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The Lost Tools of Learning - Part 2 · The Grammar of Classical Education

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