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Bookswithtea
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stellamaris wrote:
| As my last post on this topic ( I think I've beaten it to death in my mind!), I found this comparison of CM and classical methods written by Susan Wise Bauer (who is, of course, a proponent of classical education). It just clarified a lot of the specifics for me, so I hope it helps someone else as well. |
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Its been years since I've read this. Thank you for posting it! Reading it reminded me of what I love about CM, ironically enough. In struggling through my own revisions to philosophy, (and this is not really related to the subject at hand) I think its unit studies that I may be feeling a bit disillusioned with (or perhaps just tired...). Re-reading Levison's quotes (I need to get her books back out) reminded me that not everyone envisions CM as unit study-ish as I have in the past.
This discussion has really helped me. Thank you all for sharing your thoughts on why you love Classical Education, and for tolerating my challenges to it.  I think next week I am going to re-visit the Mater Amabilis site. I am reminded in all of this that some CM homeschools are more CE-ish than others. I have been following the memorization thread as well, and am excited about scripture memorization (Caroline, I quite agree with you that long passages are the way to go, and Willa, while I didn't memorize verbatim as an Evangelical, I have the same experience of embedded scripture that does present itself when its needed). Natalia, I couldn't agree more that all of this requires faith, because we don't really know how its all going to turn out until its too late to do anything about it.  Hate that, but there is always hope and trust in God to cover our weaknesses.
I'm also excited by the idea that SWB mentioned (in the article above) that CE as its currently being used is in some ways a modernizing of an old idea. In time, we will have better answers to the question I have, namely, how does this way of educating work with groups of children across all strata.
I'm energized to continue reading about philosophy of Education now. You are all amazing thinkers. Thanks for sharing with me.
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julia s.
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I thought of this thread when I saw this. Susan W Bauer has a download at Amazon for $0.89. The Joy of Classical Education.
In it she talks about what neo-classical education is and isn't. I thought you might enjoy it.
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BrendaPeter
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Forgive me if someone else has posted this but besides the book, "Latin-Centered Curriculum" by Drew Campbell, anyone who really wants to understand better what classical education is might enjoy Climbing Parnarssus. Another book that may be available from your library is Jesuit Education.
There are also lots of articles to peruse over at CLAA.
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Willa
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| Posted: May 25 2009 at 9:36pm | IP Logged
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Jesuit Education can be downloaded as a pdf -- it is in the public domain at the site I've linked.
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BrendaPeter
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Willa wrote:
| Jesuit Education can be downloaded as a pdf -- it is in the public domain at the site I've linked. |
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Thank you, Willa - I neglected to mention that. My library system does have a copy also.
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Willa
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| Posted: May 26 2009 at 9:26am | IP Logged
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I like the Circe Quiddity blog because of the way it depicts classical education -- not so much of an education for the elite but something that is suitable to any human. That tends to be more the way I think of it; though I see nothing wrong with academically gifted students being allowed to move ahead and I think education should foster personal excellence, I think the essence of education has to be suited to the human being in general, not just to the top 5%.
One example from the blog:
Quote:
Modern schools undervalue what it means to be a human being. Therefore, they are dropping the arts like frozen hamburgers on an assembled bun. When we focus on an art, whether it be painting, dancing, swinging a bat, singing, or writing short stories, demands are placed on us that force us to draw from within us the powers of our human faculties. In other words, they humanize us; they make us human.
Being human is simply not a priority for the modern school. We don’t have the money for that. As a result, I must question whether our milieu is worth all the trouble we are enduring to keep it “competitive.” |
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BrendaPeter
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Speaking of quotes, this is one of the most impressive that I've found over at CLAA:
Furthermore, the English classics contain such constant allusion to classical literature that the ignorance of such makes the understanding of the English classics next to impossible. Consider Milton's description of Satan in Paradise Lost:
"As whom the Fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove,
Briareos or Typhon, whom the Den
By ancient Tarsus held, or that Sea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim th' Ocean stream."
