But it should not be thought that I plan wholly to neglect moral and spiritual virtues in the rest of this series on Aristotle’s Five Intellectual Virtues. After all, a main point of my previous article was that the moral, intellectual and spiritual categories are overlapping and interpenetrating categories, at least for the apostle Paul. For Aristotle as well, the moral and intellectual categories interact and intermingle in unique ways. This in fact is what makes Aristotle the proper antidote to Bloom and his cognitive taxonomy: breaking down the rigid separation between the heart and the head, let alone the hands.

In this article we continue laying the foundation for a taxonomy of Aristotle’s intellectual virtues by exploring the unique relationship between Aristotle’s conception of moral virtues and one particular intellectual virtue, techne, which I prefer to translate as artistry or craftsmanship, though many translators use the English term ‘art’. Modern English speakers will find this confusing and unhelpful, because the term ‘art’ is almost exclusively used nowadays to refer to particular fine arts, like drawing, painting and sculpture. But the Latin root had a similar range and meaning to the Greek techne, which could refer to any craft or productive skill. (In a similar way the modern English term ‘science’ was narrowed to refer to only natural science, or the knowledge that we have discovered about the natural world, when it had previously referred to knowledge in general, as in the Latin scientia or Greek episteme. See the article “The Classical Distinction between the Liberal Arts and Sciences”.)

According to Aristotle, moral virtue and artistry are allies and analogues to one another, because they both are cultivated by means of habit or custom. It will therefore be helpful to our broader purpose to explore this relationship between the body, the heart and the mind, summed up in what we call habits, in order to pave the way for a full explication of the educational goal of techne or craftsmanship in a classical Christian paradigm. Our primary text for this exploration comes from book II of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, though we will bring Charlotte Mason’s thought and modern neuroscience into the dialogue as well.

Excellence Comes by Habit… or At Least Some Excellences

The well-known quotation from Aristotle, “Excellence comes by habit…” is at least partially a misquotation, since arete, virtue or excellence, in Aristotle is divided into two types, moral and intellectual. To only one of these does the power of habit apply as the main method of cultivating virtue. The full quotation from the opening of Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics reads as follows:

Excellence, then, being of two kinds, intellectual and moral, intellectual excellence in the main owes both its birth and its growth to teaching (for which reason it requires experience and time), while moral excellence comes about as a result of habit, whence also its name [ethike for “moral”] is one that is formed by a slight variation from the word for ‘habit’ [ethos].

Nicomachean Ethics, 1103a.14-19, rev. Oxford trans. vol. II (Princeton, 1984), p. 1742

The word translated ‘teaching’, didaskalia, is the common term for ‘instruction’ used in the New Testament as well, and means exactly what we would think: the work of an instructor in teaching truths and skills, whether in a formal or informal setting. It will not do its work in a moment, but will involve time and a host of experiences in which the student’s mind is formed for whatever intellectual virtue is being cultivated. 

This bare statement puts the lie to some extreme modern versions of Rousseau, like unschooling, that deny the need for a teacher or instructor, and posit that a child has enough resources in himself to cultivate his own intellect and grow and develop the intellectual virtues needed for life. It is true that books can serve as teachers to the disciplined and curious mind, and so the supposed exceptions to this—the self-taught geniuses of the world—are really the exceptions that prove the rule, since they invariably relied on the instruction of others, even though through more independent means like books. On the other hand, people certainly can learn things through their own experience. Otherwise how would the human race have ever learned anything? But learning from personal experience is in general a horribly inefficient process; therefore, the systematic and thoughtful instruction of a teacher is the regular and normal route to intellectual excellence.

It is also worth noting here that the cultivation of habits is not the primary method for the development of intellectual virtue, but only of moral virtue for Aristotle. We will see later that techne or artistry is an exception to that, in a way. But for the time being it is worth sitting with this idea and comparing it with other thinkers like Charlotte Mason or Maria Montessori. In emphasizing the personhood of the child, Mason, for one, is sometimes heard by moderns as endorsing the unschooling extreme just mentioned. In reality, she regularly called attention to the primacy of God-given authority and children’s need for intellectual food, primarily in the form of the best books of the best minds. Like most moderns, she makes a firmer distinction between curriculum and instruction than Aristotle, in order to claim that teachers should use living books, rather than provide their own worked-up lectures. This idea might have been lost on Aristotle because of his different context. In the ancient world books were not regularly read silently, and were not easily and cheaply procured. But it is this book-based process of instruction that allows Mason to endorse what she calls “self-education” as the only true education, and not a Rousseauian anti-civilization, anti-authority stance on human development. 

