Latest / The Grammar of Classical Education / Book Recommendation & Discussion - The Liberal Arts Tradition #3

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Book Recommendation & Discussion - The Liberal Arts Tradition #3 · The Grammar of Classical Education

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Hello,
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  SPEAKER_00: welcome to the Grammar of Classical Education,
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  SPEAKER_00: a podcast that covers the foundations as well as the philosophical and theoretical
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  SPEAKER_00: ideas of classical learning in a user-friendly and,
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  SPEAKER_00: may I even say,
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  SPEAKER_00: interesting way.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Dr. Darlene Gomes from Leading to Wonder, and I'm so glad that you could join me today.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to our study of the liberal arts tradition.
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  SPEAKER_00: And as I ended our last podcast,
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  SPEAKER_00: With Kevin Clark and Robbie Jane's definition of Christian classical education and
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  SPEAKER_00: the format that they laid out with the PG mapped piety,
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  SPEAKER_00: gymnastics,
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  SPEAKER_00: musical arts,
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  SPEAKER_00: the language arts,
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  SPEAKER_00: philosophy and theology.
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  SPEAKER_00: All of those things are serving as our springboard as we look at the language arts
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  SPEAKER_00: tradition in detail with their book as a source and other sources,
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  SPEAKER_00: and then consider how it can actually be used in our classrooms.
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  SPEAKER_00: I realize that the definition itself does start with the foundation of grounded in piety,
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  SPEAKER_00: as does PG mapped,
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  SPEAKER_00: the P being piety.
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  SPEAKER_00: However, we are going to hold off on piety for just a bit.
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  SPEAKER_00: And there's a really specific reason why we're going to hold off on it.
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  SPEAKER_00: But let's just jump in with the G in the PG Mapped, gymnastics and the M, musical training.
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  SPEAKER_00: As we look in more detail at the gymnastic and musical training,
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  SPEAKER_00: we have to remember that as Clark and Jane state,
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  SPEAKER_00: quote,
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  SPEAKER_00: a full curriculum consists of arts and athletics as well as academics.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now,
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  SPEAKER_00: that can be said of all training in which we would think of as far as grammar
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  SPEAKER_00: school and upper school.
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  SPEAKER_00: James Rieger in The March of the Muses covers the development of higher education in Athens.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it started with a very strong emphasis on the physical training as well as the musical,
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  SPEAKER_00: which for them consists of music and literature.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it was interestingly enough,
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  SPEAKER_00: he pointed out that it was done for a strong performance by the students.
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  SPEAKER_00: but it wasn't just a strong physical performance it was being done to encourage and
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  SPEAKER_00: to train moral excellence rico goes on to say that the purpose was quote the
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  SPEAKER_00: cultural training to strengthen citizenship character and virtue in other words
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  SPEAKER_00: training not for a trade but for life however
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  SPEAKER_00: Even in Athens,
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  SPEAKER_00: this focus on physical training began to fade as education became open to everyone
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  SPEAKER_00: as opposed to just the higher class people.
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  SPEAKER_00: What actually is the purpose then of training the body?
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, when we consider training the physical bodies,
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  SPEAKER_00: We may need to go back and refresh ourselves in the premise of what we're doing.
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  SPEAKER_00: Everything we do, we can do, as Clark and Jane state, simply because we are human.
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  SPEAKER_00: There are many skills that we are just born able to do.
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  SPEAKER_00: One example that they give is speech.
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  SPEAKER_00: We are born with vocal cords and sound magnification built right into our bodies.
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  SPEAKER_00: But actual speech occurs only with training.
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  SPEAKER_00: In my own personal research,
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  SPEAKER_00: good speaking and presentation skills may come as a result of our human ability to speak,
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  SPEAKER_00: but they also come only effectively with training.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was interesting to see that several authors pointed out the fact that the life
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  SPEAKER_00: our students are living now compared to pre-industrial life is a huge difference.
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  SPEAKER_00: One medical study showed that 68% of modern students that they studied used an
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  SPEAKER_00: average of six hours a day
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  SPEAKER_00: on screen time, six hours a day.
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  SPEAKER_00: Another study said that the average child spends approximately,
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  SPEAKER_00: and this actually hurt my heart to read,
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  SPEAKER_00: spends approximately four to seven minutes a day outdoors in unstructured play.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, the study defined unstructured play as not controlled by specific rules, people, or limits.
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  SPEAKER_00: Just to get a better picture in your head, if you are over the age of 50, think back to your childhood.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you're between 40 and 50, you may remember these days.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you're under 50,
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  SPEAKER_00: 30, you probably just have to use your imagination.
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  SPEAKER_00: On a Saturday or every day in the summer,
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  SPEAKER_00: we would leave our houses with an admonition to be sure to be home when the
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  SPEAKER_00: streetlights came on.
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  SPEAKER_00: And after that, everything was fair game.
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  SPEAKER_00: I personally remember going down by a rather large creek near my house and with
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  SPEAKER_00: some friends flipping over rocks to find bugs.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying I participated, but watching a friend see if he was brave enough to eat one of them.
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  SPEAKER_00: And no one stopped us.
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  SPEAKER_00: We got muddy and dirty and no one cared.
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  SPEAKER_00: Just make sure you wipe your feet off when you come back into the house.
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  SPEAKER_00: On another adventure,
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  SPEAKER_00: we headed to an empty field behind the houses and we found this huge board with
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  SPEAKER_00: nails in it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And when we flipped it over, we watched several mice just scatter.
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  SPEAKER_00: The small group of us spent the majority of that day trying to figure out whether
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  SPEAKER_00: we should try and get the nails out so the cute little mice wouldn't get hurt,
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  SPEAKER_00: or if we should try and skewer one of them by dropping the board on him when he was
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  SPEAKER_00: scampering by.
