Latest / The Grammar of Classical Education / Week 149: Revisiting: The Lost Tools of Learning - Applications for Today - Part 2
Transcript
- 0:02SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Grammar of Classical Education,
- 0:06SPEAKER_00: a podcast that examines the philosophical foundations of classical education
- 0:14SPEAKER_00: and then seeks
- 0:16SPEAKER_00: to help classically-minded educators bring those ideas to life
- 0:22SPEAKER_00: in their classroom, co-op, or homeschool settings.
- 0:27SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Dr.
- 0:29SPEAKER_00: Darlene Gomes from Leading to Wonder,
- 0:33SPEAKER_00: and I am so glad you've joined us today.
- 0:37SPEAKER_00: Before we begin, I want to let you know that this episode is the first
- 0:42SPEAKER_00: in a short series of best of episodes,
- 0:47SPEAKER_00: specifically two episodes on the Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy Sayers.
- 0:55SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned last week,
- 0:57SPEAKER_00: oral surgery will require a bit of time away from the podcast, Mike.
- 1:03SPEAKER_00: And rather than leave you without an episode,
- 1:06SPEAKER_00: I thought this would be a good opportunity to revisit one of our earliest series
- 1:12SPEAKER_00: that is definitely worth hearing again.
- 1:18SPEAKER_00: We are picking up with part two of Dorothy Sayers' The Lost Tools of Learning.
- 1:25SPEAKER_00: And by way of quick review,
- 1:27SPEAKER_00: Dorothy Sayers was a prolific writer in the late 1800s,
- 1:33SPEAKER_00: early 1900s in England, known for her vast
- 1:42SPEAKER_00: She
- 1:50SPEAKER_00: was a real force to be reckoned with,
- 1:53SPEAKER_00: standing shoulder to shoulder with authors like C.S.
- 1:58SPEAKER_00: Lewis and T.S.
- 1:59SPEAKER_00: Eliot.
- 2:01SPEAKER_00: With her knowledgeable base and her excellent written communication skills,
- 2:08SPEAKER_00: she took a She aimed at the educational system
- 2:11SPEAKER_00: in England in 1947 with her paper,
- 2:16SPEAKER_00: The Lost Tools of Learning.
- 2:19SPEAKER_00: And it is quite shocking
- 2:22SPEAKER_00: to see problems pointed out with the educational system
- 2:27SPEAKER_00: then and how they are reflected in 2024.
- 2:32SPEAKER_00: Again, outstandingly scary to see those similarities.
- 2:39SPEAKER_00: She attributes the problem to the fact
- 2:44SPEAKER_00: that we are not teaching our students how
- 2:47SPEAKER_00: to think and we're not teaching them how to communicate.
- 2:53SPEAKER_00: And this is then playing out
- 2:56SPEAKER_00: in a broader stage of the world around us,
- 3:01SPEAKER_00: filled with the inability to logically think through and effectively
- 3:07SPEAKER_00: and persuasively communicate.
- 3:11SPEAKER_00: With that, she says, obviously there is a problem.
- 3:17SPEAKER_00: Let's look at a solution.
- 3:20SPEAKER_00: And she points back to the educational system
- 3:24SPEAKER_00: of the Middle Ages using what is called the stages of the trivium,
- 3:31SPEAKER_00: which for those of you who are familiar with classical learning,
- 3:35SPEAKER_00: the trivium and its levels of grammar,
- 3:40SPEAKER_00: logic or dialectic and rhetoric are
- 3:44SPEAKER_00: the foundations for today's classical model.
- 3:49SPEAKER_00: The question then becomes,
- 3:52SPEAKER_00: is looking back at how they did it in the Middle Ages a bad thing?
- 4:00SPEAKER_00: Is that saying, oh, we're going backwards, we should be advancing?
- 4:07SPEAKER_00: Is it a bad thing?
- 4:08SPEAKER_00: Or is it correcting an error in the way we are currently doing it?
- 4:14SPEAKER_00: Because what we are getting as a result
- 4:17SPEAKER_00: with today's educational system is not
- 4:21SPEAKER_00: as effective as what they were getting in the Middle Ages.
- 4:28SPEAKER_00: The difference then being classical education does not focus
- 4:35SPEAKER_00: on subject matter.
- 4:37SPEAKER_00: But focuses on teaching students how to think.