Mason also believes that the formation of habits, both intellectual and moral, is a third part of education. We should note that, for Mason, habits are intellectual as well as moral. Outward customs have moved inward to cover what we can call today habitual “trains of thought”, an idiom that evokes Mason’s favorite metaphor for habits as the railways of life. Is this then, perhaps, an area of disagreement between Charlotte Mason and the great philosopher Aristotle? That, for her, habits are intellectual as well as moral? Let’s look closer at what she says in her discussion of education as a discipline from her 6th volume:

By this formula we mean the discipline of habits formed definitely and thoughtfully whether habits of mind or of body. Physiologists tell us of the adaptation of brain structure to habitual lines of thought, i.e., to our habits.

Education is not after all to either teacher or child the fine careless rapture we appear to have figured it. We who teach and they who learn are alike constrained; there is always effort to be made in certain directions; yet we face our tasks from a new point of view. We need not labour to get children to learn their lessons; that, if we would believe it, is a matter which nature takes care of. Let the lessons be of the right sort and children will learn them with delight. The call for strenuousness comes with the necessity of forming habits; but here again we are relieved. The intellectual habits of the good life form themselves in the following out of the due curriculum in the right way. As we have already urged, there is but one right way, that is, children must do the work for themselves. They must read the given pages and tell what they have read, they must perform, that is, what we may call the act of knowing. We are all aware, alas, what a monstrous quantity of printed matter has gone into the dustbin of our memories, because we have failed to perform that quite natural and spontaneous ‘act of knowing,’ as easy to a child as breathing and, if we would believe it, comparatively easy to ourselves. The reward is two-fold: no intellectual habit is so valuable as that of attention; it is a mere habit but it is also the hall-mark of an educated person. Use is second nature, we are told; it is not too much to say that ‘habit is ten natures,’ and we can all imagine how our work would be eased if our subordinates listened to instructions with the full attention which implies recollection––Attention is not the only habit that follows due self-education. The habits of fitting and ready expression, of obedience, of good-will, and of an impersonal outlook are spontaneous bye-products of education in this sort. So, too, are the habits of right thinking and right judging; while physical habits of neatness and order attend upon the self-respect which follows an education which respects the personality of children. (vol. 6, pp. 99-100)

Interestingly, Mason makes a distinction between “habits of mind and habits of body”. Of course, she knows very well that all habits make a “mark upon the brain substance” from the latest science of her day (vol. 6 p. 100). And so, in a way it is redundant to call any habit a habit of mind or of body, since a habit is in its very essence, bodily, or physical, as well as mental, i.e. registering in the brain. These reflections challenge again the simplistic divisions made by Bloom and his colleagues in proposing a division of educational goals into a cognitive domain, an affective domain and a psychomotor domain. If the brain registers in all of these, and they all have outward bodily expressions, then we have perhaps hit up against the limits of our traditional metaphors for the nature of the human person. Head, heart and hands are irreducibly intertwined through the human nervous system. Aristotle was most certainly not aware of these insights about the brain and other vital organs, even if he did more than his fair share to advance science and human physiology in his time.

On the other hand, Charlotte Mason does seem to share with Aristotle this conception that “intellectual habits” come from instruction, if we view curriculum and proper teaching methods as a specification of Aristotle’s didaskalia or instruction. As she says, the “intellectual habits of the good life form themselves in the following out of the due curriculum in the right way.” She cites attention and the act of knowing, perhaps chiefly embodied in her teaching method of narration, as “the right way”. Mason’s “self-education”, then, does not resolve itself into a call for unschooling, but for a more rigorous adherence to the right books and the right methods by which a child’s own intellectual powers will grow and find their full development.

