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.

The post The Study of Nature: Book Review of Lois Mansfield’s Field Notebooks and Natural History Journals appeared first on .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Inspirational vs Disciplinary Subjects

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An Example Lesson from Novare

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Our modern world does not know what to do with nature. As a result, neither do our schools. For some, nature is a victim of humanity, a primordial entity (Mother Nature?) in need of rescue from the sins of industrialism. For others, nature is a tool, a utilitarian pathway to increased lifespans, decreased global poverty, improved technologies, and an overall brighter future. 

In scripture, we see that nature is the result of God’s creative activity. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” we read. The earth, in its earliest moments, is formless, empty, and dark. And yet, as the creation narrative unfolds, things change quickly. A once formless world is now given shape. Emptiness is replaced with life to the full even as darkness is swallowed up by light. “And God saw that it was good.”

A Calling to Cultivate

How might we lead our students to study the natural world in a way that is aligned with this biblical vision?

To do so, it seems, we must keep reading:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”… And God blessed them. And God said to them [humankind], “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

Genesis 1: 26-31 (ESV)

Here we see humankind’s distinct responsibility: to rule creation as God’s royal deputy, stewarding the natural world with authority, dominion, and prudence. To rule is not to oppress as some might interpret the word “subdue,” but rather to oversee or govern toward a state of flourishing. This is the creation mandate, a divine injunction for the human race to bring order to creation, which will be latter mirrored by Christ’s own mandate to his followers to bring this order to fulfillment in the kingdom of God.

Wisdom of the Natural World

In the classical tradition, the study of nature was considered a subset of philosophy, “the pursuit of wisdom.” Natural philosophy, hence, is “the study of wisdom about the natural world.” And yet, in modern schools today, we study science, not nature. Our students learn the scientific method, the process for conducting experiments, and the importance of evidence-based reasoning. Through this study, they become devotees to scientism, modern scientific investigation, and are trained to gather “data” about the natural world to attain the desired ends of society.

But amidst this process, are students actually encountering this world for themselves? Are they being equipped to prudently rule and steward creation as God commands them? Are they learning to see it rightly for what it is, indeed, to love it?

Here I am reminded of a famous scene from the 1997 film Good Will Hunting. In a crucial moment of dialogue between Will (played by Matt Damon) and his professor-therapist Dr. Maguire (played by Robin Williams), Dr. Maguire confronts his pupil with a prophetic word:

You’re just a boy. You don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about. You’ve never been out of Boston. So if I asked you about art you could give me the skinny on every art book ever written…Michelangelo? You know a lot about him I bet. Life’s work, criticisms, political aspirations. But you couldn’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling.”

In the story, Will, a self-taught genius, can rattle off facts like a human encyclopedia, and yet, he does not actually know in the deepest sense. Why? He has not experienced the truth, goodness, and beauty of what he has studied for himself. He has not opened himself up to real experiences, becoming vulnerable to these things, and risking the opportunity to love.

Connecting Children with Nature

If we are not careful, we as educators can inadvertently commit the same error in our modern educational approaches to studying nature. In efforts to make knowledge useful, we can seal off the possibility of encountering beauty. In aims to train students to have power over nature, we fail to experience its healing powers over us. In objectives to increase A.P. test scores, our students can tell us everything about flora, except which specimens grow in their own gardens.

To be clear, I fully support and respect the processes and achievements of modern science. I would not be able to write this article in the nexus of modern technologies swirling around me in good conscience if I did not. But if we are going to educate children to study nature in the fullest sense, we must lead them to encounter nature for themselves.

In Volume 1 of her Home Education Series, Charlotte Mason writes,

He must live hours daily in the open air, and, as far as possible, in the country; must look and touch and listen; must be quick to note, consciously, every peculiarity of habit or structure, in beast, bird, or insect; the manner of growth and fructification of every plant. He must be accustomed to ask why–Why does the wind blow? Why does the river flow? Why is a leaf-bud sticky? And do not hurry to answer his questions for him; let him think his difficulties out so far as his small experience will carry him.

Home Education, p. 264-265

Here we see Mason’s instruction that for children to properly love and know nature, they must spend time outdoors. This time can be spent with generous amounts of free and unstructured play as well intentionally led nature studies. During these studies, students can observe a specimen closely and allow their minds to ponder what they observes.

In a later volume, Mason writes,

On one afternoon in the week, the children go for a ‘nature walk’ with their teachers. They notice for themselves, and the teacher gives a name or other information as it is asked for, and it is surprising what a range of knowledge a child of nine or ten acquires. The teachers are careful not to make these nature walks an opportunity for scientific instruction, as we wish the children’s attention to be given to observation with very little direction. In this way they lay up that store of ‘common information’ which Huxley considered should precede science teaching; and, what is much more important, they learn to know and delight in natural objects as in the familiar faces of friends. 

School Education, p. 237

Formal science instruction has its place, including the opportunity to conduct experiments and practice the scientific method. But in the earliest years, the goal of nature study is to put children in direct contact with nature. Through the nature walks described above, students self-direct their own observations, empowering their minds to explorer, wonder, and discover.

From Abstract to Concrete

In “The Parents’ Review,” the monthly magazine edited by Charlotte Mason, guest writer J.C. Medd, writes of nature study:

Its aim is to bring the child into direct relation with facts, to lead him from the abstract to the concrete, and to stimulate him to investigate phenomena for himself. This is to promote that process of self-instruction which is the basis of all true education.”

J.C. Medd, Volume 14, 1903, pgs. 902-906

In conclusion, a philosophy of nature study must begin with what nature is and our role as human beings in relation to it. In scripture, we see that nature is nothing less than God’s good creation, a masterpiece of God’s perfect design, echoing His love for beauty, design, physicality, life, and growth across ecosystems. We, as humans, are called to govern this great masterpiece, cultivating the natural world toward a state of flourishing. To lead our students to know nature for what it truly is, we must vacate our classrooms for a different classroom, one created a long time ago, and accessible by every child to be discovered, known, and loved.

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It’s been some time since I’ve written explicitly on narration for Educational Renaissance. The last article that addressed it directly (Narration as Flow) came shortly after launching the popular eBook “How to Implement Narration in the Classical Classroom” that I recently retired because of incorporating it into a larger book. (Don’t worry! I replaced it with a similar resource “Charlotte Mason and the Trivium: Planning Lessons with Narration”.) But that doesn’t mean the teaching tool of narration has been off my mind since. 

Narration on My Mind

Last winter I did most of the leg work in terms of research and writing to get my book A Classical Guide to Narration (forthcoming with the CiRCE Institute) into the right place for the editorial process. Lugging that stack of books home for nights and weekends, I plugged away while watching the kids as my wife taught voice lessons. I didn’t know I could write while monitoring a toddler and a baby… but after all necessity is the mother of invention. Then during the discussions last spring that led me to take a new position as Principal at Coram Deo Academy, narration was my one non-negotiable. If I came, Coram Deo would be implementing narration.

Over the summer I had the opportunity to share about narration at several conferences: the Association of Classical Christian Schools, the Society for Classical Learning, the University Model Schools International, the CiRCE Institute, and the Charlotte Mason Family Camp. Lastly, as the school year got started, I trained my own faculty in the practice of narration, as well as the Ecclesial Schools Initiative by Zoom. I even had the opportunity to share narration with Asian Christian educators as part of a team-taught virtual course on poetic knowledge led by Ravi Jain. That all might sound exhausting, but for me it was exhilarating, not least because of the chance to share about a practice that really matters to me and is life-changing for children.

All this is to say that narration has been on my mind quite a lot as I’ve first researched then rehearsed material from the book in presentations. One of the most interesting and significant discoveries that I made in my research about narration is its history before Charlotte Mason in the grammatical and rhetorical tradition. Since my first hints at this fact years ago while reading John Locke and Quintilian, I’ve been fascinated by earlier educators’ endorsement of practices very like Mason’s narration. 

But I think this history is especially significant for two movements today: the Charlotte Mason movement and the classical Christian education movement. You can see why. If narration has a history in the liberal arts tradition, then it makes it hard for either Masonites or CCE leaders to claim that never the twain shall meet. 

