Hi and welcome to classical stuff you should know a podcast on classical stuff Shocker, you should know okay We are three guys that work at a classical school in Austin, Texas That school is called Veritas Academy We are all teachers and educators of children My name is Graham Donaldson and I teach English literature and rhetoric and I'm here with my colleague AJ Hanenburg Me who also teaches English and rhetoric yep, and then I'm and then we are also joined by Thomas Fletcher Maggie Hello, who is a teacher of leadership as well as the director and dean of our student life They'd director of fun. That's what you call the director of fun. Yeah, I'm on the fun. Sorry.
I apologize Um, and today we are gonna be learning about I have no idea where we got maybe this is how I feel like most episodes Start when I do the intro also just make me feel better. I'm gonna talk about a fellow named James Shaw father James Shaw Um, we have spoken about him shawl like sch a ll So we have talked about him before he wrote an essay that we did an episode on a while ago I don't remember what number on the benefits of illiteracy if you try and look at that episode the title is like Misspelled ironically and funnily so you might have trouble finding it, but it's there the benefits of illiteracy We also talked about a book called leisure or leisure if you're just by Joseph Schatz fired or Joseph your pretentious and I believe father shawl wrote and wrote the intro to Peepers leisure, so this man is a writer of intro so he's a writer of intro. He just writes the best intros and so let's read some of those He's like that voice in a voice where he's that guy for the literary issue. I wish I'd be so okay with that He so he wrote a number of intros, but that's not why we're talking he also wrote essays So the benefits of literacy was an essay he is I guess was so the reason we're doing an episode right now that he died So recently on April 17th, so during the week of 2018 or 2019 sorry for years 29 so like just a few weeks ago Yeah, so as a when we were recording this it's about three weeks ago as when you're hearing this will be about a month and a half ago So he wrote 30 some odd books and then wrote intros to a number of them He's the reason that some of these books were put back into What's it called?
They're printed again the reason they were printed again. Yeah, they were republished on his like recommendation and or him seeking these books out we in the in our emails often get some form of the question of why we care about classical education or why we Teach a classical school some version of that and my answer is tied deeply to the writings and the thoughts of father shawl So this is sort of that anyway, that's that's what I'm gonna say this is a Thomas Megby expose I don't know isn't it actually I mean their negatives. Oh is this a Thomas Megby can Tell all tell all tell all I will talk more about myself than I really want to and then we will talk about the ideas of James Shaw himself So my version of why I'm on this podcast right now is that sometime around the summer 2013 I came across the writings of Mortimer Adler He's not a dude that we've talked about before so if you hear anything about great books of the western world put on by Encyclopedia Britannica, I put out by Encyclopedia Britannica that is Mortimer Adler He also wrote a book called how to read a book which we've done an episode on it is a very good book I implore it to you so sometime around then I came across those writings of Mortimer Adler and most of Adler's project is to put forward the best of the Western canon to I mean to get people to read it when you get down to it He more than Adler eventually came up with this thing Which we talked about a few episodes ago in passing the Padaya project and his goal was to get these great works of the Western world into American schools into schools in the Western world so that we would continue that cultural heritage And I found his writing super compelling in 2013 This is when I was in business school and I was not being fed the like Crandola craym of Western culture they don't do Western canon in business school No, they don't do much in the way like literature in business school so who did I get a funk? And anyway, it was not great around the fall of 2015 I stumbled upon Aristotle's Nick Mocking ethics This is what while I was going through a eight-week training for my previous employer And I was just so like mad that like all of these awesome ideas were in this book I'd never been exposed to it up until study on my own post like graduate school like there's such clear teachings On right and wrong how to live the purpose of life politics just everything in this book I'm so mad that like this is the first time I was coming across this It's the same way I felt in reading when we're Adler that like everyone should know this stuff and it is absurd to me that they don't So this is what it's like that story and the Old Testament was it the King has a kai when they discovered yeah This over the log in and he tears his clothes It's really in search of reading it's like he's like what you guys it was here all along Yeah, and we didn't know it.
So that's what the ethics felt like me So at some point between then and the following summer I started hearing about this father shawl dude through the writing through writings and first things he was having a difference there first things I'm your reader first things. How should I describe first thing? It is the foremost journal on religion in America or something like that First things no second things for the title being that we should you know care about the first things first it ordered loves caring about putting God and and Above the secondary things of life politics and economy and money and that kind of stuff Yeah, it's for things as an educational institute institute almost influential journal of religion and public life is their tagline and it rings True, it's a great publication which I implore to you all but I first came across the the writings or the quotes rather I'm gonna show all himself is not writing for first things but anyway Yeah, the website that shawl posted on regularly for I think it must have been 20 years is the Catholic thing is the name of the website That you have to do if you've ever been there anyway So came across him sometime in 2015 and 2016 but had never actually gone into his books themselves on May 2nd May 2nd 2016 the art of manliness put out a podcast on the joys and travails of thinking which is an It's not an interview they sent us a list of questions to father shawl and it was him answering those questions cool So it's only him only him talking and it is an excellent episode I Often get made fun of for listening to podcast at two times speed This is like the one that you're gonna listen to I think you can only make it through at two times speed He was I mean he was he is slow in answering his questions. He's thoughtful answering his questions, but the art of manliness podcast and just website has gotten more Classical and as years have gone by I wonder if like McKay Brett is this name?
Okay, has somehow discovered it or if there's like a classical school He's neighborhood because there's been lots of sort of articles recently just about like classical education and training your kids in the old ways Just made me wonder if um or clearly we've had an influence So not that I Google us all the time, but in one of my recent Google sprees I believe you Graham you gotta go way down like you gotta cut you know go to like Google search page six You can find anything well, but I think at some point you tweeted at or to mainly this I definitely did yeah That's what started all of this. Oh there you go good. So did they tweet back? No So the way Tom was sure phrase that was at some point Graham is a Graham's tweet was ignored by the art of man I didn't sound you all into the void.
Yeah, yeah, which is called Twitter exactly So it is an excellent episode I highly recommend it to you you will get a much further exploration of Father's off life. I'll give a little bit at the end of all this, but I'm focused on myself right now So pop so uh so these dates from here on out as able to like pull you know This maybe should terrify listeners and you also make fun of me for this I was able to like look up the date that this podcast one I remember being like really influenced me This is before I was at Veritas I was unable to go to my Amazon search history and find out what or order history and find all the books that I bought like as a Result of this podcast immediately after this is weird Historians are writing the biography of you in future years. I mean this is these are gonna be Yeah, yeah, this was they'll be piecing together all sorts of narratives. Yeah, naturally So maybe second is when this episode gets posted and on so the joys and travails of thinking is the is the topic of it He is discussing his book.
I believe the book is called the life of the mind and I guess They're you know, I recommend to you just listen to it for yourself and come up with your own takeaway of what the episode is about but some level it's about the about what life is for and some answer to what life is for is the intellectual life is that we as humans have Capacities that are available to us that are only tested and tried if we push to what we're capable of in one form that pushing takes intellectual Look of reading things that are above our level learning from teachers who come before us and there is a physical side to it too of like, you know Humans are not just spirit, but one aspect is like anyway So yes, your body matters a lot But what this episode was focused on is the mind-mattering and us being capable of expanding our mind of us capable of learning new ideas Grasping new ideas and going from there so two weeks after this Podcast comes out. I purchased leisure or leisure by peeper by Joseph or Joseph and a guide for the perplex Which is another book we talked about on this part So what am I trying the point of trying to make through all of this is that father shawl had a huge influence on I guess My care of classical education, but then also I mean a guide for the perplexed is like a book about how to understand the world around us So father shawls recommendations have had huge influence on me my thinking and really what I talk about on this podcast here shortly after that I actually finally bought a book by father shawl students guide to liberal learning Which is a book that I've returned to a few times since and then also the intellectual life which is a book I lent to Graham and following how long ago well in the same way that he lived me Survival State a year ago. It's somewhat you should join your libraries and come out the middle of it Although I believe it's called moving up to the farm. I hate read the intellectual life and be turned Yeah, you're superior to me.
I do not have any questions about this but intellectual life and I only marked it up in pencil Oh, did you write in it? I just underline little things and then I felt anything halfway through I felt guilty in the next I think the accumulated marginalion a book is incredibly valuable I think people who read my book to market I thought about this of like certain books that have been most influential to me Like starting a list on the front and just having people write in like, you know So I read it first and I read it on the state and then give it to the next person And then they like write in a different color so you can kind of see all different right marks I think I would like that especially for a book like the intellectual life in which is worthy of its own episode at some point Certainly on the author of the intellectual life is facing the question of most people are not going to become monks Like most people are going to have a regular job but Some piece of what it is to be literally educated is to free your mind by like exposing yourself to new ideas or the richness of the history That comes before you those ideas. So how do you do that? How do you both have an active life?
But also have an active mental life and I think it's really thoughtful answers to that I mean, he's very charming in that he assumes that everybody is going has this sort of intellectual project that they are all are all wanting to Continue it and he's giving sort of hints and tricks and frameworks for how one can continue that intellectual project Even if it is gonna have no bearing on like your material success in the marketplace just for the sake of doing Just for the sake of doing the thing. It's great little book. So yeah, one I'm sure we'll return to later but again referenced or recommended by Shaul and then if I'm not saying I think he didn't intro to that one as well I know you know seeing a trend right here Followed up on that just in the line of classical education with the well educated minds as well as wise power another Shawl rekman book general theory of authority by Eve Simone I'm sure it's almost gonna tell me I mispronounced that and then a few months after that I came to Veritas So other shawl was hugely influential to me in understanding the importance of the ideas that come before us and designing to pass Those on to next generation so through education so the oh sorry to tell you more about him Himself and not just talk about bladar about me. This is from the first things article when father Shaul passed so April 17th On father shawl you learn these values of hard work for turnal respect and scholarship in his youth raised in Iowa public schools He served from 1946 to 1947 in the US Army after high school and then joined the California Jesuits in 1948 showing to be a from Santa Clara University an MA in philosophy from Gonzaga University Here you go an MA in sacred theology from Santa Clara University and a PhD in political theory from Georgetown University in the course of his Jesuit formation We're dained a priest in 1963 He taught social sciences at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome from 1964 to 1977 and concurrently taught in the government department of the University of San Francisco From 1968 to 1977 before moving to Georgetown and then he was he taught in Georgetown essentially from 1977 until 2012 I think and then he was in a retirement house from 2012 until 2019 the US government the Vatican and various Catholic institutions sought him out for Service on committees and boards during his long career There as in most things the best way to understand why this guy's great is to read some of his writing and discuss some of his ideas So we will be in one of his earlier works another sort of learning I think him out in the 80s I look for the data in here 88 sounds right, but I might have made that up so He most of his writing or introductions to other books I guess his mind anyway But most of his own writing is essays and then his books are then collections of those essays and so his ideas will develop around a Themes he goes through those essays, which I guess is how all books of essays work Yes, but came out in 1988.
It was not his first book. He had been writing since 1967 But I think this is the earliest that I have read of his just looking through the list now I think I said this before but he wrote like 30 books. So good guy. Okay, so his this part one that we'll be talking about here is Called so you're still perplexed even in college a welcome back this a few times But shawl has this like just joyful way of approaching these complicated topics and I think he's probably most well No, I don't whatever I think he is known for is putting these like really goofy lists of books to read at the end of each of his chapters He gives them really funny titles among the best of them is Shawls unlikely list of books to keep saying by selected for those to whom making sense as a prior consideration But a minority opinion so my favorite ones, okay, so let's explore some of his ideas And then I'll do some reading of the guy himself So the part one so the name of the book another sort of learning in the subtitle is Selective contrary essays on how to find how finely to acquire an education while still in college or anywhere else containing some Related advice about how to employ your your leisure or leisure of time when all the questions remain perplexing in spite of your highest earned academic degree together with sundry book list nowhere else in captivity to be found That is the same type of anything wonderful.
I wonder how his publisher signed off on that in the privacy talks about how the publisher was not exactly crazy about it Oh, really? Okay, so the the topic will be focused on here is so you're still perplexed even in college So we'll make it through probably four of these essays or the ideas and them can throw kind of short So the name of the book is another sort of learning the first essay is another sort of learning So I don't know why I thought aj would appreciate this especially but in his preface his opening quote is from mad magazine Is that does that something you appreciate that makes me happy? Okay, so he's not smoothie is my college is I think that's important It's easy to as you get smarter to let that knowledge puff you up and make you think you're more important than you really are Yes in my in the philosophy department at Whitworth College and this is another reason I love Whitworth College so much everyone should go there It's forever. It's like going to college summer camp But are if you got into the philosophy department as a teacher they got you a year's subscription to what is it the world news weekly world news?
It was the one that was the one that was about alien yeah, it's a tablet kid Yeah, like a bat kid and had it's like an environment I think there were some of the first ones that are like you're this really flat It was those folks and so just so you wouldn't take yourself too seriously You got a year's subscription of it and that just makes me so happy Yeah, that's another thing even in the the article in first thing to talk about how father shawl would bring in I think peanuts was his favorite cartoon but who would quote the comic the comic section of his like local paper and giving it a So he just gets in the humor. Shout out to Mr. Baird Oh, okay, I know he's listening. I know he's not sure what she was So just because this got brought up and get I write this with a certain amount of amusement as a subtitle of this endeavor Hence because I know how pretentious our public and academic life can be even how pretentious it is for me to suggest that I myself Know something of the highest things most folks will think this book on another sort of learning to be an odd sort of thing And it is but it's oddness I believe arises from its uniqueness from its endeavor to suggest that we ought as Aristotle told us to spend our best time on this Higher divine things that define what we are about in our lives.
So what a guy Okay, so he's talking about another sort of learning So I'm going to start by doing a thing that you're not supposed to do in teaching and it's guess what's inside my head So another sort of learning he is writing this to college students Does anyone want to take a swing at what the other sort of learning is if he's writing this to college students like experience in the world? Yes, yes, I guess experiential. That would be a good one he this the what he is funnily talking about is education outside of formal education That is the other sort of learning and in fact is what he would identify as the most important form of learning is what you choose to study on your own So colleges can put in front of you or high schools with each in high school You can put certain books in front of students you can put certain ideas in front of students You can force them to read through those books But ultimately you can't be certain that they absorb anything from those books And at some point they have to make the choice to educate themselves that choose what to spend their time on all we can do is offer a classical education Yeah, and so then what is most important is that other sort of learning It ends up being an ode to use bookstores Which is very lovely he talks about the architecture of one that he loved going to while he was or I guess he's still at George Down during this but a one near the university that he loved to go to talk about the architecture the smell of certain sections That's the place that he loves to be This guy sounds like a nerd he isn't heard but he's like a relatable So yeah at some point the question is like why does Thomas love this guy so much and that's probably part of the answer is that he's a nerd And so am I and so he made a successful like writing career out of being a nerd so I love the smell of old bookstores You don't come on man think about it. I didn't say I wasn't heard I was just saying this guy sounds like a nerd You are 100% correct.
All right, so that's so it's an ode to use books So that's why we're gonna move through this quickly So the other sort of learning is what you choose to spend your time on and a place where you can get those ideas is used bookstore Here is written in 1988. This is pre ebook He ends up being okay with ebooks But says you should probably buy books if you can but he has sensitive to the weight and the cost so for whatever that's worth In case anyone was looking for father shaw bless your Kindle addiction. Okay, so this moves into chapter 2 Why read don't have a good answer for why anyone should read so you can get rich That's okay, he's not in the in the first year being sarcastic but in the first time I'm standing here in front of my Lamborghinis But you know what I love the most knowledge Well, remember that guy. Yeah, it was on YouTube most of these books behind me because I read them all But any rent the Lamborghini with the whole thing probably anyway.
Yeah, I don't remember It's like highly leveraged like I don't know like multi-level marketing scheme or some sort of scam or something Well, the little marketing is not a scam. I'll scare you. That's not probably it anyway, whatever Why am I always defending capitalism on this podcast? Upside down funnel system.
It's not a pyramid. Definitely not upon these upside down pyramid The music is played and the music stop whoever's holding the product is gonna lose It's not from a TV show where you like draw it. It's like it's the office where it's like it's totally not here I'm it's game look you start at the bottom and then it's not the office yet. What no is a From a show we can't reference on the office from the office so that we can reference it It's sunny outside.
