Remember the Pope's anti-Muslim speech?

Last week, Pope Benedict XVI made a speech in Germany, and quoted a Byzantine emporer who thought Muslims were violent and needed to be opposed (this was at a time when Constantinople was under direct threat of invasion). Now, some Muslims were so outraged that the Pope would characterize Islam as a violent religion that they burned him in effigy and destroyed three churches. Right.

Anyway, turns out that the entire point of the speech has almost nothing to with Islam, and everything to do with Christianity (what a surprise, not). The money quote: "Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats..."

He goes on to detail the history of the de-Hellenization of the Christian faith, and to call for a re-Hellenization. It is a call for a return to reason among Christians, and I agree whole-heartedly. It could even be read (and I, of course, do) as a call for a return to a truly Classical education for Christians.

I encourage all Christians considering the place for the Classics in their curriculum to read this speech in its entirety. Pope Benedict makes an excellent argument in favor of the study of the Greeks.

What's so great about Greek?

After my Latin post below, I got an email asking why we study Greek, and for encouragement in the pursuit. Seeing as I have a bazillion things to do today, it seemed like a good time to write about it. (And Hubby says I have no time management skills. ;-) )

Many of the advantages to the study of Greek are similar to those of studying Latin. I'll repeat the immediate benefits:

The immediate benefits I've seen with Mary are increased focus when working, wider vocabulary understanding, better spelling and reading skills, an increased capacity for memorization, more interest in foreign languages overall, more interest in Ancient History, more order and a better flow to our school day, and less work on my part, since we cover all of our grammar topics via Greek and Latin and we are able to move more slowly, with more depth, and with a better understanding of grammar than I think we would have otherwise.

Now, Greek is a little different than Latin. While it is logical, it is not as precise. Latin is the language of the largest bureaucracy the world has ever known (excepting, perhaps, the IRS), the Roman empire, and, more specifically, its military. The Romans are known for their feats of engineering (all roads lead to Rome), but the beauty in their society is largely borrowed from the Greeks. Where the Romans are efficient, the Greeks are elegant. Where the Romans are precise, the Greeks are nuanced. Roman rhetoric is more about persuading the listener to agreement, while Greek rhetoric is more about exploring the nature of reality. (Compare Caesar and Herodotus, for example.)

The Greeks balance the Romans. If we confine our studies to Latin and the Roman world, we come away with a stodgy, rigid notion of the nature of things. If we confine our studies to Greek and the Aegean world, we come away with a fluid, abstract notion of the nature of things. But, if we study both together, we get a more balanced, and consequently more realistic, approach.

This is as true in writing as it is in formation of worldview. Latin teaches economy of words, logic of thought, and precision of language. Greek teaches elegance of expression, fluidity in writing, nuanced use of wording, and variety in language.

Also, I find it useful to study both languages, because it is a cheap and easy review. We hit the noun cases from two angles, applying both in English. We can translate words from Greek, to Latin, to English. We can look at the similarities and the differences, and we get a better idea of how English and the other modern languages formed. We can move from memorization of grammar to an intimate understanding of language as a concept with few bumps.

Just as with Latin, the study of Greek is necessary if we wish to truly understand the ancient world. One needs to be able to read Euclid, Herodotus, Plato, et al. as they intended, in the original language if one wishes to truly understand the interconnectedness between metaphysics and the mundane sciences that a true Classical education presupposes. Pythagoras isn't just geometry and arithmetic, he's philosophy.

Another reason the study of Greek is important is because it is the language through which the Bible comes to us. Even for the non-Christian this is a concern. Hebrew copies of the Scriptures simply were not available throughout much of the Middle Ages, right up to the early modern period. Even the Apostles themselves largely studied Scripture in the Greek (the Septuagint). You will see slight difference in how verses are rendered in the Old Testament and how they are quoted in the New Testament in modern Bibles. This is because the OT verse was likely translated from the Hebrew, while the NT version comes to us through the Greek or Aramaic that is drawing on the Septuagint.

