My Opinion on 5 Works about Education, Teaching, and Learning - Volume 14

In this article we'll see the differences and similarities between medieval and modern concerns in education from Charlemagne and King Alfred, to Leo Tolstoy, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Hannah Arendt.

'Admonitio Generalis' by Charlemagne 789 AD

Charles the Great, King of the Franks, was the first ruler to conquer and unite much of Europe as the Carolingian Empire after the fall of the Roman Empire 300 years earlier. He worked on sorting out problems in the church, including dealing with education.

The 'Admonitio Generalis' reforms helped spur the first medieval renaissance, called the Carolingian Renaissance. It consists of 82 chapters. Many of the chapters are only one sentence each, and deal with what priests can and cannot do. Chapters 71 through 74 are about education:

"Capitulum 71

That bishops and abbots carefully correct the canonical and catholic books, and that the priests read and understand them and preach according to their meaning.

Capitulum 72

Let schools be established for boys who are to learn reading. In every single monastery and every bishopric let them learn the psalms, the neumes, the chant, computus, and grammar, and let them correct the books, because often, while they wish to serve God well, they do so badly through ignorance.

Capitulum 73

That priests have books and read them and preach according to their meaning, and that they do not allow their boys to destroy the books but have them corrected.

Capitulum 74

That well-corrected books be kept in the churches, and that the priests read them and preach according to their meaning."

Notice the motivation and the method. The motivation is the correct understanding and teaching of the religious tradition. The method is through the correct reading, understanding, copying, teaching, and preaching based on books. Charlemagne's religious reform that sparked the first European renaissance, helped start what eventually became the university system, and was an early step toward modern civilization, was all founded on a focus on books.

This helped me realize that times of flourishing like a renaissance don't just happen, someone purposefully causes that to happen.

King Alfred's 'Introduction' to 'Pastoral Care' by Pope Gregory the Great 890 AD

This introduction is only five paragraphs, but it is very interesting. For us Alfred is an old historical figure, and in these five paragraphs he touches on both the recent history of England for his time, and ancient history across parts of Europe. It's worth noting that Alfred's knowledge of history was important for him making these decisions, which he learned through reading.

Alfred notes that England was once known for its knowledge and learning and people would travel there for that reason, and that knowledge led to wealth and prosperity, but then the Danes plundered and conquered parts of England as part of the Great Heathen Army. Alfred stopped them and made a deal so that Danelaw ruled parts of the island, but the Vikings left Wessex and peace held for many decades. Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899, and had beaten the Danes at the Battle of Edington in 878. This allowed him to make the Treaty of Wedmore, and the Viking Guthrum even converted to Christianity, taking the name Aethelstan and ruling as the King of East Anglia.

Alfred makes note that religious works have been translated into the current language of a time and place over and over in history, and that they should now be translated into Anglo-Saxon English, because as things stood they had books, but very few people who could read them. Alfred translated the book 'Pastoral Care' by Pope Gregory the Great from Latin to Anglo-Saxon himself.

With more books being translated in Anglo-Saxon English, Alfred then encouraged the learning of reading. Here he is talking about it, translated to modern English: "Therefore it seems better to me, if it seems so to you, that we also translate certain books, which are most needful for all men to know, into that language that we all can understand, and accomplish this, as with God's help we may very easily do if we have peace, so that all the youth of free men now in England who have the means to apply themselves to it, be set to learning, while they are not useful for any other occupation, until they know how to read English writing well. One may then instruct in Latin those whom one wishes to teach further and promote to a higher rank."

There are many interesting themes and connections here. This is one, a culture of knowledge and prosperity can lose both by losing in war, but by winning in war can reestablish knowledge through books and then grow in prosperity once again. Not all people realize this insight, and very few are able to accomplish it. Alfred the Great was able to win both in war and peace.

This helped me realize that in societies that have succeeded and then fallen, if the memory of the history remains in even a part of that society, there is yet hope that it can regrow.

'The School at Yasnaya Polyana' by Leo Tolstoy 1862

Tolstoy is considered one of the greatest writers in human history. He also operated a free and experimental school for a few years. This is from an article I've previously written on his school:

"By 1859 Tolstoy was already a famous writer in Russia. He was a wealthy noble with peasants living on his lands. He was a decorated Russian artillery officer in the Crimean War. He started a free school for peasant children at his home, both called Yasnaya Polyana. He trained the students to be teachers because the teachers he brought to the school didn't work out well. It was just a small school with a dozen students. The students weren't required to do things, they were allowed to do things. He also had a sister and her kids and an aunt living with him. This is in Czarist Russia long before the Communist Revolution in 1917. As part of the school he also published a journal or magazine that included stories written by the children, and articles from Tolstoy on the school. Other people were inspired and started to copy his private and non-governmental school, and he would advise them."

