X-Post/Gen: False Promises of Classical Education

[Trivium Academy]

I'm doing research right now for a talk I'm giving this weekend about classical education and I found this scathing article about classical education, namely Adler's Great Books, Cultural Literacy and The Well-Trained Mind as secular selections and goes onto Christian Classical starring Doug Wilson. I'm very interested in what some of the veterans think about this. Do you feel that teaching logic and reading Great Books provided your children with a usable education? Are we missing the mark by teaching our children these subjects without life experience to draw from? http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2007-summer/false-promise-classical-education.asp

[Michelle in MO]

"The classical educationists instead advocate a method that is fundamentally rationalistic; they promote abstract thought, logic, integration, and universal truths, but it is a world of abstractions that is disconnected from the concrete, perceptual world around us.

The negative consequences of a secular classical education are legion. Fundamentally, such an education fails to deliver on its promise to give students the knowledge and thinking methods they need for adult life. It fails to provide a true understanding of the crucial facts that students need to know, and it trains them in a method of dealing with abstractions that leaves them incapable of knowing what they are talking about—while simultaneously assuring them that they do know."

To me, this shows an extremely fundamental misconception of what a classical education is all about. In no way does a classical education and its proponents (including Douglas Wilson, SWB, Jessie Wise, etc.) promote a "world of abstractions that is disconnected from the concrete, perceptual world around us." My kids aren't finished with school yet, so I can't speak with real authority, but just in the curriculum we use for Great Books, Omnibus, the discussions are extremely practical in taking abstractions and applying them to everyday problems. There are just too many moms on these boards with success stories regarding their homeschool graduate kids to say otherwise. This article seems to assume that classical education takes place in some sort of vacuum, i.e., that the child is mindlessly taught to decline Latin nouns without learning how to make a salad, that they are taught about Aristotle and Herodotus without learning how to use a computer! Give me a break! I hope others on these boards can offer their much better informed, tried and true experience than I can, but I believe my children will succeed and be able to cope well with life!

[LisaNY]

...but then shot herself in the foot at the end. She started out calmly, but ended up in a lather over what was really bugging her - those crazy "Christian Classical educators". Her argument against certain educational philosophies became an attack on another group's belief systems. She lost me there.

While I don't agree with what some of the Christian Classical groups put forth, I can't agree with attacking them.

Anyway, I *did* agree with what she said here:

With Rand’s understanding of concepts, education becomes a process of building conceptual knowledge that begins in perception and proceeds to higher and higher levels of abstraction. The student possessing such an education has the profoundly practical power to gain true, firsthand knowledge of reality, allowing him to make good judgments in every realm of his life, from the most mundane to the most significant.
The proper goal of education is to foster the conceptual development of the child—to instill in him the knowledge and cognitive powers needed for mature life. It involves taking the whole of human knowledge, selecting that which is essential to the child’s conceptual development, presenting it in a way that allows the student to clearly grasp both the material itself and its value to his life, and thereby supplying him with both crucial knowledge and the rational thinking skills that will enable him to acquire real knowledge ever after. This is a truly progressive education—and parents and students should settle for nothing less.


I think far too many people try to teach children on far too abstract a level. The section she cited on Hirsch's S&S for science is a case in point. I have encountered this in some of our science curricula, and time and again have been annoyed at some of the things they think our children should be able to grasp at the elementary and even middle school level.

I think the Classical educational philosophy can prove to be a breeding ground for snobbery. There, I said it. Our pride can drive us to push our children into processing things they're just plain not ready to grasp. Most of us want the best education for our children, and strive to facilitate that process. We just need to be careful that we are doing it with the sincere desire for our children to learn and grow - and not to make ourselves look good. :rolleyes:

[Nan in Mass]

I haven't read the article, so perhaps it is unfair that I comment, but I do have an older child who has been doing great books with TWTM/TWEM, and I am finding that great books has given him the balance and perspective to hold his own in the modern world. We didn't set out to do a classical education. I began TWTM because it assumed I had a reading but not writing first grader and the reading lists for the grammar stage matched my family's traditional reading list. Then we just sort of continued. I did great books because ancients were far more suitable for my boys than To Kill a Mockingbird or Lord of the Flies, and TWTM had so far had a rather uncanny way of being just the right thing education-wise, even if I didn't think it was going to be. I could see that TWEM was working beautifully to grow and stretch my children and make them thoughtful beings, so we continued. The reading has been very applicable to my son's peace activism and has allowed me to not worry too much what else he is exposed to. Some people have some pretty wacko ideas out there and it is nice when my son can say to himself, "Well, that won't work because..." or "the problem with that point of view is that it doesn't take into account..." If nothing else, great books has allowed us to talk and talk and talk about life, and it has given him a rich basis of stories for entertainment and to create out of and draw conclusions from and make comparisons to. I'm very glad we chose to do them. I accidentally seem to have chosen a really good sort of education for us. And at 17, I can say with conviction that it worked. I can't imagine a situation in which it would be a disadvantage to have read The Republic rather than Cold Mountain (which my older son read in ps).
-Nan

[Jan in SC]

After reading the article and visiting the website to get more information about the school, I see very few differences between her school and neo-classical education. The exception being that science appears to be studied in a 3 or 4 year rotating cycle. She seems to be a charasmatic salesperson. While her opinion is not unwelcome, it might be wise for her to proclaim it in quieter tones considering her school isn't old enough to have produced a "mature adult."

