Latest / The Grammar of Classical Education / Book Recommendation & Discussion - The Liberal Arts Tradition #8 (Ep. 24)

Transcript

Book Recommendation & Discussion - The Liberal Arts Tradition #8 (Ep. 24) · The Grammar of Classical Education

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Hello,
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: welcome to the Grammar of Classical Education,
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: a podcast that covers the foundations as well as the philosophical and theoretical
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: ideas of classical learning in a user-friendly and,
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: may I even say,
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: 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: It is so hard to believe that we are on our eighth episode in the liberal arts
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: tradition by Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: I have so enjoyed really digging in and looking at what they say and looking at the
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: ideas that surround it and in some ways hopefully making it a little more
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: applicable for you.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Last week we took a look at what grammar school looked like according to Quotillion
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: from that time period and
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And while we found it was quite different than our grammar school today,
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: as far as scheduling especially,
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you remember that the goal of the grammar level was to introduce
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: words, and ideas.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: So as Clark and Jane said,
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: the students would become,
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: quote,
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: at home in the language and in a perfect position for future learning to come more naturally.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I just love how Clark and Jane state the goal of a strong grammar school liberal arts education.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is exactly what they say.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Quote,
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: it is only from the resources of a well-cultivated memory a carefully trained
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: intuition a well-stocked storeroom of natural literary and historical knowledge
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: and perhaps the most importantly a profound sense of whom to trust that a student
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: is ready to engage in what we might call the critical aspect
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: of grammar education.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Those are really our goals.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Clearly stated,
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: it would be a well-cultivated memory filled with good things to remember,
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: not just good times,
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: but facts and poems and sayings,
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: things that they can stick in their head that they'll be able to draw from later.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Carefully trained intuition.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is really coming from a good deal of imitation of what is true,
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: what is good,
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: and what is beautiful.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: A well-stocked storeroom of knowledge.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Remember,
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: they will not get the entire puzzle put together with you in that one year,
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: but you have given them
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: a wonderful picture to experience as they start to put the pieces together.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, a profound sense of whom to trust.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Putting them in the place of trusting God and having gleaned from excellent sources
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: how to know actually what is true,
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: good,
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: and beautiful by their own firsthand experience.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the goals of grammar school.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: I do want to put a little note in here.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Did you notice it is not set on facts alone?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: It is not they need to know these elements and they need to know these dates and
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: they need to know these things.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: It is a mindset.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now it does address all of those, but that is not the focus of grammar school.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And from that, we're going to take a quick look this week at the logic level or the dialectic level.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then next week, we'll finish up this trivium section with the rhetoric level.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be kind of moving quicker through these because while most of the
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: listeners do seem to be grammar school teachers,
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: I do want you to be aware of what you are prepping them for.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: I also know we do have some logic and rhetoric teachers in our midst,
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: so we'll address those just briefly.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: But again,
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: as always,
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot recommend to you enough that you get your own copy of The Liberal Arts
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Tradition by Clark and Jane.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: It is an absolutely outstanding resource.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: and explanation of the liberal arts tradition.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: But let's move right along.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: From the grammar level, students move into the dialectic level, sometimes also called the logic level.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: In today's system, this would be considered the seventh and eighth grade.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: I do want you to realize that it is not a definitive line where prior to seventh grade,
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: students will have no dealing at all with dialectic learning.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that's also saying that before ninth grade,
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: students would have no dealing at all with oral communication and rhetoric.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: It is actually quite to the contrary of that.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: To be honest, it makes it more evident when we learn to use the term dialectic rather than logic.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Dialectic learning is,
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: according to Merriam-Webster,
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: discussion and reasoning by dialogue as a method of intellectual investigation.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Notice it uses the word dialogue.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Dialogue requires that oral exchange of ideas, the back and forth.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And as Clark and Jane point out, the greatest learning takes place in dialogue.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: At all levels,
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: the students learn the most in conversation with a person who has more knowledge
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: than they do.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: With that in mind, I guess you could say that a two-year-old's why stage is a precursor
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: to their learning in dialectic form.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Logic, however, is a little bit different.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Logic,
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: defined by Merriam-Webster,