Do you know English? Go ahead and explain what Milton's talking about. You won't be able to unless you're familiar with classical literature. While this is indeed English, no student ignorant of the classics would be able to make sense out of a single line of it. An education in modern English leaves you unable to...read English literature.
onsider Milton's description of Satan in Paradise Lost:
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Willa
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I recently read Real Education by Charles Murray and posted a review. I thought I'd link to it here because it seemed to relate to this conversation and I would like to know others' thoughts -- whether you agree or disagree. Or maybe everyone's at the beach reading novels right now, which I could totally understand! 
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Willa
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Brenda, I agree that some knowledge of classical content is essential to understanding English literature. I would say that English literature itself provides enough background knowledge to comprehend the allusions -- if you grow up reading the wonderful English retellings of classical stories, like Kingsley, Bulfinch, Alfred Church and many others, as well as the literary translations of classical works throughout history since Dryden et al.
However, CLAA has a very nice article on the merits of studying classical languages. I wouldn't myself make the statement that Greek and Latin MUST be studied but the general point that those languages are almost indispensable to classical education is very well taken and it's about the best summary I've seen of the benefits of this type of study.
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JuliaT
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Willa, I can't get on your blog. For some reason, my computer kicks me off everyt time I attempt to go on.
I have read Murray's Real Education. I had a major problem with it because I took it personally. I couldn't get past his saying that children who are of low intelligence will never progress in their learning, regardless of how we teach them or who teaches them. I have children who all have learning differences and I found this very hopeless and discouraging. This cast a pall over everything else I read in the book. I was trying to be unbiased but I failed.
I do agree with him when he says that not every child should go to college. I agree with him on that. I also agree with what he says about classical education, that a child is given a CE in order to produce virtue and wisdom, to produce leaders. He also says that all children should be given a liberal arts education but they will not benefit from it in the same way that the gifted will.
I posted my thoughts on this on my classical ed. e-list. Everyone thought that Murray was right on all points so I guess I just let my experience get in the way of understanding his points.
Since then I have come to the conclusion that my kids, at least at this point in their education, cannot handle latin, or any other foreign language, because of their learning differences. Latin is pretty much the core of CE, so maybe Murray is right after all. Maybe my kids cannot have the kind of education that I have always dreamed of for them. That hurts my heart.
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Willa
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I'm sorry about the blog, Julia -- I wonder if I should paste it here then, only it's. SO. Long. I came to somewhat the same conclusion as you did but from a different point of view. I too agreed with most of what he said about college and how there should be alternatives.
I do think there's a problem with how he states the terms of the problem and that's what I said in my post.
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ltlmrs
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Quote:
| "The first and foundational purpose of education is not external but internal: it is to make the little human a little more human, bigger on the inside." |
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This is my first time posting on this forum and I've greatly enjoyed reading the archives and this thread specifically. And wanted to chime in with a few thoughts on the purpose of education as so succinctly put by Dr. Kreeft (who, btw, has a Down Syndrome child, so he is not unfamiliar with children with disabilities).
It is true that in the medieval days a classical education was primarily for the elites, but I believe this was not so much elitism as just the reality of everyday life. Nobody else but the aristocracy had the leisure to be pursuing a classical education. Josef Pieper, in one of his books, talks about the importance of leisure in contributing to the existance of culture and he specifically ties leisure to the very existence of education: the Greek word for it is skole and the Latin is scola, leading to the English word school. He goes on to discuss how for Aristotle work existed so as to provide a person time for leisure. Hence, in the Middle Ages the upper classes had leisure and the lower ones did not. But, in theory, anybody who had the time for intellectual development could have gotten a classical education. Indeed, it was not unknown of for boys who had the vocation to get the intellectual formation (and this always meant classical education) in order to be a priest even if they were not aristocrats. Now, given that they started later, it was probably not the full extent of what their richer peers received, but once they were freed from their labors, they were able to rise up above their state. BTW, Father Schall's introduction to the most recent reprint of Pieper's book is online:
Introduction to Leisure, the Basis of Culture Another excellent Schall essay on literacy and salvation is here: Literacy and Salvation and another one on the intellectual needs of ordinary people: On the Intellectual Needs of Ordinary People
It is interesting that there are several novels that deal with people who are not considered to be elites but who have received a classical education. The one that springs to mind is Hardy's Jude the Obscure, which was the closest Hardy came to an autobiography. Jude is a poor boy who self-teaches himself Latin and Greek and hopes to go to Oxford. He is not permited purely based on his social status. However, what is fascinating is that despite the fact that his social status is not increased, he still rises above the meanness of his situation because of his increased awareness of the classical tradition and the discipline of learning Greek and Latin. The book is a tragedy and Hardy is not entirely correct in some of his assessments, but it is a beautiful read.
