personhood are the ones we should place before them at this critical juncture in their lives.

A Biography of an Interesting Person

The best way for students to prepare themselves for this life calling or life mission is by cultivating the right mix of passion and discipline. While I have read numerous stories of college-bound applicants who have this kind of mix, I want to spell out what this looks like with a figure in a more remote past. What we will see is a person who didn’t have it all together at first, but pursued little passions that enabled him to develop key disciplines that eventually led to a big passion.

Scottish missionary Alexander Mackay (1849-1890) grew up just outside of Aberdeen. His father was a minister in the Free Church of Scotland and a farmer in the Aberdeenshire countryside. Alexander, therefore, grew up on a farm, and what he did on that farm was tinker with all the machinery on the farm. He learned how things worked. He took things apart and put them back together. In addition, he went into town on a frequent basis and the shops in town. He worked with the shop owners to figure out how to do different things with equipment, whether it was the printer shop or the carding mill. As this young kid tinkered with things, he had the opportunity to develop a lot of little passions. At this point in his life, he didn’t have a grand vision of becoming a missionary. In fact, his father worried about Alexander’s pursuits of worldly knowledge. These little passions, however, meant that Alexander developed a set of disciplines surrounding how to work on mechanical objects.

At 18, Alexander went to the University of Edinburgh and studied engineering there. The development of mechanical disciplines paved the way for him to attend a world class university. He continued to develop disciplines in mathematics and engineering. He had developed into someone very interesting in the field of engineering through this pursuit of little passions that enabled him to develop key disciplines. In fact, after graduating from Edinburgh he was recruited by a company in Germany to help them design steam engines for farm equipment. His work there earned him recognition for the development of innovative technology. Alexander went from little passions to developing disciplines, becoming a really interesting figure in the world of engineering. But he wasn’t done figuring out his life’s mission.

While he was in Germany, he met with other Christians there. He had grown up as a warm hearted Christian, but he had devoted most of his time and energies to learning about math, science, and engineering. In Germany, he learned about missionaries going to Africa, and his heart was taken with this idea of connecting his skill in engineering with sharing the gospel in Africa. So at the age of 22, he made a decision to go to Africa, and he spent most of the rest of his life in Uganda and the interior of the African continent. Sharing the gospel and applying these engineering skills, he helped develop the infrastructure of the interior of Africa. There are hundreds of miles of roads that were designed and developed by Alexander Mackay. This life mission emerged well after Mackay had developed key disciplines. Growing up on the farm, he cultivated skills. He developed disciplines that made him renowned as an engineer. And then he found a big passion. The reason God had put him on this planet was to become an engineer on the mission field.

Let’s break down the principles exemplified by Alexander Mackay. He pursued little passions, which enabled him to develop key disciplines that propelled him forward. These key disciplines led to a big passion that honored his sense of God’s call upon his life. This pattern – little passions, key disciplines, big passion – is a sound alternative to the prevailing advice given to students during their formative years. A leading thinker in this area has been Cal Newport. In his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You, he spells out how the passion hypothesis (“follow your passion”) is misguided. He identifies two fallacies associated with the passion hypothesis. First, most students and young adults don’t have clearly defined singular passion to follow. This can lead to frustration if a young person takes on a career that they ultimately find they don’t really like simply because they were infatuated with a singular passion. Second, young people typically don’t have much data to support any sense of passion or interest. So they jump into a major and a career hoping for happiness, but lacking any evidence to show that they will actually find happiness following a singular passion.

Here’s where the little passions followed by key disciplines advice is far better than the passion hypothesis. Young people can flit about cultivating numerous passions: music, sports, science, literature, creative writing, computer coding, cars, economics. By trying on for size several interests, they are exploring their world in a way that matches their youthful inclinations. But accompanying the little passions is the development of key disciplines. The musician learns to practice effectively and perform before others. The athlete learns how to train efficiently and handle competition. The creative writer learns the discipline of writing regularly and delivering their work to an audience. What emerges in this little passion followed by key disciplines advice is a growing sense of life mission because they are accumulating evidence of not only what they like, but also what they are effective at doing.

Finding Opportunities to Develop Disciplines

In many respects, the journey to finding a vocation has less to do with the initial spark of interest and more to do with the development of disciplines. Consider the student who becomes interested in playing piano. Her parents sign her up for piano lessons. She is developing a small passion. That small passion is a pathway to develop discipline. The piano teacher provides coaching and mentorship. The student is not only given music to learn, but also practices scales and arpeggios. In order to perform well, there are disciplines that must be well rehearsed. And it is these well-developed disciplines that stand out when cultivated over time.

It might not be piano, but instead may be photography or computer programming. The pattern of identifying little passions that lead to opportunities to develop disciplines holds true. Learning the technical aspects of competent photography is a set of disciplines that impress others enough to be hired for a job. The aspiring computer programmer must acquire enough skill at programming so that people reach out to have their website updated or download an app. The pattern worth noting is that little passions lead to opportunities to develop disciplines. Only when disciplines have been developed do individuals get the opportunity to pursue big passions.