Charlotte Mason vs. Classical Christian Education?

For instance, Art Middlekauff of Charlotte Mason Poetry has claimed that Charlotte Mason did not “look to the classical tradition to guide her theory” but instead “looked to the Gospels, science and her observations of children.” While containing a grain of truth, this claim ends up being a simplistic reduction of Mason. It would be more accurate to say that Mason regularly makes rhetorical appeal to advancing science (as a good Victorian British Christian might be expected to). But by science, it’s also worth wondering whether this is necessarily against the classical tradition. After all, science itself is a term and sphere dependent on the tradition of the liberal arts and sciences. 

Also, Art Middlekauff has picked his evidence with care and neglected Charlotte Mason’s own references to classical philosophers of education as authoritative, as well as her refutation of new educational thinkers on the basis of the principles of the liberal arts tradition. While she does claim some newness for her methods—as many classical educators have over the course of the tradition, by the way… the liberal arts tradition has never been opposed to innovation—she is also happy to confess her reliance on tradition. 

As she says explicitly of her educational theory in the first chapter of her final book Towards a Philosophy of Education,

I have attempted to unfold (in various volumes) a system of educational theory which seems to me able to meet any rational demand, even that severest criterion set by Plato; it is able to “run the gauntlet of objections, and is ready to disprove them, not by appeals to opinion, but to absolute truth.” Some of it is new, much of it is old.

(2008 Wilder, 28-29; emphasis added)

This hardly sounds like an extreme modernist who opposes engaging with educational theorists of the past in favor of the new science. The very fact that she quotes from Plato belies such an assumption. Moreover, the implication of her wording is that more of her theory is old than it is new (“some” is less than “much”).

Opposing Charlotte Mason and the classical tradition in this way also presents us with a false dichotomy that is unfortunately present in the thinking of both some Masonites and some classical Christian educators: either we must look to the past or we look to modern research and methods. In an educational landscape obsessed with scientism, it is no wonder that the classical education movement has taken a hard turn toward historical theories and methods. Mason had much less pushing her to such an extreme, and, in fact, with the tide just beginning to ebb out toward the new depths of scientific discovery about the brain, psychology and the nature of habit formation, she had to make an appeal that garnered the attention of a very different crowd. 

Given the differences of time and place, the fact that Mason’s rhetoric differs from the modern classical education movement is not at all surprising. But this should not confine Masonites and classical Christian educators to separate camps and antagonism, especially given the amount of essential agreement between them. Besides, the opposition of Charlotte Mason and the classical tradition makes little sense; they are such different things! Unless we think of the classical tradition as some monolithic, unified theory and practice of education, opposing a single thinker to it is a strange notion. We could just as easily set up Plato, or Aristotle, Quintilian, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Melanchton, Bacon, Locke or Comenius to it. There is always a gap between any individual educational thinker and the tradition as a whole (if one can even view it that way); otherwise, they would be mere parrots. Sometimes this gap represents a departure from a core value, but other times it represents a fruitful development from within. Such a question cannot be solved by simplistic dichotomies.

More important perhaps is the gap between movements that should be allies. Educational Renaissance exists, in a way, to bridge this gap, not only between Charlotte Mason and the classical tradition, but between new and old educational theory in general… between the insights of ancient wisdom and the legitimate advances of modern research. The real glory is in an appropriate synthesis of seemingly opposite ideas and data, as no less revered a figure than Thomas Aquinas revealed in his own dialectical method. 

Charlotte Mason’s Claim of Discovery

Narration is a test case of this broader claim for Charlotte Mason and the classical tradition. While some will still want to emphasize the disagreement and opposition, narration tells a different story. And that is because narration is a teaching practice that Charlotte Mason adapted from the rhetorical tradition. 

But if this is the case, as I contend in my forthcoming book, then what of Charlotte Mason’s own claims about discovering narration? I know very well that she nowhere cites any explicit classical sources for the practice, like John Locke (her likely source based on similarities in language and detail in Home Education) or his source Quintilian. On the other hand, she does confess in her final volume that she “was reading a good deal of philosophy and ‘Education’ at the time.” And she does cite Plato’s conception of the forms or ideas for support of the mind needing proper sustenance (see Towards a Philosophy of Education, Introduction, Wilder: 18). This is one of many instances that at least puts the lie to the claim that she doesn’t draw her philosophy from the tradition; in fact, whether or not she draws from it as a source for her theory, she often feels the need to justify it in the philosophical terms of the classical tradition. 

But of course, she does also mention her observation of children and general reading, as stepping stones on her journey of discovery:

It is difficult to explain how I came to a solution of a puzzling problem,—how to secure attention. Much observation of children, various incidents from one’s general reading, the recollection of my own childhood and the consideration of my present habits of mind brought me to the recognition of certain laws of the mind, by working in accordance with which the steady attention of children of any age and any class in society is insured, week-in, week out,—attention, not affected by distracting circumstances. (20)

While this may seem like a claim that she derived the details of narration from observation and her own philosophical reflection, instead we should see it as an account of how she came to the principles that undergird the practice of narration. (I’m reading Karen Glass’ In Vital Harmony now and am definitely enjoying it.) For Charlotte Mason the practice of narration had to have a number of attendant circumstances for it to work optimally: a rich text, a single reading, a moral impulse in the students, etc. The practice of narration becomes a valuable and global tool of learning when embodied in the right atmosphere, as a means of training in the habit of attention, and through the natural curiosity of the mind feeding on living ideas. 

Narration itself is a common and simple enough exercise that it was used here or there, in rhetorical training, as far back as we have record. It was the principles of the child’s personhood and the nature of mind that she claimed to have discovered and applied more uniformly to the how, when and what of narration. As she remarks later in the introduction to her final volume,

The reader will say with truth,—”I knew all this before and have always acted more or less on these principles”; and I can only point to the unusual results we obtain through adhering not ‘more or less,’ but strictly to the principles and practices I have indicated. (24)

This account from Charlotte Mason herself seems to answer the charge that she claimed to have “discovered” narration, and so it cannot be derived from the classical tradition. 

As we’ll see in the next article, there are a variety of earlier sources that detail the regular use of narration in a manner very like what Charlotte Mason recommended. There are even two of her contemporaries across the Atlantic, rhetoric professors in America, who recommend narration-like exercises in their rhetoric and composition textbook for use in secondary schools. 

Of course, none of these earlier examples call for exactly what Charlotte Mason recommends, but in a way that would have been impossible. Only at Charlotte Mason’s time in England were a wealth of books finally cheap enough and widely available enough for the sort of book-based education she envisioned. The mass publication and commercialization of books in Victorian England was, arguably, a necessary ingredient in the history of narration entering its final stage with Charlotte Mason’s ‘liberal education for all’ movement. 

But more on that next time after we walk through the various stages in the history of narration, as best as I have been able to piece them together so far.

Later articles in this series:

Part 2: Classical Roots

Part 3: Narration’s Rebirth

Part 4: Charlotte Mason’s Practice of Narration in Historical Perspective

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These are longer block quotes that will whet your appetite for exploring old articles you may have missed. If you’re new to Educational Renaissance (as many of you are), think of this as a cliff notes guide to some of the core ideas in education we’ve been recovering during these past 6 months. The longer format of these quotations gives our authors a chance to develop an idea more fully than the memorable maxims of last year.

If you missed our Summer Conference Edition article, check that out, especially if you’re new, for some updates on where Educational Renaissance has been and where we’re going. Hope you enjoy these quotable quotes!

Quote 1:

“The Roman world is one we can readily recognize because it contains so many of the trappings of our day. How many students moaned to go to school (ludum) because it meant they couldn’t play games (ludos)? What a peculiar word, then, to describe these two seemingly dichotomous things? Unless, of course, the word itself reveals that “school” and “game” are not after all dichotomous. If school is actually a place to play, and play is a place of learning, maybe the word ludus reveals something we are prone to miss about the reality of education.”

-From School Is a Game: Finite and Infinite Games in Education

Quote 2:

“A sense of piety, of duty or obligation to one’s family, city, culture and the divine, would properly recognize the individual as coming into the world dependent and situated within the broader story of the culture, within which the family and individual find their place. This contrasts sharply with the quest for “self-discovery among a buffet of potential selves” that characterizes modern individualism (Clark and Jain 22).”

