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

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

Visit to Florence in 1893

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Frescos of Santa Maria Novella

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Great Recognition for Mason

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

It was in 1466 that we first learn of Leonardo in Verrocchio’s studio as a garzone or errand boy. Leonardo’s star rose quickly as told by Vasari in his Lives. He writes about Leonardo:

“He was placed, then, as has been said, in his boyhood, at the instance of Ser Piero, to learn art with Andrea del Verrocchio, who was making a panel-picture of S. John baptizing Christ, when Leonardo painted an angel who was holding some garments; and although he was but a lad, Leonardo executed it in such a manner that his angel was much better than the figures of Andrea; which was the reason that Andrea would never again touch colour, in disdain that a child should know more than he.”

Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, trans. Gaston du C. De Vere (New York: Macmillan, 1913), IV:92

The comparison is stunning. The hair of Verrocchio’s figures is limp and lifeless whereas the hair of Leonardo’s angel is vibrant and light. We rarely see such a contrast in style within one painting that so illustrates the unique hands of master and apprentice. Vasari has a tendency to mythologize the lives of his artists, but there seems to be some veracity in the tale of Verrocchio’s despondency in light of his young protégé. Walter Isaacson writes,

“Afterward Verrocchio never completed any new painting on his own. More to the point, a comparison between the parts of the Baptism of Christ that Leonardo painted with those done by Verrocchio shows why the older artist would have been ready to defer.”

Walter Isaacson, Leonardo Da Vinci, (Simon & Schuster, 2017), 52

It is not as though Verrocchio was not himself a great master. Vasari devotes a full ten pages to the master whose crowning achievement is probably the bronze statue of David standing on the head of Goliath. It is safe to say that Verrocchio was no slouch. And yet he was awed by the true talent and genius of the youth. In fact, it is likely that the statue of David was modeled on the young Leonardo, indicating an emerging admiration and affection for talented youth.

On Polymaths and Greek Emigres

The greatness of Da Vinci was not the result of one master, but of a multitude of factors. There are two in particular that I would like to trace here. One was the environment of Verrocchio’s studio, a place where multiple ideas were exchanged. Another was the influx of Greek learning that came particularly by way of John Argyropoulos among other Greek emigres after the fall of Constantinople. We’ll explore both of these to understand how our own classrooms can be rich in ideas that promote deep learning.

Leonardo’s father apprenticed him to Andrea del Verrocchio at the age of fourteen. Ser Piero, his father, took new interest in his son at around the age of twelve when Albiera – Ser Piero’s wife and Leonardo’s step-mother – died. Leonardo had been living amongst relatives in Vinci, but was then moved to Florence, closer to his father. Noting his talent for drawing, Ser Piero took some of Leonardo’s drawing to Verrocchio, “to tell him whether Leonardo, by devoting himself to drawing, would make any proficience.” (Vasari, 90) This was a momentous occurrence for Leonardo, as Verrocchio’s studio would provide ample sustenance to his mind. He not only would hone his artistic skills, but would be introduced to a panoply of topics under discussion in Florence at the time. Isaacson writes:

“Verrocchio’s workshop, which was nestled in a street near [Ser] Piero’s notarial office, was the perfect place for Leonardo. Verrocchio conducted a rigorous teaching program that involved studying surface anatomy, mechanics, drawing techniques, and the effects of light and shade on material such as draperies.”

Isaacson, Leonardo Da Vinci, 33

The program of study Leonardo would undertake would give him the guidance and coaching that would lead him to mastery. Here he would accumulate his 10,000 hours of practice under the watchful eye of a master. Isaacson goes on to write:

“An inventory of his [Verrocchio’s] shop showed that it had a dining table, beds, a globe, and a variety of books in Italian. . . .The topics of discussion in his shop included math, anatomy, dissection, antiquities, music, and philosophy.”

Notice how alongside the technical proficiency in their craft, the apprentices were receiving essentially a liberal arts education. Now, they did not have the advantage of receiving this education through formal schooling. As a matter of fact, Leonardo would later attempt to learn Latin on his own, perhaps as a way of bridging the gap to the cultural elite. (Isaacson 32, 34) The point here is to note how the apprenticeship model was not so fixated on technical job skills that it did not provide a wide-ranging learning environment.

The informal education received at Verrocchio’s studio was stimulated by an informal society founded by Cosimo de’ Medici around 1462. The Florence Academy, or more properly the Platonic Academy of Florence, was a discussion group for Florentine intellectuals that centered around Marsilio Ficino who led the group in studying the works of Plato as well as ancient Greek culture. This interest in ancient Greece was sparked in part by the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Greek scholars fled the East bringing with them not only their learning but also manuscripts of many important works that had only existed in the West in poor or partial translations.

A prominent scholar-in-residence was John Argyropoulos. Argyropoulos was to Aristotle what Ficino was to Plato, providing translations of such works as the Nichomachean Ethics, Politics and Metaphysics among others. Beyond merely being a leader in the revival of Greek philosophy, Argyropoulos attracted interest in the humanism that was the centerpiece of the Italian Renaissance. It is difficult to trace precisely the lines of influence from Argyropoulos to Leonardo, such that many major biographers leaves these lines untraced. However, it is known that Leonardo frequented the Florence Academy during the time of Argyropoulos’s tenure there. Perhaps the drive to understand the connection between the cosmos and man stems from this philosophical influence.

No other work better expresses the humanist ideal than the Vitruvian Man. Vitruvius was a Roman architect in the 1^st century b.c. In his work, De Atrchitectura, he looked at the proportions of the human body and based his architectural principles around them. For instance, he lays out the structure of a temple building based on the proportions of a man laying down:

“The navel is naturally placed in the centre of the human body, and, if in a man lying with his face upward, and his hands and feet extended, from his navel as the centre, a circle be described, it will touch his fingers and toes. It is not alone by a circle, that the human body is thus circumscribed, as may be seen by placing it within a square. For measuring from the feet to the crown of the head, and then across the arms fully extended, we find the latter measure equal to the former; so that lines at right angles to each other, enclosing the figure, will form a square.”

The Architecture of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, translated by Joseph Gwilt (London: Priestley and Weale, 1826), III, 1.3

Perhaps this text explains why the central part of the church is called the nave. The dimensions of the typical cruciform basilica are not far off from what Vitruvius envisioned. Now, how this relates to Leonardo is that from his musings on art, architecture, geometry and humanism, we can see a coalescing of these streams of thought in his drawing the “Vitruvian Man.” In Leonardo’s drawing we find a man circumscribed and enclosed in a square. Isaacson, describing the drawing, writes:

“Leonardo’s drawing is meticulously done. His lines are not sketchy and tentative. Instead, he dug hard with his stylus, carving the lines confidently into the page as if he were making an etching. He had planned this drawing very carefully and knew precisely what he was doing.”

Isaacson, Leonardo Da Vinci, 155

The “Vitruvian Man” was completed in his late thirties. Leonardo was in many ways his own man, pursuing a vast array of interests spanning architecture, painting, drawing, sculpture, and technological inventions. As the epitome of the Renaissance man, we can see the influences of his formal apprenticeship to Verrocchio, but also his apprenticeship in the milieu of Renaissance Florence under the informal tutelage of individuals such as Argyropoulos. What is the measure of a man? This is perhaps a central question in Renaissance humanism. Likewise, the somewhat more problematic question, how is man the measure of all things, drove much of the humanism of the era. At once, man is both the temple of the Holy Spirit, but also the standard by which religion and even God become measured. As a Renaissance man, Leonardo strikes me as someone who wrestled with the vast possibilities humanism provided, but also bore the crushing weight of humanism’s promotion of the human ideal.

A Well-Rounded Apprenticeship

It might be thought that an apprenticeship is in some ways inferior to or separate from a liberal arts education. In our own day and age, a person apprenticed in a craft is often choosing a different pathway than, say, a college education. This reinforces the idea the apprenticeship and education are at odds with one another. There is further reinforcement of this idea of inferiority and separation when one considers how the ruling classes have been afforded the opportunity to receive a liberal arts education whereas the common man was apprenticed in a skill or trade. We get glimpses of this bifurcation even in Leonardo’s ambition to gain facility in Latin as the elite of his day would have acquired in school. A renewal of apprenticeship in our day might feel like a turn away from the pathway to learning marked by degrees at higher and higher levels.

Yet, if we reconsider what Leonardo’s apprenticeship provided, we would be shortsighted if we reduced his time under the master Verrocchio as merely technical training. His apprenticeship years were indeed a time of cultivating his eyes and hands to create works of architecture, sculpture and painting. The skills Verrocchio passed on were very focused on creating works of art. However, his apprenticeship was so much more than skills training. Verrocchio’s studio allowed for rich conversations from a varied curriculum of books on hand, of the prominent ideas of the day and of deep discussions with patrons and other craftsmen. True, the apprentices in Verrocchio’s studio benefitted from being in Florence, a major center of the Italian Renaissance. But one could envision an approach even at that time and place where apprentices were isolated from such a rich atmosphere by only working on their craft exclusively. Leonardo the philosopher was trained in the studio of Verrocchio while learning his trade. Perhaps the greatness we see in Leonardo is actually not in the well-trained hand of a master artist, but in the well-trained mind of a Renaissance philosopher whose medium tended toward the visual.

I think there are a few key practical considerations to take from this examination of Leonardo’s training as an apprentice under Verrocchio. First, there ought to be some form of training in craftsmanship. I greatly appreciate how Jason Barney has put forward a five-fold division of Aristotle’s techne to include such things as athletics, common and domestic arts, professions, and performing arts in addition to language and mathematical arts. Handwork of any sort – knitting, origami, sketching, woodworking – is a key part of training the whole person. And what I mean by that is not that we train the intellect with subjects such as reading and arithmetic, leaving the physical to exercise and handwork. The intellect is also trained through handwork and physical exercise. There are aspects to our learning that benefit from physical engagement with objects and from movement. So, we need to update our thinking that physical exercise and handwork are not additions to the curriculum, but are essential to a well-rounded curriculum.

Second, a well-rounded education benefits from variety. This variety comes from a plethora of different interests, pursuits and books. Introducing our students to new ideas that might not be on our list of objectives can add the kind of vivacity to our daily work that generates depth of thought. For Leonardo, the interesting books in Verrocchio’s personal library presented him with stimulating pathways for learning. By attending informal learning environments such as the Florence Academy further stimulated his emerging genius. I think it is worth noting that his attendance was neither required, nor did it result in any credential. It was an at-will opportunity to be part of the philosophical movement underway in his local city. Do we value these kinds of impromptu opportunities? Are there local classes or workshops that we can encourage our students to participate in?

Finally, let us picture once more Verrocchio looking over the shoulder of young Leonardo. Leonardo is the one in the act of painting and the master is coaching, instructing, at times demonstrating, but the work of active learning and practice remains with the apprentice. This is an approach to learning that differs from the way we grew up learning in the modern classroom. It can be difficult to apply this approach in all subjects, but when we consider how the liberal arts are just that, arts, then I think we really need to ensure that the work of learning rests on the student.

I conclude by taking us much later in Leonardo’s career. He too developed a studio inviting young apprentices to learn from him. Francesco Melzi stands out as an apprentice demonstrating real talent. Even though many of his pupils struggled to produce works of enduring quality, living as they did in the shadow of one of the greatest artists of all time, the process remained the same. Enabling the younger artists opportunities to practice their craft under the watchful eye of the master. One can see in Melzi’s style the hallmarks of his master. There is a stiffness to his work that differs from the gracefulness of Leonardo’s figures. Yet, the aspiring young Melzi was still able to produce a few works that have passed the test of time.

The enduring value of apprenticeship is that it leads to mastery. In this new post-industrial economy the kind of training that leads to independence of thought and work will depend on the renewal of this approach to learning.

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Aristotle’s intellectual virtue of artistry (Greek: techne) is by its very nature creative and productive. In order for it to flourish in a school culture, it must draw some of its lifeblood from the natural creative and productive impulse of children as human beings. When they see the products and beautiful creations of the masters of these living traditions, then they will naturally want to imitate them (see Comenius, The Great Didactic, 195-196). Drawing from this natural desire will make unnecessary the carrots and sticks of modern education’s manipulative motivational techniques. 