Now, I told the story of Alexander McKay to develop the pattern – little passions, key disciplines, big passion. This pattern, though, is not a thing of the past. I have seen this carried out by students who have been guided by these principles.

Consider a young person who in high school became really passionate about architecture. She spent time making architectural sketches, from high rises to houses to cathedrals. Her passion about architecture, drawing and design led her to develop disciplines in math and science. She ended up majoring in mechanical engineering at a Christian liberal arts college. The skills she developed enabled her to excel as an engineer after graduating from college.

Other students have followed a similar pathway. One student became interested in police work. After signing up for a ride along with a police officer at the local station, this student joined an internship program through the police station. When it came time to apply to colleges, her direct involvement in police work made her application stand out as she applied to several Christian liberal arts college. Choosing a criminal justice major is not the start of her journey, but simply the next step towards her sense of mission in life. Her interest was matched with opportunities to develop disciplines even as a high schooler to confirm her sense of vocation.

Flipping the Script

When it comes to conventional college guidance, I think we’re getting it all wrong. We often think about college guidance as completing the steps to get into the best possible college. What we need to do instead is flip the script. If we enable students to understand their sense of vocation or calling – if we disciple young people to discover why it is that God has placed them on this planet – we can encourage them to think differently about college. Instead of trying to accumulate a number of activities to stack a resume in order to become as attractive as possible to colleges, a better approach is to find these little passions that will enable them to develop disciplines in a few areas that make them an interesting candidate to a number of colleges.

When they develop one or two passions into disciplines, they are able to then demonstrate to these colleges that they have the ability to go deep in a those areas. They not only can articulate a sense of calling and direction in life, but they already have a proven track record of meaningful and tangible experiences. It all comes through a dynamic of connecting these little passions and these developing disciplines into a relationship with God where students are asking God on a regular basis, where are you going to take these things?

So college guidance is actually about helping students discover a big vision of what their life might be like. Here’s the reality, though. It’s impossible to be certain about a grand life vision at such a young age. This is why little passions are the best place to begin, because they can lead to a set of disciplines that point in the direction of one’s vocation.

The “Superstar” Thesis

A figure who helps to amplify the process described here is Cal Newport, professor of computer science at Georgetown University. In 2010, Newport published the last of his student books, a series of paperbacks oriented to providing advice to high school and college students. The title How to Be a High School Superstar may sound like clickbait. However, Newport packs the book with sound advice that hints at the ideas he unpacks in later works such as “deep work,” “craftsman mindset,” and even “digital minimalism.” Newport explains how the high school rat race to get into prestigious colleges entails excessive activities that make admissions candidates unimpressive while they work themselves into burnout. The alternative – the “superstar” thesis – is to do less while pursuing accomplishments that are “hard to explain.” Let’s unpack this a little further.

Newport delineates three laws that can be put into practice by students during their high school careers. These laws can be expressed in three words: underscheduling, focus and innovation. He writes:

“As my research into the relaxed superstars progressed, I began to notice three big-picture ideas popping up again and again:

The Law of Understanding – Pack your schedule with free time. Use this time to explore.

The Law of Focus – Master one serious interest. Don’t waste time on unrelated activities.

The Law of Innovation – Pursue accomplishments that are hard to explain, not hard to do.

These were the general laws that most of the students I interviewed seemed to follow on their path from average to standout.” (Cal Newport, How to Be a High School Superstar, xix)

I think these laws map well on the pattern spelled out earlier – little passions, key disciplines, big passion. Students need time to explore to find little passions. Then they need to take on the mastery mindset like a craftsman to gain skills and disciplines. These will then lead to something bigger in the accomplishments that can be difficult to explain. Let’s spell this out further.

Advising High School Students

The first message students need to hear is that they should give themselves the gift of free time. Sit down with your students and look over their weekly schedule. Identify pockets of time that can become opportunities for broad exploration. They need time to freely explore interests that could draw them into opportunities to develop disciplines. One word of caution, though. Free time cannot get absorbed into the internet. By underscheduling the student is using free time to cultivate interests, and social media and gaming will eat up all of that ability to cultivate interests. Instead of spending time on the internet, advise students to go outside and play. Just like Alexander went outside and played with farm equipment. He took things apart. He figured out how it worked. Advise students to read books. Find books at the library or at a local bookstore. The idea is to find things that genuinely interest the student.

The second message students need to hear is that they should remain cognizant of their time. It’s too easy to become overly involved in activities that will not help them to develop disciplines. Help make the connection between a few areas of interest and the skills they can develop within those. It could be that your role is to help them find specific opportunities to connect with an outside organization that takes interns. There may be mentors or coaches that you can help the family to find. The goal is to find interesting opportunities for the student to gain skills.

