Why Johnny can’t think — part 10
Teaching young people how to think should rank as one of the cornerstones of any good educational philosophy. What a paradox then, what unmitigated irony it is that the one place this dynamic should flourish is the same place it is often suppressed … in
our schools.
When skilled thinking has been confused with propaganda and ideology, you know we’re in trouble. When relativism is viewed as sophisticated and enlightened, you know we’ve gone off the rails. When our college’s teacher-training programs portray the likes of Rousseau and Dewey as the smart ones, and our future teachers think progressive education is “cutting edge,” you’ll understand why Johnny can’t think.
While many insightful people have been speaking out on this for a long time, the sacred cow of assembly-line, spoon-fed, stimulus-response, mass education continues to mosey on through the pastures of our society, clinging stubbornly to a deeply flawed form of education. Our children remain the victims as multiplied millions grope in the darkness of a system that was built on the basic principles of behavioral psychology (a science which believes a child can be trained the same way as an animal).
Its opposite, however, has a legacy of serious intellectual muscle, producing a formidable track record. It has not only fed and fanned the flames of historic Christianity, but it has helped birth Western Civilization and educated such notables as Augustine, C.S. Lewis and our Founding Fathers. No surprise, then, that classical education out-performs progressive models every time and on every metric. For those not paying attention, view the data … it’s all there.
The word “classical” means “not new or experimental; having lasting significance or recognized worth” and it suggests a standard that has endured the test of time. Only the uninformed, stubborn or subversive would chuck it.
Classical education views students as thinkers, not just learners, which is why the classical repertoire always included not only the 3 R’s but also logic (the rules of thinking) and rhetoric (intelligently articulating what you think and believe) and philosophy (the love of wisdom) and theology (the queen of the sciences),.
Classical instruction was content-heavy to be sure, but it went much deeper and was more intense. You wouldn’t just inhale the food or pick at it, you would taste it, chew on it, swallow it, bring it back up and do it again. It was a depth-over-breadth approach that involved meditation and disputation, and it powerfully contributed to a culture that became marked by open discourse which, in turn, resulted in rich relationships. Its nemesis produced a cancel culture.
Classical education is secure enough to welcome innovation in teaching methodology. At the same time, it is anchored enough to avoid “change” just for the sake of change. It is not quickly “wowed” by every pedagogical fad that blows through, nor is it easily mesmerized by “the latest research.”
The classical model’s two-fold objective of both learning and thinking dovetails into a singular, unifying proposition of four words: to learn to think. Believing as Louis Pasteur once said, that “chance favors the trained mind,” the classical model gives students a better chance in life by training their minds deeply.
Through logic and rhetoric, students learned to think rationally and communicate effectively. Through math and science, they discover order and develop curiosity, cultivating both conceptual and critical thought. Through the Great Books and Great Ideas, they contemplate “the best that has been taught and said in the world.” Through history and polity, they muse on the times and events and people and places of nations and civilizations. Through Latin, Greek and English (contextualizing language), they learn to think clearly and creatively about words, their meanings, their beauty, and their inexorable link to propositional truth. And through philosophy and theology, they ponder the greatest thoughts and the greatest mind, even God Himself, whose existence or non-existence was deemed essential to defining and understanding everything else.
Through these robust classical disciplines, young Johnnie can “stand on the shoulders of giants,” seeing farther than he ever would have otherwise. Apart from them, or through a watered-down version, he simply lacks
the tools.
Brian Schroeder is the former Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction, an ordained minister and founder/president of The ChrisCorps Commission (bschroeder081858@gmail.com)