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  SPEAKER_00: Needless to say, option one was victorious.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I distinctly remember running home, asking my mom for a hammer.
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  SPEAKER_00: She told me where I could find it and reminded me that it needed to be put back when I was done with it.
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  SPEAKER_00: No questions asked.
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  SPEAKER_00: No one being frightful that we were going to damage ourselves with the nails that
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  SPEAKER_00: were in the board that were rusty.
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  SPEAKER_00: The physicality and mental prowess necessary to just stay alive in those days was incredible.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's not even accounting for the real playgrounds that we had back in the day.
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  SPEAKER_00: Well,
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  SPEAKER_00: all of that to say,
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  SPEAKER_00: nowadays the most physical activity some of our students will get is thumb
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  SPEAKER_00: wrestling to hit the right place on the iPhone screen that is clenched in their
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  SPEAKER_00: tiny hands.
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  SPEAKER_00: As Clark and Jane pointed out,
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  SPEAKER_00: gymnastic or physical training is needed to build discipline,
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  SPEAKER_00: self-control,
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  SPEAKER_00: patience,
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  SPEAKER_00: and hard work.
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  SPEAKER_00: All elements that are needed to be a successful student and even more needed to be a successful human.
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  SPEAKER_00: I really liked how Clark and Jane wrapped up this section on gymnastic training
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  SPEAKER_00: with the idea that our Christian anthropology must match our teaching philosophy.
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  SPEAKER_00: So our view of how God created man, which is our Christian anthropology, must match how we teach.
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  SPEAKER_00: If we see our students only as bodies,
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  SPEAKER_00: then we will focus only on the physical if we see them only as minds then we will
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  SPEAKER_00: focus only on the mental if we see them only as a spirit and a soul then we will
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  SPEAKER_00: focus only on the heart and the emotions
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  SPEAKER_00: But we are created in the image of God to be all of those together.
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  SPEAKER_00: And therefore, we have to teach with the understanding that they are body, mind, and soul.
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  SPEAKER_00: We have to recognize all three and understand our teaching through that philosophy.
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  SPEAKER_00: What does it look like in a classroom?
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  SPEAKER_00: Does it translate to a physical free-for-all for several hours during the day?
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  SPEAKER_00: Um, no.
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  SPEAKER_00: While leaving that question up in the air for a minute,
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  SPEAKER_00: let's transition to the musical learning in the PG Mapped.
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  SPEAKER_00: While you may naturally assume that musical training is exactly what it sounds like,
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  SPEAKER_00: musical,
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  SPEAKER_00: you actually may have heard the statement I made earlier about the Greeks having a
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  SPEAKER_00: gymnastic training along with the music and literature.
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, that statement is getting closer to the actual meaning of the word.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think that Clark and Jane's definition is a really good starting spot for our consideration.
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  SPEAKER_00: They say, quote, musical education is soul craft.
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  SPEAKER_00: Carried out properly, it tunes the soul and makes one receptive to truth and goodness.
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  SPEAKER_00: They also distinguish musical education as,
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  SPEAKER_00: quote,
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  SPEAKER_00: not subject matter so much as it is the poetic mode of knowing that distinguishes
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  SPEAKER_00: musical education from later study.
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  SPEAKER_00: That description was footnoted to James S.
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  SPEAKER_00: Taylor and a book entitled Poetic Knowledge,
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  SPEAKER_00: The Recovery of Education.
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  SPEAKER_00: And thus, I discovered an amazing rabbit hole.
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  SPEAKER_00: And with that kind of a cliffhanger,
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  SPEAKER_00: let me just say that in our next podcast,
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  SPEAKER_00: we will venture down that rabbit hole together.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's my goal to help you not only get a better idea of musical education,
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  SPEAKER_00: but to see what you are doing is actually opening the door to the poetic learning
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  SPEAKER_00: that is so incredibly beneficial to every grade level.
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  SPEAKER_00: And not just in the grammar school, but for life.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're going to take a look in detail at what is poetic knowledge and poetic learning.
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  SPEAKER_00: How does it translate into our classrooms?
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  SPEAKER_00: And more importantly, how and why is it so critically connected to piety?
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  SPEAKER_00: With so many exciting things to look at,
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  SPEAKER_00: I figured it was better to have our podcast a little on the shorter end this week.
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  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, with a plethora of information, it might have been super long.
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  SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll join us next week as we continue to dig into the liberal arts
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  SPEAKER_00: tradition using Kevin Clark and Robbie Jane's work and the PG Mapped format to help
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  SPEAKER_00: us dig in a little bit more to not just on the surface know what we're doing,
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  SPEAKER_00: but the why we're doing what we're doing and how it can be part
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  SPEAKER_00: practically applied in our classrooms every day.
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  SPEAKER_00: So whether you are all in with classical ed,
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  SPEAKER_00: or you're just kind of curious,
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  SPEAKER_00: or even you just want to be a better teacher,
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  SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll stick around and join us for this next podcast.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: To get the latest episode,
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: as well as a fun little teacher's newsletter,
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: complete with a couple of classroom freebies,
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: please sign up for the Leading to Wonder newsletter.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Or you can subscribe to the podcast directly on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: To learn more about me and Leading to Wonder, you can visit my website at leadingtowonder.com.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: No spaces.
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  SPEAKER_00: And finally,
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  SPEAKER_00: to reach out to me directly with questions or comments or even for information
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: regarding in-house or online
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: virtual teacher training workshops, feel free to email me at Darlene at leading to wonder.com.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, as E.B.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: White said, always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.