The other book that immediately comes to mind deals with the American frontier, a very different situation from the Oxford of Hardy's Jude. A Kentucky author, Elizabeth Madox Roberts, wrote the story of Diony (a classical name), the daughter of a Virginian farmer who marries a man and follows him to the Kentucky wilderness. She has been classically educated by her father (as Roberts herself was), but she never uses her knowledge in "real life:" she doesn't read books, her life is filled with tragedies and deaths, and just the general hardships of living in the midst of wilderness. Yet, it is specifically the knowledge that she received that allows her to not only survive her day to day existence but rise above it. Her mind constantly wanders back to the quoations she remembers from her father's books and connects the ideas of the past with her very real struggles (and joys). This is a beautiful book, not the least because it demonstrates what Kreeft is talking about in a true education making a person more human.
So, do I think that classical education is the "ideal" education. Yes. It is something that has stood the test of time and produced both exceptional "commoners" and "elites." And because it is a system of education intimately tied with the Church, it is an egalitarian education in the sense that it offers equally to all who would receive it. I rather see the decline of classical education tied to the rise of Protestantism and the false egalitarianism of the Enlightenment.
Also, I think it is interesting to note from reading books such as The Intellectual Life by Sertillanges, that in the past education was supposed to make you into a learner. It was supposed to give you the tools so that you could continue to lead an intellectual life to continue to be able to think about what T.S. Eliot called "the permanent things" even if, according to Sertillanges, you only have a couple of hours at most per day to devote to the intellectual life.
This is what I want for my children. I am not educating them (or at the moment one who is still too young to homeschool) so that they can be PhDs or even go to college. I would have no problems if my sons became blacksmiths like my grandfather and my daughters get married very young without ever even considering "careers." These are the externals of our lives, and I aim to give them the internal tools necessary to take their roles in this great tradition that has been handed down to us through revelation and through the use of human reason. I hope that makes sense.
I could go on and on (and link to more articles and recommend more books, but real life calls me away...
P.S. I am clearly biased towards CE, but I love the things I've read of Charlotte Mason and plan to implement some of her ideas as well. But, the core, for us, will always be CE, whatever outside sources we use will be enriching a tradition that has already been given to us as an excellent model.
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Eleanor
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Maria, thanks for a great post. I agree with everything you've said about the benefits of classical education as a way of enriching our lives and pointing us toward higher things.
On the other hand, I'm not sure that we can hold up any historic model of classical education as an embodiment of this "ideal," as if to say that we had a perfect system at some point in the past, and we only have to keep applying it (with perhaps a few minor adjustments for our current circumstances).
These discussions tend to keep coming back to the fact that some people lack the intellectual gifts to pursue a full classical education, yet our faith teaches that they're not "less human" or "less holy" than those with more education. But I'm starting to think that this is really a side issue. Classical education, as it's existed throughout history, seems to be limited in other ways, which relate to everyone in society.
- In that it was originally developed by and for adults and older youths, it might be missing some of the special genius of children -- who aren't just "deficient adults," but human persons made in God's image, with their own distinctive qualities that adults can and should learn from, in a situation of mutual aid.
- In that it was originally developed by and for men, it might be missing some of the special genius of women -- who aren't just "deficient men," but human persons made in God's image, with their own distinctive qualities that men can and should learn from, in a situation of mutual aid.
So I'm thinking that in order to be an "ideal" form of education for all of Christendom, classical education would need to incorporate not only the wisdom and discipline of the great thinkers of the past, but also the insights of true Christian feminism, and respect for the child as not only our follower, but in many ways our leader (which is beautifully expressed in so many passages in the Gospels).
Sounds a bit radical, perhaps... but I can't help thinking that John Paul II would agree (mainly because I stole a lot of the above ideas from him  ).
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Willa
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ltlmrs wrote:
I rather see the decline of classical education tied to the rise of Protestantism and the false egalitarianism of the Enlightenment.
