Latest / The Grammar of Classical Education / Book Recommendation & Discussion - The Liberal Arts Tradition #6

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Book Recommendation & Discussion - The Liberal Arts Tradition #6 · 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.
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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.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And for many of you,
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: depending on when you're actually listening to this podcast,
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  SPEAKER_00: welcome to the last few weeks or even days of the school year.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: In the chaos craziness of wrapping up a year,
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  SPEAKER_00: I hope that in this past week you have looked for opportunities to be the breezes
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: from some healthy country for your classroom.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that you've created opportunities for poetic learning,
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  SPEAKER_00: drawing them to the wonder and joy of knowledge.
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  SPEAKER_00: This week,
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  SPEAKER_00: we are actually going to circle back toward the liberal arts tradition by Kevin
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  SPEAKER_00: Clark and Robbie Jane and tie in the poetic knowledge deep dive we did with James
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  SPEAKER_00: Taylor's book,
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  SPEAKER_00: into Clark and Jane's liberal arts format of PG Mapped.
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  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully you remember that the PG Mapped stands for piety,
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  SPEAKER_00: gymnastic,
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  SPEAKER_00: music,
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  SPEAKER_00: arts,
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  SPEAKER_00: the liberal arts,
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  SPEAKER_00: philosophy,
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  SPEAKER_00: theology.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that you can hold in your head the fact that when we talked about gymnastic training,
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  SPEAKER_00: that was the training of the body.
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  SPEAKER_00: The musical training or the training by the muses was more of what Clark and Jane called soul crafting.
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  SPEAKER_00: and to some degree is what we looked at with the poetic knowledge of James Taylor.
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  SPEAKER_00: This concept is not new.
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  SPEAKER_00: It actually dates back to Greek and medieval education and has been proven to be an
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  SPEAKER_00: effective way of lighting a spark to know more in the lives of our students.
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  SPEAKER_00: This creating of an invitation to wonder and joy truly begins by captivating the students' senses.
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  SPEAKER_00: Back to the analogy of putting together puzzle pieces.
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  SPEAKER_00: We are taking the time to enjoy and embrace that big picture before we
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  SPEAKER_00: even dumping out the puzzle pieces that,
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  SPEAKER_00: remember,
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  SPEAKER_00: are not expected to be put together completely as a puzzle within the context of
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  SPEAKER_00: your one year.
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  SPEAKER_00: This big picture is forming their desire to learn and forming their souls in the very process.
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  SPEAKER_00: As I had promised, we are actually now going to go back and look at that connection to piety.
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  SPEAKER_00: We had jumped over it going into gymnastic and musical training and then the foray into poetic knowledge.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I did that so that hopefully when we came back to see why piety is so crucial,
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  SPEAKER_00: you'll understand the why a little bit better.
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  SPEAKER_00: So stick with me here.
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  SPEAKER_00: We have to kind of go backwards before we can go forward.
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  SPEAKER_00: And as I used to tell my students,
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  SPEAKER_00: we are definitely going to be taking the scenic route on this explanation.
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  SPEAKER_00: But hopefully it will give you a better understanding of the importance of being grounded in piety.
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  SPEAKER_00: With poetic knowledge, musical education, training by the muses, the real world is the foundation.
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  SPEAKER_00: But it is opened up and invites us in through our senses.
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  SPEAKER_00: As Thomas Aquinas said, quote, the senses are for the sake of the intellect, not the other way around.
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  SPEAKER_00: In other words,
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  SPEAKER_00: our senses play a foundational force in how our knowledge and even how our view of
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  SPEAKER_00: the world is built.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now,
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  SPEAKER_00: we automatically think of just our five senses,
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  SPEAKER_00: and those I learned are actually only part of our senses.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're what Taylor calls our exterior senses,
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  SPEAKER_00: but there are also interior senses that are being built in this framework of poetic knowledge.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're based on the input of the five senses,
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  SPEAKER_00: but they continue to build our perception of the whole world around us.
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  SPEAKER_00: These include common sense,
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  SPEAKER_00: which by Taylor's definition is actually what makes all of the input from our five
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  SPEAKER_00: senses usable.
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  SPEAKER_00: It gives us our general perception of the world around us.
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  SPEAKER_00: I never really considered that that's so necessary to put the pieces together of our five senses.
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  SPEAKER_00: So things that we see connect to things that we hear, connect to things that we feel.
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  SPEAKER_00: All of those connections give us an understanding and that is referred to as common sense.
