In the 1940’s the British author, Dorothy Sayers, wrote an essay titled The Lost Tools of Learning. In it she not only calls for a return to the application of the seven liberal arts of ancient education, the first three being the “Trivium” – grammar, logic, rhetoric, she also combines three stages of children’s development to the Trivium. Specifically, she matches what she calls the “Poll-parrot” stage with grammar, “Pert” with logic, and “Poetic” with rhetoric (see The Lost Tools Chart). At Logos, the founding board members were intrigued with this idea of applying a classical education in a Christian context. Doug Wilson, a founding board member explained the classical method further in his book, Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning. Logos School has been committed to implementing this form of education since the school’s inception. An excerpt from Doug Wilson’s book, Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning:

“The structure of our curriculum is traditional with a strong emphasis on “the basics.” We understand the basics to be subjects such as mathematics, history, and language studies. Not only are these subjects covered, they are covered in a particular way. For example, in history class the students will not only read their text, they will also read from primary sources. Grammar, logic, and rhetoric will be emphasized in all subjects. By grammar, we mean the fundamental rules of each subject (again, we do not limit grammar to language studies), as well as the basic data that exhibit those rules. In English, a singular noun does not take a plural verb. In logic, A does not equal not A. In history, time is linear, not cyclic. Each subject has its own grammar, which we require the students to learn. This enables the student to learn the subject from the inside out.

The logic of each subject refers to the ordered relationship of that subject’s particulars (grammar). What is the relationship between the Reformation and the colonization of America? What is the relationship between the subject and the object of a sentence? As the students learn the underlying rules or principles of a subject (grammar) along with how the particulars of that subject relate to one another (logic), they are learning to think. They are not simply memorizing fragmented pieces of knowledge.

The last emphasis is rhetoric. We want our students to be able to express clearly everything they learn. An essay in history must be written as clearly as if it were an English paper. An oral presentation in science should be as coherent as possible. It is not enough that the history or science be correct. It must also be expressed well.”

by Dorothy Sayers

That I, whose experience of teaching is extremely limited, should presume to discuss education is a matter, surely, that calls for no apology. It is a kind of behavior to which the present climate of opinion is wholly favorable. Bishops air their opinions about economics; biologists, about metaphysics; inorganic chemists, about theology; the most irrelevant people are appointed to highly technical ministries; and plain, blunt men write to the papers to say that Epstein and Picasso do not know how to draw. Up to a certain point, and provided the the criticisms are made with a reasonable modesty, these activities are commendable. Too much specialization is not a good thing. There is also one excellent reason why the various amateur may feel entitled to have an opinion about education. For if we are not all professional teachers, we have all, at some time or another, been taught. Even if we learnt nothing–perhaps in particular if we learnt nothing–our contribution to the discussion may have a potential value.

However, it is in the highest degree improbable that the reforms I propose will ever be carried into effect. Neither the parents, nor the training colleges, nor the examination boards, nor the boards of governors, nor the ministries of education, would countenance them for a moment. For they amount to this: that if we are to produce a society of educated people, fitted to preserve their intellectual freedom amid the complex pressures of our modern society, we must turn back the wheel of progress some four or five hundred years, to the point at which education began to lose sight of its true object, towards the end of the Middle Ages.
Before you dismiss me with the appropriate phrase–reactionary, romantic, mediaevalist, laudator temporis acti (praiser of times past), or whatever tag comes first to hand–I will ask you to consider one or two miscellaneous questions that hang about at the back, perhaps, of all our minds, and occasionally pop out to worry us.

When we think about the remarkably early age at which the young men went up to university in, let us say, Tudor times, and thereafter were held fit to assume responsibility for the conduct of their own affairs, are we altogether comfortable about that artificial prolongation of intellectual childhood and adolescence into the years of physical maturity which is so marked in our own day? To postpone the acceptance of responsibility to a late date brings with it a number of psychological complications which, while they may interest the psychiatrist, are scarcely beneficial either to the individual or to society. The stock argument in favor of postponing the school-leaving age and prolonging the period of education generally is that there is now so much more to learn than there was in the Middle Ages. This is partly true, but not wholly. The modern boy and girl are certainly taught more subjects–but does that always mean that they actually know more?

