Classical Education and the Human Soul

Classical Education Approaches

  • Two opposing views:
    • Content-focused: What you read matters.
    • Pedagogy-focused: How you read it (teaching method) matters; grammar, logic, and rhetoric as stages.
  • Classical education revival relies on written texts due to the lack of practitioners; reconstruction involves interpreting texts and discerning underlying methods.
  • People often latch onto single books or methods, believing they hold the key to classical education.
  • The speaker introduces the "broomstick" analogy:
    • All disciplines (mathematics, science, philosophy, literature, language) are needed.

Music and Gymnastics

  • Music and gymnastics are foundational: most of early education.
  • They are complementary, affecting different parts of the person.

Three Faculties of the Human Person

  • The Desiring Part
    • Seeks physical things: food, drink, sleep, sex, comfort, money.
    • Driven by comfort and avoidance of pain.
  • The Irascible Part
    • Emotional: expresses joy, anger, sadness, disappointment.
    • Seeks honor and despises shame.
    • Sense of justice is shaped by the surrounding world.
    • Shame as a pedagogical tool: Reinforcing good/bad behavior; distinguish between appropriate pedagogical use and inappropriate attempts to control.
  • The Intelligible Part
    • Knows true justice; guides the irascible part in responding to honor and shame.

Disorder of the Soul

  • External factors (diet, environment, sin, demons, society, culture) disorder the soul.
  • Desiring part as king: prioritizing comfort over wisdom.
  • Irascible part driven by lack of honor: constant need for attention/acknowledgment, especially in a classroom setting. (classroom management tip)
    • Negative behavior from irascible part is often for attention. Address by acknowledging their presence.
    • Honor needs must be managed; honor can be bestowed even for bad jokes, UNLESS. . .
      • It promotes immorality.
      • It promotes a vice when you want to promote a virtue, and vice versa.
  • Intelligible part
    • Ruled by this part: pursuit of honor and power
    • Ordered soul:
      • Pursuit of wisdom and virtue.
      • Christianty addresses an ordered soul by following God and becoming like Christ.
    • Without an ordered soul, philosophy turns into scheming for desires.

Purpose of Classical Education

  • Ordering the soul is a primary goal.
  • Music and gymnastics contribute to this.

Music's Role

  • Two components: melody (form) and content (words).
  • Ancient world: stories were sung (Homer, Aesop, myths).
  • Music: anything inspired by the muses (daