17: The Trivium

Hello and welcome to another episode of classical stuff you should know this is Thomas Magby and I am joined today as always by Mr. Graham Balenson hey hey and Mr. AJ Hanenburg that's me that's exactly right so I have no good job everybody yeah you got your name you're me this is better than our last podcast well hey today mr. Graham Balenson I believe you have a topic for us that's right guys because you clicked on the link you know that today we are talking about the Trivium but the other way that we could the other thing which sounds like a really nice IPA the trivia right like three different kinds of hops oh yeah do we just do we have to start a brewery outside brewery on the new campus of our home and this will not make up and that was classical stuff you should know thanks everybody bye the Trivium the other way the other thing we could title this podcast could be what is classical education so we had a podcast called what is classical which is great which probably should have been our first part so this is kind of a bummer because my next one was also kind of gonna be what is classical I mean this is classical so essentially we're just saying the same kind of things over and over again I mean listeners we have new content it's all different but the Trivium so the Trivium was essentially there's sort of two things that I want two ways I want to talk about the Trivium today and one is it's the way that you learn subjects and the other way that we can talk about the Trivium is it's the way that our souls grow up and we go from kids to adults so very quickly the Trivium were the three subjects I shouldn't even call them subjects because that's not a very classical understanding of it but it was sort of the three ways of learning something and the three legs of the Trivium if you want to think about it as a stool are grammar logic and rhetoric those are the three things that you learn and then in the middle in the middle ages well in in antiquity and then in the middle ages there's something called the quadrivium which was added to the Trivium and so then you had these seven liberal arts and the quadrivium was if I can remember it was music arithmetic geometry and astronomy so if you were a kid going to school you would be taught seven things and seven things only grammar logic rhetoric music music arithmetic geometry and astronomy and this would be how you break things up now nowadays we break our school into English history AP physics what other classes have Latin Spanish what are the classes we teach logic we have a large class what else we got that's all of them and we got our wacky electives that we have our investing and programming and we had cooking class for a long time and last year our cooking teacher was Italian and he had like not perfect English and but he was teaching cooking and the students were so they had to learn the language of cooking it was kind of cool he by the way was the coolest you'd ever on the history of the planet he was a expert sailor maybe want to learn Italian just talk to him because he worked he used to work in the yacht industry and so holly and so he had a nice his hand shake and he was always polite and kind and knew about food and yachting and he was weather war and he liked that man had been in the sea anyway.

Can I ask a question about you can so the trip in the world actually separate subjects so I don't know enough to know if you went from like I know that they would have like bell and every last from grammar class to watch class to read a class but it was so I don't know enough about how it would actually work but these were from what I understand like yes a strong would be different from geometry you wouldn't. I think the way they probably would have done it is that it was more single teacher centric so you would study under a specific. Sometimes for different topics like you would get a person to teach you rhetoric, rhetoricians were especially their own kind of thing but if you went and studied at academy often was the same like you said you would do thing and that was the deal. But in many ways all of these things are interconnected yes so I've read old authors talking about the quadrivium saying things like arithmetic is sorry music is arithmetic in the air.

So what music is is it's math that you can hear and what geometry is is it's music in the numbers you know it's a geometry is like it's like music in structure in space and then astronomy is just music well there was an old so here's an old Latin phrase that was used to talk about the trip in the quadrivium and I won't read the Latin because I'm not a Latin scholar and I have poor Latin. But it translates to this was this little idiom or this little thing that kids would learn and it would go grammar talks logic teaches sorry logic teaches words rhetoric colors words music sings arithmetic numbers geometry ways. Astronomy tens the stars. So this would be the this little thing I'm assuming they would teach it to kids and they would learn a little song and these were supposed to be the seven things that they learned in education but today we're just going to talk about the trivial the three and so grammar logic and rhetoric.

And I think the best way to talk about how grammar logic and rhetoric works is to say that it is the three elements that you need when you are learning anything when you are learning a subject there was a grammar to that subject there was a logic to that subject and there's a rhetoric to that subject. So maybe I'll give you the example that I use a lot which is English class because I'm an English teacher so grammar of English class well grammar is is literally the skill of speech it is like syntax etymology is literally the grammar grammar is the grammar. It is the grammar but it's also yeah we can talk so grammar is also like background information so history is entirely is so the subject of history is more relegated to the study of grammar. So my understanding is an old schools or old classes when you were doing grammar things you're also learning history history was was considered grammar it was a thing that you needed to know in order to move on.

Anyway so if you have the grammar of an English class so that is let's say we're doing a book let's say we're doing brave new world so that's not to brave the world so it's just a bummer of a book. I was prepared as well so if you're doing the grammar of paradise loss it is the plot it is the actual things that happen in the book what happened when were the main characters what happened when who were the main characters ideal answer he's the best. Exactly who's that deal who Satan who did God make in the garden it's the types of things that you populate a reading quiz over these are the grammar level questions. The quiz on them so you don't have to spend that much time on the school and so you quiz on them because you want the students coming to your class have your grammar understanding of it so that you can talk about the other things.

Now the logic is as a subject logic is just how to talk sense so when we if you listen to the old podcasts on the logical fallacies we were talking about how to talk nonsense or how to not talk sense or how to untangle nonsense in order to talk sense you need logic in order to do that it's a skill. So proving and disproving making connections it's figuring out how things interact with each other so not just that abdial did this but why he did this and what were the effects afterwards. So when you have a question where you say why does Satan decide to rebel against God prove your point or give me evidence that's a logic based question so the grammar they need to know that Satan did rebel against God and they need to know all of the things in the book that could be used to derive an argument and so then you say why did he do it and then if they're running an essay or they're running a paragraph on why Satan did it then they're making they're talking about the logic of literature and a lot of English academics talk about the logical literature you're almost a big chunk of our essays are proving things from the story. So the grammar you said is you'll test that when they get to class to make sure that the reading is logic then in a conversation like we thought you could be in a conversation and then you hope that they pick up some of it.

By the time they're in high school I mean these three stages also correspond with brain development. Oh, okay sorry I didn't jump there. So yeah so you want them to kids will usually come in and they will have opinions as to why Satan did something or they're starting to synthesize and are starting to put these ideas together and so synthesis is a logical thing. So it's concerned with proving that's what logic is.

And then rhetoric is the actual study of rhetoric as its own subject is mainly relegated to like structure and style and it's a very practical art. It's highly color words. So let's just talk about rhetoric as its own subject in a second but in terms of learning a subject rhetoric then comes down to what you do with this information. So if we think about these three questions grammar is what happened logic is why did it happen and then rhetoric is should it have happened.

Right and then this is when you start making these where the student now needs to start making judgments about whether or not what the character did was a good idea or a bad idea if they were in that situation what would they have done with they have done something differently. So for example this past week we were doing Romeo and Juliet and we asked the question why did for our Lawrence do this crazy plan where he gave Juliet the potion and they said he's under stress and she was wanting to kill herself and they didn't have a whole lot of time and he loves potions because he's a potion dude and this is like potions as a thing so why not give a plan based on something. What's your all great answers and then the rhetoric style question is was this a good idea should he have done this and everyone's like no this is a bad idea once you find you we have a horse and have a run away. Why don't you sit down like a man and talk to the families and you know actually work through this conflict with a bloodshed.

Can we make a correction why not find Juliet a hair. A hair? Of course. A French confusion from the last podcast.

You remember the time you had a mistake on this podcast? That's my one mistake. That's right so we can find Juliet something to escape on. I was like a giant rabbit.

I was worried about that before I told the joke I was like could go to ways. Yeah. So those are the types of those are rhetoric questions should they have done this was this a good idea. And then ultimately what how do we live in light of the story that we've read is kind of the direction that we want English class to take.

And then the assessments on these kinds of questions are a little bit more difficult because it's a lot harder if a student says something you know absolutely terrible like for all the learns should have just ignored everybody and like did his job and not cared about people. You're like well you want people like like pastor should care about people. Those are those are always the kinds of questions I don't really know how to answer in class when someone says something that is like kind of terrible. So that feeling of logic.

No because they're making a logical. So it is logical. It's just not moral. I don't know if rhetoric is in the realm of ethics.

Maybe it is. But anyway but for the point of the Trivium this is these are the three stages and as far as I understand and I think this plays itself out that there is a grammar and a logic and a rhetoric to any kind of skill that you have. So we talk a lot about pottery on this podcast because Hanenburg's a potter and so I have never potted. But I assume that there's a grammar for pottery you need to know the wheel you know how these things work and the different densities of clay and the different how much moisture needs to go into it and everything and the actual skills that you do with your hand.

There's a logic of it how firing actually works what is happening to the clay if I put it into the kill and at this temperature if I had this element to it what kind of color am I going to get. You need to know the why's how these things happen and then Hanenburg what would be like the rhetoric of pottery. The rhetoric would be using that knowledge you have to do complex things with the glazes and with the clay to achieve effects that are unexpected I think. So to take take my knowledge that this creates a blue and this creates a green and use those glazes in a surprising way or totally transform the medium into something else make the clay look like fabric which ends up in really impressive pieces or maybe use it to express.

I think this is where most artists go is using that medium to express something else about human life where I could take the clay and use all of that knowledge that I have to say something about humanity to say something about how the earth as in clay connects to us as people. And then you're moving beyond just the medium right exactly and you're talking about the sort of connected hole and that's and that's and that's and so one of the things in classical education is that once you get to the sort of rhetoric level you start talking about everything else you start talking about the whole. And so this is yeah we've addressed this in an earlier podcast about how the further up the ladder you go really you still get closer and closer to. No no no you closer to he who made everything.

Sorry when you say the whole are you talking about like similarities between subjects or I'm trying to fix like. Maybe this is kind of what age it was just his answer that he just threw out is that there's a saying this to all these things are you saying that that same is the creator of all of these things. Yes well and this kind of goes back to maybe this is what just to go back to last week's podcast of what people was talking about when he says the more that you get into a leisure of the thing. He said that what you're doing is philosophy we kind of took issue with that but maybe this is what he's getting at that you're starting to contemplate how something fits into creation.

I love thinking about this in terms of the medieval universe which we've had we talked about earlier podcasts where the higher up you go the more that you get closer to God who has created everything and the sort of slow like if everything is revolving the slower it gets right like you get closer to the center of a wheel the less motion you find. When you get to the rhetoric of a subject you begin to understand it in relationship to its to other things and then and then sort of relationship to its source of who made it. So there's there's like a jump that you know when AJ said the difference between knowing what glazes is going to happen to asking questions or talking about how this is from the earth and how it relates to man and if this mug or this cup can now be saying something about our relationship to creation. Then you've jumped into a rhetoric understanding of it and yes it can get a little like I think we we intuitively get a little I rolly with this because it's done so poorly in the art.

It's a weird vessel. Exactly but when it actually has a strong backing to it I can be quite profound. So is that so the higher up you go in the cosmology first of all whatever and I use that word a long time. There's less motion so there's less change as you go out because it's already perfect and doesn't need to change.

The primal mobile doesn't spin so is that is that why we the trip is from the Middle Ages it's an old thing and it still has relevance to us today. Does that point to it being a higher thing in that there is we can take a method from 500 years ago and still use that and still be relevant. Like with rhetoric that you can the sofist were persuasive people their means of persuasion we can still use today and they're still effective. Like is that point or is this a logical fallacy that we got in something higher when we find something that has lasted a long time.

I think this is why you found it something true. I think that that's an easy place to go is that it's a true thing but we have also held on to things that are not true for a very very long time. If we're talking age and if 500 years is the credibility factor for it then you know the Mesopotamian view of the world as a flat disk with mountains and after that we were the gods. We don't believe that?

Yeah oh no. So we could you know just because something lasts a long time I think I think what we should do is raise the question okay why has it lasted. Because we haven't evaluated it is it because it has been evaluated and found functional or is it because it is actually true right things can be functional for a very long time with while yet being totally untrue and things can be evaluated and not found wanting when really where our evaluation is poor. So but I think sometimes things do last because they are true and if that's the case then yeah we're reaching towards something that is eternal and unchanging.

Which I think is the attempt of what we're doing with the trivia. I'm trying that this is a method that can be applied to literally anything it's a tool it is not unique to just one subject. It's a methodology right so there's a grammar logic rhetoric to to pottery does grammologic rhetoric to English class there's a grammar logic rhetoric to English class. There's a grammar logic rhetoric to reading the Bible which we talk about with in hernutics there's a grammar logic rhetoric to everything dancing fencing any sort of these anything that you can learn has a grammar logic and rhetoric to.

And then sort of coincidentally not coincidentally there's also a grammar logic and rhetoric of the human person and so if you're in classical education or spend any time in the classical education world you will notice that schools are broken into a grammar school a logic school and a rhetoric school. And it's not just that these things that you're only teaching grammar and grammar school you're only teaching logic and logic school and you're only teaching rhetoric in rhetoric school. It's that there is this I guess we would call it theory but there is this observation that the human person goes through stages as they grow. So babies and little kids are in the grammar stage and the grammar stage means that they are learning how what is they're learning what is out there they're learning they're sort of collecting everything and putting into a giant bucket they have not ordered their giant bucket but they just have everything in their giant bucket.

And so this is why little kids love looking for patterns and they love looking for things that are going to change or going to stay the same. And just memorizing facts. And memorizing facts. Did you know that a shark has 3000 teeth?

They can sing songs they memorize facts and we sort of go oh gosh that sounds terrible but little kids it just is working in the grain of their soul they love they love memorizing things and they can do it very easily. We all know those stories about whether we hear those things where once you're 14 it's a lot harder to learn a language you know it's because it's a lot of memorization so it's easier for a kid. So when a little kid says can you read me the story again can you read me the story again it's because their souls are in the grammar stage they are wanting to know what changes and what stays the same. What is this ending of the story going to be the same ending as it was before.

They try to enjoy some just knowing that that's true I know the ending and there it is again and that feels so good. It feels so good and little kids they don't have a concept of time but they'll realize wait a minute Christmas happens when is it happening again and then they'll come to you in July and they'll say is it Christmas yet? No it's July and they'll be like okay because I know there is a Christmas but I don't know when this Christmas is happening and I know that it should be happening because I remember it from before but I've only had three of them that I can remember so help me out here when it's Christmas happen you know so this is this is a grammar stage type of thing. And so students are a lot of fun in this stage because they love school and they want to learn things and they can absorb things and we teach them and so the good school or the good grammar teacher will teach them things that maybe they don't necessarily understand but in the future they will order and then they will be able to use because they have them memorized.

So like we teach all of the grammar stage kids all the prepositions in a little preposition song which I don't know and I rumor has it Hanenburg knows I have them memorized using memory palace not using so that memory palace should be a podcast in the future for sure. Yeah. Hanenburg what are the prepositions about above a cross before after four against of off on on to at a long inside outside over under a minimum throughout with him without from to through beyond but behind beneath underneath during concerning like by since past until upon between two around top near below toward except and regarding beside. So AJ does not have notes in front of them that I just put on him and he doesn't just have that wrote memory I'm sure that if I asked him to do it backwards he probably could because of the memory palace.

I could do you want to do what I want to try. So do you want it okay it's beside regarding except toward a top around into between upon until past since by like concerning during underneath beneath behind but beyond through to from without within with. Throughout among amid under over outside inside along at onto on off of against for after before above about that's across above about that's just that's really impressive that's really impressive that is amazing. We weren't checking the video so he has so at home please check the way.

I'm just getting rid of that. That's fascinating. I guess so we're going to be reciting the prepositions. This is not fascinating.

We have to get rid of this absolutely fascinating because it's going to because people who hear that are going to say oh my goodness how to handberg do that and then it's Mary Palis and we're going to teach that later but anyway so little kids they love memorizing these things because their souls are in the stage where grammar is lovely. But then kids grow up and they move into the logic stage and you know what child has moved into the logic stage when they start asking that dreaded question why when they start saying why is a sky blue why does a squirrel store the nuts for winter. How does a squirrel know how to do it at some point parents are like yeah just like asking a question in the back so that's why the logic stage is just the worst. No you have to be a special person to teach in logic school and I it is my strong belief that our logic school teachers at Veritas are the best most patient most patient just wonderful teachers grammar school I mean sorry rhetoric school we get like more finished products and we get like these kids that are interesting and love things and it's because of those hard logic years.

One of my favorite logic moments it was from when the school met back on a completely it was several years ago and it was you know they're trying to figure out why things happen and when things happen one kid goes I heard this I overheard this kid they were walking into a classroom one kid goes you can't get a virus from a starfish. The other kid goes you can't if you eat it. That's like they're just trying to figure out what they're just trying to figure out that's logic so the logical stage is wanting to know so they have all this they've got this basket of things and they want to know how all these things fit together and so the good school or the good logic teacher gives them tools organization and gives them the ability to synthesize and to dissect and to pull apart and to push together and to organize and so genus species kingdom class order family all of these sorts of schools see maybe a little boring to some but to the logic age kid it gives them a sense of order and structure for the world and they can start and they will actually go through the task of like putting these things together and there's also that little sort of diabolic joy they have of be of like proving their teacher wrong or like or or coming showing why something is and if it teaches this is why in the logic stage they glory in correcting right they will be glory incorrect somebody if they've made if they've done something wrong and if you know a 13 year old girl you know this is true. Another way to think the logic stage is the well actually stage well actually it's like this well actually in my book that I read said that Napoleon did it's well and it gets annoying which is why you need to have character training as well in patience.

But it's not that they're just precocious jerks they are it's going through a necessary stage of the soul and that is this logical stage which is how to talk sense and to prove and disprove and it is it is essentially a combative stage and it just is. It's a hard time of life of growing up because it is a fight. Yeah they're not only learning the logic of the subject studying but also just basic social interaction. I think if you know what jokes land how what sorts of things you can say to people and have them still be your friends tomorrow.

And this is why middle school is generally the worst for everyone. It's a rare person you may need who loves. Yeah I had a pretty good time. I've met I think one in my lifetime it was horrible for almost everyone.

I think it was home school. Or they were pretty. Yeah. Pretty kids.

Anyway so there's a grammar logic rhetoric for the student and there's a grammar logic rhetoric for the subject so if the logic student taking math do they only go up to the logic stage. Not so is that how much I don't know enough about math to know. Or there's got to be a rhetoric. Certainly a rhetoric.

There's a rhetoric of math. No I agree that there is a masking in the logic stage of the student so you don't just state up first before and then fifth through eighth and then the ninth through twelve. So in fifth through eighth of math would you teach them a rhetoric level of math or they're not ready for that. No they're not ready for that.

You can do some sort of so the trouble with grouping students together by age which is kind of like an arbitrary thing we're kind of making them like we make cars. The 2017 model rolling off. We expect them all. Whereas the experience tends to be that girls enter the logic stage much sooner than boys.

And so you have these 12 year old girls who are definitely logic stage and you've got these 12 year old boys who are maybe still in the grammar stage. I know lots about rocks. Yeah I love flipping dinosaurs. And then the girls like.

You don't know. The dinosaurs are pretty cool. And then the girls they're having their logic of love conversations and all these sorts of things and how they can like each other and hate each other and these kinds of things. Anyway.

And what are they like? You like dinosaurs too? So yes you can have you need to have grammar at all stages. So if you're coming in and you're learning algebra and you don't learn algebra in third grade and if you're learning algebra there's a grammar to it.

You need to learn that. When you come to Shakespeare there's a grammar to it. You need to know why I'm a bit pantameter. But you just hope that the grammar and the logic has been developed well enough that those can go by relatively quickly in the rhetoric stage.

The logic stage is always really tricky because there are some who are transitioning from grammar to logic at a certain age and there are some who are transitioning from logic to rhetoric at a certain age and oftentimes are sort of all in it together. And then there's a very subject. There could be a student that really is into the logic of stories but just is still in the grammar of science or there's a student that's pushing into the rhetoric of math and is still really in the grammar of literature. But generally speaking the logic stage is that stage where you're saying the wise and you're concerned with proving and disproving and ordering.

And in the rhetoric stage is the final stage and it's the stage that you're in for the rest of your life. So me, you guys, we're in the rhetoric stage and the high school student is moving from the logic stage to the rhetoric stage. So Hanenburg and 9th grade will see some kids that are still really in that younger 7th grade logic stage headspace and some that are really moving into asking questions about like who am I and what do I do and what is important and why is life worth living. And is what Hamlet saying about should I do my duty to my family or should I go and live the life that I want to live.

What would I do in that situation? And those are the rhetoric based questions and then because those are the things that they're going to be thinking about for the rest of their lives. So you tailor the school and the learning day to cater to that kind of learning. So they get real bored in English class.

If you spend the whole time just saying why did for our Lawrence do this. And they can answer the question but if you never move into should you've done it was a good idea what should have happened. So one question that I ask in Romeo and Juliet is I give them a quote from Seneca and he says the happy soul is the one that can escape from fear and desire by use of reason. So I quote from Seneca and so then I can ask the question.

All right based on that quote the happy man is one who can escape fear and desire by use of reason. Is there anybody in Romeo and Juliet who's happy. So that's kind of more of a rhetoric style question. Because you need the other two to make those questions.

Exactly. The kids that come to class having not read or not understanding why things happened. They can't answer should fry Lawrence done this because they don't know why he did it or what effects came of it or they don't understand the basic level of social. And these three things grammar logic happen every time you learn a new subject.

So even though I'm in the rhetoric stage I still have to every time I get a new piece of software out there like what does this book do that's the grammar and then what sorts of effects can I get when I do these things and how do they want together. That's the logic and then rhetoric is when I actually use it to create something. And you can be sort of mastering it. So you're talking about their differences when people get to those levels individually so whereas our schools would separate between fourth and fifth grade as the difference between grammar and logic.

Some students will get will be ready for logic sooner than others or later than others. Are those just individual differences or this is probably a question more for AJ. So if someone comes into your class and they're only ready to have a logic conversation even though they've entered the School of Rederick you just look at that and say look around eventually or is it a moral component to this? Does it like is it all just a they'll get there someday typically it's a they'll get there someday.

I mean it depends on the class right there's sometimes in English class where I can raise his hand and he'll ask a should they have done this and he'll say he did it and it got this effect and they're still in logic stage right there putting together connections and can't go to a they can't go to that higher level question yet. And that's just a question of ability and brain stage right but there's some classes where and this is typically I find this in leadership classes when we're discussing levels you know questions of morality and questions of spirituality and what should the man do and what is man and there are some people who are eager to ask and answer these questions and have been struggling with them since seventh grade and there are some kids who are like does this effect football or video games. I don't care right in that case it's it's not so much a question of ability so much as they just wake him up yeah I just don't care about the question yet and so I have to so sometimes I endeavor to ask them a question that will make them think about it or I just think you know what they're in ninth grade. Sometimes they don't think about this until 10th and that's and that's okay.

And I think to my own experience like a lot of these things didn't really have much currency for me until even college like when I was doing undergrad philosophy and I remember having a lecture where the professor was talking about Plato and it was asking rhetoric style questions and I was so interested in the question and they sort of said and then you know to answer this or thing you to go read book three and I went and I looked at book three and it was incomprehensible to me because of the level of reading that it required and I can distinctly remember sitting at the Victoria College Library on the University of Toronto Campus for the first time. University of Toronto Campus for like four and a half straight hours sitting there and going slowly word by word with dictionary and like writing down like what does ontology mean and like looking it up and what does all this mean because I wanted to know the answer and I didn't have the grammar for it and I was so I like plowed through the grammar logic so I could get to the rhetoric and then all of a sudden like that's when education for me opened up so and so it happens to different kids at different stages and neck. So on the one hand some people say well we shouldn't have a school based on on arbitrary separation of age we should sort of have like these tests of stages and they can sort of jump up. But there is something good about the social pressure to make the kid move from logic to rhetoric because they're sitting around everybody else that are asking these big questions and if they're being derpy derp still thinking about childish things there is a good social pressure that is that has put on them that sort of causes them to have to dig deeper to grow.

And there's some arbitrage in that another one gets there at the same point but it is based on the development of your brain that your brain stem that just kind of like the on my responses you have very strong from the beginning your cortex which is where the I'm pointing to all these things as other people can see them but it's just holding his head. The cortex builds out next and that's where your logical thinking occurs hands are on top of head and the prefrontal cortex kind of where unicorn goes hands are on front of you is is kind of is the sign maturity the sign of the ability to have thought and not necessarily do that thing that's the prefrontal cortex so it matches brain development but while there are averages of when people build out different parts. Obviously not everyone means that average exactly I would say it's completely arbitrary. Yeah, no so it's it's so in many ways that's sort of the way that we organize schools classically is grammologic and rhetoric.

