Latest / The Grammar of Classical Education / Week 148: Revisiting: The Lost Tools of Learning - Part 1

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Week 148: Revisiting: The Lost Tools of Learning - Part 1 · The Grammar of Classical Education

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Grammar of Classical Education,
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: a podcast that examines the philosophical foundations of classical education,
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  SPEAKER_00: and then seeks to help classically minded educators bring those ideas to life
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  SPEAKER_00: in their classroom, co-op, or homeschool settings.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host,
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  SPEAKER_00: Dr. Darlene Gomes from Leading to Wonder, and I am so glad you've joined us today.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Before we begin,
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  SPEAKER_00: I want to let you know that this episode is the first in a short series of best
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: of episodes,
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  SPEAKER_00: specifically two episodes on the Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy Sayers.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned last week, oral surgery will require a bit of time away from the podcast mic.
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  SPEAKER_00: And rather than leave you without an episode,
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  SPEAKER_00: I thought this would be a good opportunity to revisit one of our earliest series
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  SPEAKER_00: that is definitely worth hearing again.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: It is kind of interesting to listen to Dr. Darlene Gomes from April 2024.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's
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  SPEAKER_00: Also interesting to see how much podcast communication can improve in two and a half years.
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  SPEAKER_00: By the way,
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  SPEAKER_00: 2026 Dr.
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  SPEAKER_00: Gomes would like to point out that Dorothy Sayers was not in fact one of
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  SPEAKER_00: the inklings.
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  SPEAKER_00: She was however friends with several of its members including Charles Williams and
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  SPEAKER_00: the author of The Abolition of Man, C.S.
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  SPEAKER_00: Lewis.
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  SPEAKER_00: In fact,
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  SPEAKER_00: as Lewis described their friendship,
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  SPEAKER_00: he said,
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  SPEAKER_00: quote, she was the first person of importance who ever wrote me a fan letter.
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  SPEAKER_00: I liked her, originally because she liked me.
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  SPEAKER_00: Later, for the extraordinary zest and edge of her conversation,
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  SPEAKER_00: as I like a high wind, end quote.
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  SPEAKER_00: So whether you've been listening from the beginning or have joined me more recently,
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  SPEAKER_00: I hope these best of episodes will encourage you,
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  SPEAKER_00: offer you something to think about and perhaps remind you of a truth you need
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  SPEAKER_00: to hear again.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being here and for your understanding as I take this time to recover.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, let's return to the Lost Tools of Learning that first aired in April 2024.
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  SPEAKER_00: This week,
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  SPEAKER_00: we're taking a quick but somewhat deep dive into the Lost Tools of Learning
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  SPEAKER_00: by Dorothy Sayers.
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  SPEAKER_00: This small booklet was actually a paper that she presented in a vacation course
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  SPEAKER_00: in education at Oxford in 1947.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, the date of 1947 is going to be important in the fact that I do need you
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  SPEAKER_00: to realize how long ago this was written.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because if you take a look at this and read it over,
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  SPEAKER_00: which I do encourage you to do,
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  SPEAKER_00: you're going to really feel at times that she is to some degree talking
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  SPEAKER_00: about our current educational situation.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I want you to remember it was actually written 77 years ago.
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  SPEAKER_00: So Dorothy Sayers herself, I really found her very interesting.
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  SPEAKER_00: She's quite the Renaissance woman for her time.
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess she'd say actually for any time.
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  SPEAKER_00: She was first known as a mystery writer.
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  SPEAKER_00: She wrote 10 plays.
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  SPEAKER_00: She translated six major works, including Dante's The Divine Comedy.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then, on top of that, wrote 24 works of nonfiction.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is on top of, for many years, being an ad writer in the local papers.
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  SPEAKER_00: She was one busy lady,
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  SPEAKER_00: but she loved thinking and she had a strong mastery of the English language.
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  SPEAKER_00: She was definitely a force to be reckoned with,
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  SPEAKER_00: and interestingly enough,
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  SPEAKER_00: she was able to cultivate some very unique friendships as a member of
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  SPEAKER_00: the writing group called the Inklings,
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  SPEAKER_00: which some of you may or may not be familiar with,
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  SPEAKER_00: but some of these names will sound familiar to you.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you've heard of C.S.
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  SPEAKER_00: Lewis...
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  SPEAKER_00: J.R.R.
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  SPEAKER_00: Tolkien, Owen Barfield, and Charles Williams.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Inklings was a group that got together,
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  SPEAKER_00: met weekly,
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  SPEAKER_00: and really just discussed and hashed out both philosophical ideas and
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  SPEAKER_00: the practical work that they were currently investing their time in.
