Recovering Leisure (Schole) in Education: Part I

by Christopher Perrin, PhD | Dec 10, 2013 | Articles

Classical Academic Press (of which I am a part) has launched a new online academy called Schole Academy.  Naturally, some want to know what schole means, and sense it has something to do with school.  Well it does and it doesn’t, it turns out.  Here is the first essay of three on the recovery of schole in education.

My friend and colleague Andrew Kern (of the Circe Institute) once hosted a conference with the theme “A Contemplation of Rest.”  This was several years ago, but Andrew deserves credit for raising the banner of a problem we all know something about: Modern education is an education in anxiety.  Modern administrators, teachers, parents and students are frenzied and frenetic.  Students rush to classes (at the sound of bells), often eight classes a day, then run to practices, music lessons and other activities.  Then a night of homework when they try to manage assignments for their eight classes for which they receive numerical assessments, often on a weekly basis.  Most students by junior high fall into the all too familiar cram-pass-forget cycle of “learning” that has afflicted almost all of us during our own education.   We have all taken courses, the content of which faded into oblivion just a few months (or weeks) after we completed them.  Some of us can barely recall if we even took a course in say, American history or British literature.

Well the good news is that for about thirty years there has been a steady push against this kind of frenetic, ephemeral education and a curious inquiry into the kind of education that preceded this unsettling schooling that dominates America.  What came before it was the so-called classical model, itself multi-faceted but still a coherent, integrated approach to education that while rigorous, was slower and more contemplative.  The classical tradition of education was (and is) many things woven together: a curriculum (including the seven liberal arts), a community (yes it does take a village) and a pedagogy (from chanting in younger grades to Socratic discussion in older ones).  It is a large tradition and I can heartily recommend that readers consult the new book by Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain, The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education.

However, an important part of the tradition is contemplation itself.  It would not have been conceivable to our forebears to consider a daily schedule of eight different classes, nor even the prospect of choosing a “major” field of study until the liberal arts were mastered.  There were no majors in college until about the mid-1800s.  Education in the classical tradition was rigorous, but it was slower, and focused on fewer arts at a time to ensure mastery and permanent learning.  There was no “gaming the system” or the test; students were taught by masters who got to decide when a student was ready to proceed to further study.  Teachers were expected to be masters who could be trusted to teach (because they were masters)—not functionaries of a system that forces all teachers to use the same techniques at the same time and verify their compliance by machine-readable multiple choice instruments.

Contemplation—do we even know what it is?  And once we recover an intellectual grasp of it, do we know how to engage in it?  Can we even slow down enough to read a long poem without getting distracted and fidgety?  Have we become trained and habituated to constantly move, shift and flux—in body and mind?

The Greek word for leisure is schole (skoh-LAY).  It does not mean leisure in the American sense of relaxing on a vacation at the beach.  It means rather “restful learning” that comes from discussion, conversation and reflection among good friends.  For the Greeks, this was the noble thing—one of the highest activities of human existence.  The Greeks had another word for that kind of work that we all must do to earn our bread: ascholia.  Ascholia means that necessary activity that keeps you from schole.  Now wage-earning is a fine and noble thing in its own right, properly conceived.  But do you see that schole is a higher thing still?  Until we do, we won’t have it because we won’t want it.  The classical tradition esteemed it and sought and so should we.

I close with an irony.  Yes, we do derive our word “school” from schole.  Schole moved into the Latin as schola (with some change of meaning) and then into German as schule and English as “school.” By the time we get to English, the restful connotation of schole has vanished.  We can hope, however, that the renewal of classical education will put the schole back into school.

What is Classical Education? Part III

by Christopher Perrin, PhD | Nov 1, 2011 | Articles

What is Classical Education?

Christopher A. Perrin, M.Div, Ph.D.

Most of us have a difficult time defining the word education—it has a wide range of meaning and is used in different ways in different contexts.  Certainly education can be formal (as in a college education) or informal (his stern aunt provided him a fresh education in manners).

The word classical is no easier to define.  It can refer to a certain kind of music (that came well after the Greeks and Romans) and a certain kind of literature (the “classics” of western civilization).  It can refer to a historical period (The Greeks and the Romans) and architecture (style, concepts and motifs from Greece and Rome).   Of course it can also refer to Greek and Latin when used in the phrase classical languages.

But classical can also refer to anything that has become standard and authoritative (in a given field) as opposed to novel and experimental.  Thus we can speak of classical physics and even classical book-making, bread-making or beer brewing.  And of course, classical education.

Given the wide semantic range of both classical and education it is not surprising that the phrase “classical education” is also used with various meanings.   Language is flexible, and so we have some varied and flexible uses of “classical education.”  This means that there can be several legitimate uses of the phrase—but it would be wise to know just what a given speaker means by classical education.    Here are several ways the phrase is used:

1. classical education: a study of the Greek and Latin languages (linguistic definition)
2. classical education: a study of the Greek and Latin languages and the history, literature, art, philosophy and culture of Greek and Roman civilization (linguistic and cultural definition)
3. classical education: a study of the great ideas of western civilization as contained in the classic “great books” produced by that civilization; a study of the “best that has been thought or said.”  (intellectual history definition)
4. classical education: a study of the seven liberal arts of grammar, logic, rhetoric (the trivium) and arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy (the quadrivium).  (curricular definition)
5. classical education: a study of the seven liberal arts employing traditional teaching insights and methods (such as singing, chanting,  Socratic discussion  and debate) passed down to us by past educators. (pedagogical definition)
6. classical education: the cultivation of wisdom and virtue by nourishing the soul on truth, goodness and beauty by means of the seven liberal arts (soul-ish or psychological definition)
7. classical education: an approach to education that seeks to create a community of learning, characterized by academic rigor, warmth and delight and involving vibrant interaction of teachers, parents, friends and others. (communal definition)