[Trivium Academy]

I think far too many people try to teach children on far too abstract a level. The section she cited on Hirsch's S&S for science is a case in point. I have encountered this in some of our science curricula, and time and again have been annoyed at some of the things they think our children should be able to grasp at the elementary and even middle school level.

I agree about science curriculum, I personally decided that the grammar years should be more about discovery and wonderment of the world around us with the basic facts highlighted. I'm grateful for WTM providing a path to follow that makes sense but also allows individual freedom to customize, this has been essential for us and my children's love of science.

I think the Classical educational philosophy can prove to be a breeding ground for snobbery. There, I said it. Our pride can drive us to push our children into processing things they're just plain not ready to grasp. Most of us want the best education for our children, and strive to facilitate that process. We just need to be careful that we are doing it with the sincere desire for our children to learn and grow - and not to make ourselves look good. :rolleyes:

It's a slippery slope isn't it? At what point does the realization become apparent that what/how/when we're teaching is not to the benefit of our individual children? Especially as we're to challenge, inspire and sometimes even push them to achieve more? Justifications can abound and the line that separates good for the child/good for the parent can be quite blurry. I know in our first year of homeschooling it was blurry for me, thankfully the fog is clearing.

Great response!

[Trivium Academy]

Nan, thank you for sharing that even if you didn't read the article. It is the stuff my hopes for my children are made of.

[Beth in SW WA]

This group had a lengthy response/discussion regarding Van Damme's article in August. Does someone have the link to that old thread?

Thanks for sharing this, Jessica.

[Michelle in MO]

the most well-educated kids, we sometimes push too much on them, too soon. I would agree, especially in the area of science education, although I would have to say that the private school our daughter was originally at was more guilty of forcing abstract concepts too soon in that area and in other areas. One of the things that attracted me to TWTM, besides the promise of an excellent education, was that it just made so much sense: the expectations at each stage of learning (grammar, logic, rhetoric) was so age-appropriate. I also agree that we do need to be careful of intellectual snobbery; one of the main goals, no matter what our religious beliefs, should be to have our children grow up with sound character.

Susan Wise Bauer wrote an excellent article a few years ago, entitled "A Balanced Classical Model" which addressed some of these concerns. She addresses the need for parents and classical Christian schools to stay balanced and, in my interpretation, stay out of this mode of "competing" to produce the brightest kids. I admit I sometimes want so much more for my kids, but they often desire a lesser amount themselves. I do what I'm able to do with them, but oftentimes I have to back off, not from a classical education, but realizing that they're simply not ready. These stages are not fixed in stone, but fluid and flexible. My youngest is in 5th grade and still needs much grammar-stage instruction; my oldest does too, in certain areas! I wanted my oldest two to pursue Latin all the way through high school, but after finishing Henle I, it was apparent that they just didn't want to go any further! That's OK---even though we all weren't the most stellar Latin students, they had exposure to the language in such a way that will benefit them greatly in the future, I believe.

Here's the link to Susan's article, in case you haven't read it:

http://www.thehomeschoolmagazine.com/How_To_Homeschool/articles/articles.php?aid=226

I don't know how the "link thing" works on these new boards, but I believe you should be able to copy and paste the characters onto your browser.

[Nan in Mass]

I like TWTM because it is half way between unschooling and school. It has figured out where the curriculum has to be tight and specifically taught to get ahead, and where loose and exploratory is a better approach. It efficiently cuts down the taught subjects to only those necessary to leave you time for the interest-centered-ness of unschooling the rest of the subjects, and it suggests a method of doing the more unschooling part that helps the child grow academically and intellectually.

My children and I aren't very academically minded, so I don't have to worry about intellectual snobbery GRIN, only (usually in the middle of the night) about whether we are doing enough and I'm letting them down. TWTM works very well for those of us who are non-academic, too.

-Nan

[debbiec]

Jessica, I read most of it, skimmed the last part, being vey familiar with Doug Wilson and his books. I will state on the outset, I would classify myself as Christian Classical.

Years ago, I read Adler, and Hirsh. I understand the need for literacy, as I think we all agree. About introducing science abstract facts at an early age ~

I understand both sides of the issue. However, I would say, I don't know that either of them are in the whole, wrong. I introduced my kids in early elementary years to the idea of atoms. WE didn't spend much time on it. WE basically did the forms of matter (I think this was 3rd grade), starting with everything made of atoms. We spent an afternoon building different molecules, usually one that DID relate to their real life experience, H2O for example. We discussed how atoms/molecules make up different forms of matter differently (solids, liquids, gas). We did this through direct observation of things in real life (the classic water example, ice, water, and steam) among others. We never much of that until we got into 8th grade Apologia Physical Science, but those early lessons never left him. I have been pained to watch kids who are 13 years old (I teach science at a co-op), who have heard of atoms and molecules, but had no real idea what they were. Of course, they learned it and in the long run, it made no difference at all to anyone. I have always had a little problem with Classical facts only for science (or any subject for that matter). But the way I see it, is a good parent/teacher will present those facts in a meaningful context, though in the end, you may only expect them to remember the fact. I think there can be a happy marriage of both. Some kids are going to retain the context more than others, based on the individual. Isn't that OK?