The Example of the Renaissance Guilds

We might be tempted to think that the structure of a system, like a school, has nothing to do with the cultivation of high levels of artistry or genius. We are tempted to think primarily in terms of in-born talent as a fixed entity (see Aristotle and the Growth Mindset • Educational Renaissance), but research on geniuses and elite performers points in another direction. In his book, The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle notes that geniuses “are not scattered uniformly through time and space” but “tend to appear in clusters” (61-62): 

Athens from 440 B.C. to 380 B.C., Florence from 1440 to 1490, and London from 1570-1640. Of these three none is so dazzling or well documented as Florence. In the space of a few generations a city with a population slightly less than that of present day Stillwater, Oklahoma, produced the greatest outpouring of artistic achievement the world has ever known. A solitary genius is easy to understand, but dozens of them, in the space of two generations? How could it happen? (62)

The scholar David Banks proposes a number of possible explanations that we might expect: the prosperity of Florence, its relative peace and freedom, etc. Unfortunately, each one of these is disproved by the historical record. Instead, the flurry of genius-level work is best explained by a social structure and educational process relentlessly focused on deep practice: the craft guilds:

As it turns out, Florence was an epicenter for the rise of a powerful social invention called craft guilds. Guilds (the word means “gold”) were associations of weavers, painters, goldsmiths, and the like who organized themselves to regulate competition and control quality. They had management, dues, and tight policies dictating who could work in the craft. What they did best, however, was grow talent. Guilds were built on the apprenticeship system, in which boys around seven years of age were sent to live with masters for fixed terms of five to ten years. (64)

The apprenticeship process that we have discussed throughout this series, it seems, can have better and worse cultural structures for training students in artistry. On a side note, the hierarchy of excellence seems to foster artistic genius more readily than the democracy of talent. In addition, the experience of apprentices at the bottom of the hierarchy mirrors the recommendations of Comenius for students to begin with the most basic and practical skills of the craft, and not with elaborate theory. As Coyle further explains,

An apprentice worked directly under the tutelage and supervision of the master, who frequently assumed rights as the child’s legal guardian. Apprentices learned the craft from the bottom up, not through lecture or theory but through action: mixing paint, preparing canvases, sharpening chisels. They cooperated and competed within a hierarchy, rising after some years to the status of journeyman and eventually, if they were skilled enough, master. This system created a chain of mentoring: da Vinci studied under Verrocchio, Verrocchio studied under Donatello, Donatello studied under Ghiberti; Michelangelo studied under Ghirlandaio, Ghirlandaio studied under Baldovinetti, and so on, all of them frequently visiting one another’s studios in a cooperative-competitive arrangement that today would be called social networking. (64)

This apprenticeship system can be thrown in stark relief with our common vision of what a “liberal arts education” should look like. Are our teachers masters of the liberal arts? Are our students cooperating and competing within a culture focused on rewarding excellence? Or are they simply hearing lectures on knowledge, taking notes and taking tests? Is their educational experience properly artistic in nature, focused on production in the common, liberal and fine arts? Are they systematically and structurally encouraged to try to solve problems of a production, even if they fail again and again along the way? Or are they motivated by grades, and jumping through the hoops of a rigid system?

In short, apprentices spent thousands of hours solving problems, trying and failing and trying again, within the confines of a world build on the systematic production of excellence. Their life was roughly akin to that of a twelve-year-old intern who spends a decade under the direct supervision of Steven Spielberg, painting sets, sketching storyboards, setting cameras. The notion that such a kid might one day become a great film director would hardly be a surprise: it would be closer to unavoidable (see Ron Howard). (64-65)

The Renaissance Guilds offer us a compelling vision of how the academy could be structured for artistry in a way that transcends the conventions of the modern school.

Adopting an Apprenticeship Model of Grading

This leads us to a first implication for the academy of our better understanding of Apprenticeship in the Arts. Students should be induced to create and produce with excellence, not by the overuse of fear or love, grades, punishments or rewards, but by their natural desire for imitation, creativity and production. Charlotte Mason put it this way: 

These principles are limited by the respect due to the personality [i.e. personhood] of children, which must not be encroached upon whether by the direct use of fear or love, suggestions or influence, or by undue play upon any one natural desire. (vol. 6, p. 80)

For this reason, and to avoid the grade inflation so typical of schools today, at the school where I serve as principal we have adopted an apprenticeship model of grading for our younger students and in artistic subjects for older students . 

This Apprenticeship model attempts to assign accurately a student’s level of mastery of grade-level artistic expectations. Since, as we discussed before, so much of K-12 education consists of training in the arts (if we include all the skill development of the liberal arts as well as the fine and performing arts!), it makes the most sense to assess students’ progression through the traditional vision of apprenticeship. When learning an art, every student begins at the level of novice, where the entire nature of the art and its practice is still new and unknown to the student. Through introduction to the art and early experiences in beginning to imitate a master, the student proceeds to the status of apprentice. At this point the student must still be watched closely by the master as he or she is producing, since the apprentice is liable to make mistakes and therefore still in need of some hand-holding and regular demonstration or correction to help the student practice the art correctly. After the student has gained some facility and can work mostly on his or her own, he has attained the status of journeyman, being able to produce the goods of the art dependably and with a measure of both autonomy and excellence. Finally, when a student displays a high level of artistry, excellence and a seasoned understanding that implies the ability to teach or train others in the craft, he or she has become a master, at least of that subskill. 

Apprenticeship Model Grade Levels

• Novice — a student who is new to the art and unacquainted with the processes that lead to proper production
• Apprentice — a student who is imitating the processes with some measure of success, but is also in need of frequent support and correction by the master
• Journeyman — a student who can produce the beautiful goods of the art with some autonomy and creative artistry
• Master — a student who consistently displays artistry and independent creativity, as well as the mastery that implies the ability to train others in the art

Adopting this sort of grading philosophy and system in a school can help clarify for teachers, students, and parents the actual nature of much of the educational project. When traditional grades are used it is often unclear whether or not students should be graded mainly on the completion of assignments or their effort, as opposed to their understanding and mastery. While no doubt students who work hard should be recognized in some way, when artistry is being judged it can actually be demotivating to students to adopt an A for effort standard. Objective grading honors the facts that students’ consciences are sensitive to and can observe quite clearly in front of their faces: some students produce more excellent and beautiful work than others. 

At the same time, this apprenticeship model avoids the judgmental approach of a traditional, objective grading system, because it creates a story arc of progression from the lower levels. Everyone starts out as a novice in any area of artistry. Very few students will attain mastery of any art or subskill in a given year in which it is introduced. When this expectation is introduced and normalized in a school culture, the rare situations of student mastery can be appropriately recognized and celebrated in a way that encourages all other students to continue to strive for excellence. 

That said, overemphasizing the judgment of grades can also be detrimental and ineffective. So even though it is important to retain the assessment of students’ mastery levels, perhaps the more effective assessments are cultural. When students are being trained to produce in a craft, their work should be displayed before their peers, their parents and the school community. This inspires the natural motivation to do their best and involves the natural judgment process of the community for what artistry looks like. Because of this, academic events, performances and competitions provide the natural clearinghouse for developing a culture of artistry. 

Many of these school events almost go without saying in the school calendar, but their value is often overlooked and neglected. Why do students work so hard for artistry in sports, when they might not for other school activities? Because their artistry is clearly on display and being judged through the natural cooperative-competitive environment of the game or tournament, with spectators watching for their success. In the same way, a classical Christian school can make much of liberal arts through academic events like a Spelling Bee, Speech Meet, or public debate, with rules strictly followed and mandatory participation, and with audiences and judges in attendance. In the same way, when classes perform recitations (i.e. memorized passages of scripture, poems or historical speeches) in front of the entire school and teachers are encouraged to impart a dramatic flair, the training of the rote memory turns into the artistry of rhetoric. 

Viewed in this light, school concerts and plays, competitions and games, art galleries, and displays of student work at events are not nice extras at a school. Instead, these school community activities become earnest teaching and learning moments that apprentice students in the arts and create a culture of craftsmanship in the academy. Academic events should be chosen with care and conducted with reverence for the mission and beating heart of the school. Although a school calendar can become overscheduled, we should remember that such performances, whether high or low stakes, are opportunities for cultivating the natural motivation of students to excel in artistry. Such opportunities are potentially transformative educational experiences and should be viewed as a crucial piece of the curriculum or course of study. 

Understanding the motivational value of proper grading in an apprenticeship model as well as the role of academic events, competitions and performances can go a long way toward creating a culture of artistry and excellence at a school. But we should not be unaware of the deeper spiritual ramifications of this process. 

Apprenticeship in Christian Perspective

First, we need to remember that the creation of beautiful and good things is innately human. God created mankind in his image as the stewards of creation and he commissioned human beings with the cultural mandate: the call to fill the earth and subdue it. This is rightly interpreted as an invitation to all the creative arts, or techne which use the stuff of earth as the raw material for the creating beautiful and good artifacts. (Read Aristotle’s Virtue Theory and a Christian Purpose of Education.) That is precisely what we see happening in Genesis 4. In spite of sin and its disastrous effects displayed in Cain and Abel, we see the progenitors of various common, liberal and fine arts:

Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play stringed instruments and pipes. Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron. (Gen 4:22 ESV)

Thus the apprenticeship model was born. We might note that it was initially passed down in families; apprenticeship and the father-son, mother-daughter relationship went hand in hand. 

So apprenticeship in true, good and beautiful arts is human and therefore part and parcel of a redeemed Christian life. As human beings created in the image of God, our lives are most whole and fruitful when they fulfill the creation mandate through some type of artistry, through culture-making to borrow Andy Crouch’s term.

But secondly, we can note from the traditional and familial nature of apprenticeship, that it often carries with it, by nature, the lifestyle of the master craftsman. All the arts are embodied by their master craftsmen in a way of life, involving their beautiful creation and practice of the art, ideally alongside a full and good life. But let me be clear, this very fact means that apprenticeship in the arts as a means of bringing up children in the discipline and nurture of the Lord (see Eph 6:4) must be embodied as part and parcel of a whole Christian life. 

So if Christian parents apprentice their child to a pagan man who is a master of rhetoric, they should not be surprised if their child eventually takes on the moral and spiritual faults of this man, even if they also gain some of his rhetorical skill. That is how human beings work. In the same way if a young girl is apprenticed to an immoral dance or music teacher, who is immersed in a pluralistic world with its values, it is not impossible that over time the influence of that world will be transferred to her alongside the art. 

This is one of the forgotten premises by which our Christian classical schools attempt to operate. In the modern factory model of education we have forgotten what Jesus said: “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40 ESV). Disciple – apprentice – student. We have forgotten that these are roughly equivalent terms

Of course, when we follow Quintilian’s lead and partially apprentice children to many different arts (see On the Education of the Orator I.12), we minimize the potentially negative influence of any one teacher, but we do not really depart from this principle. In fact, we might say that at an ideal classical Christian school, a university or wholeness of the arts and sciences, this apprenticeship process under the leadership of a head master, a head magister or teacher, or else a principal or chief teacher (this is what these words original meant), the whole school of teachers pass on a communal way of life together. The culture of the school with all its teachers, curriculum, classes and traditions, apprentices the individual students.

This insight about apprenticeship as resonating with the nature of true Christian classical education is well-summed up in a statement of the school where I serve as Principal, Coram Deo Academy. We say that we apprentice students into the Great Conversation for the purpose of the Great Commission and the Great Commandment. 

To sum up, so far I have indicated by two statements the way in which apprenticeship in artistry, i.e. various arts, established traditions of craftsmanship, whether liberal, common or fine, contributes to the spiritual development of children. Those two ways are, first, through the fulfillment of our human calling in the creation mandate to act as sub-creators of good and beautiful things. This is what it means to fulfill our purpose as human beings, and therefore artistry is part of how we experience the redeemed Christian life. But second is through Christian apprenticeship into the life of good works established for us by Christ the true Master’s life, death and resurrection, the life of those apprenticed to him and characteristic of the family of God. And we should recall again the warning attached to this point, that non-Christian masters, teachers, artisans are by nature liabilities as well as potential sources of the blessing of artistry. 

Entwining the Spiritual and Artistic Goals of the Academy

Because of this, the classical Christian school rightly has a high bar of qualifications for its faculty based on spiritual maturity. The character of the teachers will inevitably have a long term influence on the character of the students. Structurally, then, the leadership of a school should not only develop careful recruiting and hiring processes that are intended to ensure the Christian maturity of its teachers, they should bake into the life of the school some measure of the spiritual practices of the church that aim at developing spiritual maturity. It is not that classical Christian academies should attempt to replace the worship and community of the local church, but by involving the faculty and staff in the rhythm of prayer, worship, and scripture reading, characteristic of the universal church, the discipleship—or, should I say, apprenticeship—of the Christian life become evident in the school culture. 