Okay, thank you any other Okay, what other answers do we have other than to be rich and buy Lamborghinis? Why should we read boredom boredom so to be entertained? Yeah, fine answer. Okay with that curiosity curiosity is getting sir I mean, I mean, I'm assuming the answer is to learn Yeah, that's that's what I would say so that's an higher sense liberality is freeing ourselves from the not knowing condition You get nothing Therefore money yeah question mark question mark you get to continue being on the podcast That's all yeah, thus in a higher sense liberality is freeing ourselves from the not knowing condition so that we come to know What is in all knowledge in some basic sense is interesting Just as a remark that there are no interesting subjects only uninterested people has its profound point to be liberal in the sense means to be free Not free to create a world that does not exist or one that does not relate to us But free to be able to take within ourselves into our knowledge.
What is there? What is? You know how hard it is to convince students that I'm trying to make them more free I've given I've given that lecture to 9th graders a few times right there The liberal education is one that is intended to free you and they're like um but calculus or but biology or whatever that they're not particularly Enjoying at that moment or convincing them that Latin is worth studying is a specifically difficult task Youth is wasted on the young but in what way so how would you okay? Why should someone learn Latin like I would?
I would do into that question So partially because well their their main beef is that it's difficult and when are they going to use it? Well, I would say that it partially prepares you to learn a gazillion other languages also based on Latin I would say that when you go to Rome you can read all the stuff that's written in Latin I would say that you can become a part of the intellectual conversation in the medieval period Which was conducted almost entirely in Latin you can read stuff in its original language which I mean There's only the other thing the only thing you don't get from learning latin is active conversation with a people group that currently speaks it There are like conversational Latin groups in that true. Yeah It's just that one piece missing but every every other benefit you get from a language is conferred by Latin except more so because Scientific discourse is often in Latin like scientific names the basis for a lot of the words that we have like there's so many reasons to learn Latin You know reading Julius Caesar reading ovid in his original like all that's like all those reasons Yeah, I mean I had to impress the opposite sex. Why do anybody?
Just this is back to last week's episode where it's all just about impressing other people. Pairsing line. It's like wait a minute That doesn't sound quite right just Greek. Yeah, so let's so I think shawl gets a piece of this answer of why to learn these things The whole purpose of learning is to be in a situation wherein we are not always learners But those who have learned those capable of standing on their own be it in prudence or in wisdom so that we are in a sense independent This is what we look for and what we need to be in a position to find out how to be yet However adult or mature or learned we might become we will remain receivers of what is reading to go back to our topic will for the most will for most Be the guide to what is why read because we are given more than we are I think that can be some piece of the answer to why study other languages that you then get access to more experiences to learn from You don't typically learn a language for itself like languages for communicating.
I mean in a language. There's all this Culture bound up in the way of the language is actually even structured and created and If you think in latin you're gonna approach problems differently than you think in English And so even then you'll understand English better because our grammar is based on their grammar A foreign language teaches like a clarity of thought because you need to know exactly what you're trying to say to translate it into another language Like take for example names right like in latin someone's proper name will change based on the case based on its part of speech in english our names don't change so even then like That breaks down the idea of the name being the signifier of the identity So like you know you have a student in class and if someone calls them a nickname that they don't like They'll say I saw my name my name is x But in latin you have a name your name is changing based on the parts of speech So if you grew up speaking latin you wouldn't have the same kind of attachment to the to the sort of immubility of the name right? So you right that's a stupid example But there's an example of just like how language can have you think about things differently? Yeah, I sometimes get comments about an episode from a long time ago about translation wherein the point of that episode was that once you translate It'll work that new translation becomes a work unto itself Yeah, and so then it is worth both reading the original and the new work And so it's not just it's not the same point as saying latin's not worth learning because I don't believe that there's value in reading the original work But there's also value in reading the english translation of that work is a classic in its own right if translated well Anyway, I always feel like I need to say something about that Everyone should learn latin greek and anything else russian Russian was the one that um lost was of learning said that there's like the only three languages worth learning really isn't that weird Yeah, so latin greek or russian if you must it's something like that I figure I would learn russian just so I could yell in russian I would be intimidating that would be intimidating.
I feel like I should learn one language for every activity I want to have if I'm if I'm cooking or trying to Woe someone maybe talion don't don't get mixed up. You don't want to like woo someone in German by mistake Yeah, if I'm French if I'm cooking or am I if I'm sick, uh-huh, and then russian freeling this is sounds like a good idea Okay, so uh where are we right now? So Whole part is written to those who are still looking to get some type of education even though They've had a formal education through college, which is I think Listener you probably find yourself in this situation if you're listening to a podcast like classical stuff you should know So another sort of learning we must continue our learning beyond just the formal education we've gotten through high school or college Why read because it um We are given more than we are we can learn from more than just our single experience and more languages We learn the more we can learn even outside of that. Okay, chapter three is one that I think you'll love the title of because it's interesting Okay, so chapter three what a student owes his teacher.
So this is a fun one for what we're building up to on these topics So we've gone through uh Education why read and then what a student owes his teacher when you hear that what does a what do you think a student owes his teacher? I mean it's the same answer as why you read money Okay, good good student owes his teacher money. Okay. I like it.
You're that nice graders Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, money. Um I think I think it's all for you bribes to like not take quizzes pretty regularly actually yeah I've taken bribes before I feel like taking the bribe is very different from actually giving them the thing they want or you also don't oh I I'm thinking of one instance where a kid wanted to he was out of grace passes Which in our school means that you can kind of like turn in homework late Yeah, and he had late homework to turn in and he said look I'm out of grace passes But in return, I will give you a key chain with my face on it with the student's face or with your face With his face oh and you took that and it's hilarious He has like frosted tips and there's like stars sparkling in the background. It's a fantastic picture hilarious. Yeah, it's great And I never said that I'm gonna turn in turn in late so and I think he chains like every week Rives if they're you know if it's my feel great ethically okay about the bribe and that was one of the okay, okay?
