Dorothy Sayers and Mortimer Adler in Conversation

from http://www.thegreatideas.org/adler.html

[This is the second in a series following the first: Dorothy Sayers' "Lost Tools of Learning" in the 21st Century.]

During the same decade that Sayers gave her "Lost Tools of Learning" address in Oxford, England, Mortimer Adler published a flurry of articles and books addressing the ideal nature and structure of a liberal arts education. In the 1940s, Adler published the first edition of the best-seller How to Read a Book as well as several essays on education and The Revolution in Education. He continued to contribute to the conversation about liberal education until his death in 2001.

Adler is perhaps most famous for his work in founding The Great Books of the Western World program and the Great Books Foundation. He also instituted the Paideia Proposal and the Paideia Program (now the National Paideia Center), which are specifically devoted to envisioning and facilitating a democratic liberal arts education for K-12 students in the United States.

Rather than give an overview of Adler's entire schema for K-12 education, I'd like to highlight what specifically he offers to the discussion as it relates to Sayer's "Lost Tools of Learning" paradigm.  

Adler agrees with Sayers regarding the goal of a liberal education. For both Sayers and Adler, a liberal arts education should equip the student for a life of on-going learning. In "Liberal Education—Theory and Practice" (1945), Adler describes the "product" of successful liberal arts education as "a good mind, well disciplined in its processes of inquiring and judging, knowing and understanding, and well furnished with knowledge, well cultivated by ideas." And, like Sayers, Adler acknowledges that learning should beget a lifetime of learning. He explains:

"No one can be given a completed liberal education in school, college, or university, for unlike the body, the mind's capacity for growth does not terminate with youth; on the contrary, the mature mind is more educable than the immature." ("Liberal")

Where Sayers is by necessity sparse, Adler offers clarification. In her "Lost Tools" address, Sayers does not give a precise definition of what she refers to as "the tools of learning." What exactly are they anyway? They could be the practice of the seven liberal arts, or perhaps the practice of the first three arts, namely, the trivium. They could be knowledge acquired in the course of study, or attitudes, skills, or habits. If so, it would be helpful to know which knowledge, attitudes, skill, and/or habits we mean. Distinguo! 

When Sayers first introduces the phrase "tools of learning" (seventeenth paragraph), she correlates the tools with thought and language. Language, she says, is "the medium in which thought is expressed," and the three arts of the trivium are correlated with the development of language and thought:

• The art of Grammar develops knowledge of the structure of language and "of language itself." 

• The art of Logic (or Dialectic) then teaches the reasoning skills and habits of mind necessary for constructing and evaluating propositional thought expressed in language. 

• Finally, the art of Rhetoric is concerned with the eloquent expression of ideas in language.

So, at the outset, Sayer's "tools" seem to include both knowledge sets (the grammar of a language or languages) and also skills and habits (of discursive reasoning and creative expression), all organized around communication. 

In this Sayers lines up neatly with her American contemporary. Adler writes of the same subject in his 1941 essay "What Is Basic about English." He explains that the three liberal arts—grammar, logic, and rhetoric—"train a mind for the most characteristic function of human life—communication." These three liberal arts, he elaborates, regulate the operations of the initiation (speaking and writing) and reception (listening and reading) of communication.

For Adler, the distinctions are clear. The three arts of the trivium are concerned with the four operations of communication—listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Therefore, the arts are developed through the study of language and literature, namely, spoken and written language.  

The distinctions can be somewhat confusing since the four operations of communication have now become known in some circles as the four "language arts." The four language arts are related to, but distinct from, the three liberal arts that constitute the trivium. According to Adler, the three liberal arts regulate the four language arts/operations.

Because he has honed in on communication as the unifying theme, Adler is also able to offer a reason for the modern practice of expanding the trivium to greater subject matter than the Latin studies that characterized medieval schools. He explains:

"To the extent that teachers of English are concerned with these four operations, they are concerned with the three arts; and in so far as they are properly concerned with these operations, and with their arts, they should transcend every limitation of subject matter, for they should be concerned with every type and every phase of communication." 

The three liberal arts are only effectively taught within the context of actual language and literature, but every subject matter offers fodder for a liberal arts education. 