-From The Flow of Thought, Part 6: Becoming Amateur Historians

Quote 3:

“As Charlotte Mason observed, there is nothing quite like the experience of being struck by an idea. The experience is equivalent to being the recipient of some unexpected treasure. Ideas loosen our grip on holding a thin view of the world. They open our minds, especially through narration, to connections previously gone undetected and stir our imaginations to explore further up and further in. Ideas light the fire beneath us to learn, search, and discover.”

-From Charlotte Mason and the Power of Ideas

Quote 4:

“The hardest part of writing is staring at a blank page. The biggest hurdle is putting pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard. Making the cursor move forward is a major victory. What is it that keeps us from starting? It is the internal editor. Before we’ve even begun writing, our internal editor is already criticizing our work.”

-From The Writing Process: Sentences, Paragraphs, Edit, Repeat

Quote 5:

“The first step in recovering the love of science is to strip away the sense of impersonal system hanging about it. One of the reasons we tend to discount the idea of being an amateur scientist—engaging in the work of science simply for the love of it (amateur coming from the Latin word for ‘love)—is because of science being conceived as an impersonal system for determining objective truth.”

-From The Flow of Thought, Part 7: Recovering Science as the Love of Wisdom

Quote 6:

“Children are not be treated as mere cattle on a farm or products on an assembly line. They enter this world with immense potential to think, create, explore, write, observe, perform, analyze, and more. As a result, the sort of work we give children to do in the classroom ought to activate and strengthen these capacities to the limits of each child’s potential.”

-From Charlotte Mason and the Liberal Arts Tradition, Part 1: Mapping a Harmony

Quote 7:

“The satisfaction and joy of understanding is a profound experience, but it only comes after time spent in deep work. Waitzkin expresses the concept of deliberate practice as “numbers to leave numbers.” When we are confronted with highly technical information, it needs to be assimilated in such a way that it becomes integrated into our intuition…. A concert pianist doesn’t think about scales and arpeggios while performing on stage. This would detract from her expression. What we can assume when watching a virtuosic performance is that hours upon hours have been spent internalizing scale patterns so that the finger patters are simply part of her being. There is no thought of scales or of fingerings, simply of music. She has studied scales to leave scales, which is what Waitzkin is expressing here.”

-From The Art of Learning: Four Principles from Josh Waitzkin’s Book

Quote 8:

“Christ’s yoke may be easy and his burden light to the one who has taken it on himself (see Matt 11:30), but this is only so for the one who has taken up his cross to follow the master to the place of his own brutal execution. Even for Socrates, the love of wisdom was a “practice of death” (Phaedo 81a). So perhaps I should rather urge you to read philosophy not for flow and pleasure, but for pain and death, and because you must, not because you will want to. Such is the minimum commitment necessary of one who would be a philosopher-teacher.”

-From The Flow of Thought, Part 8: Restoring the School of Philosophers

Quote 9:

“So if one central aspect of classical education is the cultivation of the life of the mind, Charlotte couldn’t agree more. Her insistence that children read from a broad and liberal curriculum fits right in with the broader liberal arts tradition. In particular, her recommended practices of narration, transcription, dictation, and recitation all cultivate a healthy intellectual life for the child, regardless of upbringing, social class, or ability.”

-From Charlotte Mason and the Liberal Arts Tradition, Part 2: Educating the Whole Person

Quote 10:

“The love of learning is not watching some namby pamby cartoon with its prepackaged tasty morsels of information. It’s the exhilaration felt after facing your fears and wrestling that monster in the dark, or slaying the dragon of chaos just beyond the order of your understanding. It’s struggle and suffering in the pursuit of a meaningful goal. Learning, like life, is not all roses and cupcakes, even or especially when you love it.”

-From The Flow of Thought, Part 9: The Lifelong Love of Learning

Quote 11:

“This calling is found in scripture, for example, when the apostle Paul instructs fathers in the Ephesian church to bring up their children “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4 ESV). Discipline, or training, requires dedicated effort and intentionality on the part of both parent and child. It does not come by accident. And effective instruction, the meeting of minds around wisdom and knowledge, requires the instructor “to know that which he would teach,” as educator John Milton Gregory put it in The Seven Laws of Teaching (26). Most importantly, the discipline and instruction Paul refers to is to be “of the Lord,” that is, God-centered and in line with scripture.”

-From Cultivating and Community: Wisdom for Parents Educating at Home Amidst the Present Crisis

Quote 12:

“An infectious disease causes a pandemic that decimates the major urban centers in northern Italy. Doctors are recognized by their masks. The economy is disrupted through the loss of a workforce. The social order is overturned. Many turn to religion as a response to the pandemic, yet dogmatic norms are questioned.”

-From The Black Plague and an Educational Renaissance

Quote 13:

“If you’re looking to “optimize” the effectiveness of your teaching, focusing on forming relational connections with students is ironically one of the best investments. Students are eager to learn from a teacher they trust and admire; even the best students struggle to learn well from a cold and distant instructor.”

-From The Benefits and Drawbacks of Online Learning: 6 Hacks to Mitigate the Drawbacks

Quote 14:

“Curiosity is content without certainty and knowing all the answers. It is not concerned with saying the right thing or knowing ahead of time how people will react. Instead it remains focused on rumbling with vulnerability, embracing the unknown, and pursuing further knowledge in order to lead most effectively.”

-From The Importance of Courage and Curiosity for School Leaders Today

Quote 15:

“So what does it mean when I say life occurs in our classrooms? For one, it means that our students are whole persons. We are not just interacting with our students’ minds. Students are also emotional, social and spiritual creatures, just like we are. All dimensions of their personhood come into the classroom. All dimensions of their personhood are being trained and cultivated.”

-From Education Is Life: A Philosophy on Education

Quote 16:

“This holistic vision of a wisdom education in the vein of Proverbs requires much of the teacher. In classical education, likewise, the teacher must be a magister of the arts, a sage, a philosopher; must be a participant in the Wisdom that comes from above. Only then can the teacher cultivate wisdom in the young and simple. Only then will the teacher wisely order techniques, practices and assessments to the right ends.”

-From The Problem of Technicism in Conventional Education

Quote 17:

“As we think about nurturing confident faith in our youngest children, we must not begin with lofty arguments, but instead, the very best stories. These stories will shape the moral imaginations of students, filling their souls with a rich feast of ideas, characters, stories, poems, and fables.”

-From Teaching Confident Faith in an Age of Religious Uncertainty

Quote 18:

“So, what is the future of habit training? As we explored habit training in an online distance learning environment, we saw that the heart of the method hasn’t changed. My prediction is that habit training will remain the same. The method I have outlined here was essentially the same in Charlotte Mason’s time, and look how many technological and cultural shifts have occurred since the early 1900s when she wrote her six-volume philosophy of education. What this means is that investing in this method even now will reap benefits in your life as a teacher for years to come.”

-From Habit Training During Online Distance Learning

Quote 19:

“The only lasting solution to scientism in education is ultimately an entire Renaissance project in which we return ad fontēs (“to the sources”) in an effort not simply to generalize a definition of what classical education is, but to distinguish between the different visions and practices of the multifaceted tradition. In so doing we will have to be prepared to not like everything we see; we may be forced to engage in some negative judgments on some aspects of the tradition, even as we are inspired and challenged by others.”

-From The Problem of Scientism in Conventional Education

Quote 20:

“One aspect of the joy of learning is addressing this concept of humility. As human beings, we are limited, frail and fallible. Frequently we attempt to cover this up, to hide what we truly are behind the smoke and mirrors of our expertise and accomplishments. True human growth, though, only occurs when we uncover our true nature and deal with it. As an individual confronts an area of lack, there is a transformation that can occur, whereby something about us becomes strengthened.”

-From Summertime, and the Learning is Easy

The post 20 Quotable Quotes from the First Half of 2020 Educational Renaissance appeared first on .

I’ve already treated science briefly under the heading “The Seven Liberal Arts as Mental Games.” That’s because the quadrivium, or four mathematical arts, included not only arithmetic and geometry, but also music and astronomy. The quadrivium art of astronomy was the STEM of the ancient and medieval world, focused on developing the skills of tracking, charting and calculating the heavenly bodies and applying such knowledge to the travel technologies of the day.

But science itself as an enterprise is worthy of being treated more fully, as our psychologist does in a subsection entitled “The Delights of Science” (134-138). His main object is to restore science to its rightful place as a potential flow activity for his readers. Just as we could become amateur historians as a more joyful way of structuring our leisure time and finding meaning in life than watching TV, so for Csikszentmihalyi there’s no reason why we couldn’t become amateur scientists, even if we don’t have “extravagantly equipped laboratories, huge budgets, and large teams of investigators” (134).

As important as this contention is in a day when the professionalization of ‘big science’ and the utilitarian cowing to STEM jobs crowds out the love of science, I think we classical educators can take it one step further. It’s not just the love of science that needs to be restored; there’s also an older, more Christian conception of science as philosophy, or the love of wisdom, that needs to be rediscovered if we’re going to recapture the joy of science for ourselves and our students.

The Love of Science

But first let’s rehearse our psychologist’s encomium on the love of science. The first step in recovering the love of science is to strip away the sense of impersonal system hanging about it. One of the reasons we tend to discount the idea of being an amateur scientist—engaging in the work of science simply for the love of it (amateur coming from the Latin word for ‘love)—is because of science being conceived as an impersonal system for determining objective truth.

In fact, the problem may be the result of our textbooks which too often present accepted knowledge and theories without any of the story or narrative of their discovery. But even in our day and age it’s not the impersonal system of science that makes discoveries, it’s individual scientists, often working in teams to be sure, but not always. As our psychologist emphasizes:

“It is not true, despite what the advocates of technocracy would like us to believe, that breakthroughs in science arise exclusively from teams in which each researcher is trained in a very narrow field, and where the most sophisticated state-of-the-art equipment is available to test out new ideas…. New discoveries still come to people as they did to Democritus, sitting lost in thought in the market square of his city. They come to people who so enjoy playing with ideas that eventually they stray beyond the limits of what is known, and find themselves exploring an uncharted territory.” (134)

This is an important point to make because one of the natural joys of the scientist is the possible discovery of some new or striking truth about the created order. If our schoolbooks present scientific information without the stories of discovery, the flow experience of Democritus, “lost in thought,” is left out and the life of exciting exploration of the natural world remains unsung.

Practically oriented parents may push their children into science careers because of the hope of steady lucrative gain, but there’s a reason why many teenagers opt for the arts (even if the winner-take-all environment contains little hope of a sustainable career). The arts wear their enjoyment on their sleeve!

What may be surprising to us, in our technocratic world, but would not be, if we attended more to the history of science, is that the scientist can just as easily attain flow: “Even the pursuit of ‘normal’ (as opposed to ‘revolutionary’ or creative) science would be next to impossible if it did not provide enjoyment to the scientist” (134). You’ll remember that one of the requirements of getting into flow is the presence of “rules that limit both the nature of acceptable solutions and the steps by which they are obtained” (135). Well, Csikszentmihalyi quotes from Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to illustrate how scientific research meets this standard:

“By focusing attention upon a small range of relatively esoteric problems, the paradigm [or theoretical approach] forces scientists to investigate some part of nature in a detail and depth that would otherwise be unimaginable…. What then challenges him is the conviction that, if only he is skillful enough, he will succeed in solving a puzzle that no one before has solved or solved so well…. The fascination of the normal research paradigm… [is that] though its outcome can be anticipated the way to achieve that outcome remains very much in doubt. The man who succeeds proves himself an expert puzzle-solver, and the challenge of the puzzle is an important part of what usually drives him on.” (as qtd on 134-135)

This passage makes me think of how Ravi Jain has advocated for a pedagogy of puzzle, proof and play in mathematics. Apparently the same should apply to the early training of research scientists.

Aside: Download the Free eBook “5 Tips for Fostering Flow in the Classical Classroom”

Wondering how to practically apply the idea of flow in your classroom? These 5 actionable steps will help you keep the insights of flow from being a pie-in-the-sky idea. Embody flow in your classroom and witness the increased joy and skill development that result!

You can download “5 Tips for Fostering Flow in the Classical Classroom” on the flow page. Share the page with a friend or colleague, so they can benefit as well.

Amateur Scientists

If we are inclined to doubt Kuhn’s description, our psychologist marshals the testimony of scientists themselves to confirm the point:

“It is no wonder that scientists often feel like P. A. M. Dirac, the physicist who described the development of quantum mechanics in the 1920s by saying, ‘It was a game, a very interesting game one could play.’” (135)

If that weren’t enough, the sheer number of revolutionary scientists who were technically amateurs is truly astonishing: “It is important to realize that for centuries great scientists did their work as a hobby, because they were fascinated with the methods they had invented, rather than because they had jobs to do and fat government grants to spend” (136).

For instance,

• “Nicolaus Copernicus perfected his epochal description of planetary motions while he was a canon at the cathedral of Frauenburg, in Poland. Astronomical work certainly didn’t help his career in the Church, and for much of his life the main rewards he had were aesthetic, derived from the simple beauty of his system compared to the more cumbersome Ptolemaic model.” (136)

• “Galileo had been trained in medicine, and what drove him into increasingly dangerous experimentation was the delight he took in figuring out such things as the location of the center of gravity of various solid objects.” (136)

• Because the university of Cambridge was closed during the spread of a plague, “Newton had to spend two years in the safety and boredom of a country retreat, and he filled the time playing with his ideas about a universal theory of gravitation.” (137)

• “Luigi Galvani, who did the basic research on how muscles and nerves conduct electricity, which in turn led to the invention of the electric battery, was a practicing physician until the end of his life. Gregor Mendel was another clergyman, and his experiments that set the foundations of genetics were the results of a gardening hobby.” (137)

• “Einstein wrote his most influential papers while working as a clerk in the Swiss Patent Office. These and the many other great scientists one could easily mention were not handicapped in their thinking because they were not ‘professionals’ in their field, recognized figures with sources of legitimate support. They simply did what they enjoyed doing.” (137)

Notice the words our psychologist employs to describe these scientists’ experience and motivation: aesthetic, beauty, delight, playing with ideas, hobby, enjoyed. It may be that our utilitarian pushing of science is backfiring by flooding the market with more scientists, to be sure, but fewer true researchers. Perhaps what we need in science, ironically, is fewer professionals, and more amateurs.

Loving Science in School

While our psychologist’s main goal may be to inspire modern adults to rekindle their love of science through leisure time study and experimentation, we could also apply these insights to science education in our schools. For example, recovering the love of science for our students might entail more attention to the story of scientific discovery. In The Liberal Arts Tradition, 2^nd edition,Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain envision science classes “tracing the developments of a scientific idea through various new observations, mathematical innovations, and philosophical or theological convictions” (124). In this way science “recovers a kind of story or narrative—not a purely literary narrative, but a technical narrative” (125).

They are not the first to suggest a return to the narrative of science. Charlotte Mason in the early 20^th century had already advocated for a “literary narrative” even if she did not go as far as Clark and Jain in advocating for the technical side of things:

“Books dealing with science as with history, say, should be of a literary character, and we should probably be more scientific as a people if we scrapped all the text-books which swell publishers’ lists and nearly all the chalk expended so freely on our blackboards. The French mind has appreciated the fact that the approach to science as to other subjects should be more or less literary, that the principles which underlie science are at the same time so simple, so profound and so far-reaching that the due setting forth of these provokes what is almost an emotional response; these principles are therefore meet subjects for literary treatment….” (Toward a Philosophy of Education, 218-219)

For Charlotte Mason the commitment to “literary” books, what she elsewhere called “living books” came out of her conviction that the mind naturally responds with attention to beautiful, vigorous writing. Of course, if literary science books told the story of science, it would also be easier for students to be asked to narrate in science class. But we should also notice that Charlotte Mason doesn’t just want the story to be told without students understanding the principles. In fact, it is the “due setting forth” of scientific principles which “provokes what is almost an emotional response.”

But this literary and technical narrative of science should not crowd out the place for wonder, for laboratory and for hands-on discovery, especially early in a child’s development. Charlotte Mason also advocated for nature studies, in which “children keep a dated record of what they see in their nature note-books” while going on a “nature-walk” one afternoon a week (School Education, 236-237). Her goal was to train children in the love of nature and the skill of “interested observation.”

An important side benefit of a joy-centered approach to science instruction is to open up to non-professional scientists (likely the majority of our students) the possibility of ongoing amateur scientific investigation. As our psychologist observes, “If flow, rather than success and recognition, is the measure by which to judge its value, science can contribute immensely to the quality of life” (138). Their science education should train our students for a life-long love of science, just as much as it prepares our future scientists for college.

Science as the Love of Wisdom

However, merely rediscovering the joy in science, as if it were only a fruitful hobby, doesn’t get us all the way to a fully orbed, Christian, classical vision of science. Instead, the tradition viewed natural science as one branch of philosophy, the culmination of years of training in the liberal arts.

Now by ‘philosophy’ we don’t mean just the ivory tower study of obscure points, like whether or not we can actually know that we exist; based on the Greek roots a philosopher is a ‘lover of wisdom’. Wisdom encompasses not just the realm of metaphysical ideas, above most of our heads, but also the realm of humanity and the realm of nature; natural philosophy is what science was once called. In fact, science, which is from the Latin for ‘knowledge,’ and ‘philosophy,’ were once virtual synonyms. As Clark and Jain point out, “not until the turn of the twentieth century did the term ‘scientist’ begin to entirely replace the term ‘natural philosopher’” (The Liberal Arts Tradition, 2^nd ed., 108).

Charlotte Mason gestured toward a recovery of this ancient three-fold division of philosophy in her final volume Towards a Philosophy of Education when she structured her treatment of the curriculum under the headings: Knowledge of God, Knowledge of Man, and Knowledge of the Universe. As the tradition would have called it, scientia divina, scientia moralis, and scientia naturalis.

To give you an example of how important it is for us as Christians to recapture this idea of wisdom including natural science, think for a moment of the wisest king in Israel’s history: King Solomon. When God came to him in a dream and offered him anything he wanted, long life, riches, victory over his enemies, he asked instead for wisdom:

^“29 And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore, ³⁰ so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. ³¹ For he was wiser than all other men, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol, and his fame was in all the surrounding nations. ³² He also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005. ³³ He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. He spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of reptiles, and of fish. ³⁴ And people of all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom.” (1 Kings 4:29-34 ESV)

Notice! Solomon’s wisdom included the humanities, proverbs and songs, but also the knowledge of trees and animals, birds, reptiles and fish. King Solomon was a scientist! He spent his free time in the flow of scientific investigation and discovery. He was wise in the ways of science.

As Christian, classical educators we need to affirm the BOTH/AND of the classical tradition, rather than the EITHER/OR our thinking often gets stuck in. We want our students to be philosophers, wise in matters natural, human and divine, by God’s grace. Too often we get stuck in labelling ourselves and our students math and science people, or humanities people: jocks, nerds or drama queens.

Perhaps this common problem illustrates more than anything I have said so far the importance of recovering a love of science as wisdom for our students. Wisdom is holistic and humans are too. While it is not wrong to have expertise, especially in our complex world, that should not come at the expense of being well rounded.

We could all love and enjoy science a little bit more. Perhaps seeing it as God-given wisdom will send us on our own personal journey of recovering a love of science for ourselves and our children.

New Book! The Joy of Learning: Finding Flow Through Classical Education

Enjoying this series? Jason Barney revised and expanded it into a full length book that you can buy on Amazon. Complete with footnotes and in an easy-to-share format for teacher training or to keep in your personal library, the book aims to help you apply the concept of flow in your classical classroom.

Make sure to share about the book on social media and review it on Amazon!

Previous articles in this series, The Flow of Thought:

Part 1: Training the Attention for Happiness’ Sake; Part 2: The Joy of Memory; Part 3: Narration as Flow; Part 4: The Seven Liberal Arts as Mental Games; Part 5: The Play of Words; Part 6: Becoming Amateur Historians.

Final installments: Part 8, Restoring the School of Philosophers, Part 9, The Lifelong Love of Learning.

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To summarize the distinction, Aristotle defined the intellectual virtue of ‘art’ as a “state of capacity to make [something], involving a true course of reasoning” (Nichomachean Ethics VI.4, 1140^a). The painter makes paintings, the musician creates music, the architect designs buildings. And all of them do so with a reasoned awareness of the constraints of the world and the proper steps necessary to bring what they imagine into being.

On the other hand, the intellectual virtue of ‘science’ or, in common parlance, ‘knowledge’ is “a state of capacity to demonstrate” (Nich. Ethics VI.3 1139^b), meaning that in order to know something, someone should be able to prove it or give evidence that it is the case. Experts give evidence in order to prove the truthfulness of certain claims, thereby endeavoring to establish genuine knowledge about their subject.

Perhaps you can see in a glance why this is an incredibly important distinction for educators. Training a child in an art should follow a markedly different process than teaching a child a science! Artistic mastery requires a great deal of coached practice in the art, while knowledge of particular truths in a subject entails research, gathering evidence, careful thought and the weighing of arguments.

Where this comes to a head most of all is in our application of the classical liberal arts in our schools: particularly the trivium arts of grammar, dialectic and rhetoric, but also the quadrivium arts of arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. While we’ve continued to call them ‘arts’, it is my contention that we’ve been so caught up with modernist privileging of ‘science’ over everything else, that we’ve fallen into error in both our understanding of what these arts are in their essence, but also in our methods of teaching them… or I should say, of training students in them. We’ve treated the liberal arts as if they were sciences, and our students have been the worse for it.

In unpacking and applying this crucial distinction, let’s start first with John Milton Gregory’s distinction of training vs. teaching.

Training vs. Teaching in J M. Gregory’s The Seven Laws of Teaching

At the school where I work we’re going through John Milton Gregory’s The Seven Laws of Teaching as one piece of our faculty training for this year. In rereading it this last June, I came across a passage of his introduction that caught my eye because of its relationship to the classical distinction between an ‘art’ and a ‘science’.

John Milton Gregory divides the whole art of education into two “branches”:

“The one is the art of training; the other the art of teaching. Training is the systematic development and cultivation of the powers of mind and body. Teaching is the systematic inculcation of knowledge.” (p. 10, 2014 Canon Press reprint)

Here it was again articulated in a different form. Where Aristotle’s expression of it held the trappings of a work on personal ethics, and therefore focused on the subjective virtue of an individual, J. M. Gregory was expressing the distinction from the perspective of an educator. Education involves two core parts, we might say, training in the arts (i.e. any of the “powers of mind and body” that produce something in the world) and teaching of knowledge in any particular ‘science’, or subject in which things can be known.

J. M. Gregory goes on to explain the how and why of training in more detail:

“As the child is immature in all its powers, it is the first business of education, as an art, to cultivate those powers, by giving to each power regular exercise in its own proper sphere, till, through exercise and growth, they come to their full strength and skill.” (10)

This expresses well my previous article’s contention for the importance of lots of coached practice. Training students in an art requires giving them “regular exercise” and a long process for the development of “strength and skill.” I hardly need add that recent research on the importance of deliberate practice over the course of thousands of hours is confirming this traditional insight. Highly focused repeated firing of the relevant neural networks is apparently the key to the formation of myelin sheaths around those neurons, so that their firing can occur with high levels of efficiency and accuracy (see The Talent Code, or Talent Is Overrated, or Outliers or any other of the high performance literature drawing from Anders Erikson’s research).

Incidentally, J. M. Gregory also concedes that training is more primary, or that it is, as he says, “the first business of education,” because without the training of a child’s powers, they cannot even grapple with the stuff of knowledge. The arts are a basic human form of culture-making, without which knowledge is not even possible.