The third message students need to hear is that the modern economy has opportunities for them to share their gifts with others. Help your students to discover ways to share their interests through forums both within the school and more broadly. Consider how a student who starts a blog or a podcast or a YouTube channel can own their area of interest in ways that are unique and interesting. Most of the tools available in the marketplace are available to high school entrepreneurs.

The ultimate message students need to hear is that God is at work to accomplish his purposes through his people. When we cultivate our interests and disciplines within an understanding that God created us for his good purposes, it can ignite our passions to envision a life of service to him. Already in high school, students can develop a sense of gifting and calling while exploring interests and developing disciplines. As a counselor, continue to ask the question, “What do you think God is doing through this?” or “What’s your sense of what God is drawing you to?”

Putting It All Together

The goal of college guidance should actually have nothing to do with college at all. The guidance we provide aims at a life well lived. Our work with students ought to enable them to consider their own vocation or calling. Far from being a fanciful self-reflection, students who are guided to explore exciting interests that lead them to develop deep disciplines will gain real insights into themselves and their relationships with God and others. While it might be impossible to truly know one’s calling as a high schooler, I firmly believe that students who undertake these steps will have a greater ownership of their college choices and a fuller sense of what they are interested in pursuing in their lives.

If you have enjoyed these thoughts, be on the lookout for our upcoming podcast with Tami Peterson, founder of Life Architects. She and I discuss a wide range of ideas pertaining to college guidance. Subscribe to the Educational Renaissance Podcast on Spotify to catch all the latest episodes.

Training the Prophetic Voice by Dr. Patrick Egan is a must-read for classical Christian educators seeking to build a robust rhetoric program. Grounded in biblical theology, this insightful book provides a framework for developing students’ prophetic voices – the ability to speak with wisdom, clarity, and conviction on the issues that matter most.

As an experienced educator, Dr. Egan understands the vital role rhetoric plays in shaping the next generation of Christian leaders. Through time-tested principles and practical guidance, he equips teachers to cultivate students who can articulate the truth with passion and purpose.

Whether you’re looking to revitalize your existing rhetoric curriculum or lay the foundation for a new program, Training the Prophetic Voice is an invaluable resource. Discover how to empower your students to become effective communicators, courageous truth-tellers, and agents of transformation in their communities and beyond.

Order your copy of Training the Prophetic Voice today and unlock the power of your students’ voice in your classroom.

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The concept of banning mobile devices in schools should be thought of first and foremost about the learning environment. As we consider the role that phones play in the lives of children, there are good reasons why families might consider placing a phone in their child’s hands. There is a feeling of safety to be able to contact one another at a moment’s notice. Parents have the ability to find their location through tracking apps. Not only is there a feeling of safety, but there is also a feeling of technological advantage in a world that is so driven by devices. Or to put it another way, parents feel that by not entrusting these devices to children, they will fall behind their peers in ways that might have implications for their education and careers.

However, more and more parents, teachers and leaders are waking up to the idea that mobile devices are harmful for children. Haidt highlights four ways that phones have harmed children: social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction. There is much onus on parents to lead the charge in the battle to save children from these harms. But there is equally a burden of responsibility on schools to not only protect children from these harms, but also to educate and train students to rise to the challenge of our phone-based society. To that end, we need to talk about phone-free policies for our school. On top of that, we need to go beyond restrictions to encourage healthy face-to-face interactions within the school environment, to train students in gaining deep focus, and to provide a holistic framework that equips students to understand the role of technology in their lives.

A Review of The Anxious Generation

The 2024 release of Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation has swept the nation, appearing on the New York Times bestseller list for nonfiction every week since its publication in late March. This is not the first time he has written on topics pertaining to mental health and its modern causes, having co-authored The Coddling of the American Mind with Greg Lukianoff. What is not in question is that children today are describing themselves as experiencing greater depression and anxiety than previous generations. The debatable matter is what exactly has caused this increase to occur. Haidt’s answer is what he calls the “phone-based childhood.”

Without a doubt, the presence of smart phones in the pockets of our children has dramatically changed the experience of being a child. Haidt spells out the factors that contribute to the rising anxiety among children, adolescents and young adults. There are serious psychological implications for children growing up in a world that is hyper-connected to the internet. In particular, there are “four foundational harms” associated with a phone-based childhood, according to Haidt. First, children are deprived of face-to-face social interactions. Social media is often consumed in isolation within a virtual world at the expense of being physically present with others in the real world. Haidt writes, “Children need face-to-face, synchronous, embodied, physical play” (121). The absence of this kind of in-person interaction means that children lose out on the opportunities to learn the skills of social exchange and personal identity within groups where you have to navigate complex human dynamics.

Second, children are deprived of the sleep they need not only to support healthy physical growth, but also to consolidate their internal selves. When we sleep, there is a tremendous amount of activity that processes our experiences of life, be that what has been learned in school or the social interactions with friends and family. Haidt cites a study by Jean Twenge that found that “heavy use of screen media was associated with shorter sleep duration, longer sleep latency, and more mid-sleep awakenings” (124). Screen use, then, comes at a cost that can go unseen. Reduced hours of sleep and poor quality of sleep will have a dramatic impact on aspects of children such as concentration and mood.