History ~ again, I think it depends on the parent/teacher. I think understanding the flow of history, the cause and effect, if possible, while perhaps focusing on retention of the facts, is perfectly OK.

Great Books ~ my 14 year old is on a Great Books Program right now (not with me, but they are using the VP OMnibus as a core book, though much has been modified). They have done a very good job of intergrating that the human experience, in literature or history, is not isolated to one's one generation. The problems of ideas, war, love, greed, etc. Hopefully, he is learning, though he may be yet to encounter, the consequences of ideas. Is it going to save him from being a sinful human? Of course not. But my hope is, that he will learn some wisdom from those that have gone before us. We don't neglect teaching morality, our faith, etc because it isn't "relavant" to our child's experience at the time. WE teach those things in the hope that when faced with situations, decisions and so on, that they have a storehouse to draw from. That decision though, will always rest with them. No amount of religious instruction or education will deliver them from making bad jusgement calls, and mistakes.

Finally, about arrogance. I know here, that is a common view of kids from our secular classical schools (the old money, very old schools here) and even from some of the Christian Classical Schools, though a little less with them. I would not characterise them all that way. I do think this is where world view, whatever that may be, is absolutely critical. If we teach that knowledge is the ultimate goal, and one is told of feels like thay achieved it, yes, arrogance will follow. If we teach that knowledge is something to pursue in the service of others, that can be a completely different story. I believe, if taught well, that a good education should bring one into humility at the vastness of knowledge and experience we will never posses or know. I don't know about everyone else, but the more I have learned over the years, has only brought me to the realization of how much I truly don't know. I think I was far more arrogant as a classical ed proponent when I first started this journey 8 years ago that I am now.

OK, one more final note. I have stated this before on posts over the years when this has come up, but I am certain that my oldest child, who is bright , smart, well liked, and so on, would suffer from arrogance or pride no matter what we would have chose for an educaitonal avenue. If he had gone to public school, I have no doubt he would have found something to be boastful, or proud about. My husband and I came to realize this and decided that any pride or arrogance that came from him, came from his heart and his own wrong thinking, and not from the classical educational avenue we pursued. It might show up a little more at times, but we just faithfully, though I'm sure not well enough, talk with him about his own thinking, like you would about any parentling issue.

This years lesson for him, wisdom is not the same as knowledge.

Sorry this is so long. I liked the article overall. I have read some discussions about Doug Wilson's views (which I don't embrace, by the way) and those of his brother's about learning both sides of an argument vs indoctrination. My experince has been that to I think understanding on both sides of an issue are good. At my son't tutorial, they have had debates and had to write papers, representing opposite views of their own. I personally, think that is a healthy experience, if guided well. \

Enjoy your talk this weekend ~

[debbiec]

Jessica, I read most of it, skimmed the last part, being vey familiar with Doug Wilson and his books. I will state on the outset, I would classify myself as Christian Classical.

Years ago, I read Adler, and Hirsh. I understand the need for literacy, as I think we all agree. About introducing science abstract facts at an early age ~

I understand both sides of the issue. However, I would say, I don't know that either of them are in the whole, wrong. I introduced my kids in early elementary years to the idea of atoms. WE didn't spend much time on it. WE basically did the forms of matter (I think this was 3rd grade), starting with everything made of atoms. We spent an afternoon building different molecules, usually one that DID relate to their real life experience, H2O for example. We discussed how atoms/molecules make up different forms of matter differently (solids, liquids, gas). We did this through direct observation of things in real life (the classic water example, ice, water, and steam) among others. We never much of that until we got into 8th grade Apologia Physical Science, but those early lessons never left him. I have been pained to watch kids who are 13 years old (I teach science at a co-op), who have heard of atoms and molecules, but had no real idea what they were. Of course, they learned it and in the long run, it made no difference at all to anyone. I have always had a little problem with Classical facts only for science (or any subject for that matter). But the way I see it, is a good parent/teacher will present those facts in a meaningful context, though in the end, you may only expect them to remember the fact. I think there can be a happy marriage of both. Some kids are going to retain the context more than others, based on the individual. Isn't that OK?

History ~ again, I think it depends on the parent/teacher. I think understanding the flow of history, the cause and effect, if possible, while perhaps focusing on retention of the facts, is perfectly OK.

Great Books ~ my 14 year old is on a Great Books Program right now (not with me, but they are using the VP OMnibus as a core book, though much has been modified). They have done a very good job of intergrating that the human experience, in literature or history, is not isolated to one's one generation. The problems of ideas, war, love, greed, etc. Hopefully, he is learning, though he may be yet to encounter, the consequences of ideas. Is it going to save him from being a sinful human? Of course not. But my hope is, that he will learn some wisdom from those that have gone before us. We don't neglect teaching morality, our faith, etc because it isn't "relavant" to our child's experience at the time. WE teach those things in the hope that when faced with situations, decisions and so on, that they have a storehouse to draw from. That decision though, will always rest with them. No amount of religious instruction or education will deliver them from making bad jusgement calls, and mistakes.