- 4:42SPEAKER_00: And the various subjects are used to do that,
- 4:47SPEAKER_00: are the fodder with which students learn.
- 4:52SPEAKER_00: Learn to think, to communicate,
- 4:55SPEAKER_00: and to have a solid basis in fact to begin with.
- 4:59SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're really going to be focusing on this week is how do we make
- 5:05SPEAKER_00: that translate into our 2024 classroom
- 5:11SPEAKER_00: if it was something used back
- 5:13SPEAKER_00: in the Middle Ages?
- 5:15SPEAKER_00: Dorothy addresses this question very clearly
- 5:19SPEAKER_00: with some pretty specific suggestions.
- 5:22SPEAKER_00: But before we go into that,
- 5:25SPEAKER_00: I really did feel it was necessary for us to take a look
- 5:30SPEAKER_00: at the contrast between what we would say is the classical model
- 5:38SPEAKER_00: and the progressive educational model, which is more common today.
- 5:45SPEAKER_00: Gaining sources from many different places,
- 5:49SPEAKER_00: really you can sum it up in a couple of statements that I think when you see
- 5:55SPEAKER_00: the difference, it'll help you learn how
- 5:58SPEAKER_00: to practically apply the classical model.
- 6:03SPEAKER_00: Basically, the progressive educational system gets its name
- 6:07SPEAKER_00: because it was contrasted.
- 6:10SPEAKER_00: It was progressing from the traditional system.
- 6:15SPEAKER_00: That division point came from pre-industrial times, is considered the classical,
- 6:23SPEAKER_00: and post-industrial era.
- 6:27SPEAKER_00: In the progressive learning arena,
- 6:30SPEAKER_00: students learn by doing, Thematic units of study,
- 6:35SPEAKER_00: they are developing social skills and cooperative learning,
- 6:41SPEAKER_00: and they look forward with the subjects
- 6:46SPEAKER_00: to what skills will society need.
- 6:51SPEAKER_00: Contrasted with the classical system,
- 6:55SPEAKER_00: which learns by learning facts and learning how to learn.
- 7:02SPEAKER_00: Instead of having thematic units of study,
- 7:07SPEAKER_00: we have stages of learning
- 7:10SPEAKER_00: with which the students are reviewing over those facts
- 7:15SPEAKER_00: and learning more as they go.
- 7:18SPEAKER_00: And where the progressive education says,
- 7:22SPEAKER_00: let's focus on social skills and cooperative learning,
- 7:26SPEAKER_00: the traditional classical model says,
- 7:31SPEAKER_00: let's teach them how to think and how
- 7:35SPEAKER_00: to learn and then how to communicate better
- 7:40SPEAKER_00: with that logical element thrown in.
- 7:44SPEAKER_00: Hence, the classical model always will teach formal logic,
- 7:51SPEAKER_00: not as a subject matter,
- 7:53SPEAKER_00: but as a tool to learn and a tool to communicate.
- 7:59SPEAKER_00: So, the progressive model does sound good,
- 8:05SPEAKER_00: but has it really been successful?
- 8:09SPEAKER_00: That kind of is up for question.
- 8:12SPEAKER_00: So back though to the medieval and Dorothy Sayers presentation
- 8:18SPEAKER_00: of the classical model of learning.
- 8:22SPEAKER_00: She really breaks learning into the three ages of learning,
- 8:28SPEAKER_00: which is Paul Parrott,
- 8:31SPEAKER_00: Hurt and Poetic.
- 8:34SPEAKER_00: If you think of it, pole parrot,
- 8:36SPEAKER_00: that's the stage where the students parrot back and repeat back the facts.
- 8:43SPEAKER_00: Pert, the base for words like impertinent,
- 8:46SPEAKER_00: that argumentative, discussive learning,
- 8:51SPEAKER_00: and poetic moves into the higher level
- 8:56SPEAKER_00: and the ability to connect all of those
- 8:58SPEAKER_00: and the desire to express what they're learning in a well-formed fashion.
- 9:08SPEAKER_00: That really does model after the grammar level,
- 9:13SPEAKER_00: the logic or dialectic level,
- 9:16SPEAKER_00: and the rhetoric level in the pole parrot, hurt, and poetic.
- 9:23SPEAKER_00: In the pole parrot stage, learning is easy.