It is important, in this connection, to fuse our goals for training in artistry through assessment and artistic events, with discipleship in an appropriate and not an artificial way. The cross country coach can lead students in prayer before a race. The Spring Concert can feature the famous poems, spirituals and hymns of Christian worship, artfully performed. Academic events can include brief homiletical exhortation and instruction as part of the program, alongside the competition or performance itself. Assessments, awards and recognition of artistry can be publicly relativized to higher spiritual ends. Excellence in artistry can be deliberately and intentionally pursued soli Deo gloria, with glory to God alone, as J.S. Bach signed his masterful musical compositions. 

Further, the leadership of a school must be careful not to compromise core spiritual commitments for artistic ends, whether in hiring faculty or staff or in the nature of the content or practices. It can be so easy to tolerate that borderline coach or drama teacher, or to skate the line of acceptability in some way. Because, after all, the sports team or play is so important to the kids and their families…. Often this is a false dichotomy, but even when not, we should be willing to sacrifice high quality artistry for gospel purity whenever necessary, remembering Jesus’ words: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36 KJV) The value of intellectual virtues can never outweigh that of spiritual virtues. As Paul says, “For while bodily training is of some value, godliness [i.e. piety] is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Tim 4:8 ESV). That said, artistry can be used in support of higher ends; prime examples are musical worship and preaching (derived from two of the traditional liberal arts, music and rhetoric). 

The classical Christian school is the ideal place for this beautiful fusion to occur and be actively trained. Such considerations should color an academy’s vision of their school’s or their students’ future greatness. Kolby Atchison has discussed the application of the Hedgehog Concept from Jim Collins Good to Great to classical Christian schools. Decisions about which arts to pursue and prioritize, when the list of possible arts seems endless, would benefit from careful thought about a school’s Hedgehog Concept: what the school can be the best in the world at will involve the culture, events and arts that are emphasized in the curricular and extracurricular programs. Innovations in a school will often occur here as leaders capitalize on local opportunities and the community’s unique giftings.

After all, we can become like the Renaissance Guilds in every area of artistic excellence possible. Greatness requires focused effort on particular arts. And true Christian artistry focuses us even more narrowly on what will serve Christ in our generational moment. As C.T. Studd wrote in his famous poem, “Only one life, ’twill soon be past, / Only what’s done for Christ will last.”

Earlier Articles in this series:

1. Bloom’s Taxonomy and the Purpose of Education

2. Bloom’s Taxonomy and the Importance of Objectives: 3 Blessings of Bloom’s

3. Breaking Down the Bad of Bloom’s: The False Objectivity of Education as a Modern Social Science

4. When Bloom’s Gets Ugly: Cutting the Heart Out of Education

5. What Bloom’s Left Out: A Comparison with Aristotle’s Intellectual Virtues

6. Aristotle’s Virtue Theory and a Christian Purpose of Education

7. Moral Virtue and the Intellectual Virtue of Artistry or Craftsmanship

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

9. Apprenticeship in the Arts, Part 1: Traditions and Divisions

10. Apprenticeship in the Arts, Part 2: A Pedagogy of Craft

11. Apprenticeship in the Arts, Part 3: Crafting Lessons in Artistry

12. Apprenticeship in the Arts, Part 4: Artistry, the Academy and the Working World

Final article in this series:

14. Apprenticeship in the Arts, Part 6: The Transcendence and Limitations of Artistry

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Consider the painting Marble Champion. This 1939 piece features three children, one girl and two boys. It is painted in such a way that one only sees the children and the marbles. There is no physical context given. The viewer is drawn into a world solely inhabited by children at play. The faces of the children tell a story of triumph and indignation as the red-haired girl seems about to win to the dismay of the black-haired boy. The blond-haired boy expectantly awaits the final throw. Imagine how such a idyllic scene warmed the hearts of Americans in the midst of the Great Depression and on the cusp of war in Europe.

Childhood has not always been idyllic and has undergone transformation over the centuries. Among one of the greatest achievements over the last century was the dramatic increase in the survival rate of children. As recently as 1950, the global youth mortality rate was as high as 27%, meaning that only three of every four children could be expected to live to 15 years of age and beyond. In 2020 the World Health Organization reports global youth mortality at 3.7%. Keeping children alive has been one of the significant factors in growing the world population, which has not been a bad thing. With a greater population, we have seen the rise in new technologies, an expansion of available food, and an actual diminution of deaths by warfare.

One of the great landmarks in the history of childhood was a fresh perspective on children as persons that emerged during the Renaissance era. In this article I intend to explore the ways in which childhood, or the perception of childhood, changed during the Renaissance with a view of understanding better what it means to view children as whole persons.

Renaissance Childhood

The transformation of society from the late Middle Ages to the Renaissance has been variously understood. In many respects, we can see a tremendous amount of continuity between the ancient world, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance era. However, certain landmarks differentiate the old world from the new. The fall of Constantinople, for instance, ushered in a new era of learning in the West, as Byzantine scholars fled military conquests of the Ottomans. These scholars brought with them manuscripts of ancient authors that were either unknown or forgotten in the West. The Italian Renaissance, centered in Florence, brought a cultural renewal based on a flourishing of interest in classical texts.

Renaissance humanism during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries applied the great works and artifacts of Greece and Rome to reconsider the social institutions of the day. This focus on what we might call the humanities contributed to an emphasis on virtue ethics and paideia. With virtue ethics, the humanists saw that the cultivation of moral character emancipated the individual from duties or rules. Virtue went hand in hand with paideia, a view of education as the training of young persons as virtuous members of the state. The humanists envisioned the liberal arts as the means of liberating the individual from the constraints of social institutions prominent during the Middle Ages. Writes:

“The writings of Dante, and particularly the doctrines of Petrarch and humanists like Machiavelli, emphasized the virtues of intellectual freedom and individual expression. In the essays of Montaigne the individualistic view of life received perhaps the most persuasive and eloquent statement in the history of literature and philosophy.”

Steven Kreis, “Renaissance Humanism” at historyguide.org

One can trace transformations in society, from the Protestant Reformation to the democratization of nations, to the humanist impulses of the Renaissance. So, too, the transformation of the view of childhood. Although viewed as an extreme view, Philippe Aries, a prominent French medieval scholar during the 1960s and 1970s, argued that “in medieval society, the idea of childhood did not exist.” (Ariès, Centuries of Childhood (1962): 125.) He reasons that works of art and literature depict children as little adults. In a largely agrarian society, children were expected to work from the earliest ages. The high infant mortality rate also meant adults were less inclined to become attached to an idealized view of childhood. Aries’s view that childhood is largely a social construct is potentially problematic, but there is some veracity that Renaissance humanism went a long way toward transforming what childhood meant.

Viewing children as whole persons emerged during this era. The humanist impulse to train children in virtue considers them as having moral agency even during their youth. Similarly, there was a somewhat sentimental view of the emotional bonds between children and their parents. Educational thinkers of the Renaissance period encouraged the emotional connection between parent and child. Writing about Leon Alberti, the Italian educationist, Julian Vitullo contextualizes his work:

“Male pedagogues in Renaissance Florence participated in debates about different styles of discipline with the assumption that the emotional bonds that children form with adults would influence their own behavior as citizens. Pedagogues stressed the importance of recreation when they discussed the need to raise children with love, joy, and serenity.”

Julian Vitullo, “Fashioning Fatherhood: Leon Battista Alberti’s Art of Parenting.” Pages 341-353 in Albrecht Classen, ed. Childhood in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2005), 347.

Notice how discipline goes together with love, joy and serenity. Vitullo spells this out in more detail with regard to Alberti’s educational philosophy, “Alberti makes clear in his dialogue that he is aware of different notions of pedagogy and chooses a model of affection and positive enforcement that had already been detailed by classical thinkers such as Quintillian” (352). Alberti may have in mind here the advice given by Quintillian to fathers in his Institutio Oratio, “I would, therefore, have a father conceive the highest hopes of his son from the moment of his birth. If he does so, he will be more careful about the groundwork of his education” (Inst. 1.1).

This transformation of childhood spread from Italy to other locales in Europe as the Renaissance spread. Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote a brief treatise on the education of children. In this he concludes:

“Consider how dear a possession you’re son is, how diverse a thing it is and a matter of much work to come by learning, and how noble also the same is, what a readiness is in all children’s wits to learn, what agility is in the mind of man how easily those things be learned which be best and agreeable to nature, especially if they be taught of learned and gentle masters by the way of play.”

Erasmus, The Education of Children, transl. Richard Sherry, P.iii.

We see here a recognition that children are ready and eager to learn. Erasmus advises that children be taught by masters who both exhibit expertise but also gentleness, which in this context means a lack of harsh punishments. The word “play” is interesting, and I wonder if there is a play on the word ludus in the original Latin, a term that can mean both play and school.

Connecting the Traditions

The Renaissance holds many compelling connections to our educational renewal movement. The reappropriation of classical texts led to a renewal of educational theories and a reappraisal of the child as a whole person. Yet, we can see echoes of this view of children at other stages in the traditions, both ancient and modern.

To begin with, when we consider the biblical view of children, there are multiple passages that promote a high view of children. Take, for example, Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” The English translation is somewhat misleading, as it literally says to train the child “about his pathway.” There seems to be an indication that the child is fully capable of walking in the right moral pathway in his youth.

The prophet Malachi promises that in the renewal of Israel, God will turn “the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers” (4:6). The emotional connection between parent and child sounds here similar to the advice of the Renaissance pedagogues. The essence of a renewed society resides in the home where there’s a bastion of deep emotional bonds.

Jesus admonition to “let the little children come to me” (Matt. 19:14) speaks to a profound capacity in childhood for faith. Jesus’ view of children is profound indeed. Consider his an earlier passage in Matthew in which Jesus declares, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children” (11:25). The deepest matters of heaven and earth revealed to little children. As we consider a biblical theology of childhood, statements like these point to an understanding of the child as having great capacity for faith and learning.

Viewing children as whole persons – capable of profound thought, faith and moral direction – implies a form of education that trains children in their affections. I like how Christopher Perrin connects ordo amoris to the teachings of Christ. He writes:

“Jesus often signals an ordo amoris, telling the rich, young ruler there is one thing he lacks (Matt. 19) and telling Martha that though she is busy about many things, Mary has chosen what is best: to converse with him rather than prepare dinner (Luke 10). When Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is, he responds that there are two: to love God with your whole heart and to love your neighbor as yourself (Matt. 22). Jesus seems to believe that there is a divinely ordered hierarchy of loves and pleasures.”

Christopher Perrin, “I Would Like to Order… an Education,” Inside Classical Education.

In the City of God, Augustine expresses how a person can have a properly ordered love for what is good. But this takes training in the affections. He writes, “For though it be good, it may be loved with an evil as well as with a good love: it is loved rightly when it is loved ordinately; evilly, when inordinately” (Augustine, City of God, XV.22). This leads, then to his classic statement, “It seems to me that it is a brief but true definition of virtue to say, it is the order of love (quod definitio brevis et vera virtutis ordo est amoris)” (Augustine, City of God, XV.22).

In his essay “Men without Chests,” C. S. Lewis builds his argument on Augustine’s dictum, “St. Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it” (C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, 16). The child must learn to regulate his or her affections based on an evaluation of objective value. The thesis of Lewis’s The Abolition of Man comes down to whether one views education in modernist terms (facts, figures, pure reason, critical analysis, etc.) or as a means to train children to have proper emotional responses to what is true, good and beautiful. Lewis writes:

“Hence the educational problem is wholly different according as you stand within or without the Tao. For those within, the task is to train in the pupil those responses which are in themselves appropriate, whether anyone is making them or not, and in making which the very nature of man consists. Those without, if they are logical, must regard all sentiments as equally non-rational, as mere mists between us and the real objects. As a result, they must either decide to remove all sentiments, as far as possible, from the pupil’s mind; or else to encourage some sentiments for reasons that have nothing to do with their intrinsic ‘justness’ or ‘ordinacy.’”

C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, 20-21.

Now, Lewis uses the term Tao to indicate the most basic universal principles without recourse to theistic language. In doing this, he dispenses with a critique that his argument depends on Christian moral virtue. Instead, by looking to natural law, he is able to demonstrate that the affections are universal in nature and inherent in what it means to be human.

Children as Persons

The educational value of viewing children as whole person is tremendous. The Renaissance humanists reconsidered the purpose of education in light of their philosophical commitment to viewing children as having moral character and emotional capacity. The biblical view of children corroborates this insight. As educators today, we may need a renewal once again to understand the full capacity of every child to think, feel and believe.