Sayers agrees that "we must, of course, exercise the mind on other things besides Latin grammar." She recommends that the young student exercise his keen faculties of "observation and memory" on Latin, modern languages, English, history, geography, natural science, math, and theology. Sayers reminds us that Theology is the mistress science which shows "all branches of learning to be inter-related" and "that all knowledge is one."

While all knowledge is one, Adler clarifies that the material selected for study must be worthy and not twaddle. For example, it would be better for students to attend to the work of master artists than to commercial greeting-card art. It would be more valuable for young students to hear the poetry of Robert Frost than to hear only the silly kind of rhymes written solely for children.  Da Vinci is more worthy than Hallmark, Mozart is more worthy than American Idol, and Shakespeare's plays are more worthy than the latest take on the teen vampire romance. 

Adler also observes that the three liberal arts cannot be effectively taught in isolation from one another even if there is somewhat of a hierarchical progression from grammar to logic to rhetoric ("What Is Basic"):

"The three arts cannot be separated, for no one of them is sufficient to regulate good writing or reading. Each requires the supplementation of the other two; the three must interpenetrate one another; they are mutually supporting disciplines for the simple reason that language without thought is nonsense; thought without language is ineffable; and both without consideration of the human context in communication are lacking in direction. (Discourse is not simply rational, but social, for man is not just rational, but socially so.)"

While, as Sayers observes, there tend to be dominant abilities/interests correlated with the different stages of child development, communication always involves grammar, logic, and rhetoric working together. Thus true learning is both interdisciplinary with regard to subject and multifaceted with regard to the liberal arts and the tools employed.

So between Sayers and Adler we gain a clearer view of both the ends and means of a classical liberal arts trivium education. A trivium education aims to impart organized knowledge as well as to develop skills and habits related to listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking across a wide range of subject matter. Adler also clarifies a third goal implied in Sayers' address: cultivating a depth of understanding of ideas, concepts, and values. 

As the goals are distinct, so are the means. To assist the acquisition of organized knowledge, Sayers recommends memorization and Adler acknowledges the importance of a limited amount of didactic instruction. Both Sayers and Adler highlight the dialectic as an indispensable means to developing habits of mind and depth of understanding. Adler also recommends coaching through modeling and questioning to cultivate intellectual skills. And all this activity focuses on interdisciplinary subject matter of high quality.

Adler knows intellectual knowledge, skills, and understanding isn't enough, however. In "Liberal Education—Theory and Practice," he ends with a problem: "how to overcome the weakness of the flesh on the part of both teachers and students."
 
C. S. Lewis has a lot to say about that particular problem and it's solution, but I'll save that for another post.

Dorothy Sayers' "Lost Tools" in the 21st Century

from http://www.sayers.org.uk/dorothy.jpg

Dorothy Sayers is fine proof that you don't need to have a degree or expertise in education in order to be able to critique the educational system and propose powerful solutions. Sayers begins her famous "Lost Tools of Learning" address by freely acknowledging that she is one "whose experience of teaching is extremely limited." In her day job, Sayers was a professional advertising copywriter, and she was a prolific literary writer and translator as well. Of course she was also one of the first women to graduate from Oxford, having earned first-class honors. 

With a degree in medieval literature from a classically-modeled school, Sayers is quite qualified to inform her audience regarding the structure of the classical/medieval model of education.

When I first read Dorothy Sayers's now-famous address, I was so moved by her wit, insight, and moxie that I became an instant fan. As readers, we are disarmed by her humor, impressed by her erudition, and convinced by her incisive criticism of a broken educational system.

I own and have read most of Sayers books. I love her. And so do lots of other folks, in particular those in the classical education movement who have rallied around her Lost Tools essay. Douglas Wilson wrote a whole book around it. Institutions have been erected on its ideas, and schools and groups have taken Sayers' name.

And thank God for the revival in classical liberal arts education that Sayers' essay helped bring about. Long live the trivium! Long live quadrivium! 

We are indebted to Sayers for reminding us that the medieval model of education has something to teach us—not, as she says, that we should emulate it exactly, but that we should correct the modern educational error of straying away from the liberal arts. The seven liberal arts equip students with the tools of learning necessary for any field of study and for discernment in life in general.