Finally, about arrogance. I know here, that is a common view of kids from our secular classical schools (the old money, very old schools here) and even from some of the Christian Classical Schools, though a little less with them. I would not characterise them all that way. I do think this is where world view, whatever that may be, is absolutely critical. If we teach that knowledge is the ultimate goal, and one is told of feels like thay achieved it, yes, arrogance will follow. If we teach that knowledge is something to pursue in the service of others, that can be a completely different story. I believe, if taught well, that a good education should bring one into humility at the vastness of knowledge and experience we will never posses or know. I don't know about everyone else, but the more I have learned over the years, has only brought me to the realization of how much I truly don't know. I think I was far more arrogant as a classical ed proponent when I first started this journey 8 years ago that I am now.

OK, one more final note. I have stated this before on posts over the years when this has come up, but I am certain that my oldest child, who is bright , smart, well liked, and so on, would suffer from arrogance or pride no matter what we would have chose for an educaitonal avenue. If he had gone to public school, I have no doubt he would have found something to be boastful, or proud about. My husband and I came to realize this and decided that any pride or arrogance that came from him, came from his heart and his own wrong thinking, and not from the classical educational avenue we pursued. It might show up a little more at times, but we just faithfully, though I'm sure not well enough, talk with him about his own thinking, like you would about any parentling issue.

This years lesson for him, wisdom is not the same as knowledge.

Sorry this is so long. I liked the article overall. I have read some discussions about Doug Wilson's views (which I don't embrace, by the way) and those of his brother's about learning both sides of an argument vs indoctrination. My experince has been that to I think understanding on both sides of an issue are good. At my son't tutorial, they have had debates and had to write papers, representing opposite views of their own. I personally, think that is a healthy experience, if guided well. \

Enjoy your talk this weekend ~

I don't have time to proofread this, so hopefully I was clear ~

[debbiec]

doublepost, sorry, it signed me out and I didn;t know if it sent

[Colleen in NS]

Susan Wise Bauer wrote an excellent article a few years ago, entitled "A Balanced Classical Model" which addressed some of these concerns. She addresses the need for parents and classical Christian schools to stay balanced and, in my interpretation, stay out of this mode of "competing" to produce the brightest kids. I admit I sometimes want so much more for my kids, but they often desire a lesser amount themselves. I do what I'm able to do with them, but oftentimes I have to back off, not from a classical education, but realizing that they're simply not ready. These stages are not fixed in stone, but fluid and flexible. My youngest is in 5th grade and still needs much grammar-stage instruction; my oldest does too, in certain areas! I wanted my oldest two to pursue Latin all the way through high school, but after finishing Henle I, it was apparent that they just didn't want to go any further! That's OK---even though we all weren't the most stellar Latin students, they had exposure to the language in such a way that will benefit them greatly in the future, I believe.

Here's the link to Susan's article, in case you haven't read it:

http://www.thehomeschoolmagazine.com/How_To_Homeschool/articles/articles.php?aid=226

Your post and the interview with her are extremely encouraging to me.

[Charon]

Personally, I don't really take militant Randians that seriously. All of western intellectual life -- all of what makes it special, at any rate -- is essentially the result of rationalists refuting empiricists and defending philosophy against science. Plato started it and Kant continued it. If you are trying to characterize these guys as some sort of skeptics that doubt the possibility of real knowledge, then the amount of spin doctoring that you are capable of rivals even that of the fictitious depictions of H G Wells' 1984. It's up there with people who try to characterize John Lock as some sort of closet socialist.

The reason you shouldn't be pushing science so hard has to do with the hollow nature of empiricism. Take something like physics -- the ultimate in empirical pursuits. In the end, it all comes down to a handful of empirical facts that we spend the rest of the time just trying to consistently interpret with a priori mathematical or philosophical reasoning. The real issue isn't coming up with a bunch of facts but making sense out of those facts, which is all a priori. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that physics shouldn't be done any differently than it is which is "empirically".)

I'm not any sort of pure rationalist, but, at the same time, I do recognize that all of knowledge is "abstract". Oh, I know what you mean if you say something like "Don't try to teach your kids stuff that's too abstract." But, if you're lucky, you will maybe be able to actually teach your kids some knowledge. And, the few pieces of genuine knowledge you do pass down to your kids will be just that -- abstract. They probably won't be able to really understand it right away on the first day -- most people never do. But, that is the goal you are working towards, and what you really mean when you say "Don't try to teach your kids stuff that's too abstract," is "Don't try to teach your kids stuff that's too sophisticated or too advanced."

At any rate, the point just is that a true education is rationalist and not overly preoccupied with The Real World (TM). Knowledge about the external world is not somehow special. And, in most cases, it isn't even that important. The only reason we think it is is because we confuse internal a priori knowledge with external empirical knowledge. And, the kind of positivism/empiricism you see co-mingled with militant Objectivism is the the high point of all ironies given that they essentially got it all from a bunch of Fabian socialists like Bertrand Russell trying to figure out how to do away with philosophy so they could promote their own philosophically untenable social agendas. The irony is that Objectivists, before even being rabid adherents of their bogus take on philosophy, are ardent capitalists trying to call bull**** on those very social agendas. So, by adopting all this "real world" crap, Rand just got totally pwnd by her philosophical adversaries.