- 9:27SPEAKER_00: Reasoning is a little more difficult.
- 9:30SPEAKER_00: We get that real literal thinking and The fact that they can know something
- 9:36SPEAKER_00: but not necessarily fully grasp at that idea.
- 9:41SPEAKER_00: That's the pole parrot or what we would say similar to the grammar level.
- 9:46SPEAKER_00: The second step is the pert and that's known for their desire innately
- 9:53SPEAKER_00: to contradict, to answer back.
- 9:56SPEAKER_00: They're starting to identify the nuances in things that are being said.
- 10:02SPEAKER_00: That's where the logic level comes in and teaching students at that level
- 10:08SPEAKER_00: to think logically allows them to use that passion for argument
- 10:15SPEAKER_00: in a well-structured format.
- 10:19SPEAKER_00: And then the poetic level, it's actually a little more self-centered,
- 10:25SPEAKER_00: but with that desire to express their opinions
- 10:29SPEAKER_00: and the desire to be independent.
- 10:32SPEAKER_00: And those things are what push them to have
- 10:36SPEAKER_00: to learn how to persuasively communicate.
- 10:41SPEAKER_00: When you are looking at these three stages in correlation with the levels
- 10:48SPEAKER_00: of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, what does that look like with subject matter then?
- 10:55SPEAKER_00: Because there is facts that we have to have And that have to be fed
- 11:02SPEAKER_00: into the students for them to be able to learn how to think about those things.
- 11:07SPEAKER_00: So we're going to spend some time looking at what Dorothy recommends on each level
- 11:14SPEAKER_00: and also how does that play out in our 21st century classrooms.
- 11:21SPEAKER_00: In the grammar level, she recommends Latin being taught.
- 11:27SPEAKER_00: General studies support the fact
- 11:30SPEAKER_00: that a child can learn a new language much easier
- 11:34SPEAKER_00: than an adult can.
- 11:36SPEAKER_00: And Latin fits into that same category.
- 11:40SPEAKER_00: I've seen the little kindergartners do the Amo Amas Amat song chant
- 11:47SPEAKER_00: and have it all memorized, but do they have a grasp of what they're saying? No.
- 11:54SPEAKER_00: No.
- 11:56SPEAKER_00: And that's okay.
- 11:58SPEAKER_00: That's where you're giving them, as we say, the fodder for thinking and learning.
- 12:04SPEAKER_00: In the upper stages, you're planting all of those seeds in the lower stages.
- 12:10SPEAKER_00: So things like Latin with the chants that are easy to remember,
- 12:16SPEAKER_00: that's perfect in that grammar level.
- 12:20SPEAKER_00: Reading good literature, Where they're reading it, but they're also being read too.
- 12:27SPEAKER_00: And they're enjoying it as good literature.
- 12:32SPEAKER_00: Not especially in the lower levels, picking apart every little nuance.
- 12:38SPEAKER_00: That's going to come later.
- 12:40SPEAKER_00: But exposing them to the joy and beauty
- 12:44SPEAKER_00: and wonder of good literature.
- 12:49SPEAKER_00: Another thing that is crucial
- 12:52SPEAKER_00: on the grammar school level is getting them solid
- 12:56SPEAKER_00: in their recitation skills.
- 12:59SPEAKER_00: That is building the groundwork for that rhetoric level.
- 13:05SPEAKER_00: It's being established when it's still moldable for them,
- 13:10SPEAKER_00: where they can learn the skills in an easy setting.
- 13:15SPEAKER_00: So when it gets more difficult,
- 13:17SPEAKER_00: they can refer back to things that are almost muscle memory for them.
- 13:22SPEAKER_00: And that's where the oral rhetoric and communication curriculum that I'm working
- 13:28SPEAKER_00: on Will allow us to take it down
- 13:32SPEAKER_00: to even the lowest grammar school so they have
- 13:37SPEAKER_00: a running start when they are very much sponges for it.
- 13:44SPEAKER_00: Another subject is history.
- 13:47SPEAKER_00: Really points out the fact that what we're doing is we're giving them hooks
- 13:53SPEAKER_00: and timelines and dates for them to hang future information on.
- 14:01SPEAKER_00: Giving them a framework, but again,
- 14:05SPEAKER_00: will they get the whole picture now?