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: is discussion and reasoning by dialogue as a method of intellectual investigation.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is the science of the formal principles of reasoning.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: when we would use the term dialectic and logic yes they are somewhat
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: interchangeable but they're not completely identical when we say logic in the
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: truest sense it is basing in that formal principles of reasoning it takes on a
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: little bit different step than dialectic learning
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: While doing research on dialectic reasoning and logic,
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: it was really interesting to see the span of opinions on this form of teaching,
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: not just in the context of a trivium format,
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: but at all.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: In one book,
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: it was pointed out that we have clearly gotten past the need to have teachers
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: communicating information to the students.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: It should be the students finding out the information on their own.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thus,
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: dialectic learning was an excellent method of letting students discuss the ideas
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: and come to a suitable conclusion for themselves.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: We would definitely not agree with that philosophy.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: As Clark and Jane point out,
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: it is exactly the input of the teacher that makes dialectic learning so valuable.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: They constantly come back to the liberal arts, joining understanding
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: and imitation in the dialectic level the natural progression of having learned
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: things and now wanting to and in fact needing to hash them out verbally
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: finds its perfect home.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: They are at home in the language from the grammar level,
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: and now they are learning how to use that language to get more knowledge.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was kind of surprised to find that while Socrates and Plato used the dialectic
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: method of teaching,
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Aristotle,
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: while a student of Plato,
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: actually turned away from their method and supported more of what we would consider formal logic.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Today,
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: logic is really developed during the course of the dialogues that are taking place
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: in addition to being an actual course.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: So they learn it in a course, but then practice it in that conversation that takes place.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was interesting too that a majority of the sources that I found put very little
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: emphasis on the teacher or the leader of the discussion.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: But like Clark and Jane,
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: a few did point out the fact that the questions themselves are helping to teach students.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: They learn from hearing questions how to build correct questions themselves.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: In the book,
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Critical Issues in Education,
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: a Dialectic Approach,
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: the author stated that encouraging dialectical thinking helps students focus by,
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: quote,
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: not the finding of a predetermined right answer,
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: but rather on the process of thinking that is most important.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: End quote.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: With that,
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: you can see why it is crucial that we are building a solid foundation of piety,
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: gymnastic,
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: musical,
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: and liberal arts,
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: especially grammar,
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: in their education.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: We want our students to know that there are right and wrong answers,
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: but as they develop,
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: we want them to be able to logically think through any issue that they may face.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Amber Samson,
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: in her doctoral research on a theory of dialectic and its implication for education,
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: made an amazingly astute observation that we as classical Christian educators
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: really should give some thought to.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: She thought if it is possible to use dialectic teaching to help students think effectively,
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: and effective thinking is putting them on the,
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: quote,
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: path to wisdom,
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: shouldn't dialectic instruction be something that deserves further education in
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: order to build wisdom into our students?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think we can all say a resounding yes.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: That is what the goal is.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: While that is all well and good, what about the practical application?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: How can we use this in our everyday classroom if we are not teaching a logic class or
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: if we are not even close to the logic level.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Does this become a, oh, okay, that's interesting factoid for our kindergarten and first grade teachers?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: I would say no, not at all.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: There is definitely stuff in here for you too.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, granted it's little stuff,
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, maybe actually tiny little crumbs of stuff.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: But teachers,
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: if you can get a vision of where your kidlets are going,
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: you can be more encouraged in the small part you are playing in the
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: big picture of their educational journey clark and jane suggest small things like
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: memorized questions and answers
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: While it is true we use that for them to learn facts in the memorized reply,
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: they're also learning what a good question looks like,
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: as well as the grammatical organization of words.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Clark and Jane mentioned using catechisms for biblical memory and all the same features apply there.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now with older grammar school students,
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: you have a little more flexibility that you can play with in this dialectic area.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: You can begin to work with the issues and the ideas of Socratic discussion or Socratic seminars.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to go into this in more detail.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: We may save that for a bonus episode, but it is a great tool to use, especially in the
