The Epicurean doctrine of the soul stands as a direct challenge to classical Christian education, as it provides the most comprehensive philosophical ancestor to modern materialism. We might almost see the entire secular modern zeitgeist, so entrenched in the western world, as merely the long shadow of Epicureanism. This fact alone gives the lie to modernism’s grandiose claims of progress, enlightenment and deliverance from medieval superstition. Little do its adherents realize that they have unwittingly adopted the views of one ancient Greek philosopher against the others! 

How true it is what the writer of Ecclesiastes said, that there is nothing new under the sun, a statement that applies more often than we might think in the realm of ideas. As a side note, this fact provides a potent rationale for introducing our students to the Great Conversation in our classical Christian education model.

Epicurus (c. 341–270 BC) follows right after Aristotle as the founder of a new school called “The Garden,”the counter to his contemporary Zeno of Citium, the originator of Stoicism. The vast majority of Epicurus’ writings have been lost to us, with the exception of a few letters by Diogenes Laërtius, a list of maxims, and some scraps preserved in the arguments of later writers. He taught that the highest good is ataraxia (tranquility, or freedom from fear) and aponia (absence of pain), and he aimed to deliver his followers from the superstitious fear of death and the gods through his claims of a materialistic and atomistic universe.

The Roman Epicurean poet Lucretius (c. 99 – 55 BC) provides the fullest exposition of Epicurean thought through his 6 book didactic poem De Rerum Natura (“On the Nature of Things”). In it a pseudo-scientific vision of the universe as made up entirely of atoms is used to unravel the “superstition” of traditional religions, as well as the immortality of the soul. As could be imagined, the implications of his views for morality are immense. While he ends book 4 with a diatribe against romantic love and sexual desire as a source of immense suffering and madness, and a distraction from rational philosophical pursuits, it is hard to remove him from the charge of nihilistic amoralism, or at least unfettered hedonism. There is a reason the biblical quotation, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die,” becomes associated with Epicureanism (see Isaiah 22:13; Proverbs 23:35; Luke 12:19; 1 Corinthians 15:32).

While we must ultimately reject its conclusions regarding morality and mortality, we will, following the ghost of these ideas into the courtyard, glean valuable warnings as well as helpful insights regarding the educational impact of our fundamental beliefs and the intimate connection between the soul, the body, and the process of learning.

The Material and Corporeal Soul

The Epicurean soul is defined by its substance: it is material and corporeal. This atomistic view directly opposes Aristotle’s hylomorphism, discussed in the last article, which held the soul to be the form or the “first grade of actuality” of a natural body. In contrast, the substance or essence of the soul, for Epicurus, is not form but fine particles. In his De Anima, Aristotle had spent a whole section demolishing the atomic view of the soul propounded by Democritus long before. Epicurus revived this view of the mind or soul as minute particles spread throughout the body 

Epicurus maintained a strictly materialist (atomic) view of the soul, the gods and the eternal universe as a whole and so might be the first progenitor of the leading myth of modern secularism. The mind (animus) and the soul (anima) are a corporeal aggregate of atoms. Lucretius specifies that the soul is formed of “very minute, fine, and tiny particles” (p. 112) This corporeal nature dictates the soul’s function during life, defining the relationship between the body and mind:

“Now I say that mind and soul are held in union one with the other, and form of themselves a single nature, but that the head, as it were, and lord in the whole body is the reason, which we call mind or understanding, and it is firmly seated in the middle region of the breast…. The rest of the soul, spread abroad throughout the body, obeys and is moved at the will and inclination of the understanding” (Lucretius, De Rerum Natura III., p. 110).

According to Lucretius, the soul is intimately united with the body, being inextricably “linked on throughout veins, flesh, sinews, and bones” (p. 211). It’s hard not to be somewhat impressed by this stunning anticipation of the nervous system, even while we object to the ultimate conclusions of his philosophy.

The Soul as Biological Mechanism

Though the Epicurean view of the soul fails to account for the transcendent or divine aspect of the human person (the imago Dei), its emphasis on the materiality of the mind offers a surprising parallel to the modern discoveries of neuroscience and the physical substrata of cognition and sensation. It’s important to give the devil his due. Of course, we now locate the seat of the mind in the head rather than the chest–a view argued for later on by Galen, the 2nd century AD physician and philosopher, but the physical similarities of a central nervous system command center (animus – mind) and neural networks of a similar nature distributed throughout the body (anima – soul) are not inconsequential.

As the source of motion, the mind must be nimble because, as he explains, “Nothing is seen to come to pass so swiftly as what the mind pictures to itself coming to pass and starts to do itself.” This nimble nature means the mind “is very fine in texture, and is made and formed of very tiny particles”(pp. 112-113). Moreover, the mind is seen to act physically upon the body:

“This same reasoning shows that the nature of mind and soul is bodily. For when it is seen to push on the limbs, to pluck the body from sleep, to change the countenance, and to guide and turn the whole man—none of which things we see can come to pass without touch, nor touch in its turn without body—must we not allow that mind and soul are formed of bodily nature?” (Lucretius, De Rerum Natura III., p. 111).

This description of the Mind (Animus) acting as the “monarch of life” (p. 119) that instantly initiates motion throughout the limbs highlights the importance of the physical mechanism of the body (what we now term the nervous system) in sensation and thought. The Epicureans, forced by their materialism to account for all consciousness through physics, explain that mental activity requires a delicate, highly mobile, and well-functioning corporeal nature. The fact that the mind is “distressed by the blow of bodily weapons” reinforces the inseparable bond between body and thought (p. 112).

