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Karen E.
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| Posted: Sept 28 2005 at 9:28pm | IP Logged
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Here's an article by Fr. James Schall about Catholicism and its complexity vs. a desire for simplicity. As I read it, I thought about some of the unschooling discussions here.
He wrote:
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Perhaps it is true that the human mind rejoices in "simplicity." But what it looks for is the simplicity of an order. If we see scattered all over the floor of a building all the parts of an automobile, all in chaotic and arbitrary confusion, and if we do not know what the parts are or the order in which they are to go together, we will see a complexity that confuses us. But once we see how things fit together so that the automobile is one piece of working equipment, our mind rejoices both in the multiplicity and in the unity.
What is remarkable about Catholicism is that its "parts," which may seem at first so arbitrary or chaotic, when seen in their proper order, do fit together. Catholicism presents itself as a whole in which all its parts are where they are because of a known and principled understanding of how things relate. Thus, the discussion of what God is, what man is, what the world is, what is our purpose are not totally independent of each other. The explanation of the one leads to the explanation of the other. Perhaps it is true that the human mind rejoices in "simplicity." But what it looks for is the simplicity of an order. If we see scattered all over the floor of a building all the parts of an automobile, all in chaotic and arbitrary confusion, and if we do not know what the parts are or the order in which they are to go together, we will see a complexity that confuses us. But once we see how things fit together so that the automobile is one piece of working equipment, our mind rejoices both in the multiplicity and in the unity.
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It struck me that I could substitute a few words and say,
"What is remarkable about unschooling is that its 'parts,' which may seem at first so arbitrary or chaotic, when seen in their proper order, do fit together.
"Unschooling presents itself as a whole in which all its parts are where they are because of a known and principled understanding of how things relate."
In my opinion, because the parent, or guide, has a the "known and principled understanding of how things relate" the child's seemingly random, unconnected studies can and will eventually come together, just like the parts of the auto.
There is an order that will eventually result from what appears to be an unordered system.
Is this making any sense?
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God bless,
Karen E.
mom to three on earth, and several souls in God's care
Visit my blog, with its shockingly clever title, "Karen Edmisten."
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MicheleQ
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| Posted: Sept 28 2005 at 11:43pm | IP Logged
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Karen E. wrote:
Here's an article by Fr. James Schall about Catholicism and its complexity vs. a desire for simplicity. As I read it, I thought about some of the unschooling discussions here.
There is an order that will eventually result from what appears to be an unordered system.
Is this making any sense? |
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Hi Karen! I'm not sure I should even comment here since I am not really an unschooler (well not for the upper grades anyway - certainly for the younger) but I am a Fr. Schall fan and as I'm reading one of his books right now I thought I'd share some of what he says about order in learning. In his book "On the Unseriousness of Human Affairs" in the chapter "On teaching and Being Eminently Teachable" (which you can find online in part but not the entire chapter as it's written in this book and not of course the part I want to quote!  ) he writes:
Both St. Augustine and St. Thomas have treatises entitled De Magistro ("On the Teacher"). But perhaps the most interesting passage in either of these saints' writings about how to learn, or how to be taught, is found in Aquinas's prologue to the Summa Theologiae It is important to note that the Summa was written for beginners, for Plato's potential philosophers, as it were, for those who wanted to learn but did not quite know how to go about it.
With this purpose in mind, then, St. Thomas identified three reasons why students often found it difficult to learn, even when they wanted to. The first is rather amusing, reminiscent of the student who encounters the unending listings in a university catalogue and asks himself how he could learn about the important things in such a morass. Thus, Aquinas observed, a very useless multiplication of disparate and varying questions, articles, and arguments confront the young beginner. He is given, in short, everything from Zeno to Hegel, everything from the Tan Dynasty to the latest perspectives on black holes, and of course the newest views on racism, sexism, environmentalism, and otherism, all in one large jumble of unrelated information. Seeing no order of learning, wrote Aquinas, the beginner becomes confused and discouraged.