Put down Rand and read some real philosophers.

[Michelle in MO]

so much of what I'd wondered about myself for a long time, only in her own inimitable way!

I know that, in the past, when I've tried to make my kids stack up against other people's kids, I always feel like I come up short. If I learn to love these children of ours as God created them, I can still use TWTM and classical methods to help them achieve their best.

[Colleen in NS]

I like TWTM because it is half way between unschooling and school. It has figured out where the curriculum has to be tight and specifically taught to get ahead, and where loose and exploratory is a better approach. It efficiently cuts down the taught subjects to only those necessary to leave you time for the interest-centered-ness of unschooling the rest of the subjects, and it suggests a method of doing the more unschooling part that helps the child grow academically and intellectually.

This is something I couldn't put into words in my mind previously. I like that WTM tells you what skills are important and how to teach them, then how to use them to learn whatever content area you want.

I find your posts encouraging and interesting.

[Nan in Mass]

and my children, who ARE actually rather odd, are being made even odder by my bad decisions or laziness or something.


I have periodic fits of panic when I think we're not doing enough. I found it helped to spell out why I was homeschooling. Definately not academic excellence, in my case. If you are after that, then I can't help you GRIN. But there are many other reasons to homeschool, like family closeness or passing on your values or culture or religion. In my case, I'm homeschooling my older one so he stays sweet, and I'm trying to give my younger one a chance to do academics at his own mix of levels, and be efficient about it so he has time to pursue his own interests, from which I can see he is learning a lot. In both those cases, I can do a very bad job of educating my children and still accomplish those goals, as long as I don't push them too hard. Constantly reminding myself of this helps keep the panic at bay. I guess this requires that you put something else before academic education, but if you can do that, then you can procede with more confidence.

-Nan

[Jan P.]

I thought her article started out not so bad, but then at the end she went overboard with all of her assumptions about Christian homeschoolers. I find it quite amazing that she never once talked about the founding fathers of our country and how they were educated. Most of them had a "classical education" and a "Christian education". They were the ones that formed our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. They were the promoters of free speech, fredom to worship, and so forth. If I wasn't a Christian and I read this article, then I would be scared that the Christians would be after me and my children. It would be scarey. It really sickened me. Sure, I'm a Christian. I do teach my children Biblical truths. And I do desire others to know Christ, but I don't teach my children to push their faith on others. I teach them to love and care for people. We pray for Christians and nonchristians alike. We desire to help our neighbor no matter what their faith is. I'm sorry, but I didn't like the conclusions she came to. I felt they were unfounded by just quoting one or two people and generalizing that all classical Christian homeschoolers are that way.

I did agree somewhat that in teaching our children that we need to teach children from that which they already know. I believe that is a biblical principle "precept upon precept". I'm not so sure that the lecture method is the most efficient means of teaching this. I personal think one on one tutorship is the best way to educate a person. I believe that is how they do it at Oxford. This was how C.S. Lewis was taught.

And by the way, I do think that progressive schools do have their own dogma that they push. The Holocaust of WWII is a direct result of the "progressive" and "evolutionary" thinking of their time. People in the name of Christianity have done some horrific things, but true Christianity doesn't support murder, suicide, stealing, etc.

I hope I haven't stepped on anyone's toes. These are only my thoughts about the article, and it is not a slam against any other belief system.

Blessings,

[Gwen in TX]

"I can't imagine a situation in which it would be a disadvantage to have read The Republic rather than Cold Mountain."

Only on the Jeopardy teen tournament! My ds and I watch sometimes, and he can answer more questions on the adult tournaments. He doesn't know the hot music, the hot TV shows, the hot books for kids. They always have about 4 or 5 columns of questions on these topics, because that is all the teens know. They really throw "softball" questions in the other categories.

[Nan in Mass]

LOL - I didn't think of that!

[kimmyandgracie]

I thought her article started out not so bad, but then at the end she went overboard with all of her assumptions about Christian homeschoolers. I find it quite amazing that she never once talked about the founding fathers of our country and how they were educated. Most of them had a "classical education" and a "Christian education". They were the ones that formed our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. They were the promoters of free speech, fredom to worship, and so forth. If I wasn't a Christian and I read this article, then I would be scared that the Christians would be after me and my children. It would be scarey. It really sickened me. Sure, I'm a Christian. I do teach my children Biblical truths. And I do desire others to know Christ, but I don't teach my children to push their faith on others. I teach them to love and care for people. We pray for Christians and nonchristians alike. We desire to help our neighbor no matter what their faith is. I'm sorry, but I didn't like the conclusions she came to. I felt they were unfounded by just quoting one or two people and generalizing that all classical Christian homeschoolers are that way.

I did agree somewhat that in teaching our children that we need to teach children from that which they already know. I believe that is a biblical principle "precept upon precept". I'm not so sure that the lecture method is the most efficient means of teaching this. I personal think one on one tutorship is the best way to educate a person. I believe that is how they do it at Oxford. This was how C.S. Lewis was taught.

And by the way, I do think that progressive schools do have their own dogma that they push. The Holocaust of WWII is a direct result of the "progressive" and "evolutionary" thinking of their time. People in the name of Christianity have done some horrific things, but true Christianity doesn't support murder, suicide, stealing, etc.