Even without the benefit of magnetic resonance imaging, we can imagine how the experience of sensation itself might lead an ancient person to this conclusion. There must be some substance connecting my thoughts and will to my limbs. By comparison, Plato’s entirely non-material soul seems a bit farfetched and shadowy, while Aristotle’s hylomorphic soul might feel overly academic, with its complex distinction between form and substance. In a way it’s not surprising that the atomic conception of the soul survived Aristotle’s dismantling into the less philosophical Hellenistic era.

Mortality and the Pragmatic Pursuit of Tranquility

Epicureanism’s insistence on a proto-scientific and thoroughly materialistic account of the human soul serves a primarily pragmatic picture of death. The mind stuff simply disintegrates when the physical bonds holding it together are severed at death. Consciousness, an emergent phenomenon of life, which itself arose on its own, evolution-like, from an eternal, infinite universe full of swirling atoms, will simply cease with death.

The Epicurean position is absolute mortality. Since the mind and soul are material, they are subject to death and dissolution, contradicting the Aristotelean assertion that the rational soul or mind (nous) is “separable, impassible, unmixed and alone is immortal and eternal” (Aristotle, On the Soul, III. 5; p. 179). Lucretius argues that since the mind “can be changed by medicine,” it “has a mortal life” (p. 123).

An early adopter of the conservation of matter, Lucretius claims that the soul is “dissolved” into its constituent atoms upon death:

“Now therefore, since, when vessels are shattered, you behold the water flowing away on every side, and the liquid parting this way and that, and since cloud and smoke part asunder into air, you must believe that the soul too is scattered and passes away far more swiftly, and is dissolved more quickly into its first-bodies, when once it is withdrawn from a man’s limbs, and has departed.” (Lucretius, De Rerum Natura III., p. 209)

This doctrine aims to banish the “old fear of Acheron” and the “close bondage of religion” by confirming that death is nothing to us (p. 107).

Although there may be gods or a God, they are uninterested in us, and there is no afterlife, no Hades, and no eternal punishment. The fate of the atomic soul, therefore, establishes the profound ethical difference between Epicureanism and its philosophical predecessors, not to mention Christian theology. Right and wrong are not enforced by an impartial law of justice; there is no transcendence or final righting of wrongs, but only a hedonistic justification for virtue rather than vice as the most beneficial path. Yet, the Epicurean dedication to mental peace (ataraxia) does reveal a pragmatic insight that is nevertheless valuable to educators.

The Value of Physical and Mental Tranquility for Study

The Epicurean goal is pleasure (hedone), defined as the “absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul” (Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus). While pleasure here is an end in itself, the means by which Epicureans achieve this—the dedication to study (for him primarily natural science)—does not devolve into all-out moral dissolution. This vision of ataraxia (tranquility) for the sake of pleasurable contemplation offers a positive pedagogical mandate: cultivating tranquility is necessary for serious intellectual work.

Lucretius urges his student, Memmius, to approach philosophy correctly:

“For the rest, do thou (Memmius), lend empty ears and a keen mind, severed from cares, to true philosophy, lest, before they are understood, you should leave aside in disdain my gifts set forth for you with unflagging zeal” (Lucretius, De Rerum Natura I., p. 62).

The acquisition of knowledge is explicitly linked to the maintenance of pleasure, in a way that is similar to Aristotle’s view of the contemplative life as the happiest. Of course, for Lucretius this vision is corrupted through his anti-religious bias: knowledge of nature (philosophy/natural science) is essential, as it banishes the fears of the gods and death, providing the highest pleasure. The ultimate success of philosophy is to save us from the “high seas and thick darkness, and enclose it in calm waters” (p. 186) This emphasis on intellectual calm, when recontextualized, provides a compelling ideal for classical Christian educators to encourage a state of mental quietude in their students, necessary for the contemplative work of learning.

Modern research has observed a loss of higher-order thinking during an emotional crisis of fear, referring to it as stress-induced prefrontal cortex downregulation, which impairs executive functions like planning and logical judgment. This impairment occurs because a perceived threat triggers Sympathetic Nervous System activation and an amygdala hijack, forcing the brain to divert resources away from the complex thought processes of the Prefrontal Cortex and towards immediate survival responses. Essentially, the emotional, primal brain overrides the rational brain to prioritize fight-or-flight, leading to a temporary but significant cognitive deficit.

In a similar way, intense desire and craving activate the brain’s dopaminergic reward pathway, effectively causing reward-induced executive dysfunction where the subcortical reward centers override the rational Prefrontal Cortex; this results in a loss of top-down control and a short-sighted focus on immediate gratification over long-term consequence. The transcendent insight here, from Epicureanism to modern research, is the importance of cultivating a tranquil mind for the deeper and more lasting intellectual joy in learning. A lifestyle of emotional swings and sympathetic or dopaminergic overload is, after all, not a recipe for eudaimonia or human flourishing. As Charlotte Mason also emphasized, cultivating a vibrant life of the mind can be an important way of helping children avoid a life of moral debauchery imprisoned to less honorable sensual passions.

Furthermore, the Epicurean focus on a calm physical well-being highlights the importance of the material body for the work of learning. Epicurus teaches that “independence of outward things is a great good, not so as in all cases to use little, but so as to be contented with little if we have not much” (Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus). This sober reasoning, aimed at securing “health of body and tranquillity of mind” is a pragmatic recognition that physical pain or excessive bodily wants are a hindrance to the sustained mental effort required for wisdom. We might see an agreement with Charlotte Mason’s insistence on the harmful effects of manipulating students into learning through a fear of punishments or the promise of rewards, as these actually undermine higher order thinking and genuine curiosity which has its own reward.

The Epicurean Legacy and the Materialist Ghost

Despite these practical insights regarding the physical substructure of sensation, the value of tranquility for study, and its limited moral applications, the Epicurean framework remains fundamentally flawed, leading directly to the philosophical dead ends that continue to haunt modern secular education.