Third, children are deprived of the power of attention. Smart phones increase the number of notifications and interrupts linear thought constantly. Haidt spells out the implications:

“Attention is a choice we make to stay on one task, one line of thinking, one mental road, even as attractive off-ramps beckon. When we fail to make that choice and allow ourselves to be frequently sidetracked, we end up in ‘the confused, dazed, scatterbrained state’ that [American psychologist William] James said is the opposite of attention.” (127)

Such deprivation of the power of attention has an obvious and significant impact on learning. The importance of attention has recently been expressed as the key factor driving excellence. According to Daniel Goleman in his book Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, attention connects to every aspect of life and achievement:

“In very recent years the science of attention has blossomed far beyond vigilance. That science tells us these skills determine how well we perform any task. If they are stunted, we do poorly; if muscular, we can excel. Our very nimbleness in life depends on this subtle faculty. While the link between attention and excellence remains hidden most of the time, it ripples through almost everything we seek to accomplish.” (2-3)

For this reason, the deprivation of attention strikes a blow at a core level, crippling the ability to students to shape their lives through the application of skills they might acquire.

Fourth, children suffer from the addictive nature of the apps on their smartphones (and in many cases other screen-based devices). Haidt is clear that the addictive nature of these devices does not mean that students are therefore addicted. He does, however, point out that “their desires are being hacked and their actions manipulated nonetheless.” (130) To put it another way, the pings, notifications, and alarms have a Pavlovian effect on children at a stage when they are most neurologically maleable. Social media and online games are often created to trigger addictive responses by teenagers, leaving them vulnerable to techniques that cause the them to spend more and more time in social media apps like Instagram and online games like Fortnite.

Additional Recent Research

Haidt’s book is well written making it an engaging and fairly easy read. This can potentially mask how well researched The Anxious Generation in fact is. Looking at the long list of references in the back, it is clear that Haidt has spent considerable time poring over the data. Even so, there does remain some amount of research that in the main corroborates Haidt’s perspective that smart phone are detrimental to children and adolescents.

One such corroboration is found in a review study published the summer of 2022 in the journal European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. The authors reviewed 25 studies published between 2011 and 2019 finding that the use of mobile phones and wireless devices “may be associated with poorer mental health in children and adolescents.” (Girela-Serrano, B.M., et al. “Impact of mobile phones and wireless devices use on children and adolescents’ mental health: a systematic review.” Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 33 (2024), 1621–1651.) What I find interesting about this review is that for the first decade of the existence of the iPhone, scientists were already aware of potential detriments to children and adolescents.

More recently, Bora Colak, in an essay published in 2024, explores recent data to examine the association between the use of smartphones and social media and problems children and adolescents experience in mental health. Similar to Haidt, Colak recommends increased awareness and policy initiatives to protect children and adolescents from harm. (Bora Colak, “Potential Harms of Excessive Social Media and Smartphone Use on Youth Mental Health,” in Dancyger, et al., eds., Pediatric Nonadherence (Springer, 2024), 59-70).

Granting that not every child experiences smartphone addiction in the extreme, the potential for continual harm for children and adolescents exists. One recent study looked at potential molecular and neurological pathologies associated with smartphone addiction, suggesting the implementation of anti-addiction therapies to mitigate the impact of smartphone addiction. (Faijan, et al. “Smartphone Addiction among Students and its Harmful Effects on MentalHealth, Oxidative Stress, and Neurodegeneration towards FutureModulation of Anti-Addiction Therapies: A Comprehensive Survey basedon SLR, Research Questions, and Network Visualization Techniques,” CNS & Neurological Disorders – Drug Targets 22 (2023), 1070-1089.)

Taken together, these and other recent studies should alarm parents and educators of the harm that smartphones and social media can inflict on children and adolescents. The potential harm to children is great enough that in 2023 Surgeon General Vivek Murthy released an Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health. The advisory states, “Extreme, inappropriate, and harmful content continues to be easily and widely accessible by children and adolescents. This can be spread through direct pushes, unwanted content exchanges, and algorithmic designs.” (8) In other words, the individuals who are most vulnerable to harm are not properly protected against some of the ways these social media are designed. Murthy strengthened his statement a year later in piece he published in the New York Times, calling for warning labels on social media platforms along the lines of those found on cigarette boxes.

Advice for Schools

What is clear from Haidt’s book and recent studies is that smartphone and social media use by children and adolescents can be harmful. As a result, parents and schools should amplify their protections for children. In this section, we will outline a few steps that can be taken in schools to proactively respond to these trends.