Okay, so what a student owes his teacher. So money. This is good. What else is a student?
Oh his teacher I mean I think about those in my life that I regard as my great teachers. I mean an expansion you owe them sort of Honor for you them ushering you into something bigger But if I think about what I want from my students, I don't want anything for myself I want them to do well and to grow interesting things right what they owe me is their own improvement because that's what I work towards like that Um, yeah, it's not to squander what they've been given. Yeah. Yeah, you give them the fees Do you want them to like actually enjoy that?
Yes, I like that exactly he in this section pushes back against the necessity of small classrooms or personal relationships between Like friend relationships between teacher and student again He's focused on the undergraduate level But he makes the point that it matters more the material that's being taught that great ideas even in a large auditorium Have that still great ideas. Yeah, and so a student can still learn Important things through a large lecture style classroom or even if we think back like in Greece that like that is what teaching would look like When air style is doing the Nick Mocking in ethics when he's like speaking all that stuff It's not just like one or two people it's too like a large group of people So I was just curious to be on any thoughts on that trifling ideas taught by a friend are not as good as big ideas taught by an enemy This is good, but then or not even any but just like a like a faceless but anything. Yeah, yeah Yeah, so he still he talks about the greatness of the teachers who taught him But it didn't matter that whether he knew them or not because he didn't but they pointed him to air style They pointed him to play though and that was enough Um, yeah, but yeah, but I think that good ideas taught by an impersonal Being are is still not as good as having a direct relation to a teacher that can help walk you through those ideas No, I mean I still think that actually having really if he had a relationship with those professors that taught those great ideas and they could teach them Well and flesh them out better and he'd still have that influence like in his life. It would be better.
No, maybe I It's an idea that I found interesting especially coming from him. So I'll just read from over his words I remember especially professor Rudolph Allers at Georgetown during my graduate school days. He never actually looked at the class But his wisdom did I did not want to deny that sometimes rarely probably especially the rest of tilling since students and teachers become friends But at university students are usually too busy becoming friends with each other and changing friends ever to worry much about crotch Deal professor Jones or shawl as the case maybe I think there's something too like what's important in the classroom is the material that's being taught not necessarily like the relationship between teachers Especially when it's at that age when it's when it's in the upper form of education and students are taking it more or less because they're interested in it Yeah, then you want then having? Younger you're still trying to convince the kid that they want it or they want education and I feel like maybe interesting if what he thought about the state of our the state of our higher education, you know towards the end of his life Then in the 80s even the cf you'd seen a shift or thought about and that kind of thing even the 80s He's not super positive.
He'd be we got to do a podcast on like the call the drift of college at some point We've done we don't want on university. I think it was the history of universities I know and then we started with a what's the guy's name? Bloom no, but the other day dorkowitz, but that sounds like a drish wits dad. Isn't that the embarrassing that I said dorkowitz Yeah, that's why I was like they can't be right.
Oh my gosh. He's my hero also That's only if his name is dorkowitz guys. I wonder what this is Yeah, and again wrote. I mean the article we read it was like really helpful for that podcast, but sorry That's my embarrassing memory anyway So again just to take shawl on this point knowing students too well can in fact be something of an impediment to learning Especially for the other students in the class the activity of learning goes on perhaps even better when student teacher are addressing themselves To the reason why they are in the same place at the same time with the kind of mutual awe before something they neither created nor made And their elsewhere Shawl talks about he only assigns books that he himself wants to learn from so there is some level in which he puts himself as a learner with a student But he is focused primarily on that's the reason why I signed books I signed exactly which is probably like you want to model that for the students as well Like this can't just be dry boring material to you right?
I also feel like that should be true in terms of the assignments that are given assignments that you yourself would be interested in wanting to do yourself Yeah, but that's maybe another podcast. I like it Okay, so what is the teacher doing this class the teacher always stands as it were for the higher law of the best before the student Even though teaching is also the effort to pass on what can be learned even if it be a minimum so teacher stands like the best of the class Okay, so then we get to the obligate so again essay is what a student owes his teacher He spends the first half of it talking about the teacher and the call in the teacher before going into them what the obligation the student is So student owes the teacher trust being docile effort and thinking those are the four things that he says first obligation Is is a moderately good will toward the teacher a trust a confidence that is willing to admit to oneself that the teacher has probably been through The matter and unlike the student knows where it all leads so I trust the teacher knows what they're doing especially the beginning of a semester Is it something that would be helpful to you in your classes? Yeah, I think I think high schoolers are they generally trust me generally more trusting than maybe college students. Yeah Yeah, yeah, there's a certain cynicism in high school also.
Oh sure. Yeah, but I don't know you It's pretty easy to overcome by competence. It's it's you know, yeah, yeah, yeah Maybe that's harder by the time they're in college or they're less willing to admit when they're wrong Yeah, yeah, I'm because they're fancy college kid the least I was like that. Yeah Had a repent the second one Dostility docility docility docility anyway the student ought to have the virtue of docility He owes the teacher his capacity of being taught we must allow ourselves to be taught We can actually refuse this openness of our own free wills this refusal is mostly a spiritual thing with roots of the profound Distort in metaphysics and ethics in the beginning.