Her concern coheres broadly with Aristotle’s focus on intellectual virtues generally, since arete involves the active engagement of the individual in means and ends. It may owe “its birth and growth to teaching,” but it has a life of its own; it is not something that a teacher can mechanistically instill in a person, as a waitress pours water into a glass. The organic metaphors used by Mason find their expression in Aristotle as well. 

In addition, it is the nature of the human person that habit training and teaching are meant to develop. As he goes on to say at the beginning of Book II following the passage quoted above:

From this it is also plain that none of the moral excellences arises in us by nature; for nothing that exists by nature can form a habit contrary to its nature. For instance the stone which by nature moves downwards cannot be habituated to move upwards, not even if one tries to train it by throwing it up ten thousand times; nor can fire be habituated to move downwards, nor can anything else that by nature behaves in one way be trained to behave in another. Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do excellences arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit. 

Nicomachean Ethics, 1103a.19-25, pp. 1742-1743

Modern science might cause us to stumble over Aristotle’s examples here, because the discovery of gravity and chemical reactions like combustion throw a wrench in his system. But for Aristotle, things move downward because it is in their nature to do so; they have an internal telos or goal toward which they head of their own accord. For stones this telos is down, but for fire it is up. The point of the examples is that human beings too have a telos and this is excellence, but we do not have excellence “by nature”, otherwise no training would be necessary or even possible. You can’t habituate a stone to fly upwards of its own accord. But you can habituate a human person to act justly or eat temperately. 

But I ask again, is this only true of moral virtues and not also of intellectual ones? Can’t we be habituated to think in a certain way?

The Analogy between Morality and Artistry

For Aristotle it is important to distinguish between abilities we have by nature and those that are developed by practice. In a way, this devolves into the age-old debate between the relative importance of nature and nurture. As he says,

Again, of all the things that come to us by nature we first acquire the potentiality and later exhibit the activity (this is plain in the case of the senses; for it was not by often seeing or often hearing that we got these senses, but on the contrary we had them before we used them, and did not come to have them by using them); but excellences we get by first exercising them, as also happens in the case of the arts as well. For the things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing, e.g. men become builders by building and lyre-players by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts. (p. 1743)

Aristotle’s point is that sight is an ability we have by nature. The potential to see is formed in the very nature of a human person (from pupil and retina to optic nerve and brain structure); seeing, therefore, comes without any practice. The first time a baby opens its eyes it sees. (Perhaps we shouldn’t rabbit-trail into how distinguishing between objects and developing facial recognition, for instance, are extremely complex skills that the brain is practically hardwired to develop on its own, for which it nevertheless requires significant time, experience and practice, and which is influenced by the development of habits….) 

Both morality and artistry, however, do not come by nature but by exercise or practice. As the saying goes, “One swallow does not a summer make.” One just act does not make a man just. Nor does constructing one building make a man an architect. Through deliberate or purposeful practice of particular activities, the habit of doing them is elevated to the level of excellence. Excellence in morality and artistry then comes by habit… but not by a habit that is thoughtless. As my gymnastic coach drilled into me as a youth, “Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect.” Aristotle further details the point in his ongoing analogy between moral excellence and craftsmanship:

Again, it is from the same causes and by the same means that every excellence is both produced and destroyed, and similarly every art; for it is from playing the lyre that both good and bad lyre-players are produced. And the corresponding statement is true of builders and of all the rest; men will be good or bad builders as a result of building well or badly. For if this were not so, there would have been no need of a teacher, but all men would have been born good or bad at their craft. This, then, is the case with the excellences also; by doing the acts that we do in our transactions with other men we become just or unjust, and by doing the acts that we do in the presence of danger, and being habituated to feel fear or confidence, we become brave or cowardly. The same is true of appetites and feelings of anger; some men become temperate and good-tempered, others self-indulgent and irascible, by behaving in one way or the other in the appropriate circumstances. Thus, in one word, states arise out of like activities. This is why the activities we exhibit must be of a certain kind; it is because the states correspond to the differences between these. It makes no small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth; it makes a great difference, or rather all the difference. (p. 1743)

In this passage Aristotle comes full circle and justifies the need of a teacher for artistry (even though he hasn’t yet listed it among his five intellectual virtues). It is possible to build many buildings, and only confirm the builder in mediocrity, or worse, poor quality or shoddy building. In the same way, I needed a coach to become a gymnast, to correct my poor form on various exercises, to instruct me to point my toes, keep my legs straight and tuck my head in during handstands. Otherwise, I would develop bad habits early on that would make advancement in good gymnastics impossible. 