Our society needs this reminder no less—and probably more—than at the time of Sayers's original presentation of "The Lost Tools of Learning" in 1947. Students do not need to acquire more and more technical facts and information; they need the learned habit of thinking critically and well. They need to know how to make distinctions, to define terms, to follow and evaluate an argument. They need the fine-tuned ability to discern good from bad, beauty from ugliness, truth from falsehood. And the seven liberal arts offer a framework for developing these human potentials. So Sayers reminds us.

But what would Sayers say to us today? In this age of information, we have access—at the click of a button or swipe of a finger—to a wealth of research, "best practices," and volumes of authors past and present, all of which can inform our educational choices.

If Sayers spoke to us today, I think she would urge us to see her "Lost Tools of Learning" address as an attempt to start a conversation and not necessarily as a definitive blue print for K-12 education. 

Sayers is not the only eloquent thinker to highlight the benefits and features of a classical liberal arts education. And the habit of critical discernment which she recommends, demands that we, the readers, pause to evaluate the soundness and veracity of her own ideas. Entering into a critical dialog with the text of her address would be a sign that we have truly understood the principles she advances.

I am sure Sayers would be honored to see us filling out and finessing her "necessarily very sketchy suggestions" with insights from other thinkers. The banner-carrying classicists of the 1940's come to mind—Mortimer Adler, C.S. Lewis, and Jacques Maritain. Charlotte Mason is another strong advocate of a robust liberal arts education. Each of these thinkers and practitioners of the liberal arts offer unique insights into the ideal nature and structure of a classical liberal arts education. 

How can we best synthesize the valuable insights from Sayer's "Lost Tools of Learning" essay with the complimentary insights from other liberal-arts-minded powerhouses of theory and practice?



[This post is the first in a series. The next is "Dorothy Sayers and Mortimer Adler in Conversation."]

"As If We Sing to One Another All Day"

 In the introduction to his book, The Sounds of Poetry: A Brief Guide, Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky explains the amazing phenomenon that comes with natural language acquisition:

Every speaker, intuitively and accurately, courses gracefully through immensely subtle manipulations of sound. We not only indicate, for example, where the accent is in a word like "question," but also preserve that accent while adding the difference between "Was that a question?" and "Yes, that was a question."

It is almost as if we sing to one another all day.

We do not need to be taught such things: if they were taught in school, we would find them hard and make a mess of them.

In this regard, the way we use the sounds of language is like the way we use "down" and "up" with certain English verbs: I have never heard a child, however small, or anyone, however stupid, make a mistake when discriminating among such expressions as: "Can you put me up?" and its cousins—"Don't put me down," "It brings me down," "I wasn't brought up that way," "Then what it comes down to is, why bring it up?" and so forth. If we learned these distinctions by making charts and memorizing them, or by rules, we would blunder.

It is the same with what Robert Frost calls "sentence sounds." Because we have learned to deal with the sound patterns organically, for practical goals, from before we can remember, without reflection or instruction or conscious analysis, we all produce the sounds, and understand them, with great efficiency and subtle nuance. [. . . It is a] skill, acquired like the ability to walk and run [. . . ]

The hearing-knowledge we bring to a line of poetry is a knowledge of patterns of speech we have known to hear since we were infants. If we tried to learn such knowledge by elaborate rules or through brute, systematic memorization, then just as with the distinctions involved in putting up with me and putting me up, we would not be able to use them as fluently as we do.

Wouldn't it be lovely to acquire second languages in such an automatic and natural way as our first? We can't perfectly recreate the process from first to second languages, but we can approximate it. This is the genius behind the highly successful methods of Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone language learning. (And, of course, there is actual immersion. But that is not always an option.)

As Pinsky goes on to explain in his introduction, there is a time and a place for going on to learn and attend to the rules, rhythms, and reasons behind language use. To attend to these intricacies is the essential purpose of his book. When we become aware of the patterns—be they grammatical, structural, or syllabic—that underlie and govern the use of language, our ability to employ and enjoy language increases.

Language is primarily and essentially spoken and heard, and only secondarily becomes abstracted to symbols to be written and read. We naturally learn our first language through listening to words and phrases spoken in context. Gradually we begin to imitate the sounds and find ourselves speaking. Only much later do we learn the alphabet, phonics, etc. to read and write.

Precisely because of our propensity to invert the natural process of language learning in traditional textbook approaches, the learning of second languages, especially so called "dead languages," can be a tough slog. First you learn the abstracted symbols—alphabet, reading, and writing—and then, if you succeed wildly, you may figure out how to pronounce individual words and phrases without every time doing the mental gymnastics of transliteration/phonics, accent, and pitch navigation. 