Become Truly Phone Free

Many schools have phone policies of some sort. Haidt amplifies the issue when he writes, “A phone ‘ban’ limited to class time is nearly useless. This is why schools should go phone-free for the entirety of the school day.” (249, emphasis original). Such an approach requires a secure location for phones where they can be parked far enough away from where students do academic work for them to be truly separated from the device.

At Clapham School, we implemented a program where a phone storage cabinet was placed near the receptionist desk. As students enter the school, they place their phone in the “phone home” and proceed into the school where they learn in classes and interact with one another without phones present. The advantages of this approach are that the phone is in a secure location and there is a responsible adult present at all times. The presence of the adult is important both for the security of the phones, but also to facilitate accountability for the students. Rather than sneaking access to the phone during passing periods, breaks or lunch, students are more inclined to interact with each other. If a situation arises where the student needs to ask a parent a question, they are permitted to go to the receptionist area to use the phone in a designed location. Unsurprisingly, these needs have been fairly rare. When the phone is not easily accessible at all times, many of those “needs” seem to evaporate.

As you consider implementing a phone-free policy at your school, there are few principles to keep in mind. One, the policy needs to begin with the security of the students’ devices, because if they feel their property is not secure, there will be immediate resistance. Two, the policy needs to have some amount of flexibility where students can have a designated location where they can transact any interactions that come up during the day. By having that location near the receptionist, an appropriate approach can be that the student use the school phone to reach parents, thereby negating even further the “need” for the personal device. Three, there needs to be true separation. A location in a classroom can end up being quite the distraction as the phones buzz and squawk throughout the day. It can be difficult to find a central location that can accommodate the student traffic and maintain optimal security. Four, having an adult present at the secure location means there’s on-the-ground support for policy implementation. Finally, there needs to be an inspiring set of ideas that motivate the policy. Showing students the pathway to rich fellowship and deep learning helps them to know that there is something good and worthwhile they are committing to, rather than seeing such a policy as solely the deprivation of their property.

Write a Technology Policy

Now, having a phone-free school does not mean having a technology-free school entirely. The reality is that students must be well equipped to navigate a world full of technological and virtual components. At one level, schools need to develop a strong technology policy. The guiding principle should be the academic use of technology. Students must learn how to use basic apps such as Word, a school-based email account, presentation platforms and spreadsheets. Most of these tools can be incorporated into the general objectives across the curriculum. For instance, teachers can articulate objectives that will see students able to format text, format documents, set up tables, integrate graphics, set up templates, use table of contents, use different methods of citations including footnotes. These kinds of objectives situate technology within a set of learning outcomes that wed technology to academic production.

The next level of technological training should incorporate the use of video production. After Covid, the use of video meetings has become a reality even in the academic space. Thus, when we think about rhetorical training, students should not only think about written and oral production, but what it takes to be not only comfortable on camera, but to view this as a medium for persuasive communication. Along these same lines, I could see schools articulating objectives where students learn how to develop their own blogs and complete assignments by producing video content. This set of outcomes equips students to inhabit the virtual world that is part of their reality not solely as consumers but as creators. As such, I think they are more likely to have a greater sense of their own identity consistent with their real-world selves rather than being swayed by an onslaught of influences through social media platforms.

In order to accomplish these technological outcomes, I do think there should be a some clear parameters set with regard to the use of technology in school. Three immediately come to mind. First, devices – and here I mean predominantly laptops or tablets – should only be taken out under the direction of a teacher. Here I am trying to push back against the inundation of devices in the classroom. Students should still experience school as a place where paper books are opened in literature class, and math problems are solved with pencils in hand. Second, it should be expressly stated that there is no social media or entertainment sites open in school. The sole purpose for devices is their academic use. This curtails the switching between windows to support singular focus on the work at hand. It also encourages face-to-face interactions outside the classroom, rather than students gathering around a laptop to watch a YouTube video. Third, screens ought to face out towards the public. This means that anybody walking by or circulating in a classroom can quickly and easily see what is happening on screen. These kinds of approaches to the technology policy enable accountability and mentoring, strengthening the habits of students in the school context.

Get Parent Commitment

Implementing a phone-free school program cannot happen without good parent partnership. Schools can help parents by providing readings and workshops to address the issues facing parents today. Administrators and teachers should invite discussion with parents to learn more about the pain points they experience raising children in a world with smartphones and social media. In all likelihood, a phone-free school is exactly what they would want for their children. That being said, good communication is necessary in order to assuage fears parents might have about their ability to stay in touch with their children when out of the home. These fears are often associated with safety concerns, so they will want to know the measures the school will take to ensure the safety of their child.

One way to amplify parent commitment is to embed the phone-free school program within a larger movement. A compelling vision has been cast by Justin Earley, author of Common Rule and Habits of the Household. He sets forth ten practices that help individuals, households and communities to develop healthy relationships with technology. One of the ten practices is a phone-free school. Set within a context of personal, family and community standards, the alignment of this visionary approach enables everyone to work together towards the goal of healthy approaches to technology in our lives. One of the tools available to individuals is a commitment form that can be signed. What something like this can do for a community is to put some kind of stake in the ground that states a commitment to certain standards of conduct. You can find more information about the movement, the practices and the form at hangtenmovement.com.