Notice how coaching in artistry requires a competent teacher who is sufficiently advanced in the craft to pass along the basic principles of proper form or good quality, along with the judgment to correct errors and mistakes. As I advanced in gymnastics, I could practice more and more on my own, because I had developed the mental architecture for quality gymnastics and had internalized the basic principles of the craft. Watching and imitating Olympic gymnasts as they demonstrate exquisite form might also spur my growth and development of excellence. 

Aristotle argues that it is much the same with moral virtues. While he doesn’t explicitly mention parents and tutors, his final appeal that it makes all the difference what habits we form from our youth seems targeted to raise the bar for those who have charge of the young. Early habit training is the determining factor in the later development of moral character. But this should not be construed in such a way as to remove the value of thinking and deliberating over moral choices. For Aristotle one cannot have the moral virtues without also attaining the intellectual virtue of phronesis, practical wisdom or prudence. And we dare not undervalue the importance of artistry or craftsmanship of all types, which involves the development of cultivated habits as well as a true course of reasoning. 

Resolving the Nature-Nurture Debate: Myelin, Habits and Skill

From the perspective of modern research the nature-nurture debate for both skill and moral action seems to have been substantively resolved. The key is not exactly neurons and synapses, but myelin, a white fatty substance that is wrapped around neural networks after they are repeatedly fired. As Dr. George Bartzokis, professor of neurobiology at UCLA said, myelin is “the key to talking, reading, learning skills, being human” (As quoted in Daniel Coyle, The Talent Code [Bantam, 2009], 32). Neuroscientists claim that “the traditional neuron-centric worldview is being fundamentally altered by a Copernican-style revolution” based on three basic facts:

1. Every human movement, thought, or feeling is a precisely timed electric signal traveling through a chain of neurons—a circuit of nerve fibers. 
2. Myelin is the insulation that wraps these nerve fibers and increases signal strength, speed, and accuracy. 
3. The more we fire a particular circuit, the more myelin optimizes that circuit, and the stronger, faster and more fluent our movements and thoughts become. (Coyle, The Talent Code, 32)

Notice that what we call body, heart and head are equally susceptible to the neural network process. In addition, the repetition of particular acts, thoughts or feelings in a certain context creates what we call a ‘habit’, a propensity for or ease of repeating that same act, thought or feeling again. Deep or focused practice tends to wrap myelin more quickly and efficiently. 

As Aristotle claimed more than 2,000 years ago, “Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do excellences arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit.” We cannot make a habit or skill of doing something physically impossible. But if we have the ability to do something, we can get better and better and better at it through practice, until even our original abilities have been fundamentally altered and developed. Nature provides the hardware for the myelin wrapping process, while nurture (including all our choices, actions, thoughts and feelings) actually wraps the myelin. As Daniel Coyle explains, 

Instead of prewiring for specific skills, what if the genes dealt with the skill issue by building millions of tiny broadband installers [i.e. myelin-wrapping oligodendrocytes] and distributing them throughout the circuits of the brain? The broadband installers wouldn’t be particularly complicated—in fact, they’d all be identical, wrapping wires with insulation to make the circuits work faster and smoother. They would work according to a single rule: whatever circuits are fired most, and most urgently, are the ones where the installers will go. Skill circuits that are fired often will receive more broadband; skills that are fired less often, with less urgency, will receive less broadband.

Coyle, The Talent Code, 71-72.

Memory, habits, skill development, all of human educational goals, in fact, seem to have this process at their root, even if they cannot ultimately be reduced to it.