The second problem arises when those things which are required for knowing are not presented after the order of the discipline or subject itself but are instead presented simply according to the arbitrary structure of a book, topic of dispute, or conversation. In this case, one might understand the book or conversation but not how it relates to anything else. The key notion for St.Thomas was "ordo disciplinae"; that is, there is an order of subject and its parts, and of subjects themselves to one another. Seeing this order, however long it might take to master it, makes learning both delightful and easier.
Third, learning is difficult because the frequent disordered repetition of information without seeing its "ordo disciplinae" generates in the souls of the student what Aquinas amusingly, but correctly, calls "fastidium et confusionem:" that is, loathing and confusion. Much of our difficulty in provoking students to learn, I think, arises precisely from the sense of loathing and confusion that naturally arises when they are confronted, as they usually are, with a mass of unrelated material.
In his discussion of the teacher, Aquinas is at pains to remind us of our own capacity to know. We can, like Jayber Crow or Louis L'Amour, learn by ourselves from reality. "Scientia, ergo, praeexistit in addiscente in potentia non pure passiva, sed activa; alius homo per seipsum non potest acquirere scientiam [Knowledge therefore preexists in the one knowing not in a purely passive, but in an active way: otherwise man would not be able to acquire knowledge>" (De Veritate, ii, I). Quite clearly, we are capable of acquiring knowledge, even by ourselves. This is why, fortunately, knowledge of what is can develop almost anywhere there is an inquisitive mind wondering about the truth of things.
But for most of us, an orderly learning is far easier and more productive. With the aid of someone who knows already, who has been through all the mistakes one is likely to make, and who takes delight in truth, we can learn easily, provided we allow ourselves to be eminently teachable. Simon suggested that there are three kinds of students: those who are only interested in grades, those who constantly ask questions but are never willing to listen, and those who recognize that there are ways to learn that others know better than themselves. The first two types are simply not teachable, but the third recognizes that he must take responsibility for his education and has a certain faith or trust that someone else can guide him.
Thus, Aquinas remarks that "docens, qui explicite total scientiam novit, expeditius potest ad scientiam inducere quam aliquis induci possit ex seipso, per hoc quod cognoscit scientiae principia in quadam communmitate [The teacher, who explicitly has the whole knowledge of a thing, can more expiditiously lead someone to this knowledge than can someone who learns it inducing it from himself The teacher can do this from the fact that he knows the principles of knowledge in a certain community of knowledge>" (De Veritate ii, 2, ad 4). That is, the teacher, the one who has learned himself, who knows his science" or discipline explicitly, can by this very means better lead the student to knowledge than the student could lead himself. And Aquinas held that it is better to be able to teach or pass on things that we have contemplated, that we have delighted in knowing, than simply to know them by ourselves.
OK that was long but thought provoking and personally I have found it to be quite true in my experience with my own children.
I could go on but I really need to go to bed!
God bless!
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Michele Quigley
wife to my prince charming and mom of 10 in Lancaster County, PA USA
http://michelequigley.com
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Karen E.
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| Posted: Sept 29 2005 at 5:51am | IP Logged
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MicheleQ wrote:
Hi Karen! I'm not sure I should even comment here since I am not really an unschooler (well not for the upper grades anyway - certainly for the younger) but I am a Fr. Schall fan and as I'm reading one of his books right now I thought I'd share some of what he says about order in learning. |
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Hi, Michele!
Thanks for sharing that -- interesting food for thought, and I'd like to read the book.
I'm not a total unschooler either (and my kids are all 11 and younger, so I'm not into the upper grades yet). As I said in another thread, I don't like to label us as anything, really, and just say, "I design our curriculum myself." That's more accurate than unschooling, CM, etc.
And I hope I didn't try to twist Fr. Schall's views to fit a particular one of my own ....  I so like everything of his that I've ever read. Thanks for the post.
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God bless,
Karen E.
mom to three on earth, and several souls in God's care
Visit my blog, with its shockingly clever title, "Karen Edmisten."