Has it ever struck you as odd, or unfortunate, that today, when the proportion of literacy throughout Western Europe is higher than it has ever been, people should have become susceptible to the influence of advertisement and mass propaganda to an extent hitherto unheard of and unimagined? Do you put this down to the mere mechanical fact that the press and the radio and so on have made propaganda much easier to distribute over a wide area? Or do you sometimes have an uneasy suspicion that the product of modern educational methods is less good than he or she might be at disentangling fact from opinion and the proven from the plausible?

Have you ever, in listening to a debate among adult and presumably responsible people, been fretted by the extraordinary inability of the average debater to speak to the question, or to meet and refute the arguments of speakers on the other side? Or have you ever pondered upon the extremely high incidence of irrelevant matter which crops up at committee meetings, and upon the very great rarity of persons capable of acting as chairmen of committees? And when you think of this, and think that most of our public affairs are settled by debates and committees, have you ever felt a certain sinking of the heart?

READ MORE

Thanks to David Goodwin and the Ambrose Group for allowing us to post from their booklet, “Discover Classical Christian Education, A Parent’s Essential Guide“. Visit the Ambrose Group website, A non-profit group dedicated to expanding the reach and influence of classical Christian education
———–

Modern Education

Democratic: Every student should attain the same level of achievement.

Multi-cultural: Critical of our Western cultural roots, strongly emphasizing imperialism, slavery and historic Christianity as “what is wrong with America”.

Naturalistic: Emphasizes math and science at the expense of art, literature, and history.

Secular: Holds the “spiritual” as personal and separate from education. Avoids deeper philosophical values.

Values-Neutral: All moral positions are relative and hence all positions must be equally treated.

Broken into many subjects: By breaking knowledge into pieces, it can be more carefully studied and thus understood.

Teaches facts and functional skills: Students primarily learn about subjects particularly ones that help them “get good jobs.”

Progressive: Always experimenting with new techniques and methods.

Entertainment learning: Entertain students to engage them in the learning process.

Classical Christian Education

Excellence: Take each student to their highest possible potential.

Western: Recognize the great contribution of Western culture to America and the world, including its triumphs and failures while also recognizing the beauty in other cultures.

Universal: Emphasize the humanities, arts and sciences to bring a full perspective

Integrated: Education is necessarily tied to philosophy and religion in order to train thoughtful students.

Idealism: Standards of right and wrong exist in all subject areas. Students are taught to make judgment accordingly.

Integrated Subjects: Subjects should be taught in an integrated way so that students understand the whole as well as the parts.

Teaches Critical Thinking: Students learn to think beyond the subject-matter. Content is not the goal – wisdom is.

Traditional: Hold to educational standards that have a clear record of success.

Engage and Challenge: Students will meet a high standard and enjoy a sense of achievement.

- Jim Nance

In her essay “The Lost Tools of Learning,” Dorothy Sayers has identified for many classical Christian schools of our day an outline for a modern education following the medieval Trivium: Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric. I am interested in what she says about Logic and the Dialectic Stage, and plan to occasionally post some thoughts about these and related topics. I will start my posts with a comment she makes that I have found helpful in my own teaching of Logic.

In describing a student of the medieval Trivium, Sayers writes, “Secondly, he learned how to use language; how to define his terms and make accurate statements; how to construct an argument and how to detect fallacies in argument.” This short statement gives us what I have come to believe are the four primary lessons to be learned in a Logic class, and in the proper order.

First, the logic student learns about terms, which are the building blocks of statements. They learn what a term is, how terms differ from words, the methods and rules of defining terms, and how to use the tools that relate terms to one another, such as genus and species charts.