We only have a blank tablet as Aristotle said of our minds But it is a brain we have and not just nothing we can only discover something even ourselves by being first given something So by giving oaths the teacher the capacity of being taught that's something that you want from your students Oh, yeah, that's something that you see some people resisting But do they I feel like at the beginning of the year They don't owe that to me because I haven't earned it does it make sense all these seems like prerequisites before the student owes me Something because I cannot give anything to them if they don't already have these I think he's agreeing with your second point that They will not learn if they close off their mind and so you can Try and earn that in the beginning or they can just come in expecting I will allow myself to be taught in this class But even with that like I don't think it's just a weird phraseology thing like I don't think they owe that to me until I can prove That I'm worthy of those things right that makes sense like I don't think they owe it to me just on the Virtual of them sitting in my classroom like they're playing bad teachers out there And in fact docility you don't necessarily owe to them if they're gonna teach you garbage and do it poorly and fill your mind with stuff That you know doesn't actually bear on anything then you've actually be in that place if you like it was student Didn't really believe all that then they're probably in a bad environment right yeah Yes, but that's why Graham said it's easy to overcome with competence right competence in the teacher is up It is like they don't owe that to me unless I am competent the only way I can prove I'm competent is by teaching Yeah, so all these seem like prerequisites for any owing of the student at all. I think you earn it by being in the position I'd love to say that but I think there are a lot of people in this position that do a poor job of it The student figures out the game eventually if the teachers playing some sort of game Right like if the teachers just playing fill out these forms and then we'll call it homework game Then the students gonna realize I do what I want because I can't get fired game I do what I want because I can't get fired and the student realizes at least the clever student realizes that he's in a He's in some sort of thing where the teacher's not there for them So the students not there for the teacher they're both there to get whatever they get at the end of the year Which is teacher pay student credentials and then sort of off you go maybe I think I think I learned things from teachers who were only there for the pay and it was still stuff worth learning like I don't know if I have a math teacher who like is really just there Doesn't care about the students, but just wants to come in and leave every day like I don't know you still learn valuable things from them If I'm in an English spite of the teacher. Yeah, I don't know that I owe anything to them. Yeah, right Especially because what are they getting you except their contempt an education the topic but really but like If they're getting paid to pass on the knowledge even if they don't really care about it's not knowledge I don't know I still think it's a value to being receptive to learning even if they're a bad teacher That doesn't mean that you should accept everything without question But you should be open to the chance of learning so maybe it's just it's not necessarily only it to the teacher It's only itself right you yourself to be receptive to that.
I'm just taking the phrasing. Yeah, it doesn't matter It doesn't matter if you didn't yeah, so my opinions don't matter we can go on a few more No, I'm gonna bash you over that till you agree with me this always goes really well. I I don't know I think a student chooses whether they make the class easy or hard for the teacher Yes, and so even a bad teacher like you don't need you don't need to make their life miserable But it's so fun to do so okay, I'm not engaging that one Okay, so third is effort the student owes to a teacher the effort of study a good teacher I'll exercise a mild coercion on his students a kind of pressure that takes into account their lethargy and fallenness and distractions a Pressure that indicates that the professor wants the student to learn lets them know is important a pressure that has the purpose of guiding the student Through the actual thought process the actual exercise of the mind and the matter at hand few students on being given the republic of Plato or the confessions Of St. Augustine to read will bounce right up to the room shut off their stereo cancel a date and proceed to ponder the eternal verities in these books The teachers who assign such books and university in which they are not assigned has a little claim to that noble name always must wonder is that Always must wonder if the intrinsic fascination the thinking through a such works will somehow reach into the students mind So student owes an effort owes to a teacher the effort of study so I might be willing to take on that one the student owes it to himself but Again, it's the same the if the teacher is going to like do well in the class They need students who have done the work beforehand.
So I'm going both ways Is this the thing that you want from your students? Yeah, you need to somehow Let them know that this has currency for them and that doesn't mean like I'm bringing it down to the Haskell level look look at me kids. We're gonna talk about like your real life I made don't I mean you do yeah? Yeah, that's that's not what we mean But you need to show that you certainly to show that how this has had currency for everybody else and how they can be part of it In many ways I feel like it's maybe giving away teacher trick is Doing it by saying it's hard and difficult and you're probably not gonna get it and there's some amazing things in there And not doubting them but just sort of saying like it's really great and it takes a lot of effort to get there You'll never make it I don't know if I don't know if people I hope you guys have you know not that I would ever say it But it's just sort of the way that you treat the material as opposed to this is fun If you just like put your mind to it you have fun doing this It's more you're probably not gonna fun doing this right?
It's a lot of work There's some really great things in there and maybe only some of you are really gonna like really get into it I feel like putting it that way you get way more kids me I'll show you or like oh my goodness. This must be amazing. Yeah, the fun is the reason you read these books No, they're they teach you something like they're worth reading the harvest Yeah, there's something in it that is worth knowing or experiencing or seeing again Why do we read we read to experience more than ourselves and these books are worth reading because they are good experiences? This gets into the next chapter, which I'll tell you what it's titled in a second But if you get a good grade a student reads same Gaston Well terrific, but I'm also impressed by someone who reads and it gets a D minus but who five or 25 years later is still reading him It takes all ones life reads and it gets them so the first doesn't times three probably deserved a D minus anyhow That's what you're saying right that any of us reading a book for the first time we haven't gotten the depth of that book Yeah, so if a student says oh, I say what was your favorite book this year and they say oh my goodness paradise lost I really love that book and then Like I just sort of know because of how difficult it is and how fast we go through it that students are not They're not spending hours and hours and hours just reading it over and over and over they're doing the homework They're not getting it.