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  SPEAKER_00: And Dorothy Sayers was the lone woman that was represented occasionally
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  SPEAKER_00: in this inkling group,
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  SPEAKER_00: which just gives you the idea of just what a force she was to be able
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  SPEAKER_00: to stand shoulder to shoulder with some of these great writers.
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  SPEAKER_00: Max Arnott described her in The Vogelian View,
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  SPEAKER_00: He said, quote, she represents a unique overlapping in the Venn diagram of the era.
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  SPEAKER_00: The only writer of that period who was a Christian and a woman and a mother and
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  SPEAKER_00: a scholar of broad experience and a popular writer and an independent operator.
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  SPEAKER_00: A person like that is bound to notice things,
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  SPEAKER_00: and Sayre saw a lot that the other Inklings missed, and she knew it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Wow, this powerhouse of an author...
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  SPEAKER_00: is the writer of The Lost Tools of Learning,
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  SPEAKER_00: a small paper that makes a huge statement about the current state of education,
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  SPEAKER_00: remember in 1947,
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  SPEAKER_00: and even more so true today,
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  SPEAKER_00: comparing their education and our education with that
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  SPEAKER_00: To begin with,
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  SPEAKER_00: Dorothy Sayers points out the obvious decline in the abilities of
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  SPEAKER_00: the current education.
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  SPEAKER_00: Students are not able to, quote,
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  SPEAKER_00: preserve their intellectual freedom amid the complex pressures
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  SPEAKER_00: of our modern society.
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  SPEAKER_00: She attributes that to the fact that education has, quote, lost sight of its true object.
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  SPEAKER_00: If those two statements don't sound like education in our time, I don't know what does.
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  SPEAKER_00: Dorothy's proposal then is to look back to the Middle Ages and offers
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  SPEAKER_00: an educational reset, as it were, to remedy the problems.
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  SPEAKER_00: While she sets up the Middle Ages as a good standard,
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  SPEAKER_00: she begins by pointing out that the age at which students would go off to university
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  SPEAKER_00: in the Middle Ages, I don't know if it was even received well in 1947, but today...
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  SPEAKER_00: The thought of sending off 14 to 16-year-olds to university seems quite crazy.
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  SPEAKER_00: Dorothy says that the delay in her day was because students had so much more
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  SPEAKER_00: that they had to learn before university and And this is really
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  SPEAKER_00: where she makes her first statement about the educational system.
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  SPEAKER_00: While the students had so much more to learn because they had so many more subjects,
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  SPEAKER_00: she actually asked the question, do they really know more now?
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  SPEAKER_00: And personally, I don't see the plausibility of sending a 16-year-old off to college.
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  SPEAKER_00: I do really agree that students are,
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  SPEAKER_00: for lack of a better word, studenting longer, but are they actually learning more?
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  SPEAKER_00: I had the opportunity to listen to a gentleman speak about his sister who holds
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  SPEAKER_00: a government position in D.C.,
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  SPEAKER_00: And she is dealing with a good number of college interns going
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  SPEAKER_00: into government positions,
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  SPEAKER_00: many of which have a very limited understanding of the foundations of government,
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  SPEAKER_00: let alone having the intestinal fortitude to handle being told they're wrong.
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  SPEAKER_00: Clearly,
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  SPEAKER_00: We are doing something wrong in the American educational system as much today
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  SPEAKER_00: as they were in 1947 in England.
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  SPEAKER_00: Dorothy then goes on to point out that while the ability to read is
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  SPEAKER_00: the highest point as it had been in Europe in a very long time,
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  SPEAKER_00: People were actually more swayed by the lack of logic,
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  SPEAKER_00: and even highly qualified adults were unable to clearly,
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  SPEAKER_00: effectively, and logically express their thoughts.
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  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness,
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  SPEAKER_00: if those two statements don't sound like they came
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  SPEAKER_00: And you find people all around us.
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  SPEAKER_00: Both normal everyday people and political leadership who are unable to logically
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  SPEAKER_00: and effectively and clearly present their ideas.
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  SPEAKER_00: Dorothy wraps up this section with an acknowledgement.
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  SPEAKER_00: That she believes that breaking learning down into the little boxes
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  SPEAKER_00: of subjects may be actually the greatest downfall of the current educational system.
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  SPEAKER_00: Students are taught these ideas in their little individual boxes rather
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  SPEAKER_00: than seeing them as connected as a whole.
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  SPEAKER_00: They learn the facts rather than learning how to learn.
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  SPEAKER_00: She summed it up in what she calls the, quote,
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  SPEAKER_00: distressing fact,
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  SPEAKER_00: that in the educational system,
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  SPEAKER_00: what students are learning aren't transferring to real life.