- 14:08SPEAKER_00: No.
- 14:10SPEAKER_00: But that's okay.
- 14:11SPEAKER_00: They are getting a framework and they're learning that history is more
- 14:17SPEAKER_00: than just what's happening to me.
- 14:20SPEAKER_00: It gives them a picture of the whole world around them.
- 14:25SPEAKER_00: Dorothy Sayers also mentions geography being important at this end
- 14:30SPEAKER_00: and teaching them visually so they can see what different things look like,
- 14:36SPEAKER_00: different landforms, the map, the globe,
- 14:41SPEAKER_00: helping it become a more visual representation for them.
- 14:46SPEAKER_00: The Learning States and Capitals.
- 14:49SPEAKER_00: And I have to pause here.
- 14:51SPEAKER_00: I just read an article about a teacher in a high school
- 14:56SPEAKER_00: after finding her students didn't know the names and weren't able to identify
- 15:02SPEAKER_00: the 50 states.
- 15:04SPEAKER_00: She required them to do that.
- 15:07SPEAKER_00: And the backlash this teacher got was amazing.
- 15:13SPEAKER_00: How dare you make my child learn something so insignificant?
- 15:21SPEAKER_00: I was completely dumbfounded because that is something
- 15:27SPEAKER_00: that really should be learned and known.
- 15:32SPEAKER_00: For them to be effective adults
- 15:35SPEAKER_00: who can communicate and think about the world around them.
- 15:40SPEAKER_00: That's what the classical model says.
- 15:43SPEAKER_00: Let's get it while they're little,
- 15:44SPEAKER_00: while they can learn it in songs and they can play with maps and play with globes.
- 15:52SPEAKER_00: Now she approaches math
- 15:54SPEAKER_00: with a somewhat different mindset than I've seen
- 16:00SPEAKER_00: in classical curriculums of math.
- 16:03SPEAKER_00: And to be honest, I can see both sides, but she basically says,
- 16:09SPEAKER_00: let's get the foundation solid, which I think all curriculums would agree on.
- 16:15SPEAKER_00: Students should be able to add, subtract, multiply,
- 16:21SPEAKER_00: Even dividing as they get into the upper grammar school.
- 16:25SPEAKER_00: But it should all be on a very basic level.
- 16:31SPEAKER_00: Some curriculums would disagree
- 16:32SPEAKER_00: with that and saying let's introduce those higher levels when they're younger
- 16:39SPEAKER_00: so they can start building a framework.
- 16:42SPEAKER_00: We're not going to go into that discussion.
- 16:44SPEAKER_00: But I think we can all agree that having those basics super solid is going
- 16:51SPEAKER_00: to allow them to advance further.
- 16:55SPEAKER_00: And the last subject that she mentions is Bible or Theology.
- 17:03SPEAKER_00: I love how she refers to this as the mistress science.
- 17:08SPEAKER_00: And this is a quote directly from her because I think it does give us the breadth
- 17:14SPEAKER_00: of how important teaching Bible and theology is,
- 17:20SPEAKER_00: even on the grammar school level.
- 17:23SPEAKER_00: She says, Without which, speaking of Bible theology,
- 17:28SPEAKER_00: without which the whole educational structure
- 17:33SPEAKER_00: will necessarily lack its final
- 17:36SPEAKER_00: synthesis.
- 17:38SPEAKER_00: So Bible and that the mistress science
- 17:42SPEAKER_00: of Bible is what is tying everything together.
- 17:48SPEAKER_00: Now, the key to understanding this classical model
- 17:53SPEAKER_00: is not seeing these individual things
- 17:58SPEAKER_00: as subjects.
- 18:00SPEAKER_00: Putting them all in boxes is the very modern view of learning.
- 18:07SPEAKER_00: She says, instead, this is where the difference will be.
- 18:12SPEAKER_00: And again, a quote from her because she just really captures it well.
- 18:17SPEAKER_00: The difference will be felt rather in the attitude
- 18:22SPEAKER_00: of the teachers who must look
- 18:25SPEAKER_00: upon all of these activities less as subjects in themselves
- 18:32SPEAKER_00: than as a gathering together of material for use in the next part of the Trivium.
- 18:39SPEAKER_00: With that, we have to have the mindset to say that It is okay
- 18:46SPEAKER_00: if they do not fully understand everything they are learning.