Now, all these definitions reflect current use.  This is because classical education, as a rich, complex 2500 year-old tradition, does contain many important elements (linguistic, cultural, intellectual, curricular, pedagogical, psychological and communal elements).   Because classical education is so rich and complex, it is hard to sum it up in one or two sentences.  Here is a crack at it—this time including a theological element:

classical (and Christian) education: a traditional approach to education that blends Christian theology with the historic curriculum and pedagogy of the seven liberal arts in order to produce societal leaders characterized by wisdom, virtue and eloquence.

This may be a decent “dictionary definition,” but like so many brief definitions of complex topics, it is so general that it lacks clarity and punch.  What after, all is Christian theology, pedagogy and the seven liberal arts?  And if we listed the liberal arts, how many of us would like to know more about grammar, logic or rhetoric as an art?  How many of us have a clear sense of what virtue and eloquence mean? But alas, when we abbreviate we must leave things out.  So where do we go from here?  To the same place we go after putting down the dictionary—to an article, encyclopedia, pamphlet or book; another level down.

Going another level down, we would discover that classical education has also traditionally emphasized:

• The training of leaders: those governing and leading culture were educated classically while others were trained for particular jobs and tasks
• Reflection and leisure: time for discussion, thought and application was a necessary part of acquiring wisdom, capacity and skill
• A common curriculum: students all study the essential curriculum of the seven liberal arts which were thought to prepare students for any profession or field of endeavor
• Interaction with tradition: the knowledge, wisdom and art of the past were honored and studied for present use
• Innovation according to need: classical education adapted to new geography, circumstances, discoveries and continued with “theme and variation”
• Partnership with the church: education was informed and guided by church liturgy, teaching, training and financial support
• Training affections and the intellectual virtues: educators sought to shape and form the student and not merely inform him.  Students were taught to “love that which is lovely” and acquire the virtues necessary to be eager and excellent seekers of truth.

You can see how easily we could now write an article, pamphlet or book! Each of the items above deserves to be further expanded and explored.

With homeschooling parents talking increasingly about the classical approach to education, it will do everyone good to become familiar with the basic contours or essential elements of traditional, classical education.  We should avoid facile, “straw man” constructions of classical education that are easy to dismiss as much as we should avoid glowing and sentimental descriptions that present it as a cure-all.  By becoming more familiar with this rich tradition in education, we will better communicate and better make use of its riches.

Resources for further study:

For those beginning a study of classical education and ready for the next another level of exploration, I recommend the following:

An Introduction to Classical Education: A Guide for Parents (45 page pamphlet available in paper back but also available as a free download at Classical Academic Press.com)

Classical Education: The Movement Sweeping America (Gene Edward Veith and Andrew Kern, published by the Capital Research Center)

What is Classical Education? Part I

by Christopher Perrin, PhD | Jan 13, 2011 | Articles

“Education” is a hard word to define.  Even “Christian” is hard to define.  And certainly “classical” is a tough word.  Put all three of these words together and you have a three-layer cake that is very hard to eat.  I have read a lot of books about education, and find it remarkable just how many different “aims of education” exist among educational writers.  Read ten books on education and you will find at least five different “purposes” for education.  And simply because a school calls itself Christian doesn’t mean you can know a whit about what way the Christian faith comes to bear on the culture, curriculum and pedagogy of the school. We Christians have to constantly qualify what kind of Christians we are and have trouble doing so.  Words like “fundamentalist,” “conservative,” “liberal” and even “evangelical” have become stretched, ballyhooed and therefore problematic.  I call myself a “classical protestant” which avoids the confusing connotations of other adjectives, but still leaves the listener wondering just what kind of animal I am.  Alas, it usually means further conversation when we want to classify each other quickly and move on.  It is no surprise that classical Christian schools find it challenging to define themselves well.

Classical Christian education (CCE)  cannot be classified too quickly.  Sure, we can offer a decent first level definition of CCE like the following ones:

• CCE is a form of education rooted in the best educational practices of the past.
• CCE is the cultivation of wisdom and virtue by nourishing the soul on truth, goodness, and beauty.
• CCE is is an educational approach rooted in Christian conviction and theology employing the historic curriculum and pedagogy of the liberal arts in order to cultivate men and women characterized by wisdom, virtue and eloquence.

All of these are good definitions, yet they are by no means the only legitimate ways of crafting a definition.  Definitions can be short or long, they can include multiple sub-definitions or connotations.  One level down from a “dictionary” definition is a paragraph statement (which many classical schools have); the next level might be an essay or and encyclopedia article.  Finally, we arrive at the level of a book on the subject, and of course such books do exist–short ones and long ones.

I have written a short book of 45 pages (a pamphlet?) on CCE and given frequent seminars on the subject.  I will be writing more about defining CCE on this blog, but here is audio link to a seminar I presented on the topic of “What is CCE?” It is edited and 16 minutes long.  Those interested can also download a free ebook of my pamphlet An Introduction to Classical Education: A Guide for Parents by going to the following web page: ICE Book Download

Here is the audio clip:

What is Classical Education

Ideas for effectively defining classical Christian education…are welcome.