They're saying don't explain it when we get to class They go through it But if they've left 10th grade with the feeling like there are things there that I enjoyed if I went back I would find them again even if the next if they went back to the book five six seven times They didn't yield those things, you know if you've left them with the feeling that there is good stuff here that is way more Formative than oh, yeah, I got an am I don't paper and off I go, you know, and I know Dante now It's even someone saying paradise losses my favorite book. There's no so much more there for them Yeah, I go back to it I guess kind of exciting for them to end here like if they've been hooked by this first read through then the third and fifth and Temple be great also now. It's a it's an engine now. I've put inside them an engine that's gonna drive itself like that Because they're not gonna have me poking in front of them and giving them the reading grades to do it and Talk having classes where I talk about it like they're gonna hopefully and maybe not even do it until they're older But if they're left with the idea that in a book like paradise lost there are amazing things if I just have the wherewithal to like Push through and find them and that's what he's getting at like the reason to say a student owes us to the teacher It's more to say they will they are more likely to get to that point of Appreciating the book and wanting to return to it if they've trusted the teacher they've been willing to learn they put the effort in to read it That's what that's what I think he's getting out here.
Yeah, do you really like actually do the work enjoy it more The people who trust you the people who are willing to learn yeah, oh for sure. Yeah. Yeah, that's all Yeah, so he wraps up what a student is a teacher ultimately teaching is an active humility as is learning It is the realization that the highest things of which we possess but the beginnings are to be known can be known by each of us And ourselves and none of us is the less in the learning like that Okay, so that is what a student owes his teacher So our question is what does a teacher owe the student doesn't want to guess what the answer to that is the title of the next chapter and Graham You're gonna hate it always that's what we all them right so they can what is an a what what thing is an a So they can't really of oh Great so they can go through it and I think it's great Answer you don't like this. No, I don't like this.
I think I'm hoping to change your mind on this because I think he takes an interesting look at grades So surprising answer here. Okay, this is present. What's what is a grade Graham since you're getting angry right now? What is a grade?
It's a loaded gun. Okay, okay, great. Good. Okay, so he asked this question a few times So what is a grade a grades a measure of knowing and not knowing to be sure grades are intended also to encourage challenge There is a certain special sweet pleasure in getting a D minus and freshman composition and an a minus and advanced writing three years later So not give you a Year and there's some sweet joy and there is there is a sweet joy when this one everybody when the whole system is like working together Grades are things not to worry about that's the thing.
He says don't you we agree with that. Good luck. Okay. Yeah He doesn't tell that to the parents of high schoolers that are you're too difficult to Just get that I'll read this lovely section So grades are things not to worry about says who will I do in a way?
No one is an university to get good grades even though your grades may be your main concern or maybe the main concern of the good tuition payers back home Your dear mother could probably care less what you actually do or learn in Charles rambling class to be sure But she probably does care about whether you get a grade you see such are the fates She probably trusts all reports more than yours What one actually does in Charles classes mystery understood only by God and then that's where he goes in the part about if you get A D minus but you keep reading sinning dust in you have succeeded. Yes, so he agrees with that another snarky comment What's a great a grade can also be the measure of universities in security if the course content or methods are not exactly like the big-name schools Therefore something there's something wrong. I suspect there's something more wrong if the school's content always if the school's contents are always are just like those of the well-known schools So you know measuring security talks about grade inflation at this point So if all the grades given are really high what the grade becomes a measure of the university wanting their kids to look good So that's something you would agree with right? Yes, okay So what is like the good reason?
I say great, you know, it's good one that when everybody's working everyone's staying from the same handle Yeah, so there are problems with grades He's acknowledging those but eventually all comes back to the same thing a grade is a teacher's judgment of a student's objective accomplishment compared To what the said student ought to accomplish the purpose of a grade I suppose To get back to the story that I didn't read you at the beginning is to enable the student to pass from uncertainty to certainty from insecurity to Security about himself to feel confident on an objective basis that he knows more or less than he's expected to know By ourselves we do not know this and I would agree with that I would agree with that if people didn't think if everything wasn't writing so much on it because if really you could say an A is reserved for some sort of level of competency that you rarely see as a teacher and C's and B's were B's were you know reserved for you know, you're sort of general good competency and C's were Season D's were yeah, this was an honest first pass Then I feel like that that makes sense and if the student sort of took that and saw it as a reflection of their Understanding of the subject matter that's all well and good But then when you sort of have what we now have where everything is sort of packaged and writing on that Then you've got people who are then you know, you have a system where everyone's Splitting hairs between a 93 and a 94 because so much seems to be riding on on that difference and that that's that's a disheartening game to be Part of yeah, he's so I don't I don't yeah, so to get me so I know I come across as like the one who hates grades But they're they're useful in exactly what he says and he's sort of taking the like the intended Um Reason why they existed as opposed to sort of the the industry that it's become so just to speak to the industry This is from the opening of this essay Which I didn't read before Aristotle as we know suggested that we ought not to expect more certitude of a science than it is capable of yielding an Aristotle's over words in studying the subject ethics We must be content if we attain as high a degree of certainty as the matter of admits Recently I came across a syllabus for a course a very good syllabus Incidentally of a colleague of mine who announced in his perspective that 10% of students grade would be based on class discussion 40% on the test and 50% on the term paper I indeed such clarity but I always have been reluctant to give such statistics to students who ask me how I arrive at grade And he goes on from there. He talks about how like computers wants to be able to analyze if you're a good student Or not and that's not the purpose of a grade so so is he saying that the grade is just the teachers General sense as to how good the student has done to how competent a student is or how his objective measures of the students What was the phrase it used? I say this guy wants to spitball it and just sort of like for myself I think professor needs to know how his student writes how he reads how he speaks how he responds on his feet as it were The professor needs to know about the students diligence and thoroughness this takes some time It is a human thing as I mentioned in the previous essay students also great teachers in most universities something most administrators take relatively seriously But it also takes students time as well as trust in other teachers. Yeah, I mean that kind of system I get behind me and yet He advocates no Yeah, yeah, how are those two jive mm?
