More than once a brilliant lecture has been deflated by a simple nagging question: "so what?" A less obvious, but more revealing, phrasing of the question might be "and then what?" It is a good thought to consider ... what comes after thinking?In that spirit, this blog page will be coined Metacogitologist ... derived from the Greek and Latin words meta - cogito - logos ... which might be translated as ... "the rational thinker about what lies beyond [or comes after] thinking" ... or for the teacher it might be translated "beyond the lessons". Let's propose possible answers in light of the advice which Socrates gave to his friend Gorgias [a politician in Athens]:
"When [after] we have practiced virtue together, we will apply ourselves to politics, if that seems desirable, or we will advise about whatever else may seem good to us, for we shall be better able to judge then. In our present condition we ought not to give ourselves airs, for even on the most important subjects we are always changing our minds; so utterly stupid are we!”And although Socrates was put to death by the Athenian politicians of his day [although we are not sure if Gorgias was among them] for his thinking, this page shall be considered a sanctuary city.
Readings will be listed in the reverse order tendered with the first listed being the last submitted and the last listed being the first submitted. Do not hesitate to edit or delete your comment if you change your mind, but, for quick readability, limit yourself to a single comment. As keeper of the list, I will try to remember to remove all previous comments each time I add a new reading to the list for comment.
"The Limits of the Trivium" tendered by David Cullen Oct 2015
I appreciate the article "The Limits of the Trivium." I am a strong supporter of the trivium being a framework for how to learn. As someone who went through public schooling and felt insufficient to take on higher education, I have appreciated SO MUCH learning about the trivium as an adult. Through home educating my own children, because I wanted a different outcome for them than my own, I found "classical" learning via the trivium. When I learned that any subject can be mastered through defining its terms, analyzing how those terms apply and interact, then using all that information to create/acquire something I can share with others, I WAS HOOKED! I knew this was the mode I wanted to use for the remainder of my teaching at home. I employ these methods for myself and no longer have interest in public institutional learning just to have letters at the end of my name or a plaque with my name on it (no offense to those of you who do, I know those things are valuable to you.) I've come to be unintimidated by the task of learning, and believe I can teach anything as long as I am willing to put the work forth in first learning it for myself. I want to use the trivium to advocate for parents to become teachers, something the public education system/government doesn't want parents to believe! So I will continue to champion the trivium and use it in all my classes and conversations with parents.
ReplyDeleteWhile researching Fine Arts in classical education, I found this article and found it applicable here. Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteAre the Seven Liberal Arts a Classical Education
By: Andrew Kern
Circe Institute
Over at the Mentor that discussion I mentioned has continued. Somebody has asked why virtue is important to classical education and whether the seven liberal arts are enough (I hope I am not mangling the question while transferring it here). Since this question goes right to the heart of the matter, I though I'd post my rambling reply here as well. I hope it formats correctly. The seven liberal arts are not enough because how they are taught matters. Modern teaching is analytical, which means, in practice, that it is reduced to something that can be contained in a text book, communicated to a large group of students (say, 5,000,000) the same way everywhere, and assessed the same way everywhere as well. Classical education teaches the seven liberal arts SO THAT students will develop the intellectual virtues they sustain. If you don't orient your instruction toward cultivating virtue, you'll undercut the very arts you are trying to teach. Secondly, the seven liberal arts are not the whole classical curriculum. They are preceded and permeated by gymnastic, which is the training of the body and by music, which is the training of the soul. Music as one of the liberal arts is already a reduction from music as the essence of learning. It took a further reduction when it became something limited to singing and instruments. Furthermore, the fine arts train the virtues of seeing well and are, therefore, essential. And the seven liberal arts are means to a higher end, which is to gain knowledge. They are arts because they produce something other than themselves (as the art of painting produces the artifact of "a painting"). The liberal arts produce knowledge. So a classical education also includes the domains of knowledge that follow the seven liberal arts and take a lifetime to grow through: the natural sciences, the moral sciences, the philosophical sciences, and the theological sciences. In fact, as much as I love the seven liberal arts, I have to acknowledge that they are of a time and place in history. Aristotle and Plato did not think in those terms, though they moved us in that direction. Augustine probably didn't, but around his time they were formulated. In the Renaissance they start to break down. Virtue never breaks down. The seven liberal arts were developed because the medieval world saw how effectively they developed the intellectual virtues. When virtue was their pole star, the seven liberal arts became their sail. When virtue was displaced as pole star, the seven liberal arts lost the wind. To mix the metaphor, the pole star of virtue is the wind in the sails of the seven liberal arts. The intellectual virtues cannot be gained apart from the seven liberal arts (understood as realities, not formulas). The seven liberal arts will not be sustained (as what they are) unless a school or family values the intellectual virtues.
https://www.circeinstitute.org/2011/05/are-the-seven-liberal-arts-a-classical-education
There are many different understandings of what "liberal arts" means.
ReplyDeleteAs explained on our proposed website tab, we are viewing them as:
1. the tools of learning [the trivium]plus
2. a mandate to learn the cultural and scientific subjects of importance [the notion behind the addition of the quadrivium].
In so far as a classical education means being educated much like young greek and roman boys with grammar. logic and rhetoric, a liberal arts education IS a classical education because it teaches the same tools the greeks used to learn. But it is also a medieval education because it uses the tools they used. So it is not really helpful to think of the liberal arts as a classical education because it uses the trivium tools ... since ALL education in all the ages uses these same learning tools ... whether they know it or not.
If a classical education on the other hand means studying SUBJECTS like Latin, Greek History, etc. then the liberal arts is NOT necessarily a classical education. While these subjects are of great value [and we pursue some of them at Northfield], somebody can get an excellent liberal arts education without ever studying latin, greek or ancient history.
Hope that helps clarify some important terms.
Precisely. I use to always start my adult workshops with the question, "How do you define classical education?" Some thought of it as the subjects one studies, and my goal was always to introduce them to the concept of HOW one studies, ANY subject, classical or modern.
ReplyDelete