Finally, it is useful to remember that Greek is the language that the Romans applied their Trivium to. Roman school children did not learn Latin at school, they learned Greek. They cut their mental teeth on Aesop. When the concept of the trivium and quadrivium were born, Greek was the language they were born from and for.

What's so great about Latin?

I recently had a friend ask me via e-mail what I thought the benefits of Latin have been for us.

Do you feel it's been really worthwhile? What advantages do you perceive your children to have because of the instruction in Latin they've received?

Here is my answer:

The immediate benefits I've seen with Mary are increased focus when working, wider vocabulary understanding, better spelling and reading skills, an increased capacity for memorization, more interest in foreign languages overall, more interest in Ancient History, more order and a better flow to our school day, and less work on my part, since we cover all of our grammar topics via Greek and Latin and we are able to move more slowly, with more depth, and with a better understanding of grammar than I think we would have otherwise. Grammar takes a huge chunk of our day, but we hit spelling, English grammar, two other languages, and some history, science, and geography in a little more than an hour, with about 30 minutes instruction on my part and the rest independent. If we were only doing Latin, the whole thing would take somewhere about 30-45 minutes, depending on the day.

The other benefits of Latin that we haven't seen yet, since Mary is only 9, include easier study of Romance languages (Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese), inflected languages (Ancient, Biblical, and Modern Greek, German, Russian, most other Indo-European languages), the ability to read early Church and pagan documents in their original language and/or to discern the quality of a translation, more logical thought and a better understanding of formal, material, and symbolic logic, and more concise, precise writing in English. Also, since most highschool Latin work includes working with Caesar, Cicero, and Virgil, the student will automatically be introduced to ancient history, philosophy, and literature without the need for a separate course.

New home for us Trad Classical wierdos.

Drew Campbell, aka Mungo, has started a new website for Latin-Centered Classical. His book _The Latin-Centered Curriculum_ is due to ship next week. I'm hoping to beg for it for a Mother's Day present. The site has a forum, info on the book, and several articles about LCE. Now you can go geek-out on Latin to your heart's content.

Ah, Yes! It was poor education and the lack of peasants!

While I generally respect Susan Wise Bauer and have learned much at her feet, I really have to wonder what she and other neo-classicists think trad classical is. Tuesday in her blog she quotes Norman F. Cantor.

Cantor basically says that all the education given during the Roman Empire was grammatical and stylistic. The one and only purpose was to create orators. He mentions Quintillian in the quote, but I have to wonder if he has ever read him. Cantor goes so far as to say that "There was no room for art or music within the system;" and "They ignored the sciences, studied almost no mathematics and little history." Evidently Quintillian was lying when he prescribed studying the Quadrivium. And, what exactly was their "language and literature" study using if not historical texts? I mean, wasn't that all they had? Sure, there may have been some contemporary speeches studied for oratory, but quite a bit of their instruction was on Homer. If you go out and read any reviews of this book you will see that I'm not the only one that thinks Cantor's expertise is fairly narrow, any his charactarization of Greek and Roman societies is greatly laking.

It seems to me that Mrs. Bauer is taking a quote that fits her notions about what modern Latin-Centered Classical is, and is using the quote to justify her beliefs about it, even though the quote is contradicted by her own writings. She goes on to say, "The Romans, after all, could no longer survive as a civilization when the aristocrats no longer had artisans, peasants, and mercenaries to whom they could issue their orders." What the heck does that mean? That society can't exist without a society? That in order to have ruling class you have to have a ruled class? In order to have an army you must have soldiers? It's an absurd thing to say in the context of education. I mean, it's a completely true statement, but it doesn't have any meaning in the context of the discussion. It's a complete non-sequitur.

The decay of the Roman Empire is a complex historical phenomenon. I'm pretty sure "lack of peasants" is not very high on the list, though.

[Update: Hubby would like to point out that the Empire didn't really have peasants persay. Slaves, yes, but not peasants in the way of a permant free underclass.]