Get Outside

Returning for the moment to Haidt’s thesis that we have increased vigilance regarding playing outside and decreased vigilance regarding playing online, my advice to educators is to get the students outside. Children need more time experiencing the real world in unstructured play out of doors, particularly in contact with the richness that nature has to offer. There is actually good research to support this. The mindfulness movement gathered momentum in light of the Covid epidemic, and much of the research tells the tale that being outside in nature improves mood and decreases anxiety. Walking in nature can improve one’s mood even more than physical exercise alone, according to a 2020 study (Olafsdottir, et al. “Health Benefits of Walking in Nature: A Randomized Controlled Study Under Conditions of Real-Life Stress,” Environment and Behavior, 52 (2020), 248-274). Even if an immersive experience in nature is hard to come by, even taking a walk in an urban environment was shown to have positive results on the mood of students (Jingni Ma, et al., “Effectiveness of a mindful nature walking intervention on sleep quality and mood in university students during Covid-19: A randomised control study,” EXPLORE 19 (2023), 405-416.) The long and short of this is that we should enable students to experience the benefits of real world.

There are lots of ways that you can enable students to make rich connections with the outdoors. Sometimes even a simple walk taking only five to ten minutes can completely change the mood of the day for your class. Getting outdoors can take a more formal approach by planning a nature study lesson. Plan field trips where the day is spent at a local garden, farm or arboretum. The goal is to get outside and have a meaningful interaction with the physical space we inhabit.

Training the Prophetic Voice by Dr. Patrick Egan is a must-read for classical Christian educators seeking to build a robust rhetoric program. Grounded in biblical theology, this insightful book provides a framework for developing students’ prophetic voices – the ability to speak with wisdom, clarity, and conviction on the issues that matter most.

As an experienced educator, Dr. Egan understands the vital role rhetoric plays in shaping the next generation of Christian leaders. Through time-tested principles and practical guidance, he equips teachers to cultivate students who can articulate the truth with passion and purpose.

Whether you’re looking to revitalize your existing rhetoric curriculum or lay the foundation for a new program, Training the Prophetic Voice is an invaluable resource. Discover how to empower your students to become effective communicators, courageous truth-tellers, and agents of transformation in their communities and beyond.

Order your copy of Training the Prophetic Voice today and unlock the power of your students’ voice in your classroom.

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Mason reflects, after years of implementation both in homes and schools, the result of narration for students:

“Oral teaching was to a great extent ruled out; a large number of books on many subjects were set for reading in morning school-hours; so much work was set that there was only time for a single reading; all reading was tested by a narration of the whole or a given passage, whether orally or in writing. Children working on these lines know months after that which they have read and are remarkable for their power of concentration (attention); they have little trouble with spelling or composition and become well-informed, intelligent persons.” (Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, 15)

Narration is a curious tool for the educator, since it is fairly expansive in its forms and uses. As we endeavor to look at narration from the perspective of its application in science, we must understand that narration can be of different sorts and utilize different thinking processes. Students can draw, dramatize, describe, discuss, or diagram. They can evaluate, compare and contrast, list, question, and chart. If we view narration as a means of assimilating knowledge through actively retelling in any number of ways. When we first learn narration from Mason’s writing, we tend to lock into a mode of simple retellings of narrative texts. But as we work with students at older ages and grade levels, these more complex thinking skills can and should be incorporated into their retellings.

I think it is helpful to visualize narration as situated on a spectrum from memorization on one end and summary on the other end. Narration fits somewhere in between these two. What exactly narration is can be differentiated from the two alternatives. When a student encounters the text, their narration is not a rapid memorization of the text. True, memory plays a significant role, but we are not listening for a word-for-word memorization of the text. Similarly, narration is not mere summary. A student who shares, “the text basically says such and such,” has not actually narrated. There is no rich retelling of the text, but a boiling down into something that is too distilled. Within this range from memorization to summary, there is much scope to develop cognitive and affective skills in students’ retelling.

To spell this out further, I think it instructive to look at Mason’s thoughts in her third book, School Education. Here she develops the basic method of narration within a school context. She insists upon a single reading of the text with full attention:

“The simplest way of dealing with a paragraph or a chapter is to require the child to narrate its contents after a single attentive reading,––one reading, however slow, should be made a condition; for we are all too apt to make sure we shall have another opportunity of finding out ‘what ’tis all about.’” (Charlotte Mason, School Education, 179)

One reading! That’s it! Notice how sensitive Mason is to the pacing this requires. In some cases, one can take on an entire chapter of material, but in others a paragraph only. She also uses the word “slow,” which indicates that at times the density of materials requires deliberation and concentration. If students expect that they can wait for a second reading, their ability to attend at the initial reading decreases. In fact, waiting for a second exposure to the materials – which may feel like a means of reinforcing learning – is not nearly as effective as learners might think. The authors of Make It Stick point out that singular readings followed by retrieval practice is the optimal process for learning. “Today, we know from empirical research that practicing retrieval makes learning stick better than reexposure to the original material does” (Make It Stick 29).

