John Chrysostom on Priorities in Education

Having children is a matter of nature; but raising them and educating them in the virtues is a matter of mind and will.

Your children will always be sufficiently wealthy if they receive from you a good upbringing that is able to order their moral life and behavior. Thus, strive not to make them rich, but rather to make them pious masters of their passions, rich in virtues. Teach them not to think up illusory needs, reckoning their worth according to worldly standards. Attentively watch their deeds, their acquaintances and their attachments-and do not expect any mercy from God if you do not fulfill this duty.

This is how to discipline and teach your child; this is the greatest of riches. Do not worry about giving him an influential reputation for worldly wisdom, but ponder deeply how you can teach him to think lightly of this life’s passing glories; thus he will become truly renowned and glorious. Whether you are poor or rich, you can do this; these lessons are not learned from a skillful professor but from divine revelation. Do not ask how he can enjoy a long life here, but how he can enjoy an infinite and eternal life in the age to come. Give him the great things, not the little things. Do not strive to make him a clever orator, but teach him to love true wisdom. He will not suffer if he lacks clever words; but if he lacks wisdom, all the rhetoric in the world cannot help him. A pattern of life is what is needed, not empty speeches; character, not cleverness; deeds, not words. These things will secure the Kingdom and bestow God’s blessing. Do not sharpen his tongue but purify his soul. I do not mean that worldly learning is worthless and to be ignored, but it should not be an exclusive preoccupation.

The Nature of Sin

Sin is primarily a metaphysical phenomenon whose roots lie in the mystic depths of man’s spiritual nature. The essence of sin consists not in the infringement of ethical standards but in a falling away from the eternal Divine life for which man was created and to which, by his nature, he is called.

Sin is committed first of all in the secret depths of the human spirit but its consequences involve the individual as a whole. A sin will reflect on a man’s psychological and physical condition, on his outward appearance, on his personal destiny. Sin will, inevitably, pass beyond the boundaries of the sinner’s individual life, to burden all humanity and thus affect the fate of the whole world. The sin of our forefather Adam was not the only sin of cosmic significance. Every sin, manifest or secret, committed by each one of us affects the rest of the universe.  

(from St. Silouan the Athonite by Archimandrite Sophrony)

Organizing Curriculum – Why History?

“The medieval mind was quite ahistorical.  The study of history did not figure in the seven Liberal Arts of the Middle Ages, neither in the trivium nor in the quadrivium.  And the mentality of the Renaissance too, contrary to general belief, was not very historical either: Certainly it was not historical in the way in which our mentality is accustomed to the past.  The meaning of historical development, of a constant continuity with the past, was alien to the Renaissance mind.”  - John Lukacs, Historical Consciousness

 It seems that virtually all classical curriculum models use history as their organizational principal; typically using a cycle of three to six years to cover the history of civilization over the course of grades K through twelve.  One of the obvious benefits of this type of organization is that it has already been provided to us by many current classical educators and it is an organizational principal that can be used by those who aren't classically educated themselves – like me.   I can take a list of accepted classics and arrange them in an historical order.  But why use history as the organizing principal – especially if it has never been part of classical education in the past?  I've been thinking about this question ever since I read the preface to Norms and Nobility.  David Hick’s writes, “Although in my curriculum proposal I use history as the paradigm for contextual learning, the ethical question ‘What should one do?’ might provide an even richer context for acquiring general knowledge.”   Unfortunately Hicks does not expand on his statement, but it is thought provoking and raises good questions.  Why has the classical education movement stuck with history as the organizing principal?  What does the model itself communicate to students?   What other possibilities are there for organizing curriculum?      

Erasmus’s Advice for Students

1.       Choose a learned Master with the affection of a father.  “For it cannot be, that one that is unlearned himself can render another learned.”

2.       Listen attentively to the Master and avoid too much contention.  “By daily augmentations grows a heap larger than can be thought.”

3.       Mix diversion with study.  “There is nothing more pernicious than to be glutted with any thing; and so likewise with learning.”

4.       On the other hand, the diversions should not be that much different than the studies themselves.  “Nay, there ought to be a continual pleasure in the very midst of studies, that it may appear to us rather a pastime than a labour; for nothing will be of long duration, that does not affect the mind of the doer with some sort of pleasure.”

5.       Quality above quantity in education.  “At the first it is no great matter how much you learn; but how well you learn it.”

6.        “Set apart some certain time for meditation.”

7.       Engage other minds, the “combating of wits does in an extraordinary manner both show the strength of genius’s, rouses them, and augments them.”

8.       “If you are in doubt of any thing, don’t be ashamed to ask; or if you have committed an error, to be corrected.”

9.       “Avoid late and unseasonable studies, for they murder wit, and are very prejudicial to the health.”

What a day may look like:

“The Muses love the morning, and that is a fit time for study. After you have dined, either divert yourself at some exercise, or take a walk, and discourse merrily, and study between whiles. As for diet, eat only as much as shall be sufficient to preserve health, and not as much or more than the appetite may crave. Before supper, take a little walk, and do the same after supper. A little before you go to sleep read something that is exquisite, and worth remembering; and contemplate upon it till you fall asleep; and when you awake in the morning, call yourself to an account for it. Always keep this sentence of Pliny’s in your mind, all that time is lost that you don’t bestow on study. Think upon this, that there is nothing more fleeting than youth, which, when once it is past, can never be recalled. But now I begin to be an exhorter, when I promised to be a director. My sweet Christian, follow this method, or a better, if you can; and so farewell.”

A University Is....

"A University is, according to the usual designation, an Alma Mater, knowing her children one by one, not a foundry, or a mint, or a treadmill."  John Henry Newman

David Hicks, author of Norms & Nobility, The Interview

David Hicks, author of Norms & Nobility, was the guest on Leigh Bortins, Leigh at Lunch internet radio show.  The first half of the show was plagued by phone line problems, but it is still worth a listen.  To listen go here, for notes from the show go here.