Traditional Classical Homeschool (part 2)

A traditional classical education is, in many ways, a completely different animal from a neo-classical one. Traditionally, an education could not be classical unless it centered around the classics. From the ancient Greeks until the 1800's, there was no need to use the term "traditional" or even the term "classical." One would simply call it an education. It was assumed that any learned person would know Latin and Greek, would have read Caesar, Aquinas, Herodotus, et al. For example, when Harvard was founded one could be accepted if he were at least 14 and could translate a passage from Greek into Latin.

Most modern 30 year olds could not do today what was expected of a teenager 200 years ago. Is this because life for teens is so much more complicated today? Because of a general breakdown in the family and community structure? No. The reason that today most adults never do what was expected of a colonial child is because we have shifted our expectations. We are now generalists. We spend at least 13 years in schooling learning dribs and drabs about everything under the sun. The 18th Century man was a specialist. He specialized in the classics and learned about and from the Greeks and Romans. And that was all he learned, at least formally.

Neo-classicism can fall into the same trap the institutional schools do. There are 6,000 years of human development to study (more if you go and look at things like australiopithicenes). When one uses history as the centering subject in his school, he then has to go out and study all the different accomplishments of mankind throughout history. If you read even half of the 1,000 good books through 13 years of education, that comes out to just over 38 books a year. I read a lot, but I don't think I've ever read nearly that many books in a year. Now, most neo-classicists don't read nearly that many books, but I would argue that even 10 books a year for an elementary age student is too many.

The key is to go "further up and further in" to quote C. S. Lewis again. Take just a few books (we are doing 2 this year) and really study them. A good education is not broad; it is deep. Learn a few things well and you will be able to learn anything you wish. As Miss Sayers said, the disciplines of the trivium are the "tools of learning." They do give us a pattern for thinking and analyzing. We can take them and apply them to any subject at any time, after we have them mastered. And this is the key. We have to master these tools for them to be of the best use. Can we master the trivium without applying it in the way it was designed to be used?

I would say no. The reason the trivium works so well is not simply because it follows the way we learn and grow, but also because of the subjects to which it is applied. Greek and Latin provide training and formation for the mind. Latin is a highly inflected language and is extremely logical. When a young child studies Latin grammar, her mind is being trained into the patterns of thought necessary for the study of logic. When she learns Greek, she prepares herself for elegance of expression. When she translates a passage from one to the other she uses all her faculties to their utmost.

Latin also teaches economy of words. A four word sentence in Latin might translate to 10 words in English. I myself never received a classical education as a child, and I find myself often saying in six words what I could have said as well in two. Read Lewis, Tolkien, Simmons, or any other classically trained writer and you will discover a beauty and an exactitude of language not found in the writings of those who have not been so trained.

This beauty in speaking is representative of an appreciation of beauty in general. For classical students do not just learn in the classical languages, they learn about the classical people. Greek and Rome in many ways represent a golden age the history of mankind. And, not only is there beauty to be found with the ancients, but purity of thought as well. St. Paul was a classically trained scholar and he brings all of the rhetoric and logic from his training into his writing.

Which brings us to question of whether we should learn about the classical peoples and societies. Christians often worry about exposing their children to pagan thought at too young an age (or sometimes at any age at all), but nearly all the giants of Christianity throughout the millennia were classically trained. When St. Paul declaims gnosticism, he can do so because he knows what and why gnostics think the way they do. When he tells the Corinthians that the wisdom of God is foolishness to men, he does so because he understands what Greeks thought and believed. To understand the Bible, we must understand the culture at the time it was written. So, in order to become a great apologist, one had best study the classics. Studying the classics also gives us a grounding for understanding our own political processes. The founding fathers took the best that the Ancients had to offer and combined it into our Republic. When we study the classics, we study ourselves.

As we see the benefit that learning about the Greeks and Romans and learning their languages impart, we can see how that they cannot merely be a nice "add-on" to an already full schoolday. Neo-classicists see Greek and Latin as a good way to enrich one's studies, but they do not see them as being central to study. Even as little as a hundred years ago, any classicist would have thought this idea laughable. Neo-classicists give the curricular supremacy once held by Grammar to history. Historical studies define and connect the various subjects in the school day.
But in order to do History well, we have a lot to cover. We need to get through 6,000-8,000 years of mankind's story every few years. We need to read as many of the great thinkers as possible. And we need to do so while balancing all the other subjects necessary to produce an educated person. That is a lot of plates to keep spinning. A neo-classical education is like a spider, it has many legs that support it. Take out one, and the education can still stand, if not as well, but take out more than a few and you get no where.