Also, I think it is interesting to note from reading books such as The Intellectual Life by Sertillanges, that in the past education was supposed to make you into a learner.
.....
P.S. I am clearly biased towards CE, but I love the things I've read of Charlotte Mason and plan to implement some of her ideas as well. |
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I, too, enjoyed your post, Maria. And those are great links (I edited them to make them easier to click to). I'd read the Leisure one before, but not the others.
The Enlightenment is interesting because at the time, it was seen as a classical revival, and many Enlightenment ways of thinking have come down to us as a more "traditional" alternative to what is seen as the Romanticism in progressive educational methods.
You see that in ED Hirsch's book to some extent, and I think in Charles Murray's books as well.
In the Enlightenment there was an emphasis on empiricism, on skepticism, on the human mind as the measure of all things, and consequently, in education, there was a new importance placed on information -- particularly "scientific" information -- and on training. I think some of our American ideas on meritocracy have come down from there. Education, in this model, allows us to "know" and to "do" but in a very world-based way -- which is not bad in itself, because we are called to think and act in this world, but it quickly becomes turned into secularism if it isn't explicitly targeted towards things past itself.
Scienticism affected philosophy, theology, and history and classical studies as well. People started looking back at history less as students and learners and more as some kind of archaeologists digging up remnants of the past and examining them critically from a distance. Thus we have "experts" and "specialists" now in subjects that are of little liberal interest.... that is, they don't directly help people know more about what is Good, True and Beautiful.
To Catholics and to classical education informed by Catholicism, the emphasis is different. Sure, specialists are fine, and certainly specialist fields should be influenced by Catholics as all human endeavours ought to be. All truth is Catholic. The traditional Jesuits thought specialization should come AFTER a thorough grounding in the humane arts -- after the student learned to think, speak, write and act well. Otherwise lots of knowledge about some specialized subject can become dehumanizing and even dangerous. People become less important and God takes a back seat -- the knowledge becomes something to turn towards gaining power over humans, or else it becomes essentially sterile and trivial.
The object of finding out more about our history and the natural world, however, to Catholics, is to approach closer to the truth of things. There is a difference there.
To Catholics, as CLAA points out in one of its articles, our vocation is always to "know, love and serve God." Notice that this covers the head, the "heart" (not just emotion but the personal center of our being) and the will (the "hands" as a metaphor for what we actively resolve and carry out). Any secular knowledge is ordered towards knowledge of God primarily, but secondarily and most directly from our point of view, through His works -- what He has done and said. Thomas Aquinas says that God and the immaterial world are the most knowable in themselves, but not immediately knowable to us humans because our knowledge comes through our senses and through our process of reasoning, which is difficult and indirect.
The object of knowing is Truth -- ultimately God -- all material things came into being and will pass away, so their truth is only contingent and temporal.
The object of loving is -- the Good -- ultimately God -- we love our neighbors because He directed us to and because they have the same dignity as us 'beings made in the image of God.' We love good things because they lead us to God.
The problem to me with Enlightenment thinking is that it tries to rest in human things. That is, education is FOR power/prestige/status/leadership, FOR ability to do (technology), FOR human advancement. Without the corrective, that without God none of this is worth anything, it ends in futility, which is what indeed we see.
I didn't mean to go on so long --
About Charlotte Mason, I take ideas from her thinking because as Eleanor pointed out, it's difficult sometimes to flesh out the ideals of classical learning as they apply to small children. Formal academics are not necessary to small children -- but certainly, all else being equal, we'd prefer to start our children off in the way they should go, rather than train them in habits that they would have to unlearn later.
The most important preparation, however, for small children, is in the rudiments of virtue and devotion and teachability (what Aquinas calls "docility" but it tends to have a negative connotation nowadays) -- or so it seems. "Teachability" or "docility" here would mean developing an ability to look and listen -- more than that, to perceive and attend. It doesn't mean servility, quite the opposite -- it means a readiness, like young Samuel in the Bible, to be sensitive to things outside his own head and heart. Anything else is sort of secondary. And there is a sort of "freedom" to be trained in too -- a power to act by initiative. Socrates thought schooling for children should be primarily play, probably partly for that reason, because anything truly "known" by someone has to be experienced through his own being, and for children, play involves mind, imagination and will, all different aspects of his personality.