The Epicurean reduction of man to mortal atoms necessitates a rejection of divine purpose, leading Lucretius to attack the teleological view of nature. The universe was created, not by a “foreseeing mind,” but by the chance “movements and unions of every kind” of atoms (Lucretius, De Rerum Natura I., p. 101).

If the soul is merely material, the quest for truth is limited to the pragmatic aim of avoiding fear and pain. This contrasts sharply with Aristotle’s elevation of the rational soul to contemplate necessary, unchanging truth (epistēmē and nous), culminating in philosophic wisdom (sophia). The reduction of the soul to mechanics anticipates the modern trend of reducing soul, mind and spirit to the mechanics of the amygdala, frontal lobes, and dopaminergic system. We do not contest these physical and physiological discoveries, but the philosophical (and religious!) claims are just that. The fact that there are connected physical processes underlying cognition do not and cannot prove that nothing spiritual or immaterial is present as well. 

And this is not even to mention that strict materialism has no way to account for truth itself or the mind’s perception of it. Philosophically, Epicureanism (like its descendant of secular materialism) provides the intellectual equivalent of a man climbing onto a large branch, facing the trunk of the tree, only to begin sawing off the branch he is lying on. How can material man, a mere jumble of atoms, perceive immaterial truth correctly? Epicurus simply abandoned Plato’s problem of accounting for the transcendentals; he did not solve it.

Likewise, the Epicurean system struggles to maintain objective morality, arguing that virtues are necessary only insofar as they prevent the individual from experiencing temporary breakdowns in the pursuit of his own pleasure. Justice, according to Epicurus, is not intrinsically good:

“Injustice is not in itself an evil, but only in its consequence, viz. the terror which is excited by apprehension that those appointed to punish such offenses will discover the injustice.” (Epicurus, Principal Doctrines)

If morality is merely a “compact” or a convention, it lacks the objective weight necessary for the integrated formation of the soul, which Plato defined as the pursuit of justice achieved through the proper ordering of the rational, spirited, and appetitive parts. Relativism in ethics follows hard on the heels of skeptical materialism.

Pedagogy and Warning: Lessons for the Classical Christian Educator

The Epicurean view serves as a powerful cautionary tale, highlighting how prioritizing mortal pleasure over transcendent purpose undermines the classical Christian mission.

While the Epicureans offered a remarkably acute understanding of how sensation and thought are linked to physical motion and the “fineness of texture” of the body’s material components, the reduction of the entire soul to this atomic mechanism is where the system collapses.

The materialist emphasis, though supporting the importance of attending to the physical health and nourishment of the body for learning, cannot account for the part of the soul (Aristotle’s nous) that is “incapable of being destroyed” and alone is “immortal and eternal”. By reducing the soul to a destructible material form, Epicureanism limits the student’s telos to the mortal pursuit of individual pleasure, contradicting the Christian view of the human person as being made for eternal communion with God and bodily resurrection.

Similarly, the Epicurean ideal of tranquility (ataraxia) is a desirable precursor to focused intellectual study, which the classical Christian educator can and should affirm under the general tradition of schole or leisure (see e.g., Pieper’s Leisure, the Basis of Culture or Chris Perrin’s The Schole Way). However, when this is made the ultimate end of life, it leads to the dangerous avoidance of necessary conflict and labor.

The Epicurean wise person limits desires and seeks simple, easily procured pleasures to “remove the pain of want” and “avoid conflict.” This stands against the classical ideal of training the soul (especially the spirited part) to embrace “physical training to endure pains and sufferings” and the toil necessary for growth. If we prioritize the elimination of distress above all else, we risk producing “unrighteous men, enslaved to their own prejudices and appetites,” who are unwilling to enter the labor and conflict required for both intellectual mastery and moral virtue. The Epicurean philosophy, by grounding the soul in atoms, ultimately confines humanity within the “deepset boundary-stone” of mortality, forever hindering the spiritual revolution of the mind required for true human flourishing.

________________

Aristotle. On the Soul. Translated by J. A. Smith. The Internet Classics Archive. Accessed October, 2025. http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/soul.html.

Epicurus. “Letter to Menoeceus.” Translated by Robert Drew Hicks. The Internet Classics Archive. Accessed October, 2025. classics.mit.edu/Epicurus/menoec.html. 

Epicurus. “Principal Doctrines.” Translated by Robert Drew Hicks. The Internet Classics Archive. Accessed October, 2025. classics.mit.edu/Epicurus/princdoc.html. Lucretius. Lucretius on the Nature of Things. Translated by Cyril Bailey. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1910.

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In 1750, for example, it took 4-6 weeks to sail by ship from New York to London. By 1850, with the advent of the steam engine, the trans-Atlantic journey was reduced to around 1 week. Today, we can fly from New York to London in just 8 hours.

This acceleration in travel illustrates a new value that has emerged for us in the modern world: speed. “Time is money,” we are told and the finance report does not lie. The litmus test for the quality and success of an endeavor is how fast we can complete it. For the sooner we can cross a task off our list, the more quickly we can move on to the next task. Then the next task. Then the next task. Only here’s the catch in a knowledge economy: the list is infinite. 

In education, this obsession for speed materializes in daily schedules, pacing charts, and lesson plans. We move from subject to subject, concept to concept, and assignment to assignment at the speed of light. But is this approach best for students? Is it cultivating virtue? Are they actually developing mastery over what they are learning? Or are these moments of quick exposure creating the illusion of learning instead? 

Festina Lente: Make Haste Slowly

In The Good Teacher (Classical Academic Press, 2025), Christopher Perrin and Carrie Eben argue that it is not. Of the ten principles for great teaching they present in their book, the first is “Festina Lente, Make Haste Slowly.” They propose that instead of engaging in the rush to cover content, it is better to master each step in a lesson, setting a pace that is fitting for the time available. 