In contrast, J. M. Gregory describes teaching as the communication of knowledge, dropping Aristotle’s emphasis on the ability to demonstrate. Modernism and empiricism had effectively undercut Aristotle’s emphasis on deductive logic’s ability to “prove” from universals, and the promise of presenting the “results of modern science” had already come into its own and subtly influenced J. M. Gregory’s view of what it meant to teach knowledge. At least, that’s my explanation of this curious feature of his account, not to mention his decision to write his whole work focused on the rules of teaching and leave the art of training to the side.

Lastly, it is interesting to note how J. M. Gregory claims that these two aspects of education (training vs. teaching) “though separable in thought, are not separable in practice” (11). The fact that he emphasizes this so strongly–though understandable and no doubt correct—just goes to show how far the tradition has come since Plato and Aristotle. In those days the arts were viewed more concretely, almost as professions or trades, rather than academic attainments.

The Arts as Professions in Plato’s Gorgias

Since the Fall of 2018 I have used Plato’s Gorgias with students in my role as a Senior Thesis advisor. The dialogue is a spritely example of Socrates’ witty repartee with a prominent figure, who claims so much for himself. Gorgias was a famous rhetorician with a flowery style, who travelled around Greece taking payment from students to train them in his art.

In the dialogue Socrates forces Gorgias to adopt the shorter method of discourse (i.e. Socrates’ preferred dialectical method) rather than his normal rhetorical speeches, before systematically picking apart what the art of rhetoric really is, and whether Gorgias can really train men in all he claims to. What is interesting to note for our purposes is further confirmation that even before Aristotle articulated the distinction between skill in an ‘art’ and knowledge or ‘science’, it was alive and well in Greek educational culture.

Socrates begins by discussing numerous other arts or professions, in order to illuminate what exactly Gorgias claims to be as a rhetorician. Throughout the dialogue he brings up the art of a weaver, a physician, a trainer, a business owner, an arithmetician, and a geometer, among other professions. Of course, he also mentions the art of dialectic that he himself engages in, and discusses at length the nature of Gorgias’ art of rhetoric. When Gorgias’ defines rhetoric as the art of discourse, Socrates makes the point that other arts deal with discourse as well. For instance, the physician discourses with the sick about the remedies for their condition, and the arithmetician about odd and even numbers.

In a way, Plato’s Gorgias foreshadows the later idea of the liberal arts, which would include arithmetic, geometry, dialectic and rhetoric. They are distinguished from other arts by how they use discourse in words or numbers to create their product. Unlike the products of a weaver or sculptor, a trainer or physician, their product itself is the discourse of words and numbers now present in the world. That product could be the ephemeral spoken address of an orator, or the record of it later written down; it could be the mental calculations of an arithmetician or the recorded transactions in a business ledger.

The dialogue is also interesting for how Socrates’ chief critique of Gorgias’ art of rhetoric turns on Gorgias’ claim to being able to persuade anyone of anything regardless of his lack of knowledge or expertise in that area. For example, Gorgias claims that his brother, a physician, could not get a certain patient to take his medicine, until he came along and pleaded with him. Socrates seems to almost be objecting to the art of rhetoric’s ability to persuade others of beliefs without “inculcating knowledge” or “teaching” them anything. For this reason, Socrates thinks the art of rhetoric is suspect because it can be used to convince people of false ideas just as well as true.

In other words, Socrates thinks training students in the art of rhetoric without teaching them true knowledge in the sciences leaves the world ripe for manipulation. For Socrates rhetoric is a manipulative technique like cookery (which doesn’t make food nutritious) or cosmetics (which doesn’t produce real health and beauty). All this would certainly support J. M. Gregory’s claim that training and teaching cannot (or should not) be divorced in practice, even if it is useful to distinguish between them in principle.

Two Errors in Training vs. Teaching

While I am inclined to think that our chief error today is aiming to teach students abstract knowledge and rules about the liberal arts, rather than affording them enough coached practice to develop proficiency, Plato’s Gorgias provides a unique and powerful check on the other side. Neglecting the teaching of genuine knowledge can be just as deadly an error.

We might conceive of these as classical education’s Scylla and Charybdis. On the one side is the perilous rocks of focusing so much on knowledge acquisition and testing, that students lose all active agency in their learning and come out of their rhetoric classes with a host of memorized figures of speech and rules, but no facility or confidence in speaking or writing. On the other side, is the vortex of Charybdis, where the powerful currents of worldliness draw in students whose training has given them the ability to manipulate others, regardless of truth or goodness.

Perhaps there are some debate programs, or classical schools, that so focus on mastery of rules and practice, without the heart of knowledge, that this is a live option worthy of fear. But again, my hunch is that most of our modern schools are so focused on the task of learning about rhetoric that our students left without much practice in learning how to speak, to stick with one example.

How do you keep the balance of training vs. teaching? Let us know in the comments and share this article with a friend if you found it helpful!

Check out more recent articles related to training in the arts!

Moral Virtue and the Intellectual Virtue of Artistry or Craftsmanship

Practicing in the Dark or the Day: Well-worn Paths or Bushwalking, Artistry and Moral Virtue Continued

Apprenticeship in the Arts: Traditions and Divisions

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As President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson’s progressive agenda saw an expansion of federal regulation of business through anti-trust legislation and of federal programs to assist farmers and labor. When his oversight of America’s involvement in WW1 is taken into account, his presidency seems a microcosm of FDR’s. It is Wilson as educational reformer, though, that we want to cast a spotlight.

Ten years before Wilson ran for President of the United States, he was appointed as President of Princeton College. Under his guidance Princeton was transformed from a liberal arts college aimed at training Presbyterian ministers to a progressive university with a new science department and graduate school. As an alumnus of Princeton, Wilson was very much aware of the culture of Princeton, its strengths and weaknesses. Even during his student days, Wilson articulated a desire for Princeton to become more like European universities, opining that the level of scholarship achieved in Germany and England outstripped that of America. He saw that the American system of education promoted something less than true scholarship. And while students are partially at fault, he places the blame on the collegiate system for its failings.

In 1877, Wilson’s sophomore year at Princeton, he first addressed the concept of educational reform, writing:

When true scholarship offers so grand an opportunity for the exercise of our noblest faculties, we marvel that it should be so neglected. On the part of the student, misguided energy and insufficiency of enthusiasm are at fault; but we must believe that to our collegiate system a large part of the blame can be attached. Nothing is so utterly destructive of true scholarship as what is technically called “cramming.” To abolish the practicability of this operation should be the basic principle in the College regime. (The Princetonian, May 1877)

Wilson’s critique rings true even today, as students remain faithful to the hallowed tradition of “cramming;” learning everything for the final, but learning nothing of lasting significance.

At his inauguration as President of Princeton in 1902, Wilson articulated his understanding of two modes of learning:

There are two ways of preparing a young man for his life work. One is to give him the skill and special knowledge which shall make a good tool, and excellent bread-winning tool of him; and for thousands of young men that way must be followed. It is a good way. It is honorable; it is indispensable. But it is not for the college, and it never can be. The college should seek to make the men whom it receives something more than excellent servants of a trade or skilled practitioners of a profession. It should give them elasticity of faculty and breadth of vision, not upon their own profession only, for its liberalization and enlargement, but also upon the broader interests which lie about them, in the spheres in which they are to be, not breadwinners merely, but citizens as well, and in their own hearts, where they are to grow to the stature of real nobility. (Princeton University Bulletin, Dec 1902)

Wilson’s vision for not just Princeton, but for the entire educational system in America, was to provide an education that built upon the older subjects – Greek, Latin, mathematics, English, which he saw vitally connected with religious and moral values – the new areas of the natural sciences. This entailed laboratories, telescopes, museums, the stuff of empirical investigation. Wilson realized many of his goals. The museum of natural history opened in 1909. The graduate college was dedicated in 1913. He also diversified the school, moving it away from its conservative Presbyterian moorings to hire Jewish and Roman Catholic professors. By the end of his tenure, Princeton was well on its way towards becoming the dominant educational institution it is today. However, Wilson was not entirely satisfied. His address to alumni in Pittsburgh during April 1910, full of fire and fury, decried elitism and called for the democratization of private and public education. The voices of common men must “echo in the corridors of the universities.” Despite the censure he received for his fiery speech, the ideal won out; and rightfully so. A quality education ought not be the sole domain of an elite class.