Any thoughts on that? I'm just trying to work through my thoughts.
I see Montessori and Charlotte Mason both emphasizing this "docility" as I've defined it, in different ways (and this part is very arguable, so feel free to disagree).
Montessori emphasizes training the senses through careful beginning analysis.
Charlotte Mason tends to rely more on carefully directed natural influences.
Conventional Catholic beginning education seems to tend to rely directly on catechesis -- given by word of mouth and by actions. Unschoolers do this through daily life and non-unschoolers might have more planned sessions.
I don't think they all contradict each other but the emphases seem distinct.
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Willa
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Eleanor wrote:
| So I'm thinking that in order to be an "ideal" form of education for all of Christendom, classical education would need to incorporate not only the wisdom and discipline of the great thinkers of the past, but also the insights of true Christian feminism, and respect for the child as not only our follower, but in many ways our leader (which is beautifully expressed in so many passages in the Gospels). |
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I agree --- EXCEPT, and this could be either a big except, or a teensy one hardly worth mentioning -- I hold that the seeds of true Christian feminism and respect for the child are laid in the Christian classical tradition. Classical education is primarily about true philosophy and true philosophy has implicit within it a resverence for the woman and the child.
The details and implications are worked out over time, as they were in respect to slavery -- the roots are in the Gospel, and nothing in the true Christian philosophical tradition can ever contradict the Gospel, as John Paul II has said.
To use a natural analogy -- if the Christian educational tradition of the past was a garden, there has been a history of plucking out weeds (false ideas) and nurturing the True and benefiting from its fruits.
Details of how this works out? Ah ... it makes it more difficult, that we live in a time where there are so many errors around us. There is where the past is valuable since the testimony to the truth has already undergone some filtering, and success has already been implemented at least partially.
Chesterton says:
Quote:
| “Real development is not leaving things behind, as on a road, but drawing life from them, as from a root.” |
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Looking at your post, I don't think I'm saying anything you didn't say, but just wanted to bring out that aspect of it.
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Eleanor
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I agree, Willa; any new methods should build on what's come before, not try to replace it.
In my previous post, I was thinking about the contributions of two women in particular: St. Edith Stein and Maria Montessori. If you look at their lives, you can see that they were among the first women in Europe to be admitted to higher education, and they achieved very high academic distinction. St. Edith was a respected Thomist, and translated some of St. Thomas's works from Latin to German. Dr. Montessori studied philosophy at the University of Rome (and was briefly a professor there), and it's clear from her writings that she held Aristotle and St. Thomas in high respect. But they both took these ideas in new directions, St. Edith through her studies in phenomenology, and Montessori through her observations of the child.
When we come across new ways of thinking that seem to contain elements of truth, but are hard to square with our previous way of doing things, we can:
1) embrace the new thinking, throw out any of our current beliefs and practices that don't seem to fit with it, and start over (the so-called "spirit of Vatican II"  );
2) stick our fingers in our ears and pretend it's not happening, or label the people involved as a bunch of modernist heretics (the spirit of some so-called traditionalists ),
3) evaluate all things in the light of tradition, and slowly and carefully incorporate those ideas and practices that are in harmony with what we already know to be true (the spirit of the Catholic Church).
Which leads to the question... *how* are we to go about integrating new and valid subject matter and pedagogical methods, while maintaining the integrity of classical Christian education?
We might just as well ask... *how* are we to go about integrating the insights of phenomenology (St. Edith Stein's area of expertise) with the Church's philosophical tradition? Now, that's something we're not likely to accomplish on this thread. All I know is that it requires throwing around a lot of words like "ontological."  But our last Holy Father certainly tried to take what was best from modern philosophy, and we have some real fruits, such as the Theology of the Body, to show for it. Of course, while the TOTB provides a powerful framework for presenting the Church's moral tradition on the subject of chastity, it isn't intended to replace that tradition.
I think we can say something similar about (valid) new methods of education. But I seem to lack the brainpower to say any more about it right now. ;)
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LeeAnn
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1) Could we learn anything about the "feminine genius's" role in contributing to education from the female Doctors of the Church--St. Catherine of Siena and St. Therese? Just a thought. I don't really know enough about them to expand on that; what they might have thought or wrote about education or what most people consider their major contribution to Catholic thought.