I hope I haven't stepped on anyone's toes. These are only my thoughts about the article, and it is not a slam against any other belief system.

Blessings,

:iagree: While Ms. Van Damme did make a few good points in her article, overall it seemed to me a product of a worldview that is completely anti-faith. The need for physical understanding to accept something has rebellion at its core. It doesn't just reject the authority of God, it rejects any authority outside of the self, as authority is based on faith. This rejection of authority destroys the integrity of the family by removing confidence in parental authority. It produces criminal behavior and anarchy by rejection of the authority of the law and of rulers. For years this country has traveled farther and farther down the road of relying on the senses rather than faith and it is continuously becoming more degraded and dangerous and fragmented as a result. Whether she realized it or not, her article was about something much more fundamental than the quality of a classical education.

[Eliana]

I read through the article, and had a very strongly negative reaction.

To take just one issue: it is not possible to construct an ideal sequence for learning - one perfect way in which information should be presented so it builds perfectly on itself... in programming a computer, perhaps, but not in educating a child. (I have had numerous conversations with science professors about the possible progressions in science education, and, although there are *bad* ways to go about it, there isn't a right way.... you can't introduce concepts completely sequentially, there is so much overlap and interconnectedness!)

[And I found the attack on and total distortion of Susan's religious beliefs offensive in the extreme. No one who reads *anything* Susan has ever written about religion with an open mind and heart could ever honestly interpret her position as this person has done. She is (speaking as a non-Xtian) an amazing model of the best that I have seen in Xtianity, and has deepened my respect for her and her religion by her writing, her palpable integrity, her profound respect for others (without ever softening her own convictions), and her seemingly boundless decency and compassion. It is hard for me to take seriously any intellectual argument made by this author after reading this section of the article.]


I had a classical education, and feel it gave me the best possible preparation for my lifelong learning and for life itself... it gave me context and a framework, a sense of history, and a broad, compassionate understanding of humanity.

My mother was not systematic (not at all!), and a great deal of my learning was higgelty-piggelty or self-structured. I've chosen to be more orderly than that with my own children, but not because I feel there was any lack in my own education. My learning was multi-layered and it built upon itself in a very organic way... and I can see the same thing happening with my children.

I honestly believe that the Great Books are a far better preparation for anything one's future might hold than any other form of education... and exposure to them *before* one has extensive life experience deepens and enriches, imnsho, that experience when it comes.

[Nan in Mass]

"Students are properly taught about atoms only after they have learned the long history of physics that made possible the discovery of atoms, at which time they are able to thoroughly grasp the arguments for their existence."

When she says things like this, I can only conclude that she doesn't have children. You are right. You can't teach science in any sort of sequence. It is a huge ball of interconnected knowledge, not a sequence. It is very difficult to deal with the questions of a curious 3 year old without explaining the idea of atoms. What am I supposed to do - put off all discussion of why one substance behaves one way and another behaves another way until the child has studied history? I think some history of science later on is very helpful to understanding, but "I'm sorry, honey, but you aren't old enough to study that yet" is not going to go over well when the child just wants his very concrete question answered now. To him, it will seem like you are meanly withholding information, sort of like eating candy in front of a child and refusing to share, only way worse, because children have an even bigger drive to learn the things they think they need to know to be grown up than they do to eat candy.

Another reason I don't think she has children is her attack on the trivium. She obviously hasn't had a dinosaur (or whatever) obsessed 7yo who turned into an argumentative 13yo who picked apart the wording of every sentence who turned into a moody teenager who wanted to do nothing but play guitar all day and individualized everything he possessed. I like the trivium because it is a guide to the sort of learning children enjoy most at different times of their development. If you keep it in mind, you can make learning more fun and less frustrating. I'm not very versed in logic, but isn't there something wrong with the way the author complained about the philosophy in TWTM without considering the suggested method of application? Isn't that sort of like a newspaper quoting something out of context and making it mean something else? Maybe I'm thinking backwards here, but can't most philosophical statements be bent into many conflicting applications? Shouldn't you judge things by the application? The author said she thought the application was reasonable. Her quarrel seemed to be with the philosophical statement. It seems like she does that frequently in the article. Or maybe I've got the logic wrong and it is legit to argue that way?

I don't like the way she specifically attacks people and places, either. Surely there is a more graceful way of constructing an arguement?

Ok - now I have read the article and found so many things in it that didn't ring true that I think it is not worth worrying over.

-Nan

[ACinGA]

:iagree: Has anyone else browsed the other articles on the author's site? They make the POV of this author very clear. She has a problem with what classical education teaches, so she attacks the classical process in an effort to delegitimize its content.

-Amber

[Plaid Dad]

This article surfaces every so often. The author is a devotee of Ayn Rand, so it's hardly surprising that she's not going to find classical education appealing, Christian or otherwise. My advice: Consider the source. Consider worldview.

OK, I'll say a little more. My comments are in blue.

"Classical education, which is never clearly defined, encompasses a great range of educators with a variety of educational theories."

I would say that, while there are competing definitions of "classical" in wide use today, the major proponents of each do in fact define what they mean by "classical." For the people most of this article is critiquing, the source is very clear: Dorothy Sayers' essay "The Lost Tools of Learning."