As Christians, we may get nervous at all this talk of the brain and neurons, because of the real and present danger of reducing the mind or spirit to the matter and electrical signals of the brain. So we would do well to put a stake in the ground with Charlotte Mason on this point and clarify that we believe the mind is more than the brain. We are not evolutionary materialists. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (Shakespeare’s Hamlet I.5). But having clarified our spiritual frame of reference, perhaps these findings of neuroscience are precisely what we should have expected: God has made us as trifold beings, body, soul and spirit, situated between heaven and earth:

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

The moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

What is man that you are mindful of him,

And the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings

And crowned him with glory and honor.

You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;

You have put all things under his feet…. (Psalm 8:3-6 ESV)

Our glory as human beings is our middle placement, our intertwined nature, participating in the intellectual nature of the angels and the physical nature of beasts. Flesh and spirit intermingle and interact, and the nervous system gives us a glimmer of insight into how. Our habits, practice and skill development involve fleshly acquirements in body and brain, but they are nonetheless spiritual. Moral and intellectual virtues can be trained by practice. As the author of Hebrews says, “But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Heb 5:14 ESV). Discernment is an important Christian intellectual virtue mentioned frequently in the New Testament. And according to Hebrews it, too, is “trained by practice”.

In the next article we will explore the differences between moral training and training in techne or craftsmanship, introducing the modern concepts of deliberate practice, coaching and the apprenticeship model.

Earlier Articles in this series:

Bloom’s Taxonomy and the Purpose of Education

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

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

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

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

Aristotle’s Virtue Theory and a Christian Purpose of Education

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Michael Hobbiss, a researcher from the UK on attention, distraction and cognitive control in adolescents, remarked in an interview on the Learning Scientists website, that there’s been too much focus among educators on how to grab students’ attention, and not enough on how the attentional systems actually work.

Of course, we’ve all heard of the rising diagnoses of ADD/ADHD (66% increase from 2000 to 2010!). Perhaps that fact is simply a function growing popular awareness of the problem, and therefore more doctor visits for a diagnosis. But Daniel Goleman, the bestselling author of Emotional Intelligence and Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, hypothesizes that we’re recognizing it more because it’s becoming more of a problem, even for us adults.

In his book Focus Goleman memorably tells the story of a conversation with a doctor, who recounted how professionals are beginning to self-medicate for attentional issues and narcolepsy. One lawyer was even complaining that he couldn’t write contracts without such drugs, many of which would have required a prescription just a few short years ago (8-9).

A possible cause for our crisis of attention in the modern world is our addiction to the new media and screen time. Those glowing orbs in our hands and on our desks are powerful brain manipulators. I’ve heard the attention-grabbing industry estimated at $6 trillion; that’s a lot of money, time and effort from experts focused at diverting our attention. And perhaps by the law of habit the industry’s power—and our giving into it—is turning us and our students into less focused people.

The upshot to these dire pronouncements is that there is a rich tradition of reflection on the human faculty or habit of attention. Those familiar with Charlotte Mason’s work will recognize it as a theme that she keeps coming back to. Yet Charlotte Mason wasn’t the first educational theorist to spend some focused thought on the attention, and she wasn’t the last.

So in this article, we’re going to explore the practical recommendations for training the attention that Charlotte Mason had in common with one of her predecessors, the famous British Enlightenment philosopher John Locke, followed by a slightly younger contemporary, the American educator John Milton Gregory, known in classical education circles for his book The Seven Laws of Teaching.

Then we will link up with modern cognitive psychology and neuroscience for how they support and confirm this tradition. This research will provide some greater clarity as to what’s going on in our brains and why Locke, Mason and Gregory’s sage advice still stands today. That will take us through the science of attention then and now.

The Science of Attention Then

John Locke on Attention

More than a century before Charlotte Mason, John Locke anticipated her in many of his ideas about education, including his reflections on the nature of young children and the importance of gentle training in habit. The habit of attention, proper accommodations for children, and the need for training in focus are some of those areas of substantial agreement.

In his treatise on education John Locke begins his reflections by considering the nature of children:

The natural temper of children disposes their minds to wander. Novelty alone takes them…. They quickly grow weary of the same thing, and so have almost their whole delight in change and variety. It is a contradiction to the natural state of childhood for them to fix their fleeting thoughts. (Some Thoughts Concerning Education 124)

Unlike many thinkers of his day and earlier, Locke’s reflections on children’s inattentiveness do not lead him to despise children, but instead to accost parents and tutors for their unrealistic expectations. It is absurd to expect a child to have the developed faculty of attention of a grown scholar, and taxing a student far beyond their capacity is, to him, simply an exercise in frustration.