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  SPEAKER_00: And as she says,
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  SPEAKER_00: students,
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  SPEAKER_00: quote, remember what they have learned, but forget altogether how they learned it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And again, That is the problem that we have today.
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  SPEAKER_00: Students know stuff,
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  SPEAKER_00: but they don't know what to do with it,
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  SPEAKER_00: and they weren't effectively taught how to learn more stuff.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's moving into what she calls then the art of learning.
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  SPEAKER_00: If we investigate this subject a little bit more in looking at it,
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  SPEAKER_00: what we're attempting to do in our classrooms or in our homeschool settings,
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  SPEAKER_00: we do teach our students subjects,
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  SPEAKER_00: but the subjects really cannot be the main focus of what we're teaching.
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  SPEAKER_00: Our primary focus, our main purpose, has to be teaching them how to think.
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  SPEAKER_00: You may say to yourself, well, of course, I want to teach my students how to think.
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  SPEAKER_00: But what does that look like outside of teaching them math,
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  SPEAKER_00: science, grammar, reading, history, etc., etc., etc.?
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  SPEAKER_00: ?
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, fortunately,
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  SPEAKER_00: Dorothy does a great job of giving us really clear examples of what it means
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  SPEAKER_00: to teach them how to think.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I hope it helps you because this is really the foundation of classical education.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is what makes the classical model so incredibly different from the traditional schooling.
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  SPEAKER_00: One example that she gives was in music.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you teach your child how to play a super complicated piano solo flawlessly,
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  SPEAKER_00: merely by rote practice,
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  SPEAKER_00: you're not discussing scales,
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  SPEAKER_00: you're not discussing how to read music,
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  SPEAKER_00: You are merely practicing over and over again.
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  SPEAKER_00: Your finger goes here, then your finger goes here, and then your finger goes here.
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  SPEAKER_00: The question is, what would happen when you give him the next piece to play?
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  SPEAKER_00: Would he be able to successfully play it?
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  SPEAKER_00: The question then becomes, have you actually taught him how to play piano?
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  SPEAKER_00: With this example,
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  SPEAKER_00: teaching your students the scales,
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  SPEAKER_00: the notes,
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  SPEAKER_00: how to read the musical markings,
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  SPEAKER_00: how to properly sit at the keyboard, how to properly place their fingers.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now you're teaching them how to play the piano as a skill that will transfer
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  SPEAKER_00: to any piece of music you put in front of them.
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  SPEAKER_00: Of course,
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  SPEAKER_00: it would be extremely impressive if that first student who memorized
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  SPEAKER_00: the piece Rote Memory stepped out for the recital and played his piece flawlessly,
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  SPEAKER_00: while the second student,
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  SPEAKER_00: the one who really learned how to play the piano, played a much simpler tune.
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  SPEAKER_00: But in the long run, That second student has all of the tools needed to keep learning.
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  SPEAKER_00: You have taught him the lost tools of learning, how to do the thinking.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that is where Dorothy Sayers is focused for the remainder of the book.
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  SPEAKER_00: How do we teach them how to learn?
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  SPEAKER_00: How do we teach them how to think?
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  SPEAKER_00: Her next section breaks down the medieval learning system into parts that,
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  SPEAKER_00: for those of you already in classical education, will sound extremely familiar.
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  SPEAKER_00: We'll take just a few moments to look at them as a review.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because some of you out there,
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  SPEAKER_00: this may seem like a foreign language,
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  SPEAKER_00: but I want you to get an understanding of where we're going
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  SPEAKER_00: with this whole classical model.
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  SPEAKER_00: And she lays it out so clearly.
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  SPEAKER_00: As Dorothy begins,
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  SPEAKER_00: don't worry about,
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  SPEAKER_00: at this point,
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  SPEAKER_00: ages or grades just yet,
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  SPEAKER_00: but consider the format of just straight the medieval education.
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  SPEAKER_00: There were two parts,
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  SPEAKER_00: the trivium,
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  SPEAKER_00: which we'll talk about in a little more detail,
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  SPEAKER_00: and the second part is the quadrivium.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, the quadrivium is more what you would think of as subjects,
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  SPEAKER_00: and we'll deal with that a little bit later.
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  SPEAKER_00: But the foundation,
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  SPEAKER_00: the number one, the first part is the trivium, and that is divided into three parts.
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  SPEAKER_00: The grammar,
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  SPEAKER_00: the dialectic,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is sometimes referred to as the logic, and number three is the rhetoric.