It doesn't have to be the professor who's grading those things a lot of classes have like So we're really getting the TA to trust like someone who clearly knows less about material to evaluate how well a student's doing I'm behind if you have people who Know who people who are know this the content live the content and and in many senses love the content and teach it well Being the ones the gatekeepers that say this student is at this level of competency and the students at this level the students at this level That I get behind what he talks about with like breaking it down to percentages and then a computer Eventually we're gonna have one day where we're gonna have drones hovering above the classroom like taking retinal scans of students to see how much They're class participating with their attention You know, and then then we'll go get these auto-generated you know AI grades and he and he has a part We're talking about how like he doesn't know what a 93.7 means for what a 78.4 means Yeah, and that's when he has that quote eventually all comes back to the same thing a teacher's judgment of a student's objective accomplishment compared to What the student ought to accomplish which I think you would agree is what you want from grade Yes, and that's and that's again What do I like James Hall? He speaks clearly and like sanely on these topics things that we care about things that we want to like do well at the school And he was thinking about this thirty years ago or whatever So pause is he saying grades should be individualized for each student is it what he ought to accomplish or what any student ought to accomplish in that classroom? He says I'll relative to what the student would accomplish so objective accomplished and compared to the student the student ought to accomplish But if I am say an employer that grade does not help me at all because you know This kid could be dumb as a brick and he did pretty good for a dozen myself But I don't want to hire dumb as a brick. I want to hire someone you have to look at it again if what is being measured is a combination of How he reads how he speaks how he responds on his feet his diligence and his thoroughness you want someone who's diligent and thorough But that's relative to the students in a capacity rather than an objective standard So I guess I'm arguing for objective standards here.
He says objective accomplishments So it's based on the writing on their but objective accomplishments relative to what the student ought to accomplish not to what all students To accomplish like and just to make this clearer like I have us You know we have an idea of what we what kind of writing we want students to accomplish here in Veritas We don't individualize that for the student We say this is our standard and if you don't meet it You don't meet it and we give grades accordingly We don't we don't change that standard independent of where the student innately falls totally agree cut this out If you don't include it the best thesis this year was a non top grade student who despite like Not having to memorize it still memorize it and perform through thesis like that was the best thesis this year and Anyway, like and so like relative to her it's awesome, but it wasn't the top six right and so like I'm okay with that I'm okay with the switching as to these numbers because again from false perspective grades aren't for the employer Grades aren't for the computer to like make you a cognitive machine It's to say it's a measure of competence is a measure It's a reflection on did you actually like to do your best in this class? So so you're you to give grades the way that you'd want us to give them it would necessitate a a system shift and inherent like Structural system shift about the way that we treat grades. Yeah, and I keep thinking the The answer the answer the answer grades is to what does a student? What is a teacher of a student and so I think even in talking about students were abstracting it too much It's like we in our classrooms O to our students to give them that that feeling that Reflection of their competence from the beginning of the year to the end of the year and that's if someone gets mad at you You're getting them a C like that's the fight you get to have right?
That's a link to conversation worth having so anyway, that's all this to say I think shawl again writes clearly he speaks the topics that are the intersection of Classics and education in he himself is Catholic so religion gets brought in there as well He is writing is delightful out he writes as you can tell differently from C. S Lewis But it just makes me think of Lewis and that is just a treat to read I sat down yesterday to prepare for this episode If I take 30 minutes and I just got swept away in three hours later. I was still reading I find him delightful I'll end with this quote from the first things Article on his death for some further reading if I was interested You know spy Wednesday as a part of fully we could you ever heard this before spy Wednesday? That's not amazing I never heard this before so it's we all carry small guns.
I wish so I was a boy Wednesday before money Thursday as you can talk from it being a Wednesday So it's not as though it's the remembrance of when Jesus what or when I'm Judas like left the Last summer yeah, it's good money. Yeah, so that's spy Wednesday It's called that all right So although he left us at age 91 on spy Wednesday slipping away as quietly as Judas from the last supper in an irony He would not fail to appreciate shawl remains present to us in his prolific writing and classically rooted words Which breathes his learned spirit and provide many courses on Ignatian adaptability on first principles to the storms of our ever-changing world Famed for providing appendices to his books which list with list of other books He wanted to share with readers giving giving them titles like shawls five books to stay sane He is he now deserves his own list so here I offer at the end of this reflection on the life of my brother Jesuit three shawl books to stay holy for first things readers And listeners to classical stuff you should know another sort of learning which is the one I've been reading from on the lessons students teach us the life of the mind on forming ourselves to think critically and on the unseriousness of human affairs and Yeah, so that is a photo show is very influential to me Well, this has been classical stuff You should know if you want to give us a great on the hot gas you can email us at classical stuff and fair toss Academy you relative to what you think you just take into consideration What you think our actual capacities are and then grade us whether or not you think we attained to the height of those capacities or not If you just want to tweet at us you can tweet at us at classical stuff at at classical stuff CLS a CAL stuff and I will like and retweet or Like an untweet yes, I don't know how to it works and you can find us at classical stuff net where you can see the back episodes and We have one hidden Easter egg on our website true that I'm sure only if you have found but in the old Scott The old school version of like you know Give it away don't give it a saying internet 1.0 like there we have Easter eggs on our website I don't think we'll do that anymore, but we do and Yeah, I'm thinking about think about grades maybe good. This is the thing you think about it I think is after grade when I know well grade accurately I'm my objective standard that everyone must hit maybe just feel easier spitball and say ah for this Today hearts in it. Yeah, there you go.
Anyway. Yep. So thanks for listening and You know it's like great. I'm actually curious Please know we need the river though except there don't stop no re-bick.
There's no re-bick in life All right, well, this is clock. This is Thomas AJ and Graham signing off and we will catch you next time. Bye. Bye.
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