- 18:53SPEAKER_00: They can know without full understanding on the grammar level.
- 19:00SPEAKER_00: Then, how do you tell when they move to the end of that pole parrot,
- 19:06SPEAKER_00: that grammar level,
- 19:08SPEAKER_00: Really how she describes it and having taught on that gap
- 19:14SPEAKER_00: between the pole parrot and the pert, which was that fifth and sixth grade level,
- 19:22SPEAKER_00: observation and memory fall second to their desire to discuss
- 19:28SPEAKER_00: and to some degree argue comes more to the surface.
- 19:34SPEAKER_00: It is crucial that they start
- 19:38SPEAKER_00: with formal logic at that point.
- 19:42SPEAKER_00: It's really what you're doing is you're equipping them to be able to discuss and argue.
- 19:48SPEAKER_00: They are learning the art of arguing correctly.
- 19:53SPEAKER_00: All I can say is, whoa,
- 19:55SPEAKER_00: imagine equipping junior hires to argue correctly.
- 20:03SPEAKER_00: That's actually pretty scary when you think about it.
- 20:06SPEAKER_00: And when you see it in action, it is awesome.
- 20:12SPEAKER_00: Because as they move into that dialectic or logic, the PERT stage,
- 20:18SPEAKER_00: they are going to still have those subjects, but again, not as individual boxes,
- 20:25SPEAKER_00: grammar and They're actually now more focused on the use and the syntax
- 20:31SPEAKER_00: and the analysis of what's being written.
- 20:34SPEAKER_00: With writing, they're being required to be more precise and actually having
- 20:41SPEAKER_00: to Narrowed down what they're saying.
- 20:44SPEAKER_00: In reading, it's more keeping within the good literature.
- 20:49SPEAKER_00: It's more of analysis, debate, and they actually,
- 20:54SPEAKER_00: she points out the fact that dramatic Public performances are really very crucial
- 21:01SPEAKER_00: on this level because it gives them a chance
- 21:05SPEAKER_00: to live out especially quality literature
- 21:09SPEAKER_00: on stage where it's not really themselves
- 21:13SPEAKER_00: because it can sometimes be difficult to put themselves out there,
- 21:17SPEAKER_00: but it allows them to learn vicariously through these characters.
- 21:24SPEAKER_00: Mathematics is not seen as just another class.
- 21:28SPEAKER_00: It is actually seen as part of logic.
- 21:32SPEAKER_00: History is put in as theology
- 21:36SPEAKER_00: and logic with an application of ethics and logic.
- 21:40SPEAKER_00: Geography and sciences are along that same line.
- 21:45SPEAKER_00: And really what you're doing is you're continuing to build what they have learned
- 21:52SPEAKER_00: in that grammar level now becomes the playground for their logic.
- 21:58SPEAKER_00: And the tools they are learning in logic are allowing them to step further
- 22:04SPEAKER_00: into the information that they've been learning.
- 22:09SPEAKER_00: Dorothy Sayers talked about a discussion that Students in this PERT
- 22:14SPEAKER_00: or logic level had about rain in their town.
- 22:19SPEAKER_00: It rained, but it was one of those rainstorms that only half of the road got wet.
- 22:24SPEAKER_00: So could you actually say that it rained in town or did it rain on the town?
- 22:30SPEAKER_00: And how much rain is needed for it to be able to say it had rained that day?
- 22:36SPEAKER_00: This was a full out discussion the students had.
- 22:40SPEAKER_00: We're now having students really dig in and have to think logically
- 22:47SPEAKER_00: through because they're being challenged by their classmates to do
- 22:51SPEAKER_00: that logical thinking.
- 22:54SPEAKER_00: With this level, you have to be sure you're pointing out good and bad examples
- 23:00SPEAKER_00: and all of the subjects are Linked together.
- 23:05SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you will see it presented as an omnibus where the history
- 23:11SPEAKER_00: and the literature and Bible are all linked together along
- 23:17SPEAKER_00: with grammar and writing.
- 23:20SPEAKER_00: That is the best way for students to learn on this level.
- 23:26SPEAKER_00: I like how she says this as far
- 23:29SPEAKER_00: as equipping this junior high level with logic.