Second, the logic student learns about statements. They learn what a statement is, how to identify the different types of statements, how to relate statements to one another, and how to determine the truth of a given statement.

Third, the student learns “how to construct an argument.” Logical arguments are built out of statements, which are connected as premises to make conclusions. Students learn how to distinguish between valid and invalid arguments, what validity means, and why it differs from truth. Once they are able to identify valid arguments given to them, they learn how to construct valid arguments of their own.

Fourth, the logic student learns “how to detect fallacies in argument.” A fallacy is an invalid form of argument. They learn to identify not only the formal fallacies discovered by the rules of validity, but also informal fallacies such as ad hominem and post hoc.

Thus, Sayers has given us the outline of a complete introductory logic curriculum. I would only add that we should not limit our learning of the above to categorical logic, but include the tools of propositional (or symbolic) logic as well. Students should be given the powerful tools of relating symbolic propositions, determining the validity of propositional arguments, and learning how to construct propositional proofs.

-Wilson, Douglas 1996. Understanding By-laws, Policies, and Guidelines. In Repairing the Ruins: The Classical and Christian Challenge to Modern Education, ed. Douglas J. Wilson, 199-208. Moscow, ID: Canon Press. (All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission from Canon Press.)

——
“But I thought you didn’t believe in the Horn, Trumpkin,” said
Caspian. “No more I do, your Majesty. But what’s that got to do
with it? I might as well die on a wild goose chase as die here. You
are my King. I know the difference between giving advice and
taking orders. You’ve had my advice, and it’s the time for orders.”1

FOR A NUMBER OF HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL REASONS, Americans have a distorted perception of how biblical authority works. We received a large measure of this distorted view in the process of our education. Consequently, identifying the problem is a matter of great importance, so that we do not pass the problem on to our children in the process of their education. Christians must seek to understand the nature of authority, and must understand this task to be a central aspect of recovering a truly biblical education.
Authority works two ways, and, unfortunately, many who set out to recover “authority” only recover one half of it – the half that lets them give orders to someone else. But it may be taken as axiomatic that someone does not have a biblical view of authority if he takes any less delight in receiving instructions as he does in giving them. Submission is required of all Christians, and of course someone who does not know how to submit is someone who is not to be entrusted with leadership.

There are some additional subtleties, however, which bear directly on the task of education. Most Christian schools operate under plural leadership – usually under the authority of a school board. Now Jesus taught that no man can serve two masters. How can this be reconciled with plural leadership? The pattern of plural, corporate leadership is certainly bibilical (it is required in the church, for example). So how is it possible for administrators, teachers, staff and students under this plural authority to keep from being pulled in different directions, and all by people equally “in charge”? Tragically, in many schools this pulling in different directions is a pulling apart.

In order to remain biblical, all forms of plural leadership must speak with a single voice. Several examples should serve to illustrate the principle. Suppose a school board is in the process of selecting a line of textbooks. Suppose further there have been vigorous and thorough debates in the board meetings about the value of this publisher versus the value of that one. The day comes, however, when the vote is taken, and the school board has made its decision. Now, the board member in the minority must not only submit to the decision (which he obviously has to do anyway), he must also support it.

This idea horrifies us. So in order to maintain our unbiblical approach to authority, we immediately rush to “worst case scenarios.” “But,” we argue, “suppose the textbooks in question are put out by Satan & Sons – ‘We make humanism palatable for Christian schools!’?”

The answer here of course is that this is a school board from which godly Christians must resign. There are times when submission to human authority does constitute disobedience to God. No human authority is absolute; no human authority legitimately commands unquestioning obedience. But if it is impossible to submit to a school board, then it is impossible to stay on that school board. If it is legitimate to stay, then it is required to submit. We cannot take a middle ground and say that this is a big enough issue to allow us to be noisy and unsubmissive and small enough to allow us to remain.