Learning a language backwards, by the book, does not get us to the easy fluency and delight of a living language learned through hearing and speaking. We resort to studying a textual artifact rather than entering and participating in a living word. As a result, we "find [the subtle manipulations of sound] hard and make a mess of them." We blunder.

Is this a necessary drudgery, or is it due to a lack of imagination? Innovators like Pimsleur and Rosetta founder, Allen Stoltzfus, show us what imagination can do.

With imagination and innovation, we keep the song alive.

Core Arts Standards without Beauty

The National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS) is currently conducting a "final public review of the draft PreK-12 arts standards in dance, media arts, music, theatre, and visual arts."

In principle, I am not opposed to the idea of standards. However, there is something fishy about national grade-level standards handed down by a committee and intended to guide everyone everywhere.  

The problem with these kinds of national standards is three-fold. 

First, national education standards are overly discrete and specific for the kind of thing they are. Goals intended for universal adoption should stop at general terms. For example, it is all fine and well to state as a goal that students eventually be able to "synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art." On the other hand, dictating that, in order to meet that general goal, all children in all places ought to "create art that tells a story about a life experience" while in Kindergarten and then "create works of art that reflect community and cultural traditions" during their fourth grade year, and so on, is just plain silly. 

Okay; it's more than silly. It's demeaning and limiting to students, families, and educators. It's micromanaging. Nobody wants that.

. . . Except for those in the curriculum and assessment businesses. 

Which brings us to the second problem with national education standards: They are usually linked to product for profit. Discrete, grade-level standards give publishers the scope and sequence road map for lesson plans that will be acceptable to schools operating under the standards umbrella. 

Assessment and curriculum publishing is a multi-billion dollar industry. In 2012, the market-leading Pearson company sold over $9 billion dollars worth of product. The College Board, one of the leading stake-holders on the NCCAS, has an annual revenue of over $65 million. 

If everyone everywhere is learning discrete goal x in such-and-such grade, then companies like Pearson can write generic textbooks for universal sales, and the College Board can sell universal testing services to see if students have done x in such-and-such grade. Whether x is worth learning or teaching to every student everywhere in such-and-such grade really doesn't come into the picture for the mega business plan.

Last, but far from least, national education standards, being pluralistic and allegedly value-neutral, are unavoidably vacuous and slanted in core areas. A review of the draft of the specific grade-level standards for visual arts (pdf) reveals an emphasis on social awareness and change. Social awareness is good. Social change can also be good. What about imitation, mastery, or acquaintance with historical masters? These terms and goals are not mentioned in the NCCAS standards draft. This is rather telling about the values and commitments of the coalition.

Even more noticeable is the absence of any mention of beauty. That's right. The national Core Art Standards for visual arts contain not one mention of the word "beauty." 

Comprehensive art standards that have nothing to say about beauty?!? Sadly, this is not surprising, but it should be. Shouldn't it shock and disturb us that students across our nation will be taught, through a deafening silence, that art and beauty have nothing to do with each other, that beauty is no worthy artistic goal? This is what the NCCAS would have for our nation's children.

I have quite different goals for my own children. 

Kindergarten, Take 2

I'm gearing up to tackle Kindergarten with my second-born in the fall. Having already had an initial go leading my first-born through kindergarten, I'm feeling pretty clear-headed about my priorities, especially with going-on three years of perspective and hindsight to guide me.

Here's what I'm hoping my son will learn and do:

Human Core:

• Listen to Bible stories.
• Take nature walks and free play outside as much as possible.
• Attend to and draw objects from nature in a "nature notebook" as often as he fancies.
• Listen to beautiful music, especially classical music, and especially live music.
• Listen to poems.
• Listen to captivating picture-book and chapter-book stories.
• Make lots of arts and crafts, mostly self-directed.
• Go to the zoo as often as possible.
• Have plenty of unstructured, imaginative free-play.
• Develop harmony with the body and increasing skill in sustained physical activity. (For my daughter, this has been through dance; for my son, I'm thinking swimming.)

Moral Core:

• Sustain life-giving personal habits such as a rule of prayer, tithing, and responsible chore completion.