Charlotte Mason understood this principle to be foundational when she writes:

“If we have not proved that a child is born a person with a mind as complete and as beautiful as his beautiful little body, we can at least show that he always has all the mind he requires for his occasions; that is, that his mind is the instrument of his education and that his education does not produce his mind.”

Charlotte Mason, Toward a Philosophy of Education, 36.

From the earliest ages, children show a capacity to learn. Consider how easily a child learns language, without any other help than to imitate the language users around them. Mason goes on to illustrate this point.

“Reason is present in the infant as truly as imagination. As soon as he can speak he lets us know that he has pondered the ’cause why’ of things and perplexes us with a thousand questions. His ‘why?’ is ceaseless. Nor are his reasonings always disinterested. How soon the little urchin learns to manage his nurse or mother, to calculate her moods and play upon her feelings! It is in him to be a little tyrant; “he has a will of his own,” says his nurse, but she is mistaken in supposing that his stormy manifestations of greed, wilfulness, temper, are signs of will. It is when the little boy is able to stop all these and restrain himself with quivering lip that his will comes into play; for he has a conscience too. Before he begins to toddle he knows the difference between right and wrong.”

Charlotte Mason, Toward a Philosophy of Education, 37.

Notice how many capacities are within the child: rationality, imagination, morality, conscience, emotions. All of these need to be trained for the person to grow, but the educational point is that training the child does not instill these. Instead, these capacities are already in the child. Our educational renewal movement has the opportunity to bring forward a renewed vision of the child as a whole person, to enact a Renaissance of education in our day.

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.

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If you’ve been following Educational Renaissance for some time, you might remember my history of narration series from last year. During the third article of the series I had a short section on narration in John Amos Comenius’ work, relying primarily on Karen Glass’s brief quotations in Know and Tell. At the time I was only beginning to read Comenius’ The Great Didactic in full, and I had not yet procured his Analytical Didactic. Now I have read and digested both, coming away with more narration gems to add to the history. Even then I wrote that “more remains to be said on Comenius and narration,” and now I am excited to expand that section on Comenius into an article or two of its own.

Returning to this topic is timely for me because the week before last I trained both my own faculty at Coram Deo Academy, and the faculty of The Covenant School of Dallas (what a privilege!) using this stunning passage on narration from Comenius’ The Great Didactic. So the practical application of it in our modern classical schools is fresh on my mind.

The great Czech educational reformer, philosopher, pastor and theologian, John Amos Comenius, sometimes called the father of modern education, represents the next stage after Erasmus in the history of narration’s rebirth during the Renaissance and Reformation era. The opening statement of his stunning work on teaching methods, Didactica Magna or The Great Didactic, promises much in terms that are familiar to advocates of narration:

“Let the main object of this, our Didactic, be as follows : To seek and to find a method of instruction, by which teachers may teach less, but learners may learn more; by which schools may be the scene of less noise, aversion, and useless labour, but of more leisure, enjoyment, and solid progress; and through which the Christian community may have less darkness, perplexity, and dissension, but on the other hand more light, orderliness, peace, and rest.”

John Amos Comenius, preface to The Great Didactic

As I have noted before, activities like narration that turn students into active learners are more likely to produce flow, thereby attaining for the student both “enjoyment” and “solid progress”.

Charlotte Mason found in narration an ideal “method” for realizing Comenius’ golden key of education: teachers teaching less and learners learning more. Whether consciously or unconsciously, she likely drew some of the details of the practice itself from him (in addition to other sources like John Locke).

As well, Comenius’ profoundly irenic Christian vision of how Christian education might contribute to healing the immediate wounds of Christendom’s strife and divisions (like the Thirty Years War) accords well with Mason’s educational leadership and the classical Christian education movement’s high hopes for renewal in the church. Education is not just for the training of individual Christians, but for the benefits experienced in families, churches and communities.

Rivulets Flowing Out

Comenius’ use of narration has a number of unique features and a flexibility and philosophical completeness that is hard to find in other educational thinkers. Therefore, it is likely to him that we owe the fundamental shift from narration as a progymnasmata or preliminary training exercise for rhetoric to a central learning method or strategy. He states the principle in global terms, while at the same time practically endorsing modern techniques like partner-narration:

Whatever has been learned should be communicated by one pupil to the other, that no knowledge may remain unused. For in this sense only can we understand the saying, ‘Thy knowledge is of no avail if none other know that thou knowest.’ No source of knowledge, therefore, should be opened, unless rivulets flow from it.”

John Amos Comenius, The Great Didactic, “Thoroughness in Teaching and Learning”, 155

This entire section on thoroughness in teaching and learning is essentially a tribute to narration, or more particularly the classical principal identified by Chris Perrin of Classical Academic Press through the Latin phrase docendo discimus (“By teaching we learn”) in his course Introduction to Classical Education. (I wonder where Perrin himself derived this Latin phrase from…. Was it from Comenius or an earlier thinker in the tradition? Or is it a phrase he himself quipped to represent a traditional conception?) Similarly, I have often referred to the classical principle of self-education (see my SCL presentation from 2020), citing Charlotte Mason’s quip that there is no education but self-education and Dorothy Sayers’s remarks about students learning how to learn in “The Lost Tools of Learning”.

The imagery of a fount of knowledge, a spring, being opened up and rivulets naturally flowing out to surrounding streams is evocative. Comenius is claiming that knowledge must be shared; it is a communal inheritance passing from one mind to another. For him it is as if there were a sacred commandment inscribed into the nature of the cosmos that knowledge is no mere personal possession, but a social trust.

On its own this claim holds the teacher to a high standard with regard narration and narration-like activities. Not a single source of knowledge opened (!), Comenius says, without students at least telling one another what they have learned. And yet how much “material” is “covered” by the average teacher without an opportunity for the student to become the teacher, in this splendidly ironic transformation that Comenius envisions as part and parcel of learning.

Collection, Digestion and Distribution

Comenius solidly anticipates the modern research that supports retrieval practice, spaced practice and mixed practice, but he does so through his prevailing method throughout The Great Didactic of drawing analogical wisdom from the created order:

From this it follows that education cannot attain to thoroughness without frequent and suitable repetitions of and exercises on the subjects taught. We may learn the most suitable mode of procedure by observing the natural movements that underlie the processes of nutrition in living bodies, namely those of collection, digestion, and distribution. For in the case of an animal (and in that of a plant as well) each member seeks for digestion food which may both nurture that member (since this retains and assimilates part of the digested food) and be shared with the other members, that the well-being of the whole organism may be preserved (for each member serves the other). In the same way that teacher will greatly increase the value of his instruction who 

(i.) Seeks out and obtains intellectual food for himself.

(ii.) Assimilates and digests what he has found.

(iii.) Distributes what he has digested, and shares it with others. (156)

If we pair Comenius’ call for “frequent and suitable repetitions” of the subject matter with The Great Didactic’s opening principle of teachers teaching less and learners learning more, then it becomes clear that by repetitions he is not envisioning a simply review process where the teacher goes over the facts again before a test. Instead, it is the students who will be repeating the content back, and as becomes clear later in the passage, not just in summary, but in full detail.

At first, the analogy from nature about the collection, digestion and distribution of “intellectual food” may seem to have awkwardly shifted topics. Now we are talking about the teacher grazing for knowledge himself? But in the following paragraphs Comenius will zero in on that third part, distribution, to detail his full method of narration. In the meantime, we can note that Charlotte Mason’s favorite metaphor about the mind feeding on living ideas is not, in fact, of her own coinage. For Comenius too there is a process of assimilation of knowledge that involves narration. But he stresses it as a communal endeavor, with teachers serving as the honeybees gathering sweet pollen for the production of honey and distribution to the younger members. Charlotte Mason, by contrast, is more inclined to minimize the collection and digestion process of the teacher (though she did write a stirring appeal to her ‘bairns’ encouraging them to foster their own intellectual life through avid reading), in keeping with her own focus upon the “living books” curriculum that she herself carefully selected.

But this contrast between Mason and Comenius could be overplayed, given Comenius’ ironic twist of the student becoming the teacher. So while teachers themselves should engage in the collection, digestion and distribution of knowledge, Comenius immediately shifts this application to the student-become-teacher through recourse to a well-known Latin couplet:

44. These three elements are to be found in the well-known Latin couplet:–

To ask many questions, to retain the answers, and to teach what one retains to others;

These three enable the pupil to surpass his master.

Questioning takes place when a pupil interrogates his teachers, his companions, or his books about some subject that he does not understand. Retention follows when the information that has been obtained is committed to memory or is written down for greater security (since few are so fortunate as to possess the power of retaining everything in their minds). Teaching takes place when knowledge that has been acquired is communicated to fellow-pupils or other companions.

With the two first of these principles the schools are quite familiar, with the third but little; its introduction, however, is in the highest degree desirable. The saying, ‘He who teaches others, teaches himself,’ is very true, not only because constant repetition impresses a fact indelibly on the mind, but because the process of teaching in itself gives a deeper insight into the subject taught. Thus it was that the gifted Joachim Fortius used to say that, if he had heard or read anything once, it slipped out of his memory within a month; but that if he taught it to others it became as much a part of himself as his fingers, and that he did not believe that anything short of death could deprive him of it…. (157)

Comenius’ main point is the incredible power of teaching others as a learning tool. Where Comenius has recourse to the anecdote of Joachim Fortius for support, modern research can confirm through studies the value of retrieval practice combined with the elaboration necessary for the act of teaching. This effortful combination of research-informed strategies essentially makes for the most durable and flexible learning, such that the new knowledge has become part of oneself.

Repeated Narrations of the Teacher’s Explanations with Corrections

This brings us to Comenius’ specific recommendations for narration, which are unmistakably surprising to those who are only familiar with Charlotte Mason’s advice. Note as we go the focus on the teacher’s lecture or explanation (just as with Erasmus), but also the repetitions and corrections. (We can observe as well that Comenius does not have our modern scruples about politically correct descriptions of students who struggle….)

This would certainly be of use to many and could easily be put into practice if the teacher of each class would introduce this excellent system to his pupils. It might be done in the following way. In each lesson, after the teacher has briefly gone through the work that has been prepared, and has explained the meanings of the words, one of the pupils should be allowed to rise from his place and repeat what has just been said in the same order (just as if he were the teacher of the rest), to give his explanations in the same words, and to employ the same examples, and if he make a mistake he should be corrected. Then another can be called up and made go through the same performance while the rest listen. After him a third, a fourth, and as many as are necessary, until it is evident that all have understood the lesson and are in a position to explain it. In carrying this out great care should be taken to call up the clever boys first, in order that, after their example, stupid ones may find it easier to follow. (158)

The teacher’s explanation here becomes the rich or living text, complete with examples in a particular order. The students are transformed into teachers, endeavoring to reproduce as exactly as they can the full substance of the teacher’s explanation. To make clear that he intends this as a global practice or central learning strategy, Comenius deliberately begins his description of the method with the phrase “in each lesson”. Instead of avoiding corrections during the narration, as Mason recommended, Comenius has the teacher actively correcting and expecting other students to get all the details right in subsequent narrations. While this is clearly not a word-perfect memorization, it edges in that direction and away from Mason’s insistence on a single reading and letting the students take what they do but trusting the process over time.

Interestingly, in commending the “exercises” and “repetitions” of narration, Comenius hits upon a few of the same rationales that Mason would later borrow to commend her practice of narration (e.g., the habit of attention; supporting “dull” students, to use Mason’s term; the love of learning; and self-possession in public speaking):

46. Exercises of this kind will have a fivefold use.

(i.) The teacher is certain to have attentive pupils. For since the scholars may, at any time, be called up and asked to repeat what the teacher has said, each of them will be afraid of breaking down and appearing ridiculous before the others, and will therefore attend carefully and allow nothing to escape them. In addition to this, the habit of brisk attention, which becomes second nature if practised for several years, will fit the scholar to acquit himself well in active life.

(ii.) The teacher will be able to know with certainty if his pupils have thoroughly grasped everything that he has taught them. If he finds that they have not, he will consult his own interest as well as that of his pupils by repeating his explanation and making it clearer.

(iii.) If the same thing be frequently repeated, the dullest intelligences will grasp it at last, and will thus be able to keep pace with the others; while the brighter ones will be pleased at obtaining such a thorough grip of the subject.