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  SPEAKER_00: which makes sense when we realize that the more input we have, the more common sense we're able to use.
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  SPEAKER_00: One of the interior senses is common sense.
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  SPEAKER_00: Another classified interior sense is imagination.
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  SPEAKER_00: As he defines it,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's picturing what isn't there,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is built on the information we've gained from our five senses of things that
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  SPEAKER_00: are there.
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  SPEAKER_00: Again,
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  SPEAKER_00: are you seeing how important it is that we are teaching with those five senses and
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  SPEAKER_00: that working with them in mind?
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  SPEAKER_00: By the way,
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  SPEAKER_00: the more we feed those five senses,
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  SPEAKER_00: the more there is available for the imagination to work with.
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  SPEAKER_00: So we have common sense, imagination, and a third of the interior senses is memory.
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  SPEAKER_00: And imagination pictures things that aren't there.
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  SPEAKER_00: Memory recalls the story of things from the past.
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  SPEAKER_00: So it's an interesting fact, though.
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  SPEAKER_00: Memory cannot be forced.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is either hooked into something in the brain or it isn't.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's why when students cram for a test,
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  SPEAKER_00: they often do not remember that information past the moment of the test.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's because they didn't really hook those ideas in.
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  SPEAKER_00: And as much as we try to force memory, it's not something that can be done by an outside source.
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  SPEAKER_00: We have to provide them hooks upon which to put memories.
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  SPEAKER_00: While imagination and memory are closely related,
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  SPEAKER_00: here's really an example of how they're quite different,
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  SPEAKER_00: but still similar.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm guessing most of you have probably never jumped out of an airplane.
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  SPEAKER_00: But if I were to say to you,
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  SPEAKER_00: imagine jumping out of an airplane,
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  SPEAKER_00: you would immediately picture the wind moving fast past you,
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  SPEAKER_00: the ground zooming towards you.
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  SPEAKER_00: They yank as the parachute opens.
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  SPEAKER_00: None of those things which you have actually experienced.
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  SPEAKER_00: But your senses have enough background to put together a picture in your head.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's imagination.
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  SPEAKER_00: The more you've fed the senses, the better the picture and the easier it is for you to imagine it.
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  SPEAKER_00: But if I were to say to you,
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  SPEAKER_00: remember when you bashed your toe into the leg of a hard surface,
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  SPEAKER_00: you're able to instantly pull up a picture because all of your senses were in use
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  SPEAKER_00: at that moment.
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  SPEAKER_00: You remember the pain.
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  SPEAKER_00: You remember what the situation was so that your brain goes, let's not let that happen again.
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  SPEAKER_00: All of that comes back to you as a memory, but it's clear based on your senses.
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  SPEAKER_00: The cool fact in teaching that's good to remember is that this is applicable to any subject,
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  SPEAKER_00: not just life outside of the classroom.
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  SPEAKER_00: The more you can get the senses involved, the more you are giving the brain hooks to hold on to the idea.
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  SPEAKER_00: as an example a friend who teaches in a classical school finished up their book
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  SPEAKER_00: that they were reading and it went with making an apple pie and she had her little
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  SPEAKER_00: first and second graders
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  SPEAKER_00: making an apple pie.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I saw a picture of them just looking inside the little toaster oven with such excitement and joy.
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  SPEAKER_00: You could feel it through the picture, their anticipation.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're going to remember not just making a pie, but the book that went with it.
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  SPEAKER_00: That is an example of how you can create a hook for memory in any subject.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that will be then building into a memory and actually feeding their imagination
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  SPEAKER_00: for other studies as well.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, the last of the interior senses that James Taylor works with is called estimative or
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  SPEAKER_00: or we would probably more clearly understand it as instinct.
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  SPEAKER_00: What that actually is,
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  SPEAKER_00: is you are able to take all of the input you have received from your senses over time,
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  SPEAKER_00: your imagination,
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  SPEAKER_00: your memories,
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  SPEAKER_00: and you're able to put all of the pieces together to make a decision.
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  SPEAKER_00: Taylor gives the example of Little Red Riding Hood.
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  SPEAKER_00: She did not have good estimative or instinct when it came to dealing with the wolf.
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  SPEAKER_00: She did not clearly know how dangerous wolves are.
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  SPEAKER_00: Talking to a wolf in the forest may not be the best idea.
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  SPEAKER_00: Telling him where you're going, not a great idea.
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  SPEAKER_00: She did not put all of the pieces together.