But if you went back and you did some studies on like the medieval university they do have courses on grammar logic rhetoric arithmetic arithmetic and what were the other ones music geometry and surrounding it and so we shouldn't confuse the two things so like what you would study if you studied grammar in a medieval college or medieval university if you went to Cambridge and you studied grammar it would be speech but it would also be things like the explanation of illusions literary illusions rhetorical or literary devices and how to understand them history would be in grammar logic is of course actual logic like logical syllogism and that thing and rhetoric is the biggest distinction so the way we've been talking about rhetoric is that we've been talking about that we've been talking about in this podcast is kind of talking about it in terms of mastery and in terms of the stage of the human soul but rhetoric as a subject is quite different it's like it's the coloring of words it's the way that you can turn sentences to convince people of things. It's where you use rhetorical mores. It's the study of expression so the way I can see it is you can kind of like this is an easy analogy you just sort of take things in the grammar stage and then the logic stage you make connections between those things and the rhetoric stage you take those connections and you put them back into the world as some sort of expression or art or argument or that sort of thing right you evaluate you begin to express your own opinion on things because you've made the connections so intake process output. Yeah and so if you want to go straight computer with it.

And then you can there's something I don't know enough about that I want to learn about is the various types of rhetorical mores that you can use and I've got sort of three examples that I looked up just to give you an understanding what I'm talking about so more I would be something like X. Polito. Letting letting the same thing be disguised by a variety of forms so if you think about the Psalms they talk about this one the Psalms talking about maybe one thing but there's talking about it in three different ways that's a rhetorical device or a discursus or a digression is another rhetorical device. And they were actually training this and the medieval's they did it sometimes too much they did where they instead of talking about the thing itself you don't call the thing by its own names or if you're talking about virtue you may say things like obelisk for light of that which becomes clear you know that kind of thing that is a rhetorical sort of a rhetorical kind of device and so learning when to use those and when not to use those is the actual study of rhetoric but what we're talking about is the stage of rhetoric.

Yeah but that's a how to get those connections you've made out into the world into other people right so if you're going to talk about one thing this idea that you have you think you can express it in three different ways get near to the point and express it better than maybe trying to state it exactly. And AJ you're talking about how grammar is that is it taking in the logic is a sort of understanding and the rhetoric is the expression you've actually stumbled on one of my favorite metaphors for education which is a quote by Epictetus and he says for even sheep do not vomit on it. They eat sheep do not vomit up their grass and show the shepherds how much they have eaten but when they have internally digested the pasture they produce externally wool and milk and this is kind of how I like to think about what I want from students. I don't want them to take things in and then go on a test and like barf it and be like look I ate this at one point and now I've thrown it up at you but I want them to actually take it understand it digested and then produce something natural and good from it.

Don't just barf the things that I taught you but produce wool and milk so produce sort of the good human thing that you want the soul to produce from having learned and thought about the thing that we talked about. So when we talk about love in Romeo and Juliet and maybe how wrong their love was or how foolish their love was then we need to be talking then the kind of thing that I want to see from the students is can they articulate what the good in love ought to be. And that's the wool and milk as opposed to just to say like I remember this metaphor barf and even more importantly is they actually go out and live what they've learned in Romeo and Juliet out in the real world right I've made perhaps I shouldn't have secret romances perhaps I should be suspicious of being infatuated with some things right that's the wool and the milk right if they because if they can articulate it in class. But then don't internalize it is still a little bit of their like here's the grass and I shoot it a little bit right there they're sort of making the connection you want to hear and not actually living it.

So with rhetoric though it's the persuasion of others isn't it so isn't there even this kind of like next level of like yes they do it themselves which maybe is more logic but then they live that way and sort of win some way that others want to also internalize the things that you're teaching them. I think the end of Grandogor rhetoric is external it's not just the person it is. I would also say that I mean strictly saying that rhetoric is external I think misses a little bit how we take those things and turn it into a good life well lived. I would say that the rhetoric of education is living a life that is full of human flourishing right and not just convincing other people to do it right that is excusing you from the burden.

I'm saying both I need to change up so Graham if you talk Romeo and Juliet and you ignored all the things you're teaching the students but just persuaded them to do it that would be immoral. Don't say that like if you teach them that you should not be so controlled by your passion that you make that decision but then you are only motivated by the passions. I myself am a then I'm a hack yes or yeah so fist so right yeah well the so fist is like I get them to make the weaker arguments stronger. I'm just like a bad preacher or you know like someone who who preaches the straight and narrow and then lives abroad in.