(iv.) By means of such constant repetition the scholars will gain a better acquaintance with the subject than they could possibly obtain by private study, even with the greatest intelligence, and will find that, if they just read the lesson over in the morning and then again in the evening, it will remain in their memories easily and pleasantly. When, by this method of repetition, the pupil has, as it were, been admitted to the office of teacher, he will attain a peculiar keenness of disposition and love of learning; he will also acquire the habit of remaining self-possessed while explaining anything before a number of people, and this will be of the greatest use to him throughout life.” (158)

Comenius is happy to use social pressure as a motivator to improve students’ learning, especially since he has abandoned the widely accepted corporal punishment of his day. Students’ natural desire not to appear “ridiculous” before their peers is arguably a more powerful and immediate spur to the effort of learning than an abstract symbol system like a grade. And while not wanting to seem foolish may not be the highest of ideals it does go some way toward creating a culture of learning among human beings as socially embedded and embodied creatures.

It is clarifying to hear Comenius indicate “several years” as the appropriate timeline for training students in this habit of “brisk attention” that will fit them for an “active life”. Likewise, the help afforded the teacher through opportunities to clarify and re-explain accords well with the real challenges of communicating effectively to students. Comenius gives every indication of having practiced what he is preaching, discerning the ins and outs of teaching and learning through philosophical reflection and practical experience.

As with Erasmus, it may be that the teacher is here supplementing or acting as the mediator between the students and the curriculum books. We might imagine a generally older set of students than Mason envisions, but he is undeniably more focused on the teacher as the initial distributor of knowledge. The repetitions seem designed to help students understand hard truths or difficult and complex ideas that are not easily grasped on a first hearing. Corrections, then, might be justified as a necessary safeguard to prevent students from confusing one another with incorrect explanations. We might ponder as well whether Mason’s advice not to “tease [young students] with corrections” focused more upon style and grammar, i.e. not attacking the endless string of ‘and’s that children often start out with. Perhaps she would have sympathized with corrections on matters of fact, when other students might become confused by another student’s misleading explanation.

As stated, Comenius’ variant on narration embodies the golden key of his Great Didactic by turning the student into the teacher after a teacher’s “demonstration” or “exposition”. It thus follows Erasmus in focusing on a spoken lecture or explanation by the teacher rather than a text. The new development present in Comenius is to emphasize the ironic transformation of student into teacher. In a future article we will look at material from Comenius’ Analytical Didactic to see how he developed his recommendations for narration later in life.

“Why the History of Narration Matters” series:

Part 1: Charlotte Mason’s Discovery?

Part 2: Classical Roots

Part 3: Narration’s Rebirth

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

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In light of potential parallels between the transformative effects of the Black Death and Coronavirus, I put forward several ways in which we might see shifts in society today. First, we ought to be prepared for society to change in dramatic ways. Second, we should anticipate new interest in spiritual matters. And third, we should expect that our educational renewal movement with its emphasis on truth derived from the great books of Western society will be a guiding light in a post-pandemic world.

After a year of schooling during the pandemic, we may now be seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Although I am an optimistic person by nature, my disposition toward the end of the pandemic is, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Yet, if we are nearing the end of hybrid learning, mask wearing, health screening and vaccinations, perhaps now is a good time to take stock of insights gained during a crazy year. Here I offer three insights from doing school for a year during the Covid pandemic. Then I suggest three ways we can be prepared for what I’m predicting will be an educational Renaissance.

Technology Cannot Replace Good Education

There were already many online educational platforms before the pandemic. When schools went completely remote in Spring 2020, new technologies sprang into place to enable online, remote learning. Programs like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams allowed teachers to meet with students, set up breakout rooms, and share content away from brick-and-mortar schoolhouses. My school has a reputation for being low tech; really low tech. And yet we pivoted on a dime, devoting three days to teacher training to show them how to use Zoom effectively to lead their classes. When we returned to classes in the fall, our school offered hybrid learning. Families could choose to remain remote. Every classroom was set up to have students join via Microsoft Teams, through which assignments could be distributed to in-person and remote students.

The use of technology to meet the needs of education during the pandemic did much to provide a holistic appraisal of the value of a technology-based overhaul to education. What we learned is that education has largely operated as it ever has. The application of different technologies really didn’t revolutionize education at all. Instead, it tended to reveal disparities in different kinds of schools. Inner city and rural schools were impacted by a lack of devices in homes, especially those with multiple children, or a lack of internet connectivity. Technology did little to address the educational needs of low-income families. Even though one could sign up for a free Zoom account, one still needs a device and quality internet access to participate in remote schooling.

Technology has a tendency to expose good and bad teaching. I have heard many classical Christian schools gaining more widespread reputations for quality education while public schools have been slated for a lack of quality. One reason for this is that parents can sit beside their children during remote learning. Increased access means increased scrutiny. An influx of new admissions at classical schools is due to a growing dissatisfaction with what’s on offer at conventional schools.

Instead of a revolution, we are primed to experience a renewal. Parents, students, and teachers alike are ready for a return to “normal” schooling. For those of us in the classical Christian schooling movement, that means a return from this influx of devices and screen time. In our educational renewal movement, we need to emphasize all the more our distinctives of value-rich education, personal formation and physical presence. Reading actual books and discussing them in the classroom is so important, and the marketplace is primed to find value in what we offer like never before.

Physical Presence is Essential for a Good Education

The experiment in remote learning during Covid has also shown that being physically present in a classroom is so important for holistic learning. One of the challenges of remote learning has been the disconnectedness of students. When a child joins a 45-minute class with the video feed ending when class is done, the child can’t participate in non-instructional time like a snack break or recess. These moments are equally part of the educational environment, providing training in relational and emotional skills. Even during instructional time, remote students seem to have greater difficulty participating in discussion and debate. Technology provides access to the classroom, but it also stands in the way of full participation. For one, it is impossible to see an entire class on one screen. Audio is frequently a problem, making it so that key points in discussion are lost. It is so much harder to stay motivated and attentive when accessing a learning environment through a laptop screen.

Theologically, we know that being physically present with one another is better than being in isolation from one another. The author of Hebrews calls us believers to not forsake meeting together (Heb. 10:25). While this pertains to Christians gathering for worship and scriptural instruction, it points to the benefits we share when we enjoy fellowship with one another. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in his book Life Together:

“It is true, of course, that what is an unspeakable gift of God for the lonely individual is easily disregarded and trodden under foot by those who have the gift every day. It is easily forgotten that the fellowship of Christian brethren is a gift of grace, a gift of the Kingdom of God that any day may be taken from us, that the time that still separates us from utter loneliness may be brief indeed.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, pg. 20

We are not meant to be alone. I think this is true in an educational sense as well. I don’t mean to say that the individual doesn’t bear a certain amount of responsibility. But when we have groups of students in classrooms, the sum is greater than the parts. This is not only true in group activities, but there is a sense of accountability and mutual care that is gained when learning amongst others even when doing individual work. Teachers are able to be present with students to “lend strength” in their weakness to instill habits of virtues.

As we return to normal classroom life, we must be mindful of how powerful the atmosphere of learning is. Being together, while important, is not the chief end of education. Charlotte Mason explores how several different stimuli detract from the most powerful of the desires we should cultivate: the love of knowledge. She writes:

“It will be said with truth that most children delight in school; they delight in the stimulus of school life, in the social stir of companionship; they are emulous, eager for reward and praise; they enjoy the thousand lawful interests of school life, including the attractive personality of such and such a teacher; but it seems doubtful whether the love of knowledge, in itself and for itself; is usually a powerful motive with the young scholar. The matter is important, because, of all the joyous motives of school life, the love of knowledge is the only abiding one; the only one which determines the scale, so to speak, upon which the person will hereafter live.”

Charlotte Mason, School Education, pg. 245-246

When the disruption of our school atmospheres, either through remote learning or social distancing, comes to an end, we can create a false delight in school through an emphasis on school furniture, recess or just being physically together. The true value of life together is not actually the stimulation of being with other people. Instead, it is to enjoy the love of knowledge with others. Schools that have no love of knowledge suffered tremendously during remote learning. Why attend classes? Why turn the camera on? Why participate? The stimulus of the classroom was gone, and there was no true love of knowledge to sustain the children. But when we have cultivated a true love of knowledge, we can truly sustain the life of the mind remotely, during social distancing, and most especially when we return to normal classrooms.

Masks, My Friends, Seem to Work

How is it that masks have become so politicized? I myself have no interest in addressing the politics that have cropped up around mask wearing. It really is a shame the extent to which everything has become political (by which we no longer mean matters concerning policies of state, but whether a person toes a given party line). Yes, I am bringing up masks, but I merely do so to make a simple observation. Masks, my friends, seem to work.

I don’t know the science of the matter. I only know anecdotally that in our school that enacted a policy of mask wearing throughout the school year, we had very few students absent due to the flu or colds. Attendance was outstanding this year. I myself didn’t get sick at all, that is until mask requirements started to go away late this spring. In looking for an explanation for this, it occurred to me that mask wearing actually helped us to mitigate the transmission of just about everything that interrupts the flow of the school year.

Now, I honestly don’t know what to do with this information. It could be that we enjoyed a wild year with mask wearing and just so happened to reduce the number of cold and flu symptoms. Perhaps masks will become so hated that we will never again enjoy the absence of the cold and flu. Alternatively, our society might become slightly more comfortable with masks as has happened in other cultures. Voluntary mask wearing seems to be a way to show kindness to others to stop or slow the transmission of disease. Again, I’m not sure what to think about all that we’ve learned about masks, but I imagine in the aftermath of Covid, discussions about masks won’t entirely go away.

Being Ready for the Renaissance

As I listen to friends and family, the impact of Covid on schools has been dramatic. Conventional schooling did not show itself to be nearly as adept as expected. If anything, remote learning revealed all the more the shortcomings of progressive education. More and more parents are questioning the “normal” school options. The uptick of interest at my school might be an outlier, but I sense that the classical Christian school movement will get a closer look from parents who have become dissatisfied with the education on offer during Covid. What can we do to be ready?

First, we need to double down on our identity as an educational alternative. The temptation, particularly for small schools desperately trying to grow, is to look and sound like the big schools with all the bells and whistles. It is not the programs that make for a quality education. It is a love of knowledge based on great ideas drawn from great books. That’s what our educational renewal movement is based on. That’s what we need to stick to.

Second, we need to take our message to the market. For the longest time I was skeptical about marketing. Having taught Logic, I thought of marketing as synonymous with advertising, which is rife with logical fallacies employed to mislead and manipulate customers. What I learned, though, about marketing is that the marketplace – your area of influence – needs to learn accurate information about who you are. What are your values? What is the distinctive approach to education you offer? How does your school benefit students and families? I realized that marketing in these terms was simply teaching. Now my classroom was not the four walls inside the school, it is the entire western suburbs of Chicago. I could help someone truly understand what we offer at our school. So, come up with a simple marketing plan. Post pictures of students in classrooms on social media. Write blog articles. Invite people to small-group coffees in the neighborhoods where your current families live. The more you educate your market about what makes you distinctive, the more you will attract families who are missionally aligned with you.

Finally, we need to be clear on our boundaries. As more and more families turn from conventional education, the more we need to clarify the policies that are non-negotiable. This requires effective board structures and workflows. Schools are best served by delineated standards for admissions and community culture. If your school is weak on policy, now is the time to start writing policy. If your school has good policy, set a schedule for reviewing policy, ensuring that faculty and staff are aligning practices with policy.

I think the future is bright for classical Christian education. Even though our educational renewal movement has been around over a quarter century, it really feels like we are primed to experience a new influx of interest. Let’s keep this educational Renaissance spreading!

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Mason’s revival of narration therefore stands as a signpost of her larger project. And it is a project that we find inspiration from here at Educational Renaissance. The renaissance had a healthy respect for and appreciation of the classical past, while at the same time being quite innovative in a number of areas. In a way narration is simply one piece of this broader puzzle: all the pieces will help create a more accurate picture of Charlotte Mason as an educator within the liberal arts tradition of education.

In this article we come to Charlotte Mason herself to see how her recommendations for narration square with those of the classical and renaissance educators we have surveyed. We will see that Mason’s use of narration was at least as innovative as any other educator in its history, even if the steps she took make perfect sense as natural developments. In the process we will discern some new possibilities for narration, including how we could revive the narration practices of earlier educators to supplement Charlotte Mason’s recommendations, or even reach out into new and uncharted territory with narration to attain new pedagogical goals. 

We will begin by looking at three issues raised by Charlotte Mason’s practice of narration: 1) the focus on rich texts, 2) the main goal of knowing content, and 3) the methods of narration.