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: I am by no means an expert, but I have dabbled with it in my classes.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to tell you,
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: it is one of the most exciting experiences,
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: especially when you can get them really thinking and talking.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: It does take some work on the teacher's part.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: You really have to know your stuff and you have to have good questions planned in advance.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you also have to be able to think on your feet.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: But it helps to make the students truly active participants.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: By the way,
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: after they have some skills in discussion with you leading the questions,
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: you can move them a step further into a truly participatory mindset by conducting a
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Harkness discussion.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Again, not an expert, just someone with a little experience, but I can tell you it was awesome.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: It is not to be entered lightly.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: It took a lot of prep work with the students,
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: helping them to know how to have a classroom discussion,
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: how to talk,
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: but not talk too much,
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: how to listen,
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: how to build on what others say,
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: how to help ensure that everyone gets involved.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: It took a lot of prep work.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: however unlike a socratic seminar in a harkness discussion the teacher is no longer
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: taking the lead role i have to tell you this is not for the faint of heart
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: or for teachers who like to always be in control.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens is the teacher starts the discussion and the students take it from there.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: I have to tell you, I did this with a sixth grade class.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: After we had finished reading aloud The Magician's Nephew,
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: which is the first book in the Chronicles of Narnia,
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: and they had finished reading The Last Battle,
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: the final book of the series.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: In the course of their grammar school education at this school,
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: the students did read all of the books in the Narnia series.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: As sixth graders,
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: they were familiar with all of the books,
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: and we sat down for a Harkness discussion on the entire series.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because they were only sixth grade and this did require...
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: a lot of skill.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: I gave them guidelines for discussion topics and they had a few days to prepare.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: But when we got around the round table and I opened it up for them, it was incredible.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: I
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: For almost 60 minutes,
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: they had the most spectacular discussion about the entire series,
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: building off of each other,
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: sharing insight,
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: asking each other questions.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: I literally just sat down.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: in awe.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: while I was trying to keep track of their inputs into the discussion as that was
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: part of their grade.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: But when our timer went off, they were so disappointed.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: One student made a very passionate,
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: respectful plea for just a few more minutes,
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: which how could I say no to that?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: But
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was a joy to see just how much they learned having gone through the entire
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: series and that they had learned in how to ask questions and how to listen to answers.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: i was so proud of them and by the way lest you wonder as i have when i've seen
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: videos of this being done this was not a perfect class it was a sweet
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: but somewhat goofy group.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: But with this responsibility in front of them, they stepped it up.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: I, again, was so surprised and proud of them.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: All of that to say, grammar school teachers, you are getting them at home in the language.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: You are putting in front of them beautifully, poetically painted teaching.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: so they can be ready to take the next step in the trivium,
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: the three paths of language,
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: the step of putting that language and knowledge to use to learn even more about the truth,
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: beauty,
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: and goodness that surrounds them.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: you are doing that through the pictures you paint them through the discussions and
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: questions you ask them through teaching them how to listen to you so they can
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: recognize authorities that they should listen to you are preparing them to continue
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: their educational journey
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: It may not feel like you're making progress sometimes, but you are.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: You are building it step by step and all I can say is the little things are the big
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: things and you are making a mighty difference.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you are all in with classical ed or
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: you're just kind of curious,
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: or even you just want to be a better teacher,
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll stick around and join us for this next podcast.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: To get the latest episode,
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: as well as a fun little teacher's newsletter,
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: complete with a couple of classroom freebies,
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: please sign up for the Leading to Wonder newsletter.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Or you can subscribe to the podcast directly on Apple Podcast or Spotify or wherever you listen.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: To learn more about me and Leading to Wonder, you can visit my website at leadingtowonder.com.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: No spaces.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: And finally,
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: to reach out to me directly with questions or comments or even for information
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: regarding in-house or virtual teacher training workshops,
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: feel free to email me at
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Have an amazing week.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, as E.B.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: White said, always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.