Perrin and Eben go on to provide two examples of this principle in our world today. The first is drawn from Aesop’s beloved fable, “The Tortoise and the Hare.” In this well-known tale, two creatures, a quick-footed hare and a contemplative tortoise, engage in a foot race. While the hare is expected to win with its focus on speed, it is actually the tortoise who wins the race. The upshot is that while the hare was certainly faster, its pace was not sustainable. The tortoise, on the other hand, moves at a slower yet sustainable pace, making haste slowly, and ultimately becomes the victor. 

The other example is Jim Collins’ “Twenty Mile March” concept in Great by Choice (Random House, 2011). Imagine two hikers setting out on a three-thousand mile walk from San Diego, California, to the tip of Maine. One hiker commits to twenty miles a day, no exceptions. Whether the conditions are fair or poor, the itinerary is the same. The other hiker adjusts his daily regimen to the circumstances before him. Depending on weather, terrain, and energy levels, some days he may walk 40 miles, other days he may not walk at all. Like the tortoise in Aesop’s fable, the winner of the race is the hiker committed to the wise, disciplined journey, choosing sustainability over speed. 

Now, it must be pointed out that every analogy has its limits. Not every speedster struggles with the overconfidence exhibited in the hare or the weak will of the second hiker. It is possible to be both fast and virtuous.The key insight is not that we need to choose between the two, but in our present culture’s emphasis on speed, we would do well to slow down, resist the lure of speedy completion, and focus on a process that will instill virtues of diligence and perseverance.

Connecting the twenty-mile hike example to teaching, Perrin and Eben write,

Classical education can be compared to the long journey in this story. Each segment should be intentional, planned, and exercised wisely, with ample allotted time. Students, like the winning hiker, should use time well, as they are guided and modeled along each segment of their academic journey. (p. 24)

Working at a Natural Pace 

Interestingly, Cal Newport, the author of Deep Work, Digital Minimalism, and A World Without Email, is on to a similar idea in his latest book, Slow Productivity (Penguin Random House, 2024). 

Newport observes that we as a culture have succumbed to what he calls pseudo-productivity, “the use of visible activity as the primary means of approximating actual productive effort (22). So we work longer hours, send more emails, and complete more projects, all in the name of productivity. The only problem is that we burn ourselves out, ultimately accomplishing less and at a lower quality. 

Newport’s solution is to adopt a different philosophy of work, one in which we accomplish tasks in a sustainable and meaningful manner. His three principles for this approach are:

1. Do fewer things.
2. Work at a natural pace.
3. Obsess over quality.

My colleague at Educational Renaissance, Jason Barney, has written extensively on these principles for the classical educator in this blog series. I encourage you to check out all four articles as he interacts with the likes of Aristotle, Quintilian, Charlotte Mason, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyiy, and others.

Regarding our present focus on how to manage time in the classroom for the sake of virtue formation, Jason writes, “There must be a purposeful movement in a meaningful direction at the same time as a willingness to delay over the details to ensure quality and a student’s developing mastery. Great teachers can discern when to slow down and when to hasten on.”

Rather than sending students off to work on a frenzy of assignments at once, moving from one worksheet to the next, it is better to slow down and hone in on one worthy assignment that will lead students toward a greater depth of understanding.

True Mastery: Getting the Practice Right 

Here we come to a key distinction that must be made. Thus far, I have been encouraging teachers to focus on virtue over speed, process over outcome, and mastery over pseudo-productivity. But what does true mastery look like? And how is it achieved?

I suggest that mastery is achieved when a student can repeatedly demonstrate a particular skill or lucidly explain a concept on demand. In The Good Teacher, Perrin and Eben are adamant that until this happens, teachers should not move on to the next objective, whether it is moving on from addition to multiplication or 3rd to 4th grade (21-22). They are also careful to identify a distortion of festina lente, namely, using the principle as an excuse to focus too long on one concept at the expense of others (27). 

The key clarification I want to make as we seek to implement a mastery-focused approach is regarding the type of practice we ought to implement to meet this end. It would be natural to assume that if the focus is mastery, teachers should engage in what is called massed practice: practice over and over a specific skill until it is mastered, and only then move on to the next skill. Make haste slowly, right?

In Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning (Belknap Press, 2014), the authors draw upon cognitive science to argue that this sort of practice can only take you so far. They seek to dispel of the myth that the focused, repetitive practice of one thing at a time is the way to mastery. 

They write:

If learning can be defined as picking up new knowledge or skills and being able to apply them later, then how quickly you pick something up is only part of the story. Is it still there when you need to use it out in the everyday world?…The rapid gains produced by massed practice are often evident, but the rapid forgetting that follows is not. (p. 47)

Interestingly, the authors of Make it Stick are putting their finger on the same concern as Perrin and Eben: prioritizing speed over mastery. Instead of practicing one skill over and over again until students can demonstrate mastery, they suggest mixing up the practice. 

In a past article, I write more about this topic, unpacking three key ways from Make it Stick to practice toward mastery:

Spaced Practice: Instead of intensively focusing on one skill for a single, extended session, space out the practice into multiple sessions. Work on it for a while and then return to it the next day or week. The space allotted between each session allows for the knowledge of the skill to soak into one’s long-term memory and connect to prior knowledge. Revisiting the skill each session certainly takes more effort, but that’s the point.

Interleaved Practice: While we experience the quickest gains by focusing on one specific skill or subset of knowledge over a period of time (momentary strength), interleaving, or mixing up the skill or concept you are focusing on in a practice session, leads to stronger understanding and retention (underlying habit strength). It feels sluggish and frustrating at times, for both teachers and students mind you, because it involves moving from skill to skill before full mastery is attained, but it leads to both a depth and durability of knowledge that massed practice does not (50).