Yeah I'm saying that they're both sides that even for the students that we want them to understand grammar we want them to logically understand how these pieces go together but then we also want it to be like rhetorically persuasive. Which is why that in English class or in any sort of class there needs to be a I'm not a confessional side of it but there also needs to be a I'm a human being to that needs to learn this and there needs to be kind of like. You need to be able to display the students moments where you a actually do feel convicted about something and then you communicate to them like wow I find this very conducting for this reason and then. Yeah I think that's an important part of it so that's the trivia so grammar logic and rhetoric it's the way that you can understand any subject so I think that's just a helpful tool when you're going about learning anything is teaching your kids right asking them to express or create before they actually have the grammar of something like saying paint a beautiful painting I don't know how learn how to use the brushes first learn what kind of effects and the thing is little kids like we value creativity as adults because that's we value critical thinking and all these sorts of things and often and we see this a lot I definitely saw this in school when I was in.

Progressive public education is we're trying to push the ends further and further down the chain and we're like demanding younger and younger grades to produce higher level things before they develop so we want critical thinking at you know grade four. We want them to be we want them to be expressive and creative by the time they're 12 when they can't do it because they haven't learned it and the other thing is their souls don't want to do it. Because they're not there yet. We think they should want it because we're at least because we want it but we forget that the five-year-old loves seeing if that butterflies wings are different color than this butterflies wings and they want to look at it and compare the two and be like they're different.

This is incredible. It would be really tough for us if someone said you know I want you to take this yellow paint and use eight different brushes and see what the brushes do. Like that would be that fun for us. But for a kid like they're you know they're going to make eight different lines that look totally crazy and they're going to do it with another color blue and see if it's the same thing right.

So yeah so we so in essence you sort of need to trust the system or a system that's built in line and in in green with the soul of the kid as the age which is one of the reasons why I think it works well because it's tailored to that student and in some levels it should. They when they're in that class that is working for the grammar logic and rhetoric stage there should be a level of comfort for the soul like. I think the good logic students says like aha now finally we're getting to the thing I really want to talk about which is the wise and then in high school you can definitely see it when I ask one of those bigger rhetoric questions as soon as we like finally we're talking about something that really matters. And I mean they're the basic general desire of any high school kids I just want to express myself and that's rhetoric to do rhetoric and they're doing it for the first time and they've just been awoken to the desire to want to express themselves.

And if you don't give them the tools to be able to express themselves well that desire will manifest itself in other ways try to express themselves some other way clothes and piercings and that sort of thing are often just the manifestation of expression expression because they don't have they don't have the tools to be able to do it verbally or whatever. Anyway so grab a letter that's a voice there we go that's great well thank you everyone for listening to this episode of classical stuff you should know check us out online classical stuff.net or send us an email classical stuff at veritasacademy.net nailed it. You can also find us on iTunes and if you've been really enjoying us I hate to in self-plugs or asking for things but reviews really help us out they get us higher on the search lists and they can find more listeners and you know there's no real reason for that we're not making money from it but we really believe in some of the things we talk about and that that's a good thing for people to think about the soul of man so if you want more people to think about you know what is good for people to do then. Yeah like us.

Give us five stars. I guess that was a weird way to ask for a five star review but do we anything wrong. I'm sure if you podcast we need to add anything to our new segment of stuff we got wrong. Oh I already confessed my thing last time.

Well let's do it because I try to cut you off last time. Oh sorry a few podcasts ago when AJ was talking about vices I confused justice with prudence. So I talked about prudence when I should have been talking about justice so sorry about that. Do we need to correct it.

Yeah what's this one? Oh sorry. So we're now going to mess it up again. So we're talking about virtue as the mean between two different things and what I was describing was the mean between getting more than one deserves and getting less than one deserves that mean is justice.

Prudence is that is knowing when to do the right thing so doing an excess of a thing or too little of a thing the mean of that is prudence. I'm not sure how much you deserve justice is getting what you deserve. Well I call that prudence if you have some dear listener you deserve the goodness of this podcast. So what we have done is just thing.

Good to be your way to end. I know from yeah bye. Yeah bye.