Charlotte Mason’s Practice of Narration, Issue 1: Focusing on Rich Texts

Readers who are familiar with Charlotte Mason will be aware of some of the ways that Mason’s narration differs from that of the educators we have surveyed so far.

The first and most obvious difference, perhaps, is that the focus of Mason’s narration is upon a rich text, and not an informative lecture, as in Erasmus or Comenius, or else the telling of any story that the child knows, as in John Locke. In this way Mason sides with Aelius Theon, Quintilian and the secondary steps detailed by Locke. 

Charlotte Mason has a very practical and down-to-earth set of considerations for her decided preference for what she calls “living books” over “oral teaching” (not to mention the “dry-as-dust” textbooks of her era). Her thoughts in her third volume School Education are worth reproducing in full:

“Reason for Oral Teaching.––Intelligent teachers are well aware of the dry-as-dust character of school books, so they fall back upon the ‘oral’ lesson, one of whose qualities must be that it is not bookish. Living ideas can be derived only from living minds, and so it occasionally happens that a vital spark is flashed from teacher to pupil. But this occurs only when the subject is one to which the teacher has given original thought. In most cases the oral lesson, or the more advanced lecture, consists of information got up by the teacher from various books, and imparted in language, a little pedantic, or a little commonplace, or a little reading-made-easy in style. At the best, the teacher is not likely to have vital interest in, and, consequently, original thought upon, a wide range of subjects.

“Limitations of Teachers.––We wish to place before the child open doors to many avenues of instruction and delight, in each one of which he should find quickening thoughts. We cannot expect a school to be manned by a dozen master-minds, and even if it were, and the scholar were taught by each in turn, it would be much to his disadvantage. What he wants of his teacher is moral and mental discipline, sympathy and direction; and it is better, on the whole, that the training of the pupil should be undertaken by one wise teacher than that he should be passed from hand to hand for this subject and that.”

Charlotte Mason, School Education, vol 3 pg 170

For Mason an inspirational lecture requires a master-mind, in a way the type of teacher that Erasmus called for in his work on education, who could interpret to his students the best of a whole host of great classical works of literature on all topics. But in Mason’s day and age, the master-mind teacher approach would require experts on a variety of subjects, like science and literature, history and math, art and Bible—a feat that was becoming less and less attainable as scholarship proliferated in the modern era. At the same time schooling was spreading to more and more children of the British empire, making this ideal less and less viable, or even desirable for teachers specifically. Teachers were no longer scholars. Specialization had virtually ruled that out. 

And for Mason the practice of narrating from rich texts allows the teacher to focus more, not less, on the “moral and mental discipline, sympathy and direction” that students really need. As she says at the end of her 1st chapter on “self-education” in her final volume Toward a Philosophy of Education:

“In urging a method of self-education for children in lieu of the vicarious education which prevails, I should like to dwell on the enormous relief to teachers, a self-sacrificing and greatly overburdened class; the difference is just that between driving a horse that is light and a horse that is heavy in hand; the former covers the ground of his own gay will and the driver goes merrily. The teacher who allows his scholars the freedom of the city of books is at liberty to be their guide, philosopher and friend; and is no longer the mere instrument of forcible intellectual feeding.” (vol 6 pg 32)

Narration focuses on living books or rich texts as a means of providing the most vibrant and vital source of thought, while relieving the average teacher of the burden of inspiration. She can be a philosopher-guide even in territory she has not mastered to the point of being able to speak on it with power and conviction. 

Exceptions to Focusing on Rich Texts Only

There is an exception clause to Charlotte Mason’s nixing of oral teaching, and that is foreign languages. In her 6th volume Toward a Philosophy of Education, Mason reports on a development in foreign language instruction at her House of Education (the training school for future teachers and governesses) and the Parents Union School at Fairfield where they were apprentice-teachers:

“The French mistress gives, let us suppose, a lecture in history or literature lasting, say, for half an hour. At the end the students will narrate the substance of the lecture with few omissions and few errors.” (vol. 6, p. 212)

It should be noted that this occurred with the senior students, and was a less frequent exercise than narrating from a text. Early training in French, German, Italian or Latin consisted of narrating from texts after they had been translated or “thoroughly studied in grammar, syntax and style” (vol. 6. p. 213). 

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Mason’s concession to the value of oral teaching. As she herself admitted:

“We cannot do without the oral lesson—to introduce, to illustrate, to amplify, to sum up. My stipulation is that oral lessons should be like visits of angels, and that the child who has to walk through life, and has to find his intellectual food in books or go without, shall not be first taught to go upon crutches.” (Parents Review, Vol. 14, 1903, “Manifesto Discussion with Charlotte Mason”, pp. 907-913)

We have to wonder if Mason’s concerns would have been quite the same, if podcasts had been available in her day… or equally, if books had not been so cheap and readily available. Mason seems to base her advice to focus on narrating from books upon the practical realities of lifelong learning that were available in her day. Books would be the chief source of intellectual nourishment for her students, and so they should learn to walk on their own two feet in reading books from the start. 

Charlotte Mason’s Practice of Narration, Issue 2: The Main Goal of Using Narration

The second area in which Charlotte Mason’s practice of narration differs from the other educators of the classical era or renaissance is in the main pedagogical goal. For Quintilian, Aelius Theon and John Locke the main goal had been rhetorical training: the development of style through imitation. Students were learning, through narrating texts or stories, to speak fluently and to the point, with concise and clear expression. They might very well remember many of the exact details of things they narrated, and certainly stocking the memory with words, phrases, ideas, and common topics was necessary. But the point of all that memory-stocking and practice was the students’ own rhetorical style and fluency. 

As you’ll recall, this changed with Erasmus and Comenius in the renaissance. Now the focus was on the content of the teacher’s lecture or explanation. And they even made a point of emphasizing that the substance of the things, rather than the style of the teacher’s expression, was the important thing to be narrated in the child’s own way. For them, the main goal of narration is the students’ knowledge or memory of content, a scientific rather than rhetorical pedagogy, if you will. Students were learning, through narrating their teacher’s lecture or explanation, certain truths either as background to a text or as pictures of the way the world works. The emphasis is entirely upon narration as a sealing up of new knowledge, and not upon the development of style. 

Well, Charlotte Mason made an innovative leap. Familiar with John Locke’s narration from texts to develop style and fluency in speech and writing, and perhaps also with Comenius (given her quotations from him), she fuses the approach of the two to focus narration upon rich texts, with the main goal of memory of content or the development of knowledge. If you take a moment to glance at the table I have made below, “Narration in Historical Perspective Table,” you can see that she has pulled from the left and top right sections down into the bottom right.

Now here we must note one or two exceptions that seem to indicate that Charlotte Mason had rhetorical training in mind, even if she preferred for various reasons not to emphasize it as the main goal of narration. For instance, when discussing composition of the youngest students (Form I) in her 6th volume, she mentions the style of students’ narrations, as well as the accuracy of the content, saying, “The facts are sure to be accurate and the expression surprisingly vigorous, striking and unhesitating” (vol. 6, p. 190). However, she is still adamant against Locke’s method of coaching students to correct their narrations, whether written or oral, in the younger years: 

“Corrections must not be made during the act of narration, nor must any interruption be allowed.” (vol. 6, p. 191)

“Children must not be teased or instructed about the use of stops or capital letters. These things too come by nature to the child who reads, and the teacher’s instructions are apt to issue in the use of a pepper box for commas.” (vol. 6, p. 191)

“But let me again say there must be no attempt to teach composition.” (vol. 6, p. 192)

Even for the oldest students (Forms V and VI), Mason’s emphasis is against too much active focus on matters of style and rhetoric, preferring a natural imitative process that comes passively through a focus on content:

“Forms V and VI. In these Forms some definite teaching in the art of composition is advisable, but not too much, lest the young scholars be saddled with a stilted style which may encumber them for life. Perhaps the method of a University tutor is the best that can be adopted; that is, a point or two might be taken up in a given composition and suggestions or corrections made with little talk. Having been brought up so far upon stylists the pupils are almost certain to have formed a good style; because they have been thrown into the society of many great minds, they will not make a servile copy of any one but will shape an individual style out of the wealth of material they possess; and because they have matter in abundance and of the best they will not write mere verbiage.” (vol. 6, pp. 193-194)

In essence, Mason’s approach to the development of style was as an afterthought that will take care of itself by narrating rich texts if the teacher doesn’t get in the way. This approach will fall short of what many modern classical Christian educators desire, who value the revitalization of active teaching of the art of rhetoric as a major goal of the movement. We might situate Charlotte Mason in this conversation by imagining the dangers of a “stilted style” or overly programmatic formalist structure, that might result from certain types of prescriptive rhetorical training. The long, natural process of narration that Mason envisioned might, in and of itself, subvert the dangers of formalism in our students’ writing and speaking, even if our schools do engage in somewhat more active coaching in grammar, punctuation, style and rhetorical forms than she envisioned. 

Charlotte Mason’s Practice of Narration, Issue 3: The Method of Narration

We leave to the last the method of narration, whether oral or written. As we saw, classical educators often emphasized one or the other, or else both in sequence. Aelius Theon seemed to envision older pupils, trained in writing previously, coming into his rhetorical school ready to write their narrations immediately. Quintilian, and John Locke after him, envisioned a process that started earlier with oral narration, moving to written narration and composition exercises as students grew in facility with the skill of putting pen to paper. From reading in between the lines of their comments, Erasmus seemed to envision written narrations to be turned in to the teacher, while Comenius implied students becoming teachers explaining truths aloud to the rest of the class after the teacher had first done so. 

Charlotte Mason provides the fullest vision for narration as a consistent pedagogical practice, where both oral and written narration play a consistent role in students’ education. Students gently progress to writing their own narrations as they are able. Examinations at the end of the term utilize written “narration” of any amount of knowledge previously stored in students’ memories by initial narration. Given how central narration became in Charlotte Mason’s schools, it is not surprising to find her and her schools after her innovating other creative ways to narrate through the fine and performing arts. Karen Glass quotes from an article in the Parents’ Review long after Mason’s death about the practice of artistic narrations:

“But is narration…always merely ‘telling back’? It must be, we know, the child’s answer to ‘What comes next?’ It can be acted, with good speaking parts and plenty of criticism from actors and onlookers; nothing may be added or left out. Map drawing can be an excellent narration, or, maybe, clay modelling will supply the means to answer that question, or paper and poster paints, or chalks, even a paper model with scissors and paste pot. Always, however, there should be talk as well, the answer expressed in words; that is, the picture painted, the clay model, etc., will be described and fully described, because, with few exceptions, only words are really satisfying.” (Know and Tell, pp. 46, 48)

It may be a matter of debate how much these dramatic and artistic forms of “narration” began during Charlotte Mason’s lifetime, and to what extent they would fall under her definition of narration. Interestingly, Helen Wix, the author of this article, emphasizes the need for words. Acted narrations require words necessarily and are attested nearer Miss Mason’s time (see the second block quote on Know and Tell, p. 48 from The Parents’ Review of 1924, the year after Mason’s death). We also know that illustrations of particular moments from a literature or history book were a common practice in PNEU schools that Mason supported. So I have included drawn and acted narrations as innovations of Charlotte Mason. But it seems clear that oral and written narration were always the core and regular daily methods of narration, while other artistic “narrations” featured as occasional experiences that kept things fresh. 

The Practice of Narration for Charlotte Mason and Classical Christian Educators Today

What can we learn from this history of narration to guide our practices today? I will conclude this series with a list of propositions and suggestions for the future of narration in our movements today. These twelve points summarize what we’ve learned and point forward to exciting possibilities for using narration as classical Christian and Charlotte Mason educators.