By 1909, Wilson already had a sense of the pitfalls of the new university, incorporating the older subjects with the emerging fields of technical science. He wrote, “The spirit of technical schools has not always been the spirit of learning. They have often been intensely and very frankly utilitarian, and pure science has looked at them askance.” To counteract this, he called for America to commit to the ideal of the liberal arts tradition:

There is an ideal at the heart of everything American, and the ideal at the heart of the American university is intellectual training, the awakening of the whole man, the thorough introduction of the student to the life of America and of the modern world, the completion of the task undertaken by the grammar and high schools of equipping him for the full duties of citizenship. It is with the idea that I have said that the college stands at the heart of the American university. The college stands for liberal training. Its object is discipline and enlightenment. The average thoughtful American does not want his son narrowed in all his gifts and thinking to a particular occupation. He wishes him to be made free of the world in which men think about and understand many things, and to know how to handle himself in it. He desires a training for him which will give him a considerable degree of elasticity and adaptability, and fit him to turn in any direction he chooses. (The Delineator, 1909)

Democratized access to this ideal of education would indeed equip America with thoughtful, engaged, accomplished, disciplined and enlightened citizens. Is the ideal achievable? Can it overcome the pitfalls of the technical school which squelches the spirit of learning? Wilson wants it all – the university training the hearts and hands by converging the ideals of the liberal arts college with the practicality of the technical school.

Wilson’s most mature expression of his educational philosophy came on the eve of his short term as governor of New Jersey, only two years before becoming President of the United States. He continues to articulate the dangers of the new university model. The specialization of subjects leads to special interests in the political sphere and in public discourse. The inability of doctors, lawyers, electricians, psychologists and the like to speak meaningfully to one another because educational specialization has meant that general knowledge has been sacrificed for professional ends. His solution continued to be a combination of liberal arts with technical schooling. Yet, the stark differences he identifies make it an impossible concoction. In his address to the New York City High School Teacher Association on January 9, 1909, he delineates the options available to the populace:

Let us go back and distinguish between the two things that we want to do; for we want to do two things in modern society. We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forego the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks. You cannot train them for both in the time that you have at your disposal. They must make a selection, and you must make a selection. I do not mean to say that in the manual training there must not be an element of liberal training; neither am I hostile to the idea that in the liberal education there should be an element of the manual training. But what I am intent upon is that we should not confuse ourselves with regard to what we are trying to make of the pupils under our instruction. We are either trying to make liberally-educated persons out of them, or we are trying to make skillful servants of society along mechanical lines, or else we do not know what we are trying to do. (High School Teachers Association of New York, Volume 3, 1908-1909)

Democratization occurs through people’s choices to pursue one or the other option. But will institutions maintain a meaningful choice for people? Will all universities provide both a liberal arts education alongside technical training? Manual tasks, Wilson recognizes, are a necessary burden that must be born by the majority of students educated in America. Only the few can benefit from a liberal arts education. In the end, pragmatism must win out. The course of the twentieth century sees technical training win out over the liberal arts. Indeed, many of the liberal arts subjects were recast along technical lines. This occurred in part due to the use of scientific modes of investigation in the humanities. But it also occurred through the specialization of each subject, making each subject its own domain ignored by and ignoring other domains.

Idealism breaks easily on the shoals of pragmatism. It only takes one total war to inoculate a nation against idealism. To have undergone two total wars with an intervening decade of decadence followed by a decade of depression left a nation bereft of the liberal arts tradition that had upheld its founders. Fortunately a remnant have held tightly to the ideals of the liberal arts, and we are now seeing a renaissance underway. To what extent will it correct years of industrialism’s ascendancy in education?

Resources

Berg, A. Scott. Wilson. Berkley, 2014.

DiNunzio, Mario R. ed. Woodrow Wilson: Essential Writings and Speeches of the Scholar-President. NYU Press, 2006.

Heckscher, August. Woodrow Wilson: A Biography. Scribner, 1991.

Walworth, Arthur. Woodrow Wilson. 2nd Ed. Houghton Mifflin, 1965.

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Of course, we’ve heard Dorothy Sayers call the liberal arts the lost tools of learning, and we’ve tried to apply her insights about how the trivium arts can map on practically to the different stages of a child’s development, and that therefore the arts aren’t exactly subjects in themselves but more like a way of approaching each subject. But in the classical tradition the difference between an ‘art’ and a ‘science’ was a little bit more subtle. A ‘science’ is simple enough because it comes from the Latin word ‘scientia’ meaning knowledge. A science is therefore a body of knowledge that a person might master. The way to master a science is simply to learn or discover all the truth that one can about that area and integrate it so far as possible with everything else one knows. An ‘art’ however is not a body of knowledge but an ability to create or produce something. So, for instance, a person who has mastered the art of architecture, will have the ability to design sound and esthetically pleasing buildings. The person skilled in the art of underwater basket-weaving will be able to weave baskets while submerged under water. An art is about the ability to make something; it is not primarily about knowing truths.

This distinction goes all the way back to Aristotle, when he defined the intellectual virtue of ‘art’ as a “state of capacity to make [something], involving a true course of reasoning” (1140^a.31), whereas ‘knowledge’ or ‘science’ is a “state of capacity to demonstrate” (1130^b.10). In other words, someone who is skilled in the art of basket-weaving has the ability to weave a basket correctly, based on prior experience and practice and according to the actual nature of the materials and the needs of a basket (“a true course of reasoning”); on the other hand, someone who has knowledge, or has learned a particular subject or ‘science’, is able to show or demonstrate that knowledge, whether through inductive or deductive reasoning. As the late Victorian British educator Charlotte Mason also said, “Whatever a child can tell, that we may be sure he knows, and what he cannot tell, he does not know.” Now Aristotle’s distinction between the intellectual virtues of ‘art’ and ‘science’ became a crucial touchpoint for the classical tradition of the liberal arts and sciences. However, our modern classical revival movement has not always been so clear about this distinction.

In its clearest articulation, then, the seven liberal arts were not ‘subjects’ or bodies of demonstrable knowledge, but instead were highly complex skills that students needed to be trained in over a course of years. Of course, under the general heading of philosophy there was a science for every one of these areas, like the science of grammar, since there was in the tradition a whole body of discovered truth about the grammar of various languages, or about logical reasoning, or about the nature of the rhetorical task. There is a science for every subject. But that was viewed as distinct from training in the art.

Naturally, students of the liberal arts would gain knowledge of all kinds along the way, especially concerning the liberal art they were studying, just as someone learning the art of basket-weaving would learn many things about baskets and how they are woven. However, a student’s ability to demonstrate their knowledge of basket-weaving is a completely different thing from their ability to weave a basket correctly. On the other hand, the liberal arts are a unique case, because the ‘products’ of grammar, dialectic and rhetoric are themselves the communicated products of knowledge, namely reading and interpretation (grammar), discussion and reasoning (dialectic or logic), and spoken or written persuasion (rhetoric). But the distinction still holds between the ability to make and pure knowledge.

How has the classical school movement grown in its understanding of this distinction? If we go back to Dorothy Sayers’s essay on the lost tools of learning, it’s easy to see that this distinction between arts and sciences was important for her. She claims that an important difference between modern and medieval education was the emphasis on ‘subjects’ versus “forging and learning to handle the tools of learning,” by which she means the trivium arts of grammar, logic and rhetoric. As she wrote, “Although we often succeed in teaching our pupils ‘subjects,’ we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think; they learn everything, except the art of learning.” Doug Wilson, in recovering and applying her essay, has emphasized particularly her mapping of the trivium onto stages of a child’s development, so that the grammar of each subject is emphasized for young students, then the logic or reasoning for older, and eloquent expression of truth about a subject for the oldest.

Then back in 2006 Robert Littlejohn and Chuck Evans wrote Wisdom and Eloquence, in which they argued against a strong emphasis on the trivium as stages of development, based on their analysis of the historical facts of the tradition. They also argued that the tools of learning are not the liberal arts themselves, but are skills like phonetic decoding, reading comprehension, critical thinking, research, public speaking, etc. The liberal arts, both trivium and quadrivium are subjects, not these discrete skills, claimed Littlejohn and Evans.