A traditional classical education is centered in the liberal arts. We take our children down the two paths of the trivium and quadrivium in our school day. These subjects, along with Classical Studies, form the three legs of our education. A traditional Classical education is a tripod. Pull out one leg, and it falls, but it only needs three legs to stand. It is simple and effecient, but complete.

Often, a traditional classical education is referred to as a "Latin-centered education." We take the focus away from history and place it on Latin and/or Greek. The Latin grammar is much less complex than the flow of history, yet it provides us with more than enough rabbit trails to follow. As we learn the words for the various provinces of the Roman empire, we learn their modern names and geography. When we come across a Latin phrase we learn its historical background. When we study words used in science we can take the time to learn about those studies. There is no need for separate English grammar, as long as the teacher understands it well enough to draw the comparisons between Latin and English (or has a good grammar reference that will allow her to do so).

So, in a trad classical course of study, Grammar is paramount, and the other parts of the trivium are added in as appropriate. Rhetoric is studied via the Progymnasmata, a series of writing exercises designed to both model good writing and encourage creative thought. This begins near the same time grammar study is initiated. Logic is taught first through Socratic questioning, then through formal and material logic as the student is ready. Instead of seeing grammar, logic, and rhetoric as separate stages of development, they are seen as a continuum with studies in the three waxing and waning as a student matures.

Likewise, studies in the quadrivium continue throughout the years of schooling. We no longer send our children out into the world as young teens, so it makes sense that subjects earlier reserved for college study are now taught to children before they leave home. Thus, the second leg of trad classical ed is arithmetic and, later, the higher maths and the sciences (including music and art theory).

The third leg of trad classical ed is Classics. We study about the Greeks, the Romans, and the Christian societies formed as the influence of Rome retreated. One cannot learn a language in a vaccum. Language is a reflection of the values and mores of a people. The study of the one complements and reinforces the study of the other. This is the study that provides us with a chest, with heart. We learn the tenets of our religion and we learn from the people who created the highest works of art and literature in Western history. It also allows us to fully immerse ourselves in the study of the languages. Studying the culture helps with the study of the language and the study of the language helps with studying the culture. The two are inseperable. Here is where our focus should be, if we truly wish to master the trivium.

But, you may ask, what about U. S. (or whatever your country) history? What about State history? Don't we also need to know these things? Of course we do, but I advocate learning them incidentally. History of oneself is best learned by experiencing one's culture and community. Visit the historical sites in your area, talk to the older people in your community, take a vacation to Washington D. C. Cultivate your student's interest in his own history and you won't have to teach it. He will apply the tools of learning naturally to a subject that interests him. Our family reenacts several periods of history (American War for Independence, the Scottish Rising of 1745, WWII) and I can guarantee that a child will learn more history in one day at a historical site than in a year of history class, and he will enjoy it much more.

The Classics are our starting point. Once we have learned to apply the tools of learning to their proper subjects, we can move on and apply them to other things. After we have written cheria we can easily learn the five-paragraph essay. After we have learned Latin and Greek, modern languages are easy. With a mastery of classical literary references we can read Milton, Donne, or Shakespeare without footnote. Studying classical government informs us about modern government. By doing a few things well, we learn the other things we need to know along the way.

Traditional Classical Homeschool (part 1)

Okay, homeschoolers are a minority in this country. Classical homeschoolers are a minority of homeschoolers, and traditional classical a minority of that minority. So, I figure there are maybe a thousand of us in the whole country. Just as homeschooling is often misunderstood and classical homeschooling even more so, trad classical is about the most misunderstood of all. Here is my little, likely misguided, attempt at explaining what it is that we are about.