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juliecinci
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| Posted: Sept 29 2005 at 7:29am | IP Logged
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Michele, I loved this post and found it so helpful to me. I was in a tailspin earlier this week. My daughter, who is in 11th grade and taking four classes at the local high school, is really struggling with chemistry. Her teacher is also not very good at teaching it to the larger class, nor is he good at inspiring his students to love chemistry or to see it in any way other than a requirement to check off the college prep list.
Consequently, I have been really discouraged about watching my bright daughter not do well on tests and her daily compaints about how tedious chemistry is.
Meanwhile, my middle child (13) is studying chemistry using The Well Trained Mind approach and is constantly giving me insights into the nature of chemistry and how fascinating it is. He doesn't even have a specific instructor, but the books he is using are inspiring and relevant and so he is grasping the nature of chemistry before he has to master the technical formulae and processes that high school chemistry necessitates.
My littler kids just like baking and doing science experiments. That's chemistry for them.
I keep thinking of Charlotte Mason as you post these ideas. She believed that it was the responsibility of the teacher to inspire a love of learning and that our learning is an intimacy of relations, a science of relations.
If we are learning by rote or for the sake of a requirement, the necessary connections that must form for knowledge to become our personal possession will not occur. But if we start with interest and then find resources (teachers, books, tools) that allow that interest to deepen, those connections will happen almost effortlessly.
One of the tricky aspects of unschooling is the feeling that the learning is not orderly. The truth is, when there is interest, order naturally follows. Kids who learn to play guitar or piano will find that order. Kids who play video games will find the order. When we studied art history, we didn't necessarily go in chronological order. We used our affections to guide us. But as we followed what we loved, we started to see the order of art and began to form our own lexicon of terms and schools that became more and more rounded as we appreciated art. Adding Sister Wendy to the mix gave us an orderly presentation of the history of art so that we could hang our personal experiences on something of more substance.
I see this again and again... especially in the teaching of writing. We may start with random thoughts and disorganized writing. But we can bring order to those disparate parts as we understand more and more about how to revise the writing into a form. The order is imposed on the "chaos" that is actually just a sanguine order (the true part of the communication in raw form). We can't start with the form, but we can use it to make meaning.
Okay, enough from me. I thoroughly enjoyed this thread. You Catholics have so much rich material to mine for education! No wonder your universities are so good. My class last night b l e w my m i n d! My professor is so brilliant and he knocked my thinking cap socks right off. My brain hurts... in all the good ways.
Julie
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Julie
Homeschooling five for fourteen years
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Laura
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Michele,
Have you read Fr. Schall's book Another Sort of Learning? In doing a search on the books he's written this one came up and it looked like a book we might all enjoy.
Just wondering if you have an opinion on it if you have read it. The 3 reviews at Amazon were positive.
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JMJ,
Laura
wife to Ken and mom to 8 blessings with #9 due July 26,2009
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MicheleQ
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| Posted: Sept 29 2005 at 12:18pm | IP Logged
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Laura wrote:
Michele,
Have you read Fr. Schall's book Another Sort of Learning? In doing a search on the books he's written this one came up and it looked like a book we might all enjoy.
Just wondering if you have an opinion on it if you have read it. The 3 reviews at Amazon were positive. |
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Hi Laura,
No I haven't read it but it's on my list of want to's! 
God bless!
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Michele Quigley
wife to my prince charming and mom of 10 in Lancaster County, PA USA
http://michelequigley.com
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Willa
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| Posted: Sept 30 2005 at 12:42am | IP Logged
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Laura, I've read it and really like it.
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AMDG
Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
Take Up and Read
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MicheleQ
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| Posted: Oct 02 2005 at 6:10pm | IP Logged
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juliecinci wrote:
| My class last night b l e w my m i n d! My professor is so brilliant and he knocked my thinking cap socks right off. My brain hurts... in all the good ways. |
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OK Julie, don't leave us hanging! Do tell us what was so mind blowing. I'd love to hear about it! 
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Michele Quigley
wife to my prince charming and mom of 10 in Lancaster County, PA USA
http://michelequigley.com
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: Simplicity vs. Complexity and Fr. Schall
