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The Seven Laws of Teaching - Chpt 6a · The Grammar of Classical Education

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Hello!
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to The Grammar of Classical Education, a podcast that covers the foundations as well as the philosophical and theoretical ideas of classical learning in a user-friendly and, may I even say, interesting way.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Dr. Darlene Gomes from Leading to Wonder, and I'm so glad that you could join me today.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're looking at law five, which is the law of the teaching process or the law of teaching.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now this is one of those chapters that, to be honest, I felt like I was slogging through when I first started.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going to take this and break it into two weeks just because to some degree, this is a really philosophical chapter.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning, to get to the practical, you have to have a lot of basis in the foundation of it, and then you're able to look at the practical application of it.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: So in light of that, we're going to break this up into two weeks.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: The first week, we'll look at the foundational elements, the what of the law of the teaching process.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then next week, we'll look at the how in the law of the teaching process.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: So with that in mind, as a quick review, law number one is the law of the teacher.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: The teacher must know that which he would teach and that comes from a passion and knowledge within the teacher.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Law number two is the Law of the Learner, where the learner must attend with interest to the facts being learned.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, it is the teacher's responsibility to attract that attention.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Can be done as a magnet to attract or as a bulldozer to compel, but either way, the teacher does have responsibility there.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: In law number three, the law of the language, remembering you have to be using words and facts and ideas that are understandable to both the teacher and the learner.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: law number four was the law of the lesson and that's where truth is revealed using what is already known the principle of the known to the unknown and we use the caving analogy with this one meaning you have to lead them step by step lighting up the path from where you were to where you're going
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now today is law number five, the law of the teaching process.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now in this law, John Milton Gregory moves from practical definitions like what is a teacher, what is a student and actions like how to use language and how the lesson is taught to a more philosophical concept of what actually is teaching.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: This may seem odd because honestly when you think of a process, at least I think of something that's usually quite practical.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: You do this and then you do this step and then you do this step.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: But John Milton Gregory realizes that teaching doesn't follow a checklist.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: So what he is actually covering in this law hits to the core of what it actually means to teach, what it should really look like across all subjects and all ages.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: While this really seems like an overwhelming bit of information to cover,
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: It actually can come down to this one statement.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's a quote from John Milton Gregory and I think it will tell you where we're going in the next two weeks.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: He says, behind and beyond all the telling, explaining, and lesson giving, there lies as the essential aim of it all and of all that the teacher does,
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: The Awakening and Setting in Action the Learner's Mind and Arousing of His Self-Activities, as they have been called, those facilities of cognition, imagination, and reasoning, whose actions must always be voluntary and self-impelled.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, the teaching process can be simply stated as awakening the student's mind to learning.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Or, as John Milton Gregory states in The Law of the Teaching Process,
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: To excite and direct the self-activities of the learner and tell him nothing that he can learn himself.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now that last statement can cause quite a conundrum for anyone who is a teacher.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: How am I supposed to teach if I tell him nothing that he can learn himself?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: What Am I Supposed to be Doing Then?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And therein lies the rub.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: He is definitely not encouraging a free-for-all where students merely explore and learn what they would desire and the teacher sitting in the position of just an observer in the classroom.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: In Fact, It is Completely the Opposite of That.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I kind of laughed because the goal of teaching, according to John Milton Gregory, is to do exactly what my entire business is built upon, the principle of leading to wonder.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: That is what the teacher is supposed to be doing, not cramming his student's head into
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Filled with Facts and not just letting them pick up pieces of information as they happen to stumble upon them themselves.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Quite to the contrary.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Our goal as a teacher is to light the spark of learning, to lead them to wonder.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: As John Milton Gregory says, quote, the true teaching is not which gives knowledge, but that which stimulates pupils to gain it.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go back to the cave analogy we used with law four, the law of the lesson.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about how, as the teachers, we must guide them through these massive caverns of knowledge by leading and lighting the way from the known to the unknown.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it works well with law number five to continue that analogy.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: As the leader on this adventure into the great caverns of learning, where you are taking them step by step, not boring them too long in areas of familiarity and not rushing through areas that need more discovery,
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: You have to see your job as one of directing their wonder, pointing out things of greater interest and wonder and allowing them to actually wonder and think about them.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: So on this adventure, you have led them into a new area of the cave.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: We'll say a wonderful hidden grotto that they have never seen before.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: You, of course, are familiar with it.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: What should you do?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Should you, A, describe every feature in minute detail, taking all of your cavers together as one group to every element and describing exactly what they're looking at?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Or Should You Be?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sit in the middle of the space and say, have fun, allowing them to wander at their leisure.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Or C. Should you point out some of the most interesting elements, some of the information you know they need to know, ask questions of them about what they think they're seeing, offer some opinions yourself, ask some questions