- 23:34SPEAKER_00: She says, quote, It will doubtless be objected that to encourage young persons
- 23:40SPEAKER_00: at this pert age to browbeat, correct,
- 23:45SPEAKER_00: and argue with their elders will rend them perfectly intolerable.
- 23:51SPEAKER_00: My answer is that children of that age are intolerable anyhow,
- 23:58SPEAKER_00: and that their natural argumentativeness may just as well be canonized
- 24:03SPEAKER_00: to good purpose as allowed to run away into the sand.
- 24:09SPEAKER_00: That's funny.
- 24:10SPEAKER_00: They are difficult.
- 24:12SPEAKER_00: Might as well equip them to be difficult accurately and logically.
- 24:19SPEAKER_00: Which brings us then into the final stage,
- 24:22SPEAKER_00: which we would say rhetoric or as she refers to the poetic stage.
- 24:28SPEAKER_00: And this is the point where they are starting to really understand that they have
- 24:34SPEAKER_00: a lot more to learn.
- 24:37SPEAKER_00: Their imagination begins to reawaken because they're willing to look at things
- 24:44SPEAKER_00: a little differently.
- 24:46SPEAKER_00: Rather than how they were in that logic, that PERT age.
- 24:52SPEAKER_00: At this point in their learning,
- 24:54SPEAKER_00: things they learned by rote in grammar school and actually
- 25:00SPEAKER_00: on the logic level are able to be re-examined with new insight.
- 25:08SPEAKER_00: Things that they debated are able to be put together in different forms
- 25:14SPEAKER_00: because they're better understanding
- 25:17SPEAKER_00: the truth in what they see around them.
- 25:22SPEAKER_00: Subjects at this point should be open for deeper analysis and appreciation,
- 25:28SPEAKER_00: not just criticism, although Critical thinking of the different things is crucial
- 25:34SPEAKER_00: as we saw and they saw in the logic level.
- 25:37SPEAKER_00: Now we're looking more with appreciation, allowing them to specialize,
- 25:43SPEAKER_00: but keeping them open and understanding that all learning is connected.
- 25:50SPEAKER_00: Somebody who is really good in the math and sciences should also have to balance out
- 25:56SPEAKER_00: with the humanities.
- 25:58SPEAKER_00: And the recommendation of having a final, as Dorothy calls it,
- 26:03SPEAKER_00: leaving examination is
- 26:06SPEAKER_00: an amazing thing to see in practice.
- 26:12SPEAKER_00: Students will often spend the good part of their last year to year
- 26:16SPEAKER_00: and a half researching a topic
- 26:20SPEAKER_00: that is of interest to them that they are going
- 26:23SPEAKER_00: to present and persuade students On their view,
- 26:29SPEAKER_00: what an amazing culmination of the grammar, logic,
- 26:35SPEAKER_00: and rhetoric that they've had to learn in their educational process.
- 26:42SPEAKER_00: The paper is researched and written
- 26:46SPEAKER_00: under the tutelage of teachers and instructors.
- 26:50SPEAKER_00: Then the student presents it orally to a panel
- 26:55SPEAKER_00: and that panel then questions them
- 26:59SPEAKER_00: and they have to defend their thesis.
- 27:04SPEAKER_00: It is awesome to see these young men
- 27:09SPEAKER_00: and women stand confidently before a panel
- 27:13SPEAKER_00: of experts, often including experts in the field of their topic,
- 27:20SPEAKER_00: and get drilled on how and why they came to the conclusions they did.
- 27:28SPEAKER_00: That is where we see the pinnacle of classical learning,
- 27:36SPEAKER_00: in the ability to not just know the facts, grammar level,
- 27:41SPEAKER_00: to logically think about those facts, logic level,
- 27:46SPEAKER_00: and to be able to communicate them with logic effectively and persuasively.
- 27:54SPEAKER_00: At this point, following the Middle Ages medieval model,
- 28:00SPEAKER_00: a student would then potentially go on to university at the age of 16
- 28:08SPEAKER_00: because they would say that grammar level is 9 to 11,
- 28:13SPEAKER_00: the dialectic logic level is 12 to 14,
- 28:18SPEAKER_00: and the rhetoric level they would have had as 14 to 16.
- 28:23SPEAKER_00: Well, in our educational system, that's not laid out that way.