Literacy Core: (multi-year goals)

• Write and read the 70 basic English phonograms.
• Write somewhat legibly in cursive handwriting.
• Start spelling, writing, and reading some basic words and sentences. 

Essential Resources:

• Library card
• Sketch book
• Pencil
• Pen
• The grass, trees, bushes and critters outside our door
• The 70 basic English phonograms
• Faith, hope, love, and a lot of grace

Optional Resources:

• A home library well stocked with quality books and music
• The Pencil Grip Crossover
• Colored pencils
• Miscellaneous arts and crafts supplies
• Near-by parks and nature preserves 
• Local music performances, especially free ("Music at Noon" programs are the best!)
• Swim team or some such
• Zoo membership
• Spell to Write and Read (a.k.a. SWR) and the corresponding Cursive First package

Formal math curriculum? Traditional science instruction? Social studies? State standards?  . . . Ain't no soul-lovin' home-kinder-teacher got time for that!

From Early Readers to Chapter Books

What are your family's favorite books for young readers? I hope you'll share in the comments.

Here are some of what we've been enjoying this year as our first-grader has taken her reading skills from zero to sixty in a matter of months: (Since our reader is a girl, some of the our book selections tend to lean toward more girlish interests.)

Early Readers:
The Little Red Hen
Dr. Seuss's Beginner Book Collection  
Step into Reading Disney Princess Story Collection
Biscuit Book Collection
Little Bear Boxed Set: Little Bear, Father Bear Comes Home, and Little Bear's Visit
Fancy Nancy
The Frog and Toad Collection
Henry and Mudge 
George and Martha 


I've found that a good way to introduce a new book or series is to read the first chapter (or first few pages) expressively out loud. Then my daughter meets the characters (learns how to pronounce their names), latches on to the tone, and gets hooked into the story. Often, the result is that the book is snatched away and my daughter has finished reading it within 24 hours.

 
First Chapter Books:
Nate the Great (and the rest of the series)
The Boxcar Children
(I especially like the first 19 in the series, the one's written by the original author.)
Fancy Nancy: Nancy Clancy, Super Sleuth  
The Littles
Magic Tree House series
Voyage with the Vikings (and others in the Focus on the Family Imagination Station book series)
In Aunt Lucy's Kitchen (and the other five books in the Cobble Street Cousins series)
Actually, everything by Cynthia Rylant is fabulous. Wiki has lists of her books here.
The Hundred Dresses 
Little House in the Highlands (About Laura Ingall's great-grandma. This is the abridged version. There are others in the series following the stories of the great-grandma, the grandma, and the mother.)
Detective Camp (and all the A to Z Mysteries and Calendar Mysteries—These might not be the most literary or substantive books out there, but with the girl child reading a chapter book a day, I'm letting her devour these easy treats as well as chow on the meatier stuff.)


Another helpful practice for us has been to encourage repeat readings. Just as toddlers love to hear the same stories again and again, early readers get more out of a book when they read it more than once. (Their reading skills improve as well!) I like the sentiment C. S. Lewis is reported to have expressed: "I can't imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once."


More Advanced Chapter Books:
The Little House collection
Winnie-The-Pooh collection  
The Moffats
In Grandma's Attic (Grandma's Attic Series)  
The Penderwicks 

Currently Reading:
The Disappearing Stranger (Adventures of the Northwoods, Book 1)
Owls in the Family 
Baby Island
Ballet Shoes (The Shoe Books)
Pippi Longstocking 

On our "To Read" List:
Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective
Pollyanna
Anne of Green Gables
E. B. White Box Set
The King of the Golden River
Swallows and Amazons 

Our six-year-old started on A Little Princess, but the plot line got too sad for her tastes. Narnia is still too scary for her, as well, as are the George MacDonald classics such as The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, and At the Back of the North Wind.

We've previously done Heidi as a read-aloud, but it might be time to revisit it as independent reading in the next year or so. Same for The Little House collection.

I'm getting some of my book ideas from homeschool resources:

• The grade-level "Literature" and "Free Reading" lists on the Ambleside Online (A.O.) website are helpful. See, for example, the A.O. second grade book list; scroll to the bottom. 
• Veritas Press also has a catalog with literature picks by grade level. (See grade 2, for example.)

What are your young readers reading? Where do you look for book recommendations?