"Foundations Academy, a leading practitioner of classical education,"

Never heard of 'em. Seriously. Maybe it's because I'm a homeschooling parent, but I had to google this. It appears to be a classical school in Boise. How that makes them "a leading practitioner," I don't know. If she had referred to the Logos School, I might have granted her the point, as that was the first school - as far as I know - based on the Sayers Trivium.

"It [TWTM] is cowritten by Jessie Wise, a disgruntled schoolteacher who made the decision to educate her own children at home, and her homeschooled daughter Susan Wise Bauer. Together, they have tried to create a blueprint for similarly dissatisfied parents who want to take education into their own hands."

The author is making unfounded assumptions about motivations here. Is JW "disgruntled"? If so, the author needs to quote something to prove it, not just throw in a few choice adjectives. Also, she is (deliberately?) not mentioning SWB's considerable academic and professional credentials beyond being a "homeschooled daughter."

"A young grade-schooler should not even be introduced to the concept of an electron. Nor, for that matter, should he be taught about the revolution of the planets—until and unless he can follow the evidence offered by Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo for the structure of the solar system. Hirsch does not recognize the fact that true, conceptual understanding requires a hierarchically sequential presentation of concepts."

O....K. In other words, students shouldn't actually learn anything about science until high school or college. What she is talking about here is not a problem with classical education (where, traditionally, the natural sciences were part of philosophy and not studied by children at all), but with modern education. The natural sciences didn't move into the mainstream of education until the 19th century. She can't lay this trend at the feet of contemporary classical educators.

"In my view, every class in elementary and junior high school should be conducted in a lecture format. The teacher must be an authority on the subject, he must grasp its basic purpose, he must carefully define the knowledge to be conveyed by reference to that purpose, and he must present that knowledge in a hierarchical, integrated, and engaging form."

Leaving aside the practicality of this proposal (small kids sitting still for lectures), or the age appropriateness of the subject matter she suggests (Rand's The Fountainhead), I think she has a point here. She is critiquing Adler's Socratic method for discussing the Great Books, particularly with younger students. I actually agree with her. Teachers should know more than their students. That is the basis of their authority as teachers. I don't think that precludes some give-and-take discussion, but the younger the child, the less appropriate that is, imo. But - and this is a big but - she is assuming that Adler speaks for "classical education" on this matter, and I would argue that he is one voice only. If you listen to other voices - Andrew Kern, for example - you will hear that the didactic and the Socratic methods of teaching must be balanced with an eye to age, maturity, and the subject matter. And if you go back to the sources - Quintilian, say - you will find that lecture was indeed the primary mode of teaching, at least in the schools of rhetoric.

Again, this is not about "classical education," but about one writer's take on it. (And I would argue that to equate "Great Books" in Adler's sense with "classical education" per se, is an error.)

"In the trivium’s sharp division between thinking skills and content, with thinking skills coming before content, we can see in consistent form the same methodological and philosophic error that underlies Adler, Hirsch, and other secular classic educational theorists. This is the error known as rationalism."

There are two problems here, one of definitions and one of philosophy. The first is really a problem with Dorothy Sayers and secondarily, with using Dorothy Sayers' take on the Trivium as the definition of "classical education." If you look at this history of classical education, you will see that the ancients and medieval scholastics did not, in fact, separate skills and content - that's Sayers' interpretation, but it is, imo, just plain wrong. The two cannot be separated without doing violence to the central force of classical education, which is, at base, moral. No classical educator would say that you should teach the "grammar of comic books" in place of English grammar or the history of the novel. Grammar, logic, and rhetoric are first and foremost subjects in their own right.

I would argue (and do, in the new edition of my book) that it is pedagogically questionable to try to separate facts, ordering of facts, and stylistic considerations. All three are at work even at a very elementary level. (I use an example from Latin, but you could take almost any subject and apply the same principle.) Yes, we can emphasize one or the other at different times, but we do that most effectively by teaching these subjects as subjects, not by abstracting them into an artificial method. That is exactly what classical education did from the ancients on down.

A secondary problem is allowing Sayers to define classical education. She never used that term herself to describe her ideas in "Lost Tools" and even her description of medieval education is not terribly accurate historically (the Scholastics focused on logic to the almost complete exclusion of rhetoric). We need to go back to Quintilian, of (better) forward to the Renaissance to see a what a full-bodied classical curriculum really looked like.

Finally, the philosophical problem: Here the author is speaking from a Randian position. The bottom line is that Sayers does not agree with Rand and since the author has a prior commitment to Rand's philosophy, Sayers has got to go.

"The negative consequences of a secular classical education are legion. Fundamentally, such an education fails to deliver on its promise to give students the knowledge and thinking methods they need for adult life."

Which would be, presumably, Randian philosophy. The author states, but doesn't prove her claim. The rest of the paragraph seems to lay at the feet of classical education the bumblings of Hollywood celebrities and small children. Huge leap there.

"The basic truth ignored by the classical, especially Christian classical, advocacy of integration is this: Integrating abstractions is valid and valuable only if done in a form based on perceptual reality."