- 28:30SPEAKER_00: But can you imagine a student equipped
- 28:34SPEAKER_00: as a thinker and as a communicator by the age
- 28:38SPEAKER_00: of 16, ready to go off and be on their own?
- 28:42SPEAKER_00: We give them a cushion of a couple more years in the American educational system.
- 28:47SPEAKER_00: How much more should they then be ready to do exactly that?
- 28:53SPEAKER_00: To end, Dorothy talks about the fact that our educational capital has been depleted
- 29:01SPEAKER_00: and our roots have been forgotten.
- 29:06SPEAKER_00: This was written in 1947.
- 29:09SPEAKER_00: And she says
- 29:11SPEAKER_00: that the 300 years prior has been
- 29:15SPEAKER_00: fed this great educational foundation
- 29:21SPEAKER_00: of how learning is done.
- 29:24SPEAKER_00: What are the tools of learning?
- 29:28SPEAKER_00: We got to the point where that was no longer seen as important.
- 29:35SPEAKER_00: Prior to that, the sources were still in that classical tradition.
- 29:40SPEAKER_00: The teachers, to a good point, were still in that classical tradition.
- 29:47SPEAKER_00: We have been running on that educational capital since that time.
- 29:53SPEAKER_00: For 300 and almost 80 years,
- 29:58SPEAKER_00: we've been running on The same tank of gas
- 30:02SPEAKER_00: that is now depleted to just
- 30:06SPEAKER_00: about nothing.
- 30:08SPEAKER_00: As Dorothy says, a tradition deeply rooted but never watered will still die.
- 30:16SPEAKER_00: We are helping our students get these tools
- 30:21SPEAKER_00: of learning that have been lost.
- 30:25SPEAKER_00: Back in the day, the axe, the wedge, the hammer, the saw, the chisel, the plane,
- 30:32SPEAKER_00: those were the tools that accomplished everything.
- 30:35SPEAKER_00: Today, as Dorothy says,
- 30:39SPEAKER_00: we give the students a jig that allows them to do one job
- 30:45SPEAKER_00: and one job only.
- 30:47SPEAKER_00: And with that, We're not training their hands.
- 30:50SPEAKER_00: We're not training their eyes.
- 30:53SPEAKER_00: We're saying, here's your jig, make it work.
- 30:57SPEAKER_00: Teachers are doing their best to try to keep the structure upright that is built
- 31:04SPEAKER_00: on the shifting sand.
- 31:06SPEAKER_00: Teachers are, as Dorothy says,
- 31:09SPEAKER_00: doing for their pupils the work which the pupils themselves ought to do.
- 31:15SPEAKER_00: We are doing the thinking.
- 31:18SPEAKER_00: We are doing the communicating and we are not allowing
- 31:23SPEAKER_00: or expecting them to do any
- 31:27SPEAKER_00: of that for themselves.
- 31:30SPEAKER_00: That is why we need
- 31:33SPEAKER_00: to regain the lost tools of learning.
- 31:39SPEAKER_00: And that my friends is our biggest challenge.
- 31:48SPEAKER_00: Whether you are all in classical ed,
- 31:53SPEAKER_00: or you're just kind of curious,
- 31:56SPEAKER_00: or even you just want to be a better teacher.
- 32:02SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll stick around and join us for this next podcast.
- 32:08SPEAKER_00: To get the latest episode, please sign up for the Leading to Wonder newsletter,
- 32:16SPEAKER_00: You can subscribe to the podcast directly
- 32:20SPEAKER_00: on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen.
- 32:27SPEAKER_00: To learn more about me and Leading to Wonder,
- 32:32SPEAKER_00: you can visit my website at leading2wonder.com.
- 32:37SPEAKER_00: No spaces.
- 32:40SPEAKER_00: And finally...
- 32:41SPEAKER_00: Again, thank you for joining us.
- 32:43SPEAKER_00: Until next week, remember, as E.B.
- 32:46SPEAKER_00: White said, or even for information regarding in -house
- 32:50SPEAKER_00: or virtual teacher training workshops.
- 32:54SPEAKER_00: Feel free to email me at Darlene
- 32:57SPEAKER_00: at leading2wonder .com Again,
- 33:02SPEAKER_00: thank you for joining us until next week remember as E .B.
- 33:08SPEAKER_00: White said Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.
- 33:15[music]