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  SPEAKER_00: By the way,
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  SPEAKER_00: it is also interesting to know that instinct can to some degree be trained and it
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  SPEAKER_00: can be guided by reason,
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  SPEAKER_00: but it is not based fully on facts.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting to see how that develops as students mature.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it also is a very common
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  SPEAKER_00: clear explanation as to why younger students are so extremely literal in their thinking.
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  SPEAKER_00: Idioms, for example, it's raining cats and dogs.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you were to say that, your tinies are going to run to the window expecting puppies and kittens.
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  SPEAKER_00: where older students are going to go, wow, it must really be raining hard.
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  SPEAKER_00: Students who are somewhere in the middle are probably going to be saying in their head,
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  SPEAKER_00: wait a minute,
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  SPEAKER_00: I know what rain is,
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  SPEAKER_00: sensed it,
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  SPEAKER_00: experienced it.
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  SPEAKER_00: I know what cats and dogs are, but there's a problem because cats and dogs don't come from the sky.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that issue,
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  SPEAKER_00: that problem that has been created in their brain is really a good thing because
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  SPEAKER_00: it's going to spark the desire to understand it and to make it make sense.
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  SPEAKER_00: So that's how all of these things work together.
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  SPEAKER_00: And you have to say, wow.
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  SPEAKER_00: The fact that God created our brain with the ability to process things that are as
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  SPEAKER_00: simple as our five senses,
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  SPEAKER_00: all the way to making decisions instinctively based on the processing of those,
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  SPEAKER_00: that is absolutely incredible.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now,
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  SPEAKER_00: with this next part,
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  SPEAKER_00: we are going to condense what was a super interesting section of Taylor's work.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I will spare you my passion and enthusiasm by saying that as the senses develop,
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  SPEAKER_00: the emotion comes more into play.
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  SPEAKER_00: As it's developing, those are kind of walking hand in hand.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then the will eventually begins to take over.
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  SPEAKER_00: The will uses all of the information from senses and emotion to move us toward what
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  SPEAKER_00: we desire or what we long for.
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  SPEAKER_00: So we've got the processing of all of those and then our will is going to pull us toward things.
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  SPEAKER_00: As Taylor explains it,
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  SPEAKER_00: we can only move toward what we possess or what we grasp via our senses and emotion.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then what we grasp, we can truly know.
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  SPEAKER_00: And what we truly know, we can love.
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  SPEAKER_00: And what we can love, we long for.
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  SPEAKER_00: And what we long for, our will directs us toward.
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  SPEAKER_00: With that in mind, let's consider the importance of the foundation and root of piety.
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  SPEAKER_00: So pausing that for a second, review of piety.
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  SPEAKER_00: Piety,
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  SPEAKER_00: as Clark and Jane defines it,
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  SPEAKER_00: is the proper love and fear of God and man,
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  SPEAKER_00: including the duty,
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  SPEAKER_00: respect and allegiance owed to each.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now,
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  SPEAKER_00: the term as understood by the definition of Clark and Jane actually originated in
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  SPEAKER_00: the concept back as far as Socrates.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it is way more than we commonly consider piety in our time today.
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  SPEAKER_00: We see piety as a religious uprightness.
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  SPEAKER_00: it is not that in its true foundation for the greeks piety would have been seen as
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  SPEAKER_00: a necessary element of everyday life and even plato seemed to believe that a virtue
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  SPEAKER_00: like this was something that could be taught
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, piety and that proper love and fear of God and man.
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  SPEAKER_00: Make sure that you have that foundational as we go forward.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's going to show itself in the duty,
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  SPEAKER_00: respect,
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  SPEAKER_00: and allegiance that we give,
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  SPEAKER_00: but that foundation of the proper love and fear of God specifically and man,
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  SPEAKER_00: how we deal with those around us.
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  SPEAKER_00: With that in mind, let's look at why piety is the first element in Clark and Jane's PG mapped format.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think it'll be easier if we actually take piety out of the equation completely.
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  SPEAKER_00: If we move toward what we possess or grasp through our senses and emotion,
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  SPEAKER_00: and what we grasp we can know,
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  SPEAKER_00: and what we can know we can love,
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  SPEAKER_00: and what we love we long for,
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  SPEAKER_00: and what we long for our will directs us toward.
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  SPEAKER_00: what if we have no direction from the very beginning we have nothing as our
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  SPEAKER_00: foundational guide we have no paideia which is the greek word for the transmitting
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  SPEAKER_00: of a culture by the way clark and jane point out that this is the word used in
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  SPEAKER_00: ephesians 6 4
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  SPEAKER_00: Fathers,
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  SPEAKER_00: do not provoke your children to anger,
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  SPEAKER_00: but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord,
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  SPEAKER_00: the paideia of the Lord.