Most people these days are acquainted with homeschooling in general. Not everyone knows what classical homeschooling is, so that's where I'll start. There are two movements within Classical education (whether it be home, public or private), neo-classical and traditional classical. In general, classical education is education in the seven liberal arts. These arts consisted of the trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy). They are called the liberal arts because the word liberal comes from the Latin libero, meaning "I free." The point of a liberal education is to free the student; to free him from his preconceptions, from his baser nature, from the constraints placed on him by class or station. A liberally educated person might be a ditch-digger, but his thoughts and feelings are higher than his circumstances. He is not swayed by the mob, he is not a sheep that can be led with impunity. He knows beauty when he sees it and it gladdens his heart.

Sounds good right? Sure, but how does one do that? For almost 3,000 years the answer was a traditional classical education, but sometime during the Edwardian age our conception of what an education should do changed. With WWI and the culmination of the industrial revolution, Western Civilization came to a turning point in education. Suddenly free-minded ditch-diggers weren't enough. We were running a global economy now and we needed workers to provide for our country's economic future. So, the emphasis in education from the ditch-digger on up to the political elite changed from freeing one from ignorance and ignobility to freeing one to earn as much money as possible and impress others with how big one's brain is. C. S. Lewis calls this "men without chests." Modern society is full of smart people and hard workers, but we have no heart.

Now, we are finally beginning to see the need for heart. We have no common cultural standards anymore, we are no longer E pluribus unum. We are simply a bunch of little subcultures trying to stay insulated and make a buck without offending anyone. Or while offending others, depending on your subculture. We are the subcultures; we don't have a culture anymore. We are so far down this path many of us don't even see the need for a common culture. We flounder in the shallows of our feelings, we can't swim well enough to get to anything of depth. We can't even remember how to teach swimming.

And herein lies the heart of my post. As classical educators, we see the need to teach the inner man, to create people with heart, but we are largely making up the methodolgy as we go along. In the early part of the last century, many Classicists were sounding the alarm against the change to what we would now call outcomes-based education. One of those voices was Dorothy L. Sayers. Her message was simple, the liberal arts have a place in the new curriculum. Miss Salyers saw the Trivium as a tool, rather than the path the ancients did.

Trivium comes from the Latin for "the three-fold path." It consisted of three main subjects, Grammar (as in Latin and Greek grammar), Logic or Dialectic (this is philosophical logic, not mathematical logic), and Rhetoric (both writing and oratory). Miss Sayers thought that these three subjects should be considered more a methodology of teaching than a course of study. It was to be a kind of parts-to-whole education. One would learn the terms and basic concepts (the grammar) of a subject, then learn how these things work together (the logic), and finally be able to produce original thought on the subject (the rhetoric).

Likewise, the student is seen as progressing through these stages as he ages. The elementary age (dare I say grammar school) student is seen as being in the grammar stage, the junior high student is logic stage, and the high school student and adult are in the rhetoric stage. Instruction in each stage is geared toward the student's trivium level. He is learning the grammar of math (basic operations) in the grammar stage, the logic (algebra) in the logic stage, and the rhetoric (geometry, trig, calculus, discrete math, etc.) in the rhetoric stage.

One studies history, science, mathematics, music, art, grammar, writing, religion, logic, foreign languages, geography, copywork, dictation, memory work, literature, and often some type of physical education. Work begins on most of these subjects sometime between the ages of 6-10, and each subject is studied in-depth, often with writing assignments for each of the core subjects (history and/or literature, science, grammar, religion, and even math occasionally). This is a rigorous education.

This is the brand of education that trad classicists label "neo-classical." It is a good, even a great, education. One reads the Great Books of Western Civilization and enters into the great discussion of history. One might even learn Latin or Greek, and is definately taught logic. The power of expression is emphasized and tools for writing and speaking are provided. It is also the education that is espoused in virtually every how-to guide published on classical ed for homeschoolers. It seeks to provide both a chest and an economically viable citizen or a great Christian apologist.

Reading a neo-classical homeschooling guide leaves us with questions. Is this truly a classical education as it was understood before 1900? Should economic viability/apologetics or a "chest" be the most important consideration? Can we manage to fit all that in? Should we try? If we need to pick and choose, what should we pick, and why? Stay tuned for the trad classical answers.....