1. Narration began in the rhetorical tradition with the main goal of developing students’ style in rhetorical training.
2. Renaissance educators shifted the focus of narration from books to lectures and the goal of narration from style to knowledge of content. 
3. Charlotte Mason adapted narration from the tradition for her context in accordance with her philosophy of education and mind. 
4. Her innovations in narration included taking the focus on rich texts from the classical era and joining it with the main goal of knowledge of content from the Renaissance educators. 
5. She also elevated it to the core status of the primary teaching and learning tool of the PNEU, a development that has support from modern research on retrieval practice.
6. Therefore, classical Christian educators who adopt narration may want to revive some of the rhetorical training pedagogy from John Locke, Quintilian and Aelius Theon.
7. Educators who follow Charlotte Mason may also want to consider more carefully her concerns about training in style or composition and whether or not the concerns she had about creating a “stilted style” were responding to specific trends in composition or rhetoric instruction during her day. 
8. Perhaps some Masonites will opt for more explicit rhetorical training than she might have envisioned, even while avoiding the errors she was warning against.
9. Given the technological developments of our modern world in audio and video recording and the free accessibility of high quality material from “living” voices and scholars, both Masonites and classical Christian educators might want to expand the role of inspirational lectures and oral teaching in education, with narration as the learning tool for either content or style. 
10. Classical Christian educators may feel that many of their teachers (or video instructors) reach the level of “master-minds” (in Charlotte Mason’s terms) and therefore inspirational lectures should play a larger role in their schools, or online courses. 
11. If the power of the spoken word is gaining new prominence through video recording and sharing technologies, then perhaps the next important innovation in narration would be to employ video recordings of great modern orators for students to narrate with the goal of developing their own rhetorical style, while also learning content.
12. At the same time, the use of lectures/speeches as a focus of narration should not crowd out the central importance of rich texts (either for Charlotte Mason or the classical tradition). In our day and age, a facility with the thoughts of the best minds of earlier eras has never been more crucial for students’ development of moral wisdom and historical judgment. 

Hope you have enjoyed this series! Share your thoughts in the comments on why you think the history of narration matters.

Earlier articles in this series:

Part 1: Charlotte Mason’s Discovery?

Part 2: Classical Roots

Part 3: Narration’s Rebirth

The post Why the History of Narration Matters, Part 4: Charlotte Mason’s Practice of Narration in Historical Perspective appeared first on .

As we saw, narration has its roots in the classical era with rhetorical teachers like Aelius Theon and Quintilian, where its goals included the development of memory, fluency and style for future orators. It was particularly powerful as a practice because it fused the natural oral story-telling of pre-literate cultures with the refinements of classical Greek and Roman rhetoric. Before moving to the rebirth of narration in the Renaissance and early modern era, I have to admit to an unfortunate gap in my own knowledge. 

I cannot claim to know that narration was absent from medieval pedagogy. In fact, I suspect that it was not. But I have not (as yet) found any direct evidence of it. There are undoubtedly more places to look than I have had the opportunity of doing so to date. So I would encourage any interested readers to keep an eye out and let me know if you find mention of any narration-like practices occurring in the Middle Ages. However, for the purposes of this series I will have to temporarily conclude that, like much of the tradition of classical rhetoric, narration went into dormancy during the Middle Ages. 

After all, the political situation changed drastically after the fall of Rome, and as a result rhetoric training itself underwent a shift. Without democratic political bodies to convince of a particular course of action, ceremonial and legal rhetoric predominated and crystalized into a more literate and scholastic form. As George A. Kennedy, a leading rhetorical scholar, put it: 

“With the end of orderly civic and economic life not only did public support of education disappear, but the reasons for rhetorical education in its traditional form declined. Fewer councils remained in which an orator could speak, and legal procedures were disrupted; on the other hand, barbarian kings easily acquired a taste for being extolled in Latin prose or verse, even if they did not understand what was being said.” (Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition, 2nd ed.; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999; 196)

The golden age of oratory had passed. It was no wonder that grammatical training predominated, followed by the refined logic of scholasticism. And likewise, it is no wonder that, when the tides turned toward the Renaissance and a return ad fontes (“to the sources”), back to the rhetoric of the classical era, that we would see narration reborn as well.

Narration’s Rebirth, Stage 1: Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)

I owe to Karen Glass my awareness of the first two stages in narration’s rebirth: Erasmus and Comenius (see Know and Tell: The Art of Narration, p. 16). However, the context of Desiderius Erasmus’ work is enlightening, because it illustrates just how indebted he was to the grammatical and rhetorical tradition. The chapter leading up to his mention of narration reads like a passage out of Quintilian. In fact, Erasmus himself references his dependence on Quintilian, saying,

“As regards the methods of the rudiments—that is, of learning to talk and knowing the alphabet—I can add nothing to what Quintilian has laid down.”

Desiderius Erasmus, Concerning the Aim and Method of Education, translated by William Harrison Woodward (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1904), p. 168

Erasmus affirms the value of teaching students to speak both Latin and Greek as the main sources of all the important knowledge then available. Then he gives instructions for exercises in composition, followed by how the teacher should guide students through reading classic texts. His composition exercises are based on the classical principle of imitation: “The Master in the course of his reading will be careful to note instances which present themselves as models suitable for imitation” (170). He then recommends the more challenging exercises of Quintilian, like “paraphrasing poetry into prose and the reverse process” (171). 

While we judged this exercise of Quintilian’s to be an extension of narration, in which the student would write a paraphrase from memory rather than with constant reference to a text, it is almost certain that this is not the case for Erasmus’ recommendations. One clue comes in his recommendations for translating from Greek into Latin and vice versa in the same section—what Walter Ong might call an art of high literacy and one which almost certainly relies on being able to reference the text itself (see Erasmus, Aim and Method of Education, 171-172).

Given the invention of the printing press before Erasmus’ lifetime, highly increasing availability of texts, we are probably right to assume that the educational situation of Erasmus’ day was quite different from the Roman era. Narration of texts from the teacher’s single reading would have become more counterintuitive because texts were cheaper and more accessible. Why would one narrate merely the text itself when it is there at hand?

We might bemoan this fact as the fulfillment of Plato’s dire predictions in the Phaedrus (see the final section of the previous article). However, the challenging composition exercises that Erasmus proposes would have probably compensated for the loss. And this isn’t even to mention how Erasmus himself transformed narration into a practice for assimilating the teacher’s lecture in a passage that out-flanks Plato’s objection:

“The master must not omit to set as an exercise the reproduction of what he has given to the class. It involves time and trouble to the teacher, I know well, but it is essential. A literal reproduction of the matter taught is, of course, not required, but the substance of it presented in the pupil’s own way. Personally I disapprove of the practice of taking down a lecture just as it is delivered. For this prevents reliance upon memory which should, as time goes on, need less and less of that external aid which note-taking supplies.”

Erasmus, Aim and Method of Education,177-178.

Here we can see narration endorsed as “essential” in the case of the teacher’s lecture, rather than with texts. Of course, we have to remember that Erasmus has already discussed imitative composition exercises on topics taken from the classic texts that the students would read. So it is not as though there would be no opportunity for students to assimilate the subject matter of texts through their own writing.

What may be more surprising is Erasmus’ stance against note-taking during the teacher’s lectures and in favor of narration. His reasoning involves the training of the memory and the reduction of an “external aid” over the course of a student’s education. For Erasmus “note-taking” is a crutch, or better yet, corresponds to the use of training wheels for the memory. They should be taken off as soon as possible. 

Narration, then, in the first stage of its rebirth, has shifted its focus from the text read aloud to the spoken lecture on the text. In a similar fashion, the training of a student’s rhetorical style has been almost entirely subsumed in the training of the memory for content (note “the substance of it presented in the pupil’s own way”), and the narration is most likely a written enterprise, since it causes “time and trouble to the teacher,” most likely because of the extra work involved in reading and assessing the students’ narrations. 

Narration’s Rebirth, Stage 2: John Amos Comenius (1592-1670)

The great Czech educational reformer, philosopher, pastor and theologian, John Amos Comenius, sometimes called the father of modern education, represents the next stage in the history of narration. The opening statement of his stunning work on the philosophy of education Didactica Magna or The Great Didactic promises much in terms that are familiar to advocates of narration:

“Let the main object of this, our Didactic, be as follows : To seek and to find a method of instruction, by which teachers may teach less, but learners may learn more; by which schools may be the scene of less noise, aversion, and useless labour, but of more leisure, enjoyment, and solid progress ; and through which the Christian community may have less darkness, perplexity, and dissension, but on the other hand more light, orderliness, peace, and rest.”

John Amos Comenius, preface to The Great Didactic

Charlotte Mason found in narration an ideal “method” for attaining Comenius’ golden key of education: teachers teaching less and learners learning more. Of course, the extent to which Comenius anticipated Charlotte Mason, or Mason followed Comenius, is an area ripe for more study, at least for me. 

My Head of School Dave Seibel and I are planning to read Comenius’ Great Didactic together starting this January to see what we will make of it. Classical Academic Press also has a short introduction to Comenius in their Giants in the History of Education series, which I plan to purchase and read as well. But I already know from Karen Glass that Comenius recommended that “every pupil should acquire the habit of acting as a teacher. This will happen if, after the teacher has fully demonstrated and expounded something, the pupil himself is immediately required to give a satisfactory demonstration and exposition of the same thing in the same manner” (as qtd in Glass, Know and Tell, 16). Glass quotes from another of Comenius’ works The Analytical Didactic (trans. Vladimir Jelinek; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953; 193), in which Comenius “reinterpreted the principle of nature that he had described in The Great Didactic as a principle of logic” (John E. Sadler, “John Amos Comenius” in Encyclopedia Britannica; accessed January, 2021). 

As stated, Comenius’ variant on narration embodies the golden key of his Great Didactic by turning the student into the teacher after a teacher’s “demonstration” or “exposition”. It thus follows Erasmus in focusing on a spoken lecture or explanation by the teacher rather than a text. The new development present in Comenius is to emphasize the ironic transformation of student into teacher. Chris Perrin of Classical Academic Press has referred to this pedagogical idea as the classical principle Docendo Discimus (“By teaching we learn”) in his course Introduction to Classical Education. (I wonder where Perrin himself derived this Latin phrase from…. Was it from Comenius or an earlier thinker in the tradition? Or is it a phrase he himself quipped to represent a traditional conception?) Similarly, I have often referred to the classical principle of self-education, citing Charlotte Mason’s quip that there is no education but self-education and Dorothy Sayers’s remarks about students learning how to learn in “The Lost Tools of Learning”.

I am confident that more remains to be said on Comenius and narration, but I have not as yet been able to procure the rarer work that Karen Glass quoted from (though a used copy is now in my Amazon shopping cart). However, for now we can conclude that in Comenius’ hands narration of the teacher’s lecture became the mechanism for learners learning more and teachers teaching less. The narration most likely occurred orally, given the internal logic of the student becoming the teacher, but we cannot be sure without looking closer at the context.

Narration’s Rebirth, Stage 3: John Locke (1632-1704)

John Locke represents a final and perhaps unconnected stage in narration’s rebirth. To suppose that he did not engage with either his partial contemporary Comenius, or with the famous Erasmus, would probably be going too far. But his early modern Enlightenment philosophy no doubt registered itself in his treatise, Some Thoughts Concerning Education (Hackett, 1996; orig. published 1693). I have already expressed my view elsewhere that he, like Erasmus, was directly dependent on Quintilian (see the author’s A Classical Guide to Narration; CiRCE, 2020; p. 96, n. 122). So his recommendations on the topic are best categorized as a part of narration’s renaissance or rebirth. 

For Locke narration is the solution to a problem with the “classical” education of his day. He begins his section on rhetoric and logic with a defense for speaking so little of them up to this point in his treatise:

“The reason is because of the little advantage young people receive by them. 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. Right reasoning is founded on something else than the predicaments and predicables, and does not consist in talking in mode and figure itself.” (140)

In objecting to “rules” rather than practice, Locke continues a theme that he has already established in the book about training young children by habit rather than memorized rules. In A Classical Guide to Narration I pointed out that this error of the “classical” training of Locke’s day amounts to a misunderstanding of the classical distinction between an art and a science: 

“The rhetoric teachers of Locke’s day had been treating the art of rhetoric as if it were a science that could be mastered through acquiring knowledge about the art: various names of figures of speech and rules for types of speeches. But without the facility with with language based in practice and cultivated habits, all of it was useless! (A Classical Guide to Narration, 96)

Of course, this antagonism toward logic and rhetoric might make John Locke seem anti-classical in his philosophy of education. But this would be a misunderstanding. Locke is simply endorsing the renaissance humanist stream of classical education over the encrusted scholasticism of the late medieval era. He was refocusing attention on the great authors of the past (ad fontes) and on imitation of worthy models. As he goes on to say, 

“If you would have your son reason well, let him read Chillingworth [an Oxford scholar and churchman, who was a skillful debater, mathematician and theologian]; and if you would have him speak well, let him be conversant in Tully [Marcus Tullius Cicero, the great Roman orator and statesman] to give him the true idea of eloquence, and let him read those things that are well written in English to perfect his style in the purity of our language.” (140)

Developing the arts of reasoning and eloquence, for Locke, come by reading the right authors to provide ideas and models of proper thought and speech. But it also comes by practice, as he says later:

“They have been taught rhetoric but yet never taught how to express themselves handsomely with their tongues or pens in the language they are always to use: as if the names of the figures that embellished the discourses of those who understood the art of speaking were the very art and skill of speaking well. This, as all other things of practice, is to be learned not by a few, or a great many rules given, but by exercise and application according to good rules, or rather patterns, till habits are got and a facility of doing it well.” (141)

Locke’s point accords well with the modern research on elite performance that Anders Erikson and others have brought to light in delineating the value of deliberate practice (as well as near proxies like purposeful practice) for acquiring high level skill. The arts are complex skills and are best trained through coached practice, not mere comprehension of concepts, however true and inspiring. 