Again, this "truth" is Objectivist, and is only "basic" if you accept Rand's ideas. This comes down to a worldview/philosophical conflict. The issue here is not classical education, but the worldview inherent in Douglas Wilson's work. (I should note that not every Christian will find Wilson convincing, let alone appealing.)

The author uses evolution as a touchstone for "Christian" thought - a subject that will allow atheistic readers to feel smug and superior to those benighted "fundamentalists."

"(And, of course, the attempt to make Christianity the ultimate integrating principle of all knowledge is exponentially more destructive.)"

If you hadn't already picked up on her assessment of Christianity, you have it right here. Much of the rest of the article is just her riffing on how dim-witted - and simultaneously dangerous - Christians are.

The bottom line here is that, while I think the author has some astute critiques of Sayers, she is basically shilling for Objectivism. This isn't a universal critique of classical education; it's a Randian one. If you buy into Rand, you'll nod vigorously throughout this article. If you think Rand was dead wrong, you won't bother to give this article a second thought.

[Trivium Academy]

"Foundations Academy, a leading practitioner of classical education,"

Never heard of 'em. Seriously. Maybe it's because I'm a homeschooling parent, but I had to google this. It appears to be a classical school in Boise. How that makes them "a leading practitioner," I don't know. If she had referred to the Logos School, I might have granted her the point, as that was the first school - as far as I know - based on the Sayers Trivium.



See this link at Christine Miller's site to various classical helps at the Foundations Academy. When I researched classical education, I read whatever I could, which is how I knew about Foundations.

http://www.classical-homeschooling.org/celinks/about-ce.html

Not saying anything about what you're saying, I've enjoyed reading your discourse, I just thought I would link this.

[elegantlion]

I'm doing research right now for a talk I'm giving this weekend about classical education and I found this scathing article about classical education, namely Adler's Great Books, Cultural Literacy and The Well-Trained Mind as secular selections and goes onto Christian Classical starring Doug Wilson. I'm very interested in what some of the veterans think about this. Do you feel that teaching logic and reading Great Books provided your children with a usable education? Are we missing the mark by teaching our children these subjects without life experience to draw from? http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2007-summer/false-promise-classical-education.asp

While I could not consider myself a true classical homeschooler, I wanted to share one of my experiences. In the days of my youth I had the opportunity to work for a wonderful veterinarian. He had attended the Boston Latin School as a young man. He talked about the quality of his education all the time. I wish I had paid more attention, actually.

He went on to become a Navy fighter pilot, retired from that profession and then went to veterinary school.

Not only was he accomplished in his profession, he was a man of true character, passion, and discipline. I know he would attribute many of those qualities to his classical education.

[H.S. Burrow]

I would just like to point out...because I know not everyone on this forum uses the WTM...that the quote in the article from WTM p.23 is taken out of context. The paragraph that the quote is taken from goes on to say

"Seize this early excitement. Let the child delve deep. Let him read, read, read. Don't force him to stop and reflect on it yet. Don't make him decide what he likes and doesn't like about ancient Rome; let him wallow in gladiators and chariot races. He wants to find out how things work, how ancient people lived, where Mount Vesuvius is located, and what Pompeii looked like, covered with volcanic ash. This thirst for sheer accumulation won't ever die completely, but it is more easily satisfied later on. And the wonder of that first encounter with a strange civilization will never come again."

I am not familiar with the other texts/writings that she quotes from, but knowing how she used something in the WTM out of context makes me wonder how many of the other quotes are also out of context, used to support what *this* author believes and not the original works support.

Anything out of context can be twisted to mean something else.

From the article in the original post:
"If this theory is interpreted in a rough, commonsense way, it sounds plausible. Young children amass facts: from the sounds of the letters, to the multiplication tables, to the names of a universe of entities. Notice, however, what the authors of The Well-Trained Mind mean by the “facts” acquired at the grammar stage. They say that the grammar stage (grades one through four, remember) is “the first time your child will encounter Egyptian embalming rites or the atmosphere of Venus; this is the first time he will understand what light is made of or why Americans rebelled against the British.”23 (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2007-summer/false-promise-classical-education.asp#_edn23) Everything—from religious rituals, to analysis of major political events, to the most abstract discoveries in science—is placed under the heading of “facts.” The Well-Trained Mind regards it as the educator’s job to stockpile a young mind with such facts."

I don't think that I would trust any "facts" this author presents in her paper. I think she is biased...heavily...against anything that doesn't explictly agree with her point of view.

[Nan in Mass]

She hated her before-college education because it was regimented and dry as dust, but she admits it was better than the one we received. I don't think her classical education could be considered impractical if she could take it, double major in bio and lit in college, and then support herself working as a biologist in a lab doing cancer research.

Just adding to the examples GRIN. I usually find a few examples more comforting than lots of studies, illogical beastie that I am.

-Nan

[Linda in NM]

Interesting corallery (can't spell!) the other day...my father-in-law was talking with my husband about the upcoming elections, and my husband mentioned that my son supports Candidate X (not my FIL's candidate). He said, "well, that's his mother speaking..." Actually, it's not. I support Candidate Y, and my son has cogent and logical arguments for supporting his candidate, including arguments that I did not know anything about (border issues, for example). When I asked him how he learned that, he said, "well, mom, I do watch the news..." Logical thinking, from analysis skills from studying logic and great books, as far as I can tell.