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  SPEAKER_00: What if we don't have any of that?
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  SPEAKER_00: What if we have no virtue to order our loves from the very start?
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  SPEAKER_00: Can you see then how the senses,
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  SPEAKER_00: the emotions,
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  SPEAKER_00: the will,
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  SPEAKER_00: the intellect would all be left to the control of our sinful human nature?
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  SPEAKER_00: If we have nothing that has formed that, then all of those others are going to be left with no guidance.
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  SPEAKER_00: By placing piety,
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  SPEAKER_00: the proper love and fear of God and man,
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  SPEAKER_00: at the very center of all of our training,
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  SPEAKER_00: it allows complete truth,
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  SPEAKER_00: beauty,
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  SPEAKER_00: and goodness found only in the Lord to be our guiding force.
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  SPEAKER_00: It will guide the duty we show to others and to God.
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  SPEAKER_00: It will guide our respect to
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  SPEAKER_00: to God and to others.
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  SPEAKER_00: It will guide our allegiance to God and others.
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  SPEAKER_00: It will guide our senses, our emotions, our will, and our intellect.
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  SPEAKER_00: Without it, those things are left with no guiding force.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that is why we must circle everything back to piety.
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  SPEAKER_00: It cannot be just a mention once and move along.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's not a teach it only when they're little.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's the foundation, the very core of our responsibility when it comes to training children in our care.
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  SPEAKER_00: Regardless of their age, everything comes back to the proper love and fear of God and man.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, how does that affect us as a teacher?
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  SPEAKER_00: The virtue of piety is the foundation upon which every other virtue is linked.
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  SPEAKER_00: And if we are following the seven laws of teaching,
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  SPEAKER_00: If we are helping to recover the lost tools of learning,
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  SPEAKER_00: even if we are practically applying the principles of poetic knowledge and the
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  SPEAKER_00: liberal arts tradition,
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  SPEAKER_00: but we do not make true piety our foundation,
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  SPEAKER_00: we have failed to educate the heart.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: We have done what C.S.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis refers to in his book, The Abolition of Man.
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  SPEAKER_00: We have created Christian men and women without chests, without a heart for the Lord.
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  SPEAKER_00: Let's not get so busy aiming for the head that we forget,
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  SPEAKER_00: according to Proverbs 4.23,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's from the heart that flows the springs of life.
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  SPEAKER_00: You as a teacher.
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  SPEAKER_00: as a classroom teacher,
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  SPEAKER_00: as a mom teacher,
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  SPEAKER_00: as a teacher of children in any context,
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  SPEAKER_00: you have the opportunity to strengthen those springs and to build the foundation of
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  SPEAKER_00: true piety in your youngest scholars,
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  SPEAKER_00: but more importantly,
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  SPEAKER_00: in yourself.
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  SPEAKER_00: That should be our guiding principle and our foundational element.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: as well i hope as we have looked at putting the piety in you understand how crucial
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  SPEAKER_00: it is even with excellent poetic and musical and gymnastic teaching without that
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  SPEAKER_00: foundation everything crumbles
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Next week, we are going to look at the liberal arts.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is a big chunk and I think it's going to be a little earth shattering for some
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: of you who've been in classical education for a while.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was for me.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't been in terribly long, but enough for me to go, oh, wait, what?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully it'll do the same thing for you.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot encourage you enough to get a copy of The Liberal Arts Tradition by Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: There is so much more in the book than we're ever going to be able to cover, but it gives everything.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: excellent resources, excellent notation as to where they've gotten their ideas.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: And as they said, they're not creating a new tradition.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: They are resurrecting what they have found in their research and studies as an
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: excellent tradition for education.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: you so much for joining me i definitely am looking forward to our next dig in
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: adventure together so whether you are all in with classical ed or you're just kind
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: of curious
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: or even you just want to be a better teacher.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll stick around and join us for this next podcast.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: To get the latest episode,
• 25:00
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• 25:04
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• 25:08
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• 25:14
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• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: To learn more about me and Leading to Wonder, you can visit my website at leadingtowonder.com.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: No spaces.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: And finally,
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: to reach out to me directly with questions or comments or even for information
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: regarding in-house or virtual teacher training workshops,
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: feel free to email me at Darlene
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: at leading to wonder.com have an amazing week and remember as eb white said always
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: be on the lookout for the presence of wonder