READ MORE

- Spencer, Tom 1996. The Seven Laws of Teaching. In Repairing the Ruins: The Classical and Christian Challenge to Modern Education, ed. Douglas J. Wilson, 109-115. Moscow, ID: Canon Press. (All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission from Canon Press.

Introduction

IS IT POSSIBLE TO REDUCE THE ART OF SUCCESSFUL TEACHING TO SEVEN succinct laws? Yes it is. Read John Milton Gregory’s masterful book, The Seven Laws of Teaching, and you will see that it may be done. Mr. Gregory’s tremendous insight into effective teaching enables him to break teaching down into its essential components. Futhermore, he is able to explain his understanding in a way that is easily applicable and very useful. An examination of some typical classroom situations makes the value of this book readily apparent.

Meet Sam. Sam is about to begin his first job as a full-time classroom teacher. He will begin his teaching career in a private Christian school. The school has not been in existence very long and is small; therefore, Sam will teach a number of different classes. He will teach Old Testament Survey and U.S. History to the seventh grade, plus seventh and eighth grade English. Sam graduated with a major in English and a minor in history. Although he does not have a minor in Bible, he has received some good instruction at his church and is very interested in learning more about the Bible. On his application, Sam listed several books he had read in his spare time related to the Old Testament period. In contrast, the only history books he read were books that were required reading for the history courses in which he enrolled. He enjoyed writing short stories, and worked as an editor for a newsletter published by a Christian group on his college campus.

Sam approaches the beginning of the school year with an equal mixture of eager anticipation and trepidation. The principal has asked the teachers to write first quarter academic goals for each course and turn them in the day before school begins. Sam starts with his goals for Bible. Referencing the curriculum guide, Sam reviews the material he hopes to cover during the year. He quickly establishes his first quarter goals for Bible. Developing his quarter goals for English takes a bit longer, but not much. Finally, Sam turns his attention to history. These goals require more work on Sam’s part. He carefully reviews the table of contents in the history textbook given to him. He takes a long look at the curriculum guide and wonders, which historical topics are most important? Not sure, he plans a course of action that will give equal time to each unit, developing a plan to teach the entire textbook from front to back.

This process repeats itself over the next several weeks as Sam writes his weekly lesson plans. Lesson plans for Bible and English come together rather quickly; it takes longer to prepare his history lessons. He begins to outline each chapter as preparation for teaching history. During class, he writes detailed points on the chalkboard that he expects his students to copy into their notebooks. Besides his classroom presentations, Sam assigns the students pages out of the text to read as homework. They also have questions that they are supposed to answer in writing. As he falls behind in his preparation, silent reading and writing answers to textbook questions take a greater amount of time during class.

Sam notices a real difference in the classes that he is teaching. When students ask questions in Bible and English classes, Sam is usually able to answer their questions. He enjoys being able to take advantage of the students’ interest and teach to an idea he had not planned on teaching. However, most of his responses to the questions of his history students are either, “I don’t know” or represent his best guess, offered to the students without confidence. He also has a difficult time maintaining good classroom control in history, while students in his other classes are well behaved (for the most part). His history students appear bored and lethargic.

READ MORE

- Wilson, Douglas J. 1996. Introduction to Antithesis in Education. In Repairing the Ruins: The Classical and Christian Challenge to Modern Education, ed. Douglas J. Wilson, 13-27. Moscow, ID: Canon Press. (All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission from Canon Press.)
——-
THE PHRASE “WORLDVIEW CHRISTIANITY” IS CAPABLE OF producing quite a comfortable glow, specially when used frequently in conversations with other Christians. But what does it mean?

When we undertake the task of relating the biblical faith to the world around us (which really is what Christian education is), we are confronted with at least four different relationships between our faith and the great wide world. Obviously, only one of the four relationships can be that taught by Scripture itself, but the other three have had, over the years, many well-meaning advocates within the Christian faith.