Varied Practice: Varying practice entails constantly changing up the situation or conditions in which the skill or concept is being applied. It therefore strengthens the ability to transfer learning from one situation and apply it to another, requiring the student to constantly be assessing context and bridging concepts. Because this jump from concept to concept triggers different parts of the brain, it is more cognitively challenging, and therefore encodes the learning “…in a more flexible representation that can be applied more broadly” (52).

To be clear, these forms of mixed practice will be more difficult for students and the practice sessions will take longer. But that is the point. To “make haste slowly” when it comes to practice, you want to support your students in meaningful practice that will lead them toward long-term, not temporary, mastery. 

Conclusion

As classical schools, we are playing the long game as we seek to instill wisdom and virtue in our students. In our fast-paced world, this commitment will surely be misunderstood. We are told that a school’s effectiveness ought to be measured by the number of students enrolled, the number of accolades of its graduates, and the impressiveness of test scores.

But if our goal is true mastery for a life of virtue, instilled with the principle of festina lente, then we need to think more like the tortoise than the hare. We need to be intentional with practice, focus on depth over breadth, and mix it up in order to strengthen the durability of the knowledge gained. This is no doubt the harder road, but with our own perseverance at work, we trust that over time it will bear much fruit.

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In this series on Slow Productivity in School, we’ve been exploring the paradox of festina lente (“hasten slowly”). When it comes to the work of learning, sometimes you must go slow to go fast. Or, perhaps more accurately, you must slow down to be truly productive. Taking our cues from Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment without Burnout, we are applying his three principles for slow productivity to our teaching practices in classical Christian schools (1. Do Fewer Things, 2. Work at a Natural Pace, 3. Obsess Over Quality). 

After first diagnosing the problem of pseudo-productivity in modern schools, analogous to the hustle culture of modern work environments, we then explored the well-known Latin phrase multum non multa (“much not many things”) under the principle of doing fewer things. The key takeaway is that rather than cutting down on “subjects” to the bare essentials, this principle really applies best to the number and quality of “assignments.” Students in our classical Christian schools can read and study widely without suffering through busywork. Second, we explored the need to work at a natural pace as an explanation of how we can recover school as scholé or leisure. The point is that there are rhythms to ideal learning and racing through worksheets and covering pages of textbooks like the wind isn’t necessarily the best for deep understanding and long term retention.

In this final article, we’re focusing on the principle that we might call the main goal of it all: “Obsess over quality.”  In a way, doing fewer things and working at a natural pace are pointless if they don’t lead to an increased focus on quality. At the beginning we set out the idea that what really lurks behind the phrase multum non multa is a prioritization of depth over breadth and quality over quantity. Slowness is not an end in itself but is meant to serve the real or genuine productivity. Newport describes this final principle of obsessing over quality this way:

“Obsess over the quality of what you produce, even if this means missing opportunities in the short term. Leverage the value of these results to gain more and more freedom in your efforts over the long term” (173). 

For those of us who work in classical Christian schools, as I have argued elsewhere (see Rethinking the Purpose of Education), the true purpose of our educational efforts should be the cultivation of moral, spiritual, and intellectual virtues in our students. If that is the case, then haste can be the enemy of progress. Instead, as master craftsmen, we teachers and educators need to take the necessary time to cultivate mastery in our students. Slipshod, shoddy work, rushed through quickly, without attention to the details and to a host of minor improvements necessary for quality do not “move the needle.” 

There is a real mental shift that must occur here for many of us. We have had the rat-race of school so ingrained in our psyche, that we feel like we are wasting time if we’re not completing a worksheet or a powerpoint buzzer quiz every 20 min. Our media-saturated world too has reduced our attention span and given us ADD for the type of focused effort that actually forges increased quality.

Another culprit to our busyness of attitude is the knowledge-transfer vision of education, as opposed to the traditional liberal arts approach. We tend to envision the main part of education as a process of information download, rather than students developing mastery in handling certain well-worn tools. When we view K-12 education instead through the lens of helping students hone their artistry in the liberal arts, then we will focus more on the students producing high quality interpretations, arguments, and persuasive compositions. 

Students would then develop an artist’s eye for quality and mastery in the creative productions of the liberal arts, including of course in math and science. This focus then multiplies labor by making their own independent reading and thinking that much more effective. They are then able to hasten along the path of lifelong learning with ease, because the way has been smoothed for them by mastering the fundamental skills.

What does this all mean practically for teachers working with students in the classroom? In her book Home Education, Charlotte Mason proposed the habit of perfect execution as a major guiding vision for training young children. She explained,

‘Throw perfection into all you do’ is a counsel upon which a family may be brought up with great advantage. We English, as a nation, think too much of persons, and too little of things, work, execution. Our children are allowed to make their figures or their letters, their stitches, their dolls’ clothes, their small carpentry, anyhow, with the notion that they will do better by-and-by. Other nations–the Germans and the French, for instance–look at the question philosophically, and know that if children get the habit of turning out imperfect work, the men and women will undoubtedly keep that habit up. I remember being delighted with the work of a class of about forty children, of six and seven, in an elementary school at Heidelberg. They were doing a writing lesson, accompanied by a good deal of oral teaching from a master, who wrote each word on the blackboard. By-and-by the slates were shown, and I did not observe one faulty or irregular letter on the whole forty slates. (110-111)

If what Mason says was true of Victorian England, how much more would she note “the Habit of turning out Imperfect Work” in 21st century America. Her example demonstrates that this feature is to a large extent cultural, and may have to do with our Rousseauian focus on children’s “personality” and “developmental readiness.” Our teachers may make excuses for failing to hold out the standard for careful execution of work based on how large the class is (“I simply can’t get around to all sixteen students!”), but this German class of forty puts us to shame.