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  SPEAKER_00: You will notice that these are not subjects in the same way we would say subjects today.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're bigger.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're actually the methods and the order in which students are taught how to learn.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're taught how to think.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're taught the tools of learning.
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  SPEAKER_00: The grammar level, it's the foundational language and learning level.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, we discussed this in the introduction to the seven laws of teaching.
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  SPEAKER_00: Grammar is actually can be considered as the foundational building blocks of every subject.
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  SPEAKER_00: You can think of it as the vocabulary and basic concepts on which all subjects rest.
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  SPEAKER_00: In The Lost Tools of Learning,
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  SPEAKER_00: Dorothy focuses more on the specifics of the language,
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  SPEAKER_00: usually Latin,
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  SPEAKER_00: where a student is taught not just the words,
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  SPEAKER_00: but the structure and use of the language.
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  SPEAKER_00: The next level is the logic level.
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  SPEAKER_00: And here the students choose how to use that language to clearly think and
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  SPEAKER_00: to distinguish facts from opinions,
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  SPEAKER_00: as well as how to organize the language into coherent and logical thoughts,
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  SPEAKER_00: which then leads to the final level, which is the rhetoric level.
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  SPEAKER_00: And here,
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  SPEAKER_00: students learn how to express their logical thoughts as Dorothy describes it,
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  SPEAKER_00: quote, elegantly and persuasively.
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  SPEAKER_00: The student would demonstrate this in a full presentation of a written thesis
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  SPEAKER_00: that he has constructed and that he is actually then required to defend
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  SPEAKER_00: and It is important to address the fact that,
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  SPEAKER_00: yes, we cannot teach all of that in a vacuum.
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  SPEAKER_00: There must be information and facts which the students learn and upon which they
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  SPEAKER_00: then can practice their logical arguments and they can learn to effectively
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  SPEAKER_00: and persuasively communicate their ideas.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is especially true when it comes to logic and debate.
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  SPEAKER_00: In medieval times,
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  SPEAKER_00: almost to a fault, students were allowed to discuss and debate a myriad of topics.
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  SPEAKER_00: They did all kinds of mental gymnastics around what would appear to be a trivial topic.
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  SPEAKER_00: But they were learning to think logically and to communicate their ideas
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  SPEAKER_00: and present them clearly.
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  SPEAKER_00: And they were learning how to think.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's best to end here with Dorothy Sayers' section that was simply titled Unarmed.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is really a very...
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  SPEAKER_00: Stringent call to recognize just what we're doing
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  SPEAKER_00: when we send our students out unprepared for the world they're going to face,
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  SPEAKER_00: unable to play any tune besides that one piano tune they memorized,
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  SPEAKER_00: and really unable to think.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: To kind of sum up her argument,
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  SPEAKER_00: It is clear that once we teach students to read,
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  SPEAKER_00: we do put them at the mercy of the written word,
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  SPEAKER_00: and by the fact that they are just existing in the world,
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  SPEAKER_00: they're at the mercy of the spoken word coming at them from every direction,
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  SPEAKER_00: quite often without reason or logic, and yet so convincingly presented.
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  SPEAKER_00: Without proper learning how to think, Dorothy states this as the problem.
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  SPEAKER_00: They do not know what the words mean.
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  SPEAKER_00: They do not know how to ward them off or blunt their edge or fling them back.
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  SPEAKER_00: They are prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them
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  SPEAKER_00: in their intellect.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
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  SPEAKER_00: Are we really willing to send our students into the world unarmed?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Can we in good conscience leave them unarmed?
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  SPEAKER_00: The answer is no.
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  SPEAKER_00: But then what are we to do?
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  SPEAKER_00: How do we arm them?
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  SPEAKER_00: How do we recover these lost tools of learning?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, next week,
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: we'll finish up Dorothy's paper,
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  SPEAKER_00: The Lost Tools of Learning,
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  SPEAKER_00: and we'll look more specifically at the learning stages of our students
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: and add some specifics of how today we can help arm even our youngest scholars with
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: the amazing ability
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, whether you are all in classical ed,
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: or you're just kind of curious,
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: or even you just want to be a better teacher,
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll stick around and join us for this next podcast.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: To get the latest episode, Please sign up for the Leading to Wonder newsletter.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Or you can subscribe to the podcast directly on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: or wherever you listen.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: To learn more about me and Leading to Wonder, you can visit my website at leading2wonder.com.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: No spaces.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: And finally,
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: To reach out to me directly with questions or comments or even
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: for information regarding in-house or virtual teacher training workshops,
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: feel free to email me at darlene at leading2wonder.com.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Again, thank you for joining us.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Until next week, remember, as E.B.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: White said, Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.