2) I was reading this today over at the CLAA forums:
"It was the Catholic Church, and St. Thomas Aquinas in particular, that perfected Aristotelian philosophy, showing that (a) it flows from and is consistent with the principles of Christianity and (b) it remains the normal way to Wisdom for all time. This school of philosophy is called Scholasticism, because it was the mind of the Christian schools. It's early rival (not in a bas sense) was Mysticism, which relied on meditation, prayer and spiritual reading to find truth, rather than faith-directed logic. In time, saints like St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure and St. Ignatius removed this distinction and showed that the true Scholastic was also a true Mystic. "
For some reason, it strikes me that mysticism is like a feminine counterpart of scholasticism. It seems to me that there could be said something similar in regards to education: some methods, like the tradtional classical education, are like scholasticism (logic based) and others are like mysticism (relying on meditation, prayer and spiritual reading).
What do you think? Too much of a stretch?
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Montessori education is contemplative, but it also involves the body, so I'm not sure it would qualify as "mystical" per se.
I'm just getting into reading the writings of St. Edith Stein. She talks about how women's bodies & souls are, as a general rule, more closely joined than are the bodies & souls of men. This has to do with our special role as mothers.
At the same time, in an apparent paradox, she says that women find it easier to completely detach their bodies from their souls. (I might be wording this wrong, as I don't have the book in front of me, but that's the general idea.) Thus, as LeeAnn points out, we have so many great female mystics.
Interesting stuff. Will have to return to it next week. 
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ltlmrs
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| Posted: Jan 25 2010 at 1:33pm | IP Logged
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Unfortunately, my thoughts are still being written (it takes me a while to write things down). Willa, Eleanor and LeeAnn - I will definitely be responding to your posts this week. For the moment, however, I wanted to throw in two more articles for consideration especially since Willa and Lee Ann brought up Mr. Michael's school. I respect Mr. Michael a great deal and if we ever need to put our children in school, they would go to CLAA, however, I do not feel that he is the last voice of authority on what is or is not a classical education.
For reference, Dr. Fleming is a classicist and was one of only two students of the late great classicist Dr. Douglas Young (the other was E. Christian Kopff, author of <U>The Devil Knows Latin</U>). He taught classics at the University of Miami of Ohio, served as an advisor to the U.S. Department of Education, and was headmaster at the Archibald Rutledge Academy, a private school in South Caroline. Fr. Barbour is not only prior of St. Michael's Abbey in Southern California but heads up the boys' boarding school that is run by the monks there.
Dr. Fleming's piece
Fr. Barbour's piece
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LeeAnn
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| Posted: Jan 25 2010 at 2:21pm | IP Logged
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ltlmrs,
I think Dr. Fleming's critique of modern educational fads is valid--I only question what he views as the ultimate end of education. He seems to think classical education is meant to turn out great thinkers and appreciators of the great literature of Western civilization. I think Mr. Michael would disagree with that limited a goal. Classical education, as perfected by the Church, is meant to produce great thinkers, yes, but as a means of growing in wisdom and virtue in a specifically Christian sense--and meant to enable us to do God's Will more effectively.
Now Fr. Barbour's piece--the article linked there is "Education at Home"--warns parents against both joyless piety and overly malleable faith. Do you see CLAA as joyless or overly ascetic in its practices? I don't; I am finding great joy in simplifying many areas of my family life. And look at the joyfulness of the Missionaries of the Poor whom the Michaels often work with. But perhaps you wished to draw some other meaning from the article that I'm not seeing? Or maybe I was looking at the wrong article???
I look forward to hearing your thoughts once they are written. :) I too often think the same way--have to write them down first to really see if I agree with the ideas.
ETA: last phrase in first para
PS I enjoyed a new word learned in the first article linked: "banausic" meaning generally "of utilitarian or mechanical purpose."
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my four children are 17, 15, 11 & 8 - all now attend public school - we read many 4Real recommended books at home
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4Real Forums : Philosophy of Education
Topic: philosophizing about Classical Education