He briefly wonders why children might naturally have a short attention span, as a 17^th century medical practitioner might be expected to do, before concluding that whatever the cause it is surely the case:

Whether this be owing to the temper of their brains or the quickness and instability of their animal spirits, over which the mind has not yet got a full command, this is visible, that it is a pain to children to keep their thoughts steady to anything. (124)

Next he moves on to propose the same type of gracious treatment and training that Charlotte Mason enthusiasts have come to appreciate from her:

A lasting continued attention is one of the hardest tasks [that] can be imposed on them; and therefore he that requires their application should endeavor to make what he proposes as grateful and agreeable as possible; at least, he ought to take care not to join any displeasing or frightful idea with it. (124)

John Locke thus recommends a tactic of accommodation and understanding toward students’ challenges with wandering attention. This is in great contrast to the usual methods of his day, which employed frequent “rebukes and corrections, if they find them ever so little wandering” (124). Locke finds these methods ineffective and more likely to stifle attention than develop it.

These ideas might make Locke seem like a softy, but he has a place for rigor and aims definitely at a student’s growing excellence in learning. He has just shifted the method of ensuring students’ attention from negative to positive tactics. As he concludes later,

The great skill of a teacher is to get and keep the attention of his scholar; whilst he has that, he is sure to advance as fast as the learner’s abilities will carry him; and without that, all his bustle and pother will be to little or no purpose. (125)

Locke recognizes the necessity of a focused attention for learning and recommends a “certain tenderness” in the teacher to “make the child sensible that he loves him and designs nothing but his good” as the surest way to inspire the child to “hearken to his lessons and relish what he teachers him” (125). This no doubt develops out of his Christian view of children as made in the image of God, a trust to be nurtured and cherished, and not harshly accosted for weaknesses they can’t help.

Charlotte Mason on Attention

Similar to Locke, Charlotte Mason focuses on attention as a habit, and a chief educational virtue at that. A student’s learning and abilities depend upon it, because it makes them possible. As she explains in Home Education,

First, we put the habit of Attention, because the highest intellectual gifts depend for their value upon the measure in which their owner has cultivated the habit of attention. (97)

Developing on Locke’s reflections about the natural state of childhood, Charlotte Mason recommended short lessons for younger children and variety in books and subjects; she famously quipped that “a change is as good as a rest.” In this, like Locke, she accommodates the attention of young students, while at the same time recommending a positive program designed to improve and develop students’ attention over time.

Her reflections on the nature of the attention are a little more up-to-date than Locke’s “animal spirits,” as she grapples with the faculty theory of her day and attempts to articulate an integrated and interconnected view of the mind:

Attention is hardly even an operation of the mind, but is simply the act by which the whole mental force is applied to the subject in hand. This act, of bringing the whole mind to bear, may be trained into a habit at the will of the parent or teacher, who attracts and holds the child’s attention by means of a sufficient motive. (102)

Here too she focuses on the parent or teacher providing the proper motive for attention in a way that attracts the child. Of course, the highest intellectual motive is that of curiosity, which should be aroused and cultivated in any way possible. (John Locke had said much the same thing, and came back to the theme of curiosity again and again in his treatise, which is another reason I suspect him as a source for Charlotte Mason’s reflections.) But other motives (like a sense of duty or achievement) are acceptable and sometimes necessary, as long as students are not nourished too intensely on one natural desire such that it ventures into the arena manipulation or unhealthy influence.

But perhaps the most important tactic for Charlotte Mason in the cultivation of the habit of attention is that students be expected to know and tell after only one reading or exposure. The practice of narration is the supreme way of inducing in the child that habit of attention which will make a scholar of him. The expectation that one will have to tell gives the mind the necessary energy to attend fully and completely to the content at hand. This practice, when regularly followed, is of supreme value for moving students along the path of learning just as quickly as their natural abilities will allow them.

