Killing Pride

St. John of the Ladder says: "He who in his heart is proud of his tears [of repentance] and secretly condemns those who do not weep is like a man who asks the king for a weapon against his enemy and then commits suicide with it". If your heart is softened, be it from repentance before God or be it from knowing the boundless love of God toward you, do not become proud toward those whose hearts are still hard and calloused. Remember how long it has been since you had a hard and calloused heart. There were seven brothers who were ailing in a hospital. One of them was restored to health and rose to his feet. He hurried to serve his other brothers with fraternal love and concern so that they too would recover. You be like that brother also. Consider that all men are your brothers, sick brothers. If you feel that God has given you health before them, know that it was given to you through mercy, so that even you as a healthy person may serve others who are sick. Of what do we have to be proud? As though good health comes from ourselves alone and not from God. As though a mud hole can cleanse itself and not from a source deeper and cleaner.

From the March 31 reflection in The Prologue of Ohrid (web version)

Thoughts on Teaching History - High School

Regine Pernoud, after laying the groundwork in her thoughts for teaching young children and middle school children, discusses her view of high school history:

"Finally, when the possibility of analysis and abstraction arrives, one could tackle visions of history that are at once more general and much more precise through subjects put back into their chronological and factual framework, by referring to the documents and texts of the period studied...  Textbooks can then be used with much profit, in the class library."

I love that last sentence.

Hurry, Cram and Long Hours

For all of the blessings of the Classical education movement, in my experience there is still too much emphasis on hurry and cram, and not enough on contemplation and rest (see the 2007 Circe Conference A Contemplation of Rest).  Apparently, this is not a new problem and was addressed in a fine article from the 1892/1893 Parent's Review.

The article has many good points, but my favorite is on how to write a cram-proof test:
"When an examiner is drawing up his questions, if he would ask himself: Are these tests of real knowledge? What effect will this paper have upon teaching? And if he would then erase all such questions as can be answered by "cram," that is by unreal knowledge, he alone could deliver us from over-pressure. How? Real knowledge is digested knowledge, digested knowledge means leisure."

And another great quote:
"The teacher would soon discover that hurry, cram and long hours, are fatal to the acquisition of real knowledge; that only a comparatively small amount can be digested and retained; that there is no rumination of any subject that is taught without interest and enthusiasm; that part of every lesson must be given to quiet observation and reflection, to the drawing of conclusions and comparisons, to careful accurate, well-weighed expression; that is to the exercise of all those faculties by means of which knowledge takes an abiding hold of the mind."

Poetic Knowledge Book Club

One of my favorite books on education will be the subject of an online book club.  Go here.

Shh - I'm Teaching

In a very odd little book by Josef Pieper, I came across this quote and have been puzzling over it ever since:

"Educated people and those who work at the education of others spend their lives without noise." - Goethe

The Risk of Education - Chapter I

Guissani writes that the young need to be immersed in a unified view of the world which he calls "tradition".  Without such a unified vision the young person will be "disconnected and worn down".  A neutral education leads to either "fanaticism, bigotry against a certain position, or an 'anything goes' indifference".  The single criterion, or tradition,  turns out to help even those who ultimately reject it because only when questioning from total security and from comparison with heartfelt truth will any conversion to another view happen.  A skeptic can't approach a problem in the same way as the person with such a unified vision.  The skeptic simply says "whatever" and remains indifferent to reality.

Real authority comes from a person who embodies the tradition or hypothesis of reality.  (This is a real challenge to parents and teachers.)

True conviction in the student arises from stimulating the adolescent to personally commit to verify the tradition (hypothesis) in his own life.  Without this personal verification true learning has not taken place.  This risk of personal verification of the tradition is the source of the adolescent coming to his age of true freedom.  Hence the "risk" of education.

More on Aesop

The Circe Institute drew attention to my post "Aesop's Fables at Table."  Here are a few more ideas to make this work with a range of age levels (we have ages 3, 6, 7, 10):

1. Parents and older children can serve as models for the younger children in both the narrations and the formulation of the moral or lesson of the fable.
2. Younger children can narrate with the older children providing the lesson or moral.
3. Take your time before looking at the editor's moral - its very tempting to want to look immediately - it might even be good to ruminate on the fable for a few hours or a day, though it is hard to wait
4. Discuss the fable before formulating the moral, asking basic questions about the characters or repetitive elements in the story
5. Discuss the differences in the morals formulated - could more than one be correct?
6. Have a competition for forming the best moral - it should be short, memorable, and demonstrate some art at language (this is for the advanced Aesop scholar)

Questions or further suggestions are welcome in the comments.