Continuing on with Mason’s more elaborate thoughts on narration, she writes:

“There is much difference between intelligent reading, which the pupil should do in silence, and a mere parrot-like cramming up of contents; and it is not a bad test of education to be able to give the points of a description, the sequence of a series of incidents, the links in a chain of argument, correctly, after a single careful reading.” (Charlotte Mason, School Education, 180)

What we find here is a recognition that the older student reads texts of different sorts. There are philosophical and political treatises, chronicles of historical events, and descriptions within scientific texts. The way we narrate these kinds of texts can take the form of outline and description.

“But this is only one way to use books: others are to enumerate the statements in a given paragraph or chapter; to analyse a chapter, to divide it into paragraphs under proper headings, to tabulate and classify series; to trace cause to consequence and consequence to cause; to discern character and perceive how character and circumstance interact; to get lessons of life and conduct, or the living knowledge which makes for science, out of books; all this is possible for school boys and girls, and until they have begun to use books for themselves in such ways, they can hardly be said to have begun their education.” (Charlotte Mason, School Education, 180)

The simple narrations of the elementary years are but the beginning of the ways we can utilize the power of narration. Students who are able to be tested in their telling back by incorporating these thinking skills become powerful learners. It matters not what books are placed before them. They apprehend not only the contents of the text, but also have the means of working with what they are acquiring as they are assimilating it.

Inspirational vs Disciplinary Subjects

The next idea we must delineate pertains to the nature of different subjects. Some are what we might call inspirational, meaning they are rich in ideas that are generally delivered in a literary form. For example, history tells stories about people and events from the past. Other subjects are disciplinary in nature, meaning that there is a focus on developing skills. Grammar and mathematics are two such subjects where students are trained to identify parts of speech or to work mathematical problems.

Over the years, I have developed the view that subjects tend toward either an inspirational or disciplinary nature. While literature is predominantly inspirational in nature, there are times when literary texts are analyzed for characterization or plot devices. The analytical tools are, of course, disciplinary in nature. So we can say that there are moments within inspirational subjects where skills are developed along disciplinary lines.

Mathematics, which tends to be highlighted as the chief disciplinary subject, can be a highly inspirational subject. There ought to be times when mathematical ideas are explored for their philosophical and aesthetic inspiration. For instance, I have led students in a discussion about the nature of the number zero. Zero means nothingness, and we delight in the idea that there is no place in the universe where zero exists, and yet everywhere in the universe, zero exists.

What we mean by subjects tending towards an inspirational or disciplinary nature, then, is that by and large, the mode we are operating in is one or the other. Even when we incorporate disciplinary or skills-based elements into inspirational subjects, or explore living ideas within disciplinary subjects, each subject can be generalized as one or the other. This is helpful because it shows us the modes we ought to operate within for each kind of subject. For instance, in inspirational subjects, we will largely be reading texts that are literary in nature, while in disciplinary subjects, we will be learning skills to accomplish certain kinds of work.

With this background in mind, we should note that science has both inspirational and disciplinary aspects to it. Charlotte Mason quotes Sir Richard Gregory, a leading British astronomer and scientist in her day, “The essential mission of school science was to prepare pupils for civilised citizenship by revealing to them something of the beauty and the power of the world in which they lived, as well as introducing them to the methods by which the boundaries of natural knowledge had been extended. School science, therefore, was not intended to prepare for vocations, but to equip pupils for life” (Philosophy of Education 222). For Mason, science contains both living ideas as well as techniques and methods that are carried out in field study and the laboratory. It contains a rich history that ought to be accessed through texts of literary quality. Yet science also contains the language of mathematics to calculate measures and processes.

Because of the dual nature of science, we need to expand our notion of narration beyond what we might consider the basic retelling of a narrative. In certain moments, there are narratives of great scientists whose stories tell of significant breakthroughs and advances in science. These moments will call forth a very recognizable type of narration as is found when a young child retells a tale from a story book. Yet there are other moments when a text delves into the intricacies of chemical change, the structures within a cell, or the formulas that are applied to motion. These cause the young reader to slow down and take in smaller portions at a time. Thus, the narrations become much more focused. They must assimilate the technical terminology fitting to the subject. They must be able to reproduce calculations that are properly formatted according to the conventions of a given scientific field. In such cases, there are moments when narration involves listing, outlining, defining, describing, illustrating and diagramming. These acts of knowing, then, form the means by which students assimilate and work with what they are learning.