John Milton Gregory on Attention

It is a wonder to see so many theorists speaking with one voice on the science of attention. John Milton Gregory’s second law of teaching says just what we could expect from Locke or Mason:

“The learner must attend with interest to the fact or truth to be learned.” (The Seven Laws of Teaching, Canon Press, 37)

Gregory admits the commonsensical nature of this assertion, but bemoans how often teachers break its principles in practice.

“However much teacher may neglect it in practice, they readily admit in theory that without attention the pupil can learn nothing. One may as well talk to the deaf or the dead as to teach a child who is wholly inattentive.” (40)

Like Mason, he prefers to describe the attention as more than an isolated faculty of the mind, latching onto the word “attitude” as a helpful word-picture:

“Avoiding as much as possible all metaphysical discussion, we may describe the attention as a mental attitude—the attitude in which the thought-power is actively bent toward, or fastened upon, some object of thought or perception. It is an attitude, not of ease and repose, but of effort and exertion.” (38)

The same activity of the student that we would expect from Charlotte Mason’s philosophy is here recommended by Gregory. The student must engage in the effort and exertion and the teacher’s job is to entice her to do so.

Like Locke, Gregory believes that the method of rebukes and harsh punishments for inattentiveness is counterproductive. But he explains why by making a distinction between compelled and attracted attention:

“Compelled attention is short-lived and easily exhausted. Its very painfulness wearies the powers of body and mind…. Attracted attention, on the other hand, is full of power and endurance. Its felt interest calls dormant energies into play, and the pleasure given by its efforts seems to refresh rather than weary the mind.” (39)

Clearly we are to prefer attracting attention whenever possible, and compelled attention should only be used when necessary to gather the class back together from some distraction, before attracting their attention again by interesting content or, in Charlotte Mason’s words, “a sufficient motive.”

A few of Gregory’s practical instructions connect so well with the spirit of Locke and Mason that they are worth reproducing in full:

• “Never exhaust wholly the pupil’s power of attention. Stop when signs of weariness appear, and either dismiss the class or change the subject to kindle fresh attention.
• “Fit the length of the exercise to the ages of the class: the younger the pupils the briefer the lesson.
• “Arouse, and when needful rest, the attention by a pleasing variety, but avoid distraction. Keep the real lesson in view.
• “Present those aspects of the lesson, and use such illustrations, as fit the ages, character, and attainments of the class.” (48)

Locke, Mason and Gregory seem to speak with one voice on the subject of attention. They discuss its over-arching importance for learning and attaining excellence. They recommend against negative methods and for the positive and caring influence of the teacher. Their goal is to accommodate a child’s natural state, while also developing the focus ability of a scholar in him. The process should involve the slow, faithful inducement of the child to attend as long as he can, but no longer, followed by change and variety. Over the years, the attention of the child will grow with practice, and the love of learning and curiosity will flourish in him, leading him to a willing and settled intellectual excellence.

Now let’s turn to modern neuroscience and cognitive psychology to see these recommendations confirmed and explained.

Modern Learning Science on Attention

What have we learned about the science of attention since the days of Locke, Mason and Gregory? Research confirms that the ability to focus directly correlates with accomplishment in virtually any domain of learning or life. As bestselling author Daniel Goleman puts it in his book Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence,

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

Attention is the overarching mental “faculty” that traditional educational theorists described it as. It’s a “subtle faculty” that hides under our radar and yet is always operating, having far-reaching effects on every activity or task we engage in, especially those involving learning.

But why is attention so important for learning and skill development to take place? First, it’s worth mentioning that modern neuroscience has discovered that there are at least two different modes of attention, what Barbara Oakley in A Mind for Numbers calls the focused mode and the diffuse mode. The focused mode is the experience we normally think of as focusing or attending closely to something. The diffuse mode, on the other hand, is when we are relaxed and letting our mind wander.

Dr. Daniel Levitin, Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience at McGill University, nicknames the diffuse mode the “mid-wandering mode” (The Organized Mind 41). He remarks that the discovery of this mode as “a special brain network… was one of the biggest neuroscientific discoveries of the last twenty years” (38). One of its features is that it continuously seeks to monopolize your consciousness: “it eagerly shifts the brain into mind-wandering when you’re not engaged in a task, and it hijacks your consciousness if the task you’re doing gets boring” (38). Here we have a fuller explanation for Locke’s remark that the natural state of children’s minds is to wander. In fact, it’s a natural human brain state.