Now it’s important for us to concede their first point. The classical tradition has taught the trivium in many ways, but before Dorothy Sayers it’s almost impossible to find the idea that the trivium represents stages a child goes through in their development. In the Roman period students went to a grammaticus to learn how to read and write in Greek and their own language Latin. Quintilian, the famous Roman orator and educator, discussed how the equivalent Latin word for the Greek ‘grammatiké’ was ‘litteratura,’ literature, or I might say, literacy, and how among other things the student would learn to read literature and poetry, scan the meter, analyze the meanings of words, read it aloud properly with attention to proper phrasing and accent, and interpret it through all the necessary background information, whether historical, geographical or scientific (see Book 1.4 of Institutes of Oratory). That was training in grammar. After that a student would be sent to a rhetorical teacher like Quintilian to learn to speak publicly in every possible situation that might be needed to bring leadership to the public square. After that, education was done, unless a student wanted to go to Athens and study with the philosophers. That’s a very different picture of trivium education than what we might be used to; it’s not the grammar-logic-rhetoric as stages of development paradigm.

But to answer Robert Littlejohn and Chuck Evan’s last point about the liberal arts being ‘subjects’, we should go on to a more recent book by Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain, The Liberal Arts Tradition. In their chapter on the liberal arts they use Thomas Aquinas, who held Aristotle’s distinction close to his heart, in order to explain that the liberal arts are the “tools by which knowledge is fashioned” (33). “An art could be attained from an extensive foundation in action and imitation forming cultivated habits,” say Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain, whereas “a science can be in the mind alone and does not require any practice or the production of anything.” Based on this distinction, from Aristotle to Aquinas and into our own recovery movement, it seems to make most sense to think of the trivium arts as something different than modern ‘subjects’. They are well-worn paths, they are complex imitative habits, they are the tools of learning, they are the skills needed to discover and justify knowledge.

Obviously, if this little review of our movement’s growing understanding of the trivium as arts is true, then it changes how we should view the trivium. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we should throw out our grammar, logic and rhetoric textbooks. But it should radically reorient us on what we think we’re doing when we’re teaching grammar. If ‘grammatiké’ is the ability to read and interpret texts, with all the sub-skills attached to it, like phonetic decoding, background knowledge, reading comprehension, etc., well then, what students need to master grammar in this sense is lots and lots of coached practice; they don’t necessarily need another lecture. They need to read harder and harder texts in all sorts of subject areas. And they need to be actively coached by their teachers in how to do this well, in what needs to be known and understood, in order to interpret this text correctly. And over time with practice, students will become more and more literate, they will become grammarians, skilled readers and interpreters. The same can be said for logic or, I prefer, dialectic, the art of reasoning and discussion. In order to master this art, students need to do lots and lots of discussing, being forced to think carefully about what they have read. They need to learn to argue with one another respectfully, anticipate others’ trains of thought, call out faulty reasoning in themselves and others. Most of all they need accountable practice in discussing important matters at a higher and higher level. Mastering rhetoric, lastly, comes in the ability to speak or write persuasively and knowledgeably about all manner of subjects. It is not the same as learning about the subject of rhetoric, the types, the proper divisions, rhetorical devices and flourishes that can be used, though these are all things it would be great for them to know. But a student could learn the science of rhetoric, be ready to spew forth the definitions of every term, yet be the least persuasive speaker or writer in the world.

Well, this leads me to propose a twofold understanding of grammar, dialectic and rhetoric. Each is both an art and a science, both a complex skill of communication and a traditional body of knowledge about that area. So everyone is right, Sayers, Wilson, Littlejohn and Evans, as well as Clark and Jain. This is perhaps easiest to see if I use my absurd outside example: basket-weaving. Imagine two different people who claim to be wise in the art of basket-weaving. One of them knows the whole history of basket-weaving, can name all the important figures, describe key changes in different cultures’ application of basket-weaving, and he himself even has his own particular theories about why basket-weaving developed as it did, but unfortunately, he has never actually woven a basket for himself. The other has never heard of any different way to weave a basket than the way that she was taught by her mother growing up, and yet she weaves baskets daily, that only get better and better, sometimes departing from tradition with bold and innovative designs. The first person is wise in the science of basket-weaving; the second is actually a trained basket-weaver, an artist in her own right. Of course, many artists also know some of the science, and many scientists have a rudimentary practice of the art.

The same can be said of grammar, dialectic and rhetoric. There are bodies of knowledge about these arts that one can master. One can become a grammarian, one can study the philosophy of logic, or one can take courses in rhetorical studies at a university. Some amount of study in these sciences can help one to master the arts, just as knowledge of the history and various techniques of basket-weaving is useful to the artist. But someone could be a powerful public speaker without any study of the history of rhetoric, because of a combination of natural talent, imitation and coached practice.

This changes things for us as classical educators because it forces us to ask the question: “Which are we aiming for here?” If you look at many of our textbooks in grammar, logic or rhetoric, you have to admit that the method of the textbook seems to assume that the goal is primarily to teach our students knowledge about these ‘subjects,’ as if that were enough. This is to treat the liberal arts as if they were sciences. Now don’t get me wrong here, a science is a very good thing, and can be helpful, especially if it is fused with appropriate practice. However, the sciences of grammar, logic and rhetoric can be deadening if they are learned in the absence of training in the arts. There’s a reason in the tradition that the liberal arts preceded the sciences. And perhaps I should mention that it’s a particular flaw of the Enlightenment and Modernism that the sciences and being scientific are preferred to anything else. This may be one of the ways that we as classical educators have implicitly fallen prey to modern assumptions about education.

At the same time, we’re not the first classical educators to have fallen prey to this error. For instance, John Locke, the British philosopher, in his work on education, wrote:

“For I have seldom or never observed anyone to get the skill of reasoning well or speaking handsomely by studying those rules which pretend to teach it; and therefore I would have a young gentleman take a view of them in the shortest systems that could be found without dwelling long on the contemplation and study of those formalities.” (Some Thoughts Concerning Education, p. 140)

Locke claims that learning rules won’t make you either an eloquent speaker or a brilliant conversationalist, nor will logical systems of analyzing mode and figure, predicates and predicables, teach a young gentleman to reason well. That requires, he goes on, the imitation of great authors or thinkers and practice reasoning to the truth or speaking publicly. He recommends that young children be asked to narrate stories they have read, from Aesop’s fables say, and to read great orators. It seems that even in Locke’s day the classical practices of the trivium had gotten crystalized into a deadening form, where students learned the science, but not the art. They memorized rules for logic and rhetoric, but couldn’t reason to the truth, let alone speak fluently. As he explains later on,

“There can scarce be a greater defect in a gentleman than not to express himself well either in writing or speaking. But yet, I think, I may ask my reader whether he does not know a great many who live upon their estates and so, with the name, should have the qualities of gentlemen, who cannot so much as tell a story as they should, much less speak clearly and persuasively in any business. This I think not to be so much their fault as the fault of their education.” (141-2)

This is a haunting warning that we should heed well in our movement, in order to be sure that our schools don’t fall prey to this same fault. We might be training young ladies and gentlemen, who can spout off the right answers but do not in fact have the ability to think, speak and write, who have not, in fact, as Dorothy Sayers would say, learned the arts of learning.

Resources

Barnes, Jonathan, ed. The Complete Works of Aristotle. The Revised Oxford Translation,Volume Two. Princeton, 1984.

Clark, Kevin and Ravi Jain. The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education. Classical Academic Press, 2013.

Littlejohn, Robert and Charles Evans. Wisdom and Eloquence: A Christian Paradigm for Classical Learning. Crossway, 2006.

Locke, John. Some Thoughts Concerning Education (first published 1693) and Of the Conduct of the Understanding. Hackett, 1996.

Quintilian. Institutes of Oratory. Translated by John Selby Watson (1856), revised and edited by Lee Honeycutt (2007) and Curtis Dozier. Creative Commons, 2015.

Sayers, Dorothy. “The Lost Tools of Learning.” First delivered at Oxford, 1947. Accessed at http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html, June 2018.

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