In 1862 the police raided his school and home while he was away, including arresting the children, stealing his food, harassing his family, and threatened to come back until he shut it down, which he did. His educational philosophy and experiments inspire people to this day.

You can see the oddity of his teaching philosophy in these two statements from his article:

"I am convinced that the school ought not to interfere in that part of the education which belongs to the family; that the school has no right and ought not to reward and punish; that the best police and administration of a school consist in giving full liberty to the pupils to study and settle their disputes as they know best. I am convinced of it, and yet, in spite of it, the old habits of the educational schools are so strong in us that we frequently depart from that rule in the Yasnaya Polyana school."

"The teacher always involuntarily strives after selecting that method of instruction which is most convenient for himself. The more convenient the method is for the teacher, the more it is inconvenient for the pupils. Only that manner of instruction is correct with which the pupils are satisfied."

Naturally Tolstoy did well at teaching reading and writing, and did some unique experiments with that, some of which inspired later important reading and writing teachers like Sylvia Ashton-Warner. They also did the other usual subjects in school, including science experiments, which the students quite liked. The observations I find most interesting from Tolstoy in this article are on history. Here are four quotes on it:

"I finally came to the conclusion that, in respect to history, there is not only no need of knowing the dull Russian history, but that Cyrus, Alexander the Great, Caesar, and Luther are not necessary for the development of any child. All these persons and events are interesting for the student, not to the extent of their importance in history, but to the extent of the artistic composition of their activities, to the extent of the artistic treatment of them by the historian, and even more so - not by the historian, but by the popular tradition."

"Tell them well how matches were invented, and they will never agree with you that the inventor of matches was a lesser man than Gutenberg; in short, for the child, for the student in general, who has not yet begun to live, there does not exist the historical interest, let alone the interest of universal humanity. There is only the artistic interest. It is said that when all the material has been worked out, it will be possible to give an artistic exposition of all the periods of history, — I do not see it."

"In order to make history popular, the artistic exterior is not sufficient; the historical phenomena have to be personified, just as tradition, sometimes life itself, sometimes great thinkers and historians, personify them. Children like history only when its contents are artistic. There is no historical interest for them, nor ever can be, consequently there can be no such a thing as history for children. History sometimes serves only as material for an artistic development, and so long as the historical interest is not developed, there can be no history."

"I have also made other experiments in teaching modern history, and they have been very successful. I told them the history of the Crimean campaign, and the reign of Emperor Nicholas, and the year 1812. All this I told almost in a fairy-tale tone, as a rule, historically incorrect, and grouping the events about some one person. The greatest success was obtained, as was to have been expected, by the story of the war with Napoleon."

I find this fascinating, because Tolstoy is correct. Adults realize that it would be useful for kids to know history, but the kids have no experience of life and can't comprehend what learning history would mean for them or how to connect to it. Adults learn history because they are interested in it, but the kids judge it purely on entertainment value. For them history and fantasy hold the same weight and importance.

History is also largely taught backwards. Anyone who has dealt with children to any extent knows they often ask, "Why?" Most of the time adults dismiss the kids which limits the child's learning in the moment and their desire to learn in the future. But, it can easily be used for learning. The difficulty is taking the time and knowing the answers. For history it also means it should be taught from the present to the past, rather than starting in the far past and working forward. Working backward from the present means that children have a connection to it. It's obvious once you think about it, but history is still generally taught as separated from the present.

Tolstoy's note about focusing on a person rather than the general context is important too. Humans are made to tune into individual humans. The dramatic story of a single person is more compelling than some general tale of a society or civilization. Plus, reading memoirs and autobiographies you learn things that people won't say in history books because they are politically incorrect, and you hit on specific details that are interesting and are skipped in history books. It's more interesting to work on understanding a specific person and their context than just the general situation.

This helped me realize that education is always an exploration which is in itself interesting and instructive.

'The American Scholar' by Ralph Waldo Emerson 31 August 1837

This is a speech that Emerson gave at Harvard College. It ended up being famous and influential. The U.S. was still a fairly new country at this point and he makes the case that American scholars should think independently of Europe, and that scholars in general should be independent thinkers.