To be fair, Mason does have a category for setting the bar too high for students. It is possible to obsess over the wrong details or expect a type of detailed quality that is not yet attainable by a young novice. Mason explains, 

No work should be given to a child that he cannot execute perfectly, and then perfection should be required from him as a matter of course. For instance, he is set to do a copy of strokes, and is allowed to show a slateful at all sorts of slopes and all sorts of intervals; his moral sense is vitiated, his eye is injured. Set him six strokes to copy; let him, not bring a slateful, but six perfect strokes, at regular distances and at regular slopes. If he produces a faulty pair, get him to point out the fault, and persevere until he has produced his task; if he does not do it to-day, let him go on to-morrow and the next day, and when the six perfect strokes appear, let it be an occasion of triumph. So with the little tasks of painting, drawing or construction he sets himself–let everything he does be well done. An unsteady house of cards is a thing to be ashamed of. (111)

It can be seen from this that Mason endorses explicitly the principles of doing fewer things at a natural pace, in order to enable an obsession over quality. Clearly she wants students to internalize the mindset of mastery from an early age. 

It’s important to clarify that this is not the sort of perfectionism that expects to never make mistakes in the first place. She is endorsing rather the type of growth mindset that believes that every child can produce high quality and accurate work, if they are given the time and held accountable for doing so. This mindset actually functions to empower the student and enable progress. Filling a slate with incorrect strokes does not improve a student’s handwriting, but tends to solidify bad habits. As my gymnastics coach drill in to us when we were young, “Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect.” 

This paradoxical focus on perfection by actively attending to and correcting mistakes is characteristic of what Daniel Coyle calls deep practice. As he explains, “struggling in certain targeted ways–operating at the edges of your ability, where you make mistakes–makes you smarter. Or to put it a slightly different way, experiences where you’re forced to slow down, make errors, and correct them–as you would if you were walking up an ice-covered hill, slipping and stumbling as you go–end up making you swift and graceful without you realizing it” (The Talent Code, 18). This provides a helpful counter to a misunderstanding of Mason’s insistence that “no work should be given to a child that he cannot execute perfectly,” which might lead us to ease the way too much and avoid appropriate challenges. We have to read in to her version of “cannot” a much stronger belief in the capability of children than we tend to have.

The practical applications of this habit of perfect execution and obsession over quality are endless and as varied as the nature of the many subjects and arts that we teach. So, instead it might be more helpful to open out our gaze again to all three principles, and provide a series of practical applications to the classroom that fuse a holistic vision for slow productivity in school through 1) doing fewer things, 2) working at a natural pace, and 3) obsessing over quality.

Practical Applications of Slow Productivity in School

First, emphasize deep engagement with material over superficial coverage. This will involve a reduced workload, time for contemplation, and the ability to marinate in the knowledge and skills they are gaining.

• Reduced Workload: Instead of assigning a vast quantity of assignments to complete, or having students race through reading the textbook at home, teachers should prioritize fewer, more substantial readings, projects, and discussions. This reduced workload will allow students to delve more deeply into the material rather than skimming or memorizing for tests.
• Time for Contemplation and Reflection: Working at a natural pace means allowing sufficient time for students to truly wrestle with ideas, formulate their own thoughts, and engage in meaningful discussions, rather than rushing from one topic to the next. This leisurely approach coheres with the movement’s emphasis on school as scholé or leisure and the necessary slowness for true contemplation. The time spent discussing and thinking through ideas, even if it includes some rabbit-trails and dead-ends will be time well spent for students making these ideas their own.
• Marinating in Knowledge: Learning isn’t always linear, but has its natural ups and downs, periods of lying fallow and moments for break-throughs. A natural pace acknowledges that some concepts require time to “marinate” in the mind. Teachers should schedule in times of review and moments to pause and revisit challenging texts or ideas over time, allowing for deeper understanding to develop organically.

Second, in agreement with a mastery mindset focus on artistry, teachers should encourage Deep Practice with a focus on correcting mistakes to develop mastery. This will involve favoring perfect execution over speed, process-oriented learning, and slow reading with commonplacing.

• Perfect Execution Over Speed: Instead of rewarding quick completion, focus on mastery of skills and concepts. This might mean allowing students to re-do assignments until they achieve a certain level of understanding, or providing ample practice opportunities without the pressure of a ticking clock. It’s important to remember that education is a not a one-size-fits all: one student may need to repeat the same assignment until it is correct, while other students have gone on to the next. A misplaced emphasis on “fairness” can get in the way of the real goal of coaching each student to mastery.
• Process-Oriented Learning: Emphasize the learning process itself, including research, careful thinking, revision, and refinement, rather than just the final product. Ironically, this aligns with the “obsess over quality” principle. It’s not that the end destination doesn’t matter, but when we let students focus on just getting an assignment done, rather than getting it right, quality gets lost. When we’re willing to linger in the details with a student, then the genuine questions and focus on accuracy make the whole experience that much more meaningful to student and teacher alike.
• Slow Reading and Commonplacing: Encourage students to engage in “slow reading” of classic texts, marking up pages (when possible), asking questions, copying out quotations into a Commonplace Notebook, and truly grappling with the author’s arguments and literary artistry, rather than speed-reading for information. This is where the rubber meets the road in terms of how many Great Books you’re actually trying to get through in that course. At the same time, it’s important to remember that it is possible to go too slow, and so every delay should be qualitatively meaningful. Festina lente (“hasten slowly”) can help the teacher navigate this dance.

