5 Simple Ideas for Becoming a Better Classical Educator in 2015

As the year comes to a close, inevitably my thoughts begin to turn towards reflection and planning, reflection on the year ending and planning for the year to come. One of the most discouraging things is to have high hopes for the year to come and discover on December 31st that none of it or very little of it, actually happened.

I hear it all the time, “I need to read that book” or “I really want to learn Latin with my kids” or “I wish I was more familiar with the liberal arts” or “I wish I had been classically educated”.  I get it! I have been there and am there with many of those statements. When it comes to encountering the Christian classical tradition there are a slew of ideas, skills, and particulars, we could behold.  Of course, as Christian classical educators, we do have a respite, since ultimately; there is only one thing that is needful.

The ‘one thing needful’ is the first thing, the principle, the reality that each of us needs to rest in before we try to do anything else. Much anxiety and stress are the fruit of ignoring the one thing needful and solely concerning ourselves with all the particulars. Andrew Kern says in his article; The One Thing Needed, that we need to “make it spiritual.” I think this means we need to make the particulars obey the principle. It seems that this is the act of the will that Andrew Kern discusses in the same article.

With this in mind, how do I intentionally pursue the particular things that I need to learn if I am to become a better classical educator?

1. Remember

We have already said much about this step. First and foremost we need to remember the one thing needful. We need to remember what it is we are trying to accomplish, and we need to remember who it is that sits before us.

We are trying to cultivate wisdom and virtue, and we are teaching the very image of God. I love how C.S. Lewis puts it in ‘The Weight of Glory.’ {free copy online}

“It is a serious thing,” says Lewis, “to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ‘ordinary’ people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whome we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously — no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner — no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.”

2. Notice

Second, notice what the particulars of our craft are. There are certain particulars and practices that cultivate wisdom and virtue and there are practices that do not. As classical educators, we are concerned with those that do. CiRCE’s page on ‘How to Teach Classically’ explains those particulars beautifully, below is summary and reiteration of what I found there. Remember we are just noticing the breadth of the particulars and practices we as classical educators ought to be attending to.

Beyond of course Jesus, the one who is good, true, and beautiful, these are the areas we need to focus our learning, practice, and reflection in order to become better classical teachers. The following is a very broad overview.

1. The modes of Classical Teaching

The classical modes of teaching are mimetic and Socratic instruction, plus narration, which is a subset of mimetic instruction. We have several resources here to help you encounter these. Visit our how to teach classically page to learn more.

2. The seven laws of teaching

The seven laws of teaching are: the law of the teacher, the law of the learner, the law of language, the law of the lesson, the law of teaching, the law of learning, and the law of review. These are laid out in John Milton Gregory’s 1887 text ‘The Laws of Teaching.’

3. The three columns

The three columns are three categories of content a teacher can teach. You can either teach knowledge/facts, skills, or truths. Mortimer Adler talks about these in his books ‘The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto’ and ‘Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind’.

4. The nature of each art and science

The liberal arts are grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, harmonics, and astronomy. The four sciences are the physical sciences, ethical sciences, philosophical sciences, and theological sciences. Each liberal art and science has a nature unique to it and by studying it appropriately has the power to give its student a unique lens for viewing reality more precisely. One can discover the nature of a thing by considering its powers, purpose, and propriety. The best way to achieve this is through studying the arts and sciences for yourself and reading books and resources that discuss each art or science in this way.

3. Reflect

Third, reflect on the items in number two. What progress have you made in these areas? What area have you given intentional study to? What areas are completely new to you? Where do I need to improve? Where is my greatest skill or knowledge deficit? What do my children need most, right now in their studies? You may or may not know this. Pray and ask for insight.

As you reflect, do not forsake the one thing needed, this will help you guard your thinking against wandering off into anxious and emotion-driven thinking. It all goes back to the one thing needful. Pray and ask God to reveal to you where you should begin to study. What is the one thing He wants you to learn about first? Wait for an answer.

4. Choose

Fourth, simply choose the one thing you will study intentionally first. Decide when you will study. Will it be integrated with what your children are learning? Will you study with friends? Will you use the teaching resources on Expanding Wisdom or join our reading group? I schedule the things I want to work on for the year. I only schedule one thing to work at a time; then I switch it up every 1-3 months. I do this for two reasons. First I like change and second I could study anything for the rest of my life. If I wait to study something else until I have mastered, the thing I am working on I will never move on. There is one exception to the choosing one thing rule, if you choose a teaching mode/law/column and an art or science at the same time. Right now, I am focusing on rhetoric and grammar as my art and the laws of teaching. Next, choose the books, courses, a mentor, etc. that can help you grow in that area.

5. DO

The last step is the most simple but also the hardest. DO the thing. Put your plan into practice, learn, try it out, make mistakes, learn from them and do it all again. There will never be an ideal time to begin. There will always be something going on and stuff to do. Choose to be right where you are and do what you can. Even if it is just 10-15 minutes of reading per day.

“For that reason I think it important to try to see the present calamity in a true perspective, The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure the search would never have begun. We are mistaken when we compare war with “normal life”. Life has never been normal. Even those periods which we think most tranquil, like the nineteenth century, turn out, on closer inspection, to be full of cries, alarms, difficulties, emergencies. Plausible reasons have never been lacking for putting off all merely cultural activities until some imminent danger has been averted or some crying injustice put right. But humanity long ago chose to neglect those plausible reasons. They wanted knowledge and beauty now, and would not wait for the suitable moment that never comes.”

–C.S. Lewis, On Learning in Wartime {free copy online}

I would love to know what you are choosing and doing? Join the conversation and let me know! Maybe we can help each other stay accountable.  Find the comments section here.

Expanding wisdom, extending grace,

Jennifer