Dr. Levitin goes on to explain that it is a zero-sum game between these two modes:

 “When one is active the other is not. During demanding tasks, the central executive kicks in. The more the mind-wandering network is suppressed, the greater the accuracy of performance on the task at hand” (39).

Daniel Goleman describes these two attention systems as top-down and bottom-up, drawing from research in cognitive science. The subcortical brain machinery (bottom-up) is much quicker in brain time, more impulsive, emotional and intuitive, and manages our habitual ways of engaging with the world, as we would say, without really thinking about it. The top-down focused mode is slower, more logical, voluntary, and based in the seat of self-control, the pre-frontal cortex (Focus 25-26).

Because of this we know that too much effort to stay in the focused mode, without the training up of habits of attentive focus, will deplete the brain’s reserves of willpower. At this point the brain will automatically switch into diffuse mode to find the needed rest and recreation. This explains the insight from our traditional educators of the fruitlessness of stern corrections for inattentiveness. If a child has reached her limit of attentive focus, the willpower system needs time to refresh; of course, it’s possible to light up the fear and pain centers of the child’s brain, but those will not induce attentiveness to linguistic or abstract learning.

The growing body of literature on elite performance has also illuminated how integral focus is to the development of complex skills, from liberal arts like deep reading, to world-class sports or musicianship. Attention is a necessary requirement of what has been variously called deliberate practice (Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers) or deep practice (Daniel Coyle in The Talent Code).

For instance, in his book Deep Work Cal Newport mentions two core components of deliberate practice, drawing from the research of Anders Ericsson:

• your attention is focused tightly on a specific skill you’re trying to improve or an idea you’re trying to master;
• you receive feedback so you can correct your approach to keep your attention exactly where it’s most productive.

Both of these components, the uninterrupted focus on the skill or idea and the feedback, require the focused mode of attention in order to optimize skill development or learning. Like Locke explained, when a student’s attention is focused, that student is sure to progress just as quickly as natural ability will allow. But without this focus the time is almost wasted.

Cal Newport goes on to explain the role of myelination of neural circuits in this process:

By focusing intensely on a specific skill, you’re forcing the specific relevant circuit to fire, again and again, in isolation. This repetitive use of a specific circuit triggers cells called oligodendrocytes to begin wrapping layers of myelin around the neurons in the circuits—effectively cementing the skill. The reason, therefore, why it’s important to focus intensely on the task at hand while avoiding distraction is because this is the only way to isolate the relevant neural circuit enough to trigger useful myelination. By contrast, if you’re trying to learn a complex new skill (say, SQL database management) in a state of low concentration (perhaps you also have your Facebook feed open), you’re firing too many circuits simultaneously and haphazardly to isolate the group of neurons you actually want to strengthen. (Deep Work 36-37)

The modern crisis of attention is explained! The problem is that our brains are receiving too much stimulation from our glowing orbs, and so our ability to learn and develop is hampered. Myelination requires focus of mind and avoidance of distractions.

There are few experiences this reminds me more of that the peaceful experience of standing in a classroom with a group of attentive students, who are under the thrall of an engaging book. As I or a student finishes reading, I quietly ask a student called at random to begin telling back for the class, and he narrates what was just read with graphic language, fitting details and a faithful account of the sequence of thought. Other students then add a detail or two and we proceed to discuss the deeper meaning and relevance of the text. This is Charlotte Mason’s practice of narration, and its powerful sequence trains students in the habit of attention.

In my previous role as Academic Dean of Clapham School, I’ve discussed the topic of attention before in a series of articles. I was also interviewed in a webinar for parents. I’ve listed these below in case you’re interested in going further in this topic.

• A Call for Focus in Learning: Part 1, Traditional Views of Attention
• Part 2, The Science of Attention
• Part 3, Practicing Attention
• Webinar: Attention, Please! Tips for Keeping Your Child Focused

If you’re interested in learning more about a method for training in habits generally, check out Patrick’s “A Guide to Implementing Habit Training”.

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