Locke’s narration recommendations remarkably embody the principles of effective practice, including the importance of critical feedback, specific focused efforts on improving one aspect of performance at a time, and systematic development of mental models. The entire passage is worth sharing here:

“Agreeable hereunto, perhaps it might not be amiss to make children, as soon as they are capable of it, often to tell a story of anything they know, and to correct at first the most remarkable fault they are guilty of in their way of putting it together. When that fault is cured, then to show them the next, and so on, till one after another all, at least the gross ones, are mended. When they can tell tales pretty well, then it may be time to make them write them. The Fables of Aesop, the only book almost that I know fit for children, may afford them matter for this exercise of writing English, as well as for reading and translating to enter them in the Latin tongue. When they are got past the faults of grammar and can join in a continued coherent discourse the several parts of a story without bald and unhandsome forms of transition (as is usual) often repeated, he that desires to perfect them yet farther in this, which is the first step to speaking well and needs no invention, may have recourse to Tully and, by putting in practice those rules which that master of eloquence gives in his First Book De Inventione §20, make them know wherein the skill and graces of a handsome narrative, according to the several subjects and designs of it, lie.” (141-142)

Like Quintilian, Locke begins with young children telling stories, though he is content for them to tell “anything they know” at first, as the tutor or parent simply plays the role of coach: correcting one fault at a time, as the child practices telling again and again. Instead of focusing narration on the content to be learned, like Erasmus and Comenius, Locke has brought into sharp relief the skill of story-telling and the fluency of speaking gained thereby. While he does recommend Aesop’s fables, like Quintilian, the shift to written narrations form the main focus, and fixing the student’s “faults of grammar” and “bald and unhandsome forms of transition” is his main concern. 

In essence, Locke has restored narration as the foundation stone of rhetorical training, rather than as a method for learning content in any subject. Narration is, for him, the backbone of an English gentleman’s practical skill in speaking and writing that will equip him for the duties of his life. Daily practice in imitating classic authors and especially in learning to write letters (“The writing of letters has so much to do in all the occurrences of human life that no gentleman can avoid showing himself in this kind of writing.”) form the bedrock requirements for his education (142).

Readers who are familiar with Charlotte Mason’s practice of narration alone may be surprised by some of these different applications of narration. Whether it’s narrating from a teacher’s lecture, or correcting the faults in a student’s narration with a focus on skill rather than content, narration’s rebirth through Erasmus, Comenius and Locke defies the standard assumptions of Charlotte Mason’s practice of it. After all, Charlotte Mason seems to almost exclusively envision students narrating from texts without stylistic corrections but a primary focus on content.

In the next and final article in this series, we’ll compare Charlotte Mason’s pedagogy of narration with its classical roots and its renaissance rebirth. Our aim will be to distill some further conclusions for educators today, both practically in terms of how we should use narration in our 21st century context, but also philosophically in what this all means for the classical Christian education and Charlotte Mason movements today.

Other articles in this series:

Part 1: Charlotte Mason’s Discovery?

Part 2: Classical Roots

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

The post Why the History of Narration Matters, Part 3: Narration’s Rebirth appeared first on .

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

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

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

An Educational Renaissance

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

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

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

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

Educating Persons, not Economic Producers

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

Or have they?

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

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

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

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

Good Bankers or Good Humans: The Goal of Classical Education

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

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

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

Insights from “Teach Like a Champion”

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

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

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

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

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

Ideology-Driven Advice

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post “Teach Like a Champion” for the Classical Classroom, Part 1: An Introduction appeared first on .

Instead, scientism is the trend in the social sciences, like the field of education, to conform to the pattern of the wildly successful hard sciences by proving themselves through data and pure reason alone. If we can prove it through an experiment and logic without appealing to any traditional belief, then we will accept it as true.

Educational schools have become labs, where white-coated practitioners test the latest theories on the millions of children scattered in their suburban and inner-city habitats across America. The best teachers read the educational journals and carefully follow the latest research on how to most effectively manipulate the environments of their subjects in order to attain society’s desired ends. Scientism listens to evidence and data, not to history or philosophy.

Why Scientism Is a Problem

Scientism is a problem because the field of education is not a hard science, but a branch of moral philosophy, scientia mōrālis. Every philosophy of education necessarily relies on a previously established account of what it means to be human. And yet, as Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain document in The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education 2.0:

“The methodologies of the contemporary social sciences implicitly critique traditional moral philosophy by suggesting it relies on assumptions about human nature and human purpose that are not rationally or empirically verifiable…. In actuality… all reasoning in the social sciences depends on a tradition of inquiry, whether Christian, Freudian, or Lockean, as well as personal and communal judgments and assumptions about the nature and purpose of human persons.” (132)

But scientism screens out such foundational questions about man, the good life, and ultimate purpose, in an attempt to be more precise—or precise in a different way—than the subject matter admits of (cf. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics I.3, 1094^b12-15).

In so doing, it does not actually attain a neutral, “objective” viewpoint; instead, half-baked philosophies and unexamined assumptions rush back in, as seven demons take the place of the one that was exorcised. Scientism promises us firmer knowledge, not swayed to and fro by the winds of history and the waves of philosophy, but in reality it delivers only ignorance of how we are recycling old ideas by recasting them into new, scientific-looking forms.

For example, Paul Hirst, an educationist of the last generation, popularized a view of “seven forms of knowledge” that was essentially an unacknowledged recycling of Isocrates’ vision of the seven liberal arts. One scholar has documented Hirst’s grave historical inaccuracies in his account of the history of education—all the more disturbing because of the work’s placement in a standard encyclopedia!

James Muir writes,

“Hirst’s ‘history’ of liberal education, though found in a standard reference work, is inaccurate to a degree that it is difficult to exaggerate, and it is now imperative that this article be replaced by an historically informed discussion.”[1]

Unfortunately, this lone voice has not been heeded. Why? Because almost no scholars in education departments are engaged in any meaningful way with the history of educational philosophy.

(Enjoying this article? Read its twin, The Problem of Technicism in Conventional Education.)

The Classical Contrast to Scientism

The classical education movement, at its best, is a way of saying “No!” to the scientism of conventional education, and saying “Yes!” to the rich tradition of philosophical thinking in our past. Being willing to look to the past rather than merely to the lab of educational researchers is a great gain.

Unfortunately, in our recovery movement’s first feeble steps in this direction, we have sometimes fallen into the same pitfalls as Paul Hirst, who attributed a doctrinal abstraction of his own invention (‘classical realism’) to a historical abstraction (‘the Greeks’) without any evidence from their actual writings: “There is little resemblance between the ideas which Hirst attributes to ‘the Greeks,’ and the educational ideas any of them actually held,” Muir points out.[2]

How often have we heard or promulgated similar doctrinal and historical abstractions in our stump speeches on the value of classical education?

To the extent that we attribute our educational ideas to the Greeks and Romans or even to the medievals without the hard, historical work of recovering what Isocrates or Aquinas actually wrote, we may be unwittingly participating in the scientism of our day.

Please do not misunderstand. We may need to use such abstractions and generalizations for heuristic purposes: for instance, an informational meeting for those interested in classical education probably shouldn’t be citing Isocrates, Plato and Quintilian, and distinguishing between their very different philosophies of education! There are times for making a careful contrast between the trends of modern educational practices and those of earlier eras.

However, if in our books, conferences and blogs we do not rise to a higher standard of historical accuracy, then I am afraid, even the classical education movement will be doomed to suffer the repeated recycling of old ideas only partially rediscovered.

Avoiding Scientism in our Classical Recovery Movement

Arguably we have made great strides in this direction in the successive waves of the classical education movement. Clark and Jain, authors of The Liberal Arts Tradition are to be commended for, among other things, their substantive and rigorous research to lay out a paradigm that is based on historical and philosophical analysis of the tradition. No end of commendations and endorsements are due for such a crucial foundation stone for our growing movement (especially the expanded and revised version 2.0). However, their primary goal is still to recover a generalization of the tradition, even if they land at different authors, times and places for various aspects of it.

What about a careful analysis of the practices and philosophy of educational philosophers and practitioners, in the context of their time and place, one author at a time? We have been so concerned with defining what classical education is monolithically that we tend to omit the obvious truth: there have been many classical educations, practiced very differently in various times and places.

A generalization of the tradition is a helpful thing, but it is only as good as the data from which the generalization comes. In other words, our generalizations about classical education rely on our detailed knowledge about specific expressions of classical education. The only way to get a Liberal Arts Tradition 3.0 is to first write a series of books exploring the differences and disagreements in the tradition. (Classical Academic Press has started in this direction with their Giants in the History of Education Series, but these short books are mostly meant to serve as basic introductions and contain little of the detailed historical and comparative analysis I am talking about.)

The only lasting solution to scienticism 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.

This would be all well and good and would probably have the positive side effect of making our commendations more winsome to a wider audience. I have known quite a few educators and parents who are slightly put off by some of the overly idealistic and sweeping rhetoric of classical education advocates. They, at least, might be more inclined to take a renaissance movement seriously that was more historically nuanced.

Likewise, we will have to give the devil his due: it’s not as if modern educational research has nothing of value, when burgeoning new disciplines like cognitive psychology and mind, brain and education (MBE) science are taking advantage of legitimate advances in neuroimaging and our understanding of the brain. (I owe my awareness of MBE primarily to Neuroteach: Brain Science and the Future of Education by Glenn Whitman and Ian Kelleher.) In so far as such insights reflect true developments in our understanding of human nature as created by God, we should expect to be able to integrate them with the best ideals and practices of the classical tradition.

This is why at Educational Renaissance we are committed to interacting in a meaningful way with sources of educational wisdom, both ancient and modern. Quoting from Aristotle and Charlotte Mason, Quintilian and John Locke helps keep us honest about what we’re talking about at any one time and avoid the sweeping generalizations so common in our world. Integrating their ideas with those of modern research, while being open to challenging either side, provides both a confirmation of their value and a translation for modern ears.

The Renaissance Solution to Scientism

What I’m calling for in education is something analogous to the Renaissance itself: a recovery of ancient sources of wisdom alongside a host of new advancements in science and technology, art and literature.

Cicero’s famous dictum applies to the classical education movement as a whole: “Nescīre autem quid antequam nātus sīs acciderit, id est semper esse puerum” (“However, not to know what happened before you were born, that is to be always a boy”). To grow up into mature manhood, we must know the history of educational ideas, not in word or in name, but in action and in truth.

This realization should be liberating and exciting, rather than leading us into the despair of what we do not yet know. Hindsight is 20/20 and we have the God-given glory of kings to enable us to surpass our forefathers, should we seriously take on the endeavor of historical inquiry. To use the common analogy, standing on the shoulders of giants can enable us to see further than they did, even if our stature does not match theirs. This is not an encouragement to hubris, but an acknowledgement of our high calling.

As Hamlet said,

“What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world.” (II.2)

It is this Christian humanist vision of humanity in all its glory and possibility that supercharged the work of the Renaissance, and it can function similarly in the educational renaissance we are promoting today.

A great path of discovery lies before us, and after all, Rome was not built in a day. In fact, the recovery process must take time, if only because there is so much educational philosophy to recover. We should ask ourselves the encouraging question of possibility, “How might our schools grow, if we devoted ourselves fully to learning the history of educational philosophy, rather than the watered-down summaries of scientism?” I, for one, hope to find out.

[1] James R. Muir, “The History of Educational Ideas and the Credibility of Philosophy of Education,” Educational Philosophy and Theory, 30, no. 1 (1998): 15.

[2] Ibid., 17-18.

Nota Bene: An earlier version of this article appeared on Forma: The Blog of the CiRCE Institute, February 2015, under the same title: https://www.circeinstitute.org/blog/problem-scientism-conventional-education.

Like this article? Read its twin, The Problem of Technicism in Conventional Education.

The post The Problem of Scientism in Conventional Education appeared first on .