Tertullian asked, “What does Jerusalem have to do with Athens?” The pattern which produces this reaction is a familiar one. In a compromised age, many find it easy to react to the general compromise by running in what they think is the other direction. Because many of the early church fathers attempted to bring Jerusalem into subjection to Athens, Tertullian reacted by saying they had nothing to do with one another.

This reaction has been repeated countless times since. In this, modern fundamentalists show their basic affinity with the monastic movements of early Catholicism. In Scripture, worldliness is an attitude; in all such mystic pietism, worldliness is in the stuff – gotta stay away from the stuff. This is the pattern followed by all reactionary Christian academies – schools populated by refugees from condoms, knife fights, drug deals, racial tension, overtly atheistic teaching, etc. But a reaction against the world is not the same thing as a positive biblical vision for education.

For the second option, we may add our faith to the body of knowledge we acquired elsewhere – added on as sort of a condiment. Autonomous knowledge is a gray, pasty oatmeal, available to everyone, while each person’s religion of choice provides the catsup, mustard, sugar, whatever works for them in their own personal space. This is the view taken by many Christian parents of kids in the government schools. The school is supposed to teach all the “neutral subjects,” and the parents add the flavoring at home. But of course, neutrality is impossible. And, as more and more parents have been discovering recently, somebody has been lacing this neutral oatmeal, for a century or so, with the Cocaine of Rank Unbelief. The modern evangelical world has the theological acumen of a pile of wet sponges, but even we are starting to catch on that something is amiss. “Hey!” we argue.

Some Christian schools take this same basic approach by using the same fundamental curriculum as do the government schools, but then adding prayer, a Bible class, or chapel. Christian education is seen as distinct because of the addition of a new planet to the preexistent solar system of knowledge. But true Christian education is a Copernican revolution which comes to see Scripture as the sun, which sees Scripture at the center. And that sun, that light, provides the light in which we see everything else. Without that sun, we do not have objectivity; we have darkness.

READ MORE

- Wilson, Douglas J. 1996. Egalitarianism: The Great Enemy. In Repairing the Ruins: The Classical and Christian Challenge to Modern Education, ed. Douglas J. Wilson, 79-87. Moscow, ID: Canon Press. (All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission from Canon Press.)
———

EGALITARIANISM IS SIMPLY “EQUALISM,” AND IN ITS VARIOUS GUISES it represents the most potent ideological threat to the Christian faith in modern times. The threat is most certainly directed at genuinely Christian education.

Now of course the belief that “all men are created equal” represents a profound scriptural truth, but the distortion of this truth represents a cultural calamity of the first order. Christians of course hold to a scriptural sense of justice which has often been confused with egalitarianism. God does not show partiality (1 Pet. 1:17), and prohibits us from doing so (Jas. 2:1,4,9; 3:17). In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male or female (Gal. 3:28). But the equality of all men before the Judgment Seat of Christ, and the reflective and derivative equality of all men before our law courts, and in our worship, is very different from the “equalism” of modernity. Biblical justice requires the same standard be applied equitably to very different men. Humanistic egalitarianism insists that a multitude of standards be applied to men who are assumed by faith to be the same. The ramifications for education are immediate and obvious. Speaking of the sin of envy which drives egalitarianism, C.S. Lewis remarked, in the voice of Screwtape:

“It begins to work itself into their educational system. . . . The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be “undemocratic.” These differences between the pupils – for they are obviously and nakedly individual differences – must be disguised. This can be done on various levels. At universities, examinations must be framed so that nearly all the students get good marks. . . . The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval’s attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT. . . . Of course, this would not follow unless all education became state education. But it will.”1

The influence of egalitarianism can be felt in our reaction to some of the words Lewis uses here – dunces, idlers, intelligent, industrious, bright, etc. Our aversion to such words in the educational realm goes far beyond a question of good manners; in fact, by now such expressions are probably illegal. But until we learn to address the egalitarian root cause of our educational crisis, we will not find our way out.

READ MORE