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: that you might like to further investigate and then give them time to look and think and above all to talk.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: So of those three, you hopefully picked C. Telling them everything doesn't make the learning theirs, which means they may not have actually learned anything.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And leaving them free to just wander in the information and touch what they like isn't necessarily going to ensure that they're learning really what you need them to know or anything at all.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Walking and working through it with them, allowing time to think, to question, to discover, to discuss what they're experiencing and learning is exactly what law number five encourages.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now with this, oddly enough, John Milton Gregory says, quote, he teaches best who teaches least.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: But Not That Who Doesn't Teach It All.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: As he describes it, it is evidence of the law of the teacher that the teacher's passion and knowledge is what helps to guide and spark his students.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, notice I said guide and spark his students, not make his students learn.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, learning is something that has to be done completely independently by the student.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And a teacher who understands that will better begin to be able to guide and lead his students.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let's make an analogy change here to make this law a little more understandable.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: You have some important facts, let's call them nutritional elements, that you need your students to know.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Or shall we say, you need them to learn or ingest them.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: You do have a couple options.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: You could force feed the information to the students, i.e., pour it into their heads, hope something sticks.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Or you could gather all of that nutritional stuff, throw it into a blender, make what you as the teacher knows is a healthy smoothie of facts, and present it before the students expecting them to be excited about this grand gathering of nutrition.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: But to them it's green and gross and not at all appetizing to look at.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Or your third choice
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: you could gather the very best looking extremely nutritiously prepared food that is made to appeal to their eyes and to their noses presented in an attractive setting of course having some of the dishes covered with those gloriously large domes hiding what you're sure will be a wonderful
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sight for the Eyes and Smell to the Nose presenting before your students a veritable feast waiting for them to just dig in.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, force feeding, a glass of green goo, or a feast?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Which is honestly more likely to draw your students in, to make them want to dig in.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Admittedly, some of this changes as students get older.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: What compels the interest of a young student is quite different than an older student.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: But realizing as John Milton Gregory describes, there is external motivation and internal motivation.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, external motivation is more required as the students are younger and it turns into more internal motivation as they get older.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: But regardless of the age of your students, you're called to remember the law of teaching.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: You should be exciting and directing the self-activities of the learner, not telling him things that he would be able to learn himself through thought, through discussion, through thinking about things.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: To Avoid Discouragement, we're going to take a look at one more analogy with this law.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Seeds and soil.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, John Milton Gregory mentions another John, John Amos Comenius.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: He says in the 1600s, something that really still is quite applicable today.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Comenius says,
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Most teachers sow plants instead of seeds of plants.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: When you stop for a minute and think about that, at least personally,
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: I totally was guilty of that.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to take the information that I had that I knew and the information that I knew they needed to know and I wanted to plant that into them.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the information, plant, plop, pack out down the swale.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not what teaching is.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Teaching is sowing the seeds to the plants.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, you only need to sow the seeds and help prepare the soil.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's the soil itself that has to do the work on the seeds.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this does lead to probably one of the biggest difficulties for teachers, which is what do you do when the soil doesn't seem to be working?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Where you are quite sure that soil can grow plants.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: you are quite sure that if given a little bit more maybe nutrients and sunlight that that seed should be able to grow but the soil is not doing any help well all you can do is make sure that the soil the student has the nutrients it needs
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: you know the sunlight the water the covering as necessary the base knowledge the extra help that might be needed and the encouragement and then you can tend and care for it giving it what it needs and then you just have to wait that's the hard part
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: You hope eventually that either the love of knowledge that they just want to learn more or the desire of knowledge they have to learn to accomplish something will take over.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: It may even be the desire to get praise or the desire to get good grades or even the desire to not get in trouble.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: But those simple desires with maturity will hopefully grow from just a desire for knowledge to a love of knowledge.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: This can be encouraged by what John Milton Gregory calls the development of the moral intellect, the guiding of the affections and consciousness to a higher goal.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we would refer to this more often in classical education as the ordering of loves and an aim for what is true, good and beautiful.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Again, when we are calling students to these loftier goals, it is going to lead them to that love for learning.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, it is not a quickly done job.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: But it is what helps to develop the soil of their hearts in which true learning and true growth and true maturity both as a student and as a person occurs.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, there is just so much to unpack in this law.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you can understand now why I decided to break the chapter into two parts.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be sure you had a good picture of what the law of the teaching process was before we looked at more specifically how and how not to apply this law.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: I really hope that each week you're able to just pick out one or two things that you want to put into your teaching repertoire.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, these seven laws aren't a one and done kind of list.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Excellence and best practices are a continuing process, a journey of small steps.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: So don't be discouraged.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Every small step forward will reap rewards in the lives of your young scholars.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: whether you have a classroom of students sitting in front of you or you have your little one sitting right next to you every step forward will reap rewards in their lives so take heart my fellow educators take heart
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you are all in with classical ed or you're just kind of curious or even you just want to be a better teacher, I hope you'll stick around and join us for this next podcast.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: To get the latest episode, as well as a fun little teacher's newsletter, complete with a couple of classroom freebies, please sign up for the Leading to Wonder newsletter.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Or you can subscribe to the podcast directly on Apple Podcast or Spotify or wherever you listen.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: To learn more about me and Leading to Wonder, you can visit my website at leadingtowonder.com.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: No spaces.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, to reach out to me directly with questions or comments or even for information regarding in-house or virtual teacher training workshops.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Feel free to email me at darlene at leading to wonder dot com.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Have an amazing week and remember as E.B.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: White said, always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.