Emerson makes a few interesting points. One is the case that there is a hierarchy of learning. The first is from nature itself. The second is from the past, best done through books. The third is through personal action and experience.

I think Emerson is correct when he states, "The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances. He is the world’s eye. He is the world’s heart." The point is unique insight is the goal.

On the other hand, I ponder the correctness of this statement, "In self-trust, all the virtues are comprehended. Free should the scholar be,—free and brave." I've made the case for many years that courage is the foundational virtue because no other virtue can exist without it. I can make the same case here, that self-trust requires courage. But, is Emerson correct that self-trust is a more encompassing virtue and includes courage? I'm unsure.

There's one line that I could write an entire essay on easily, "Life is our dictionary." That succinctly includes so much of epistemology (the nature of knowledge) about how experience, perception, and conceptualization work that the speech is worth reading just for that sentence. I've explained the importance of ostensive definitions and how social construct theory applied metaphysically (the nature of reality) is delusional, but "Life is our dictionary." does it even better once you understand it.

It's not obvious to me that there is a key takeaway from this speech. This helped me realize that what's considered important often comes down to the context of the right person saying the right thing at the right time in the right place.

'The Crisis in Education' by Hannah Arendt 1954

Arendt is a unique thinker. She was a German Jew who fled the Nazis, wrote extensively on totalitarianism and coined the phrase "the banality of evil" based on the Eichmann trials. Since I've liked some of her other thinking I searched for her thoughts on education and found this article. By the time she wrote this she was an American citizen.

Read this set of quotes from the article and see what stands out to you:

"The disappearance of common sense in the present day is the surest sign of the present-day crisis. In every crisis a piece of the world, something common to us all, is destroyed."

"Thus the crisis in American education, on the one hand, announces the bankruptcy of progressive education and, on the other, presents a problem of immense difficulty because it has arisen under the conditions and in response to the demands of a mass society."

"There exist a child’s world and a society formed among children that are autonomous and must insofar as possible be left to them to govern. The authority of a group, even a child group, is always considerably stronger and more tyrannical than the severest authority of an individual person can ever be. By being emancipated from the authority of adults the child has not been freed but has been subjected to a much more terrifying and truly tyrannical authority, the tyranny of the majority."

"The children have been so to speak banished from the world of grown-ups."

"In education this responsibility for the world takes the form of authority. The authority of the educator and the qualifications of the teacher are not the same thing. Authority has been discarded by the adults, and this can mean only one thing: that the adults refuse to assume responsibility for the world into which they have brought the children."

"Conservatism, in the sense of conservation, is of the essence of the educational activity, whose task is always to cherish and protect something—the child against the world, the world against the child, the new against the old, the old against the new."

"Exactly for the sake of what is new and revolutionary in every child, education must be conservative; it must preserve this newness and introduce it as a new thing into an old world."

"Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it and by the same token save it from that ruin which, except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and young, would be inevitable. And education, too, is where we decide whether we love our children enough not to expel them from our world and leave them to their own devices, nor to strike from their hands their chance of undertaking something new, something unforeseen by us, but to prepare them in advance for the task of renewing a common world."

To me these insights don't seem surprising, but rather reasonable, and yet they are odd in our society, which I think shows the change that Arendt is talking about. For instance, the society has largely replaced teacher authority with child bullying. A bad decision, but politically correct in the modern western culture. I think what we're seeing, and maybe this is common to empires that have peaked and are beginning to fall, is a failure to preserve and transmit cultural knowledge from one generation to the next. Which means that basic lessons will have to be relearned the hard way over the next few centuries as the society degrades before it can potentially rebuild. The last paragraph of Arendt's that I quoted is very powerful. Many people, probably the majority in the U.S., Europe, and the rest of the western world have decided during their education that their culture is not worth assuming the responsibility for saving from ruin, so the ruin has become inevitable.

This article reinforces my ideas about education as the steering mechanism for the rise and fall of civilizations.

Conclusion

Charlemagne, King Alfred, Tolstoy, Emerson, and Arendt. That's an impressive list of influential thinkers and doers. It might be interesting to put their basic insights into chronological order. Charlemagne: have accurate books and teach kids how to read them. King Alfred: have accurate books in English and teach kids how to read them. Tolstoy: let kids voluntarily learn and experiment with what they are interested in and works. Emerson: think independently and learn from nature, the past, and taking action. Arendt: modern education has broken the link of children to the past and to adults.

I wonder if the next renaissance will be caused by a ruler issuing a decree to have accurate books and teach kids how to read them.

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