Third, we should protect unscheduled time for intellectual play and the pursuit of meaningful interests. There is something to be said for us trying to accomplish too much in school and that backfiring, as students become overly dependent on the structure of school for their ongoing learning. This will look like preserving time for independent exploration both at school and at home and reducing the homework burden by prioritizing the completion of quality work at school:

• Time for Independent Exploration: A natural pace includes periods of less structured time for students. Students need unscheduled time for independent reading, creative pursuits, exploring ideas that pique their interest, and simply thinking without a specific assignment. The idea that “Every minute matters” (popularized by Doug Lemov in Teach Like a Champion) is not without merits, but it depends on the culture into which it is speaking. In low-achieving communities it might bring helpful discipline, but in suburbia with our overscheduled, oversaturated lives, this approach can make children high-strung. Teachers shouldn’t feel the need to cram every minute of every school day but should embrace a proper sense of leisure. This will help to foster the type of genuine curiosity and intellectual growth in students that is not solely dependent on the teacher.
• Reduced Homework Burden: A slow productivity approach means that we should re-evaluate our homework policies and aim for fewer, more meaningful assignments that take a longer time to complete. Our goal should be to reinforce learning rather than simply creating busywork. Also, many of the challenging assignments that we would give them, like writing assignments, should be started in class with the teacher walking around to assist, double check for errors in spelling, punctuation, proper formation of cursive letters, etc. Even in the upper grades a return to this sort of artistic writing process under the guidance of a teacher can help avoid issues with plagiarism and AI-dependence that are only becoming more and more prevalent in our age.

Finally, a focus on slow productivity in school should foster a culture of patient endurance rather than an obsession with a quick fix and short-term results. This will look like embracing the long-term vision of classical education, recognizing that some of the best growth in students occurs over the course of years rather than months, and therefore fostering resilience and grit in students and parents alike:

• Long-Term Vision: Classical education plays out as a long game, building a strong foundation over many years. A natural pace reinforces the idea that significant intellectual growth is a marathon, not a sprint. Slow productivity sees the results of genuine accomplishment over the course of the whole K-12 sequence, rather than week, month or quarter of the school year. This long-term vision helps us sit patiently in the here and now and focus on mastery of the basics in a given area where a student struggles, rather than giving up or opting out.
• Resilience and Grit: By allowing for a natural pace, students learn that challenges take time to overcome and that persistence, not frantic effort, leads to genuine accomplishment. The insistence on facing our mistakes and learning from them, rather than fleeing to easier tasks, develops a resilient attitude that will serve them well for life. Ultimately, a slow productivity mindset makes kids gritty, while also giving them adequate recovery time to maintain the long trek of their education.

I hope you enjoyed the Slow Productivity in School series. I’m planning a webinar and consulting pathway to follow up on these ideas and help your teachers apply multum non multa, festina lente and the habit of perfect execution or coaching in deep practice in your school.

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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.

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So begins the first chapter of the first volume of an eleven volume series by Will Durant entitled, “The Story of Civilization.” This series, which Will and his wife Ariel wrote over the course of four decades (1935-1975), covers the history of western civilization, from the ancient Near East to the Napoleonic conquests.

Durant begins his series by noting the preconditions and causal factors for a civilization to emerge in the first place. For example, if a region is frozen over by ice or if its soil is barren of nutrients, social order promoting cultural creation becomes very difficult. But as soon as these geological and geographical preconditions are met, the four causal factors for a civilization (economic provision, political organization, moral traditions, and education) can begin to do their work. 

To illustrate the necessity of each of these factors, Durant turns first to economics. He writes, “A people may possess ordered institutions, a lofty moral code, and even a flair for the minor forms of art…and yet if it remains in the hunting stage…it will never quite pass from barbarism to civilization” (2). In this way, the economic transition to agriculture is a key form of development for a people as well as the building of towns and cities. For in cities, the wealth and brains of the region gather–to invent, to trade, to debate, and to create.

In the context of the civitas, the gathering of citizens, the other causal factors for the development of a civilization begin to gain traction. Political organization occurs through the creation of laws and formation of government. Moral traditions, rooted in values for the good of the community, develop. And the pursuit of knowledge and the arts launch a broader pursuit of truth and beauty that transcends mere survival. The harshness of life, from infant mortality to severe weather to social conflict, is offered meaning through moral narratives of purpose, hope, and redemption.

As the process of civilization unfolds, the civilization itself becomes its own form of independency, in some ways moving from effect to cause. Durant writes, “It is not the great race that makes the civilization, it is the great civilization that makes the people; circumstances geographical and economic create a culture, and the culture creates a type” (3). This type becomes the anchor of the civilization, the north star to which it it perpetually points. It is the set of ideals, the defining characteristics, of the city, the family, and the individual.

Thus we can see how civilizations begin, and can use this criteria to generally predict how they might end. The disappearance of any of the aforementioned conditions threaten to destroy them. For example: a geological catastrophe, a deadly pandemic, the failure of natural resources, mental or moral decay, the decline of social discipline, a lack of leadership, a pathological concentration of wealth, financial exhaustion, or declining fertility rates. 

Of course, the end of a civilization is not necessarily sudden or dramatic. Though Rome was sacked in 410 C.E., it was another fifty years before the empire fell. Nevertheless, the end of a civilization is in sight when its enduring values are lost. The set of ideals that define a civilization is its precious inheritance, a treasure that is to be faithfully passed on from generation to generation.

But what if this type, this set of ideals, is lost?

Five Crises Facing Western Civilization

In How to Save the West (Regnery Publishing, 2023), classicist Spencer Klavan identifies five major concerns that threaten the future of Western civilization specifically, moving this question from a theoretical exploration to an actual crisis. While he admits that it is a relatively recent practice to talk about “the West,” as a distinct historical phenomenon, historians and scholars are “…observing, in good faith, threads of continuity that stretch back through time and space” (xx). He therefore goes on to offer a working definition of “Western” as “the vast and complex inheritance of ‘Athens,’ the classical world, and ‘Jerusalem,’ the Jewish and Christian monotheists of the near east (xix).