A science curriculum that has become well loved amongst classical as well as Charlotte Mason educators is the Novare series written by John Mays. It’s a series of science texts that is sensitive to the dual nature of science by including sufficient historical context, that students can pick up on the narrative of science, while also cultivating the skills required to use mathematics, the language of science. I think it is instructive to consider some of the pedagogical principles Mays lays out, since they are in alignment with what we have described about the developing role of narration for older students in more technical subjects like science.

Mays is a big advocate for retrieval practice. At a number of points in his book From Wonder to Mastery, he reiterates the value of regular retrieval practice. For the younger years, narration is a natural practice as the texts we can access retain a narrative flair and literary quality. For instance, students can cultivate wonder by reading nature stories such as That Quail, Robert by Margaret Stranger. There are fascinating books that are image rich and accessible to young readers such as A Drop of Water by Walter Wick or the books in the “Scientists in the Field” series. There’s a wonderful series on the history of science called The Story of Science produced by the Smithsonian and written by Joy Hakim. All of these prepare elementary and middle school students for learning science alongside subjects such as nature study which gets them outside observing the natural world around them. Mays includes a list of books by great naturalists that likewise will expose older students to a rich world of authors who observed the natural world and wrote their findings in a literary style (see From Wonder to Mastery, 49).

As proponents of retrieval practice, the methods that Mays advises for science teachers are in the main quite sound. Jason Barney in A Classical Guide to Narration spells out the connection between narration and retrieval practice.

“Retrieval practice is not just what you do in studying for a test, though it is the most effective way to do that. It is the process of learning itself because it requires your brain to re-access the neural networks that were originally lit up as you were attending to that material.” (Jason Barney, A Classical Guide to Narration, 33)

And this is exactly what narration is, a process of “re-accessing” the material. And what this looks like in science is lots of regular short reviews. The ideas and calculations of science require effort and practice on the pathway towards mastery. I really like how Mays recommends an atmosphere of mastery. He writes, “Every single day in your class should be a mastery experience for your students” (185). Thus, taking moments to do short-form narrations of scientific concepts goes a long way towards shaping and molding students in the ways of scientific thought.

An Example Lesson from Novare

I think it is helpful to see how one would use narration with an example from an actual text. The following image is from page 107 in General Biology published by Novare (this is one of the pages from their sample pages available for free preview at Classical Academic Press).

Looking at this passage, you can see how the text already breaks the content down to small and accessible episodes. I would provide a “small talk” by listing the four reactions on the board. We would read carefully and closely the first paragraph one time and then turn the book over. My narration cue would be simply to say, “tell me what you recall about glycolysis.” One student might share that it means “sugar breaking” and that a small amount of ATP is released. Then I call for another student to add more to the picture, and that student says that a six-carbon molecule is broken down into a 3-carbon molecule. Another student might say that an electron is carried by a molecule, but can’t remember the name. Then the first student remembers that it was a NADH molecule. By this point, much of the paragraph has been narrated by what we would call a string narration. Now I can have the text turned back over, and I ask the students, “what did we miss?” They can see that the 6-carbon molecule is a glucose molecule and the 3-carbon molecule is an acid. In a few minutes we have accomplished a great deal to assimilate the knowledge of glycolysis and can move to oxidation of pyruvate.

Another narration technique we could use is to spend a few minutes closely observing the illustration at the bottom of the page. After those few minutes, we turn the text over and take out our white boards and dry-erase markers. I ask them to draw the illustration labelling as many items as they can remember on their own. Then I have them compare their illustration with their table partner, filling in any information they left out. Again, in very short order, they have assimilated a considerable amount of knowledge in a short amount of time.

Taken all together, this page might take an entire 45-minute lesson to get though all four reactions and the illustration. The next lesson begins with some guided questions to recall details from the text and the illustration, which might come in the form of a short quiz taking five to eight minutes. The retrieval practice is challenging but reinforces much of the information they need to know about how cells create energy.

Hopefully this deep dive into narration as it relates to science helps you deepen your understanding of the method of narration. Even if you don’t teach science, the skills described here are easily applicable to other subjects that contain detailed prose. The point is that narration is a sophisticated tool that can grow in complexity and nuance as students rise through the grade levels.

Training the Prophetic Voice by Dr. Patrick Egan is a must-read for classical Christian educators seeking to build a robust rhetoric program. Grounded in biblical theology, this insightful book provides a framework for developing students’ prophetic voices – the ability to speak with wisdom, clarity, and conviction on the issues that matter most.

As an experienced educator, Dr. Egan understands the vital role rhetoric plays in shaping the next generation of Christian leaders. Through time-tested principles and practical guidance, he equips teachers to cultivate students who can articulate the truth with passion and purpose.

Whether you’re looking to revitalize your existing rhetoric curriculum or lay the foundation for a new program, Training the Prophetic Voice is an invaluable resource. Discover how to empower your students to become effective communicators, courageous truth-tellers, and agents of transformation in their communities and beyond.

Order your copy of Training the Prophetic Voice today and unlock the power of your students’ voice in your classroom.

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