This “inheritance,” I suggest, functions as the type, which Durant refers to as the foundation for a civilization. In the case of Western civilization, it is the set of ideals and masterpieces treasured through the generations that fit within a broader Great Conversation, full of wrong turns and dead ends, that nevertheless pursue a common vision for goodness, truth, and beauty. This conversation is not bound by race, ethnicity, or even geography. Nor is it restricted to a particular gender or social class. Rather, it is an unfolding story of humanity’s united search for meaning, composed of luminaries as diverse as Cicero and Frederick Douglass, Aeschylus and Shakespeare, Hildegard von Bingen and Abraham Lincoln.

While Klavan does frame his concerns in terms of a looming crisis at hand for the West, as a classicist, he helpfully reminds his readers that at every turn, a civilization can appears to be on the verge of collapse:

The intoxicating rise of Athens in the fifth century B.C. came to an abrupt and gory end in the Peloponnesian War. No sooner had the ancient Israelites made their way to God’s promised land than they strayed after foreign gods and suffered under foreign oppressors. The Western Roman empire crumbled into warring tribal oppressors; France’s revolution devolved from utopian optimism into terror and bloodshed; Communist uprising in Russia led to socialist dictatorship and millions of deaths” (xiv).

At the same time, here I am, in the twenty-first century, writing about Western civilization…in the West. Obviously certain events occurred which led for the transmission of the heritage to continue, for the ideas and values to be passed on. Whether it to be Jerome writing the Vulgate translation of scripture, Charlemagne sponsoring new schools, Celtic monks building libraries in medieval Europe, Johannes Gutenberg creating the moveable-type printing press, or American colonists creating a new republic, the civilization has endured.

Nevertheless, Klavan identifies five modern crises that could lead to its undoing, briefly stated as follows:

Crisis of Reality: A rejection of the eternality of objective truth and moral facts in favor of relativism, expediency, and virtual reality

Crisis of the Body: A rejection of the physical body with a turn to the inner self and posthuman technologies

Crisis of Meaning: A rejection of metanarrative, a transcendent explanation for existence that is grounded in objective truth

Crisis of Religion: A rejection of belief in God in exchange for a misplaced confidence in modern science

Crisis of the Regime: A rejection of the principles for a republic to endure, such as rule by law, popular sovereignty, and checks and balances

Solution: Educate One Child at a Time

It is beyond the scope of this article to explore each crisis in detail, much less to review the solutions Klavan suggests. A strategy for saving the West from the crises above is complex, multi-layered, and requires a deeper dive into ideas and philosophy.

At the risk of appearing simplistic, however, I want to suggest one straightforward strategy that could slow down these trends, if not reverse them: educate one child at a time according to enduring biblical values.

The 19th and early 20th century British educator Charlotte Mason famously championed the idea that children are persons. Created with immense potential as divine image-bearers, they enter the world eager to explore, create, build, think, and love. Education, then, is the process of helping children encounter the relations of the world they are born into–relations with God, others, creation, and knowledge. In this way, Mason famously called education “the science of relations.” By simply teaching children in a way that exposes them to enduring stories, poetry, nature, music, art, math, and science, we are forming them in a biblical view of reality that will enable them to respond accordingly.

After all, the underlying thread of the five crises described above is simple: a rejection of goodness, truth, and beauty. By offering an education that introduces children to these ideas, we shape their views of knowledge, reality, morality, and desire. This, in turn, will shape them into people who not only keep the economy going (one of the four factors of a civilization), but can run government, pass on moral traditions, and uphold an unrelenting pursuit of knowledge.

Mason writes,

We owe it to them to initiate an immense number of interests. ‘Thou hast set my feet in a large room;’ should be the glad cry of every intelligent soul. Life should be all living, and not merely a tedious passing of time; not all doing or all feeling or all thinking––the strain would be too great––but, all living; that is to say, we should be in touch wherever we go, whatever we hear, whatever we see, with some manner of vital interest. We cannot give the children these interests; we prefer that they should never say they have learned botany or conchology, geology or astronomy. The question is not,––how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education––but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him? (School Education, p. 170).

Notice the end goal for Mason: living a full life. Is this not the proper end of education and civilization itself?

And how do we go about this education for a full life? Mason gives us a clue:

I know you may bring a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink. What I complain of is that we do not bring our horse to the water. We give him miserable little text-books, mere compendiums of facts, which he is to learn off and say and produce at an examination; or we give him various knowledge in the form of warm diluents, prepared by his teacher with perhaps some grains of living thought to the gallon. And all the time we have books, books teeming with ideas fresh from the minds of thinkers upon every subject to which we can wish to introduce children. (School Education, p. 171)

Conclusion

G.K. Chesterton famously stated, “Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.” Through this exploration of civilizations–factors for their beginning and crises that can lead to their demise–we can understand this insight with fresh perspective. Great civilizations do not occur by accident. Certain preconditions must be met, and, on top of these preconditions, specific causal factors are at play.

Civilizations continue when they take on an existence of their own, grounded in an ideal type, which functions as the north star for the ongoing formation of its inhabitants. When this type is preserved, the civilization flourishes and human flourishing is the result. But when we lose sight of this ideal, the ground becomes shaky, moral intuitions uncertain, and truth itself up for grabs.

There is, therefore, work before us now as there is in every era. For, as Will Durant puts it, “For civilization is not something inborn or imperishable; it must be acquired anew by every generation, and any serious interruption in its financing or its transmission may bring it to an end. Man differs from the beast only by education, which may be defined as the technique of transmitting civilization” (4).

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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.

The post The Great Recognition: Book Review of Deani Van Pelt and Camille Malucci’s Charlotte Mason’s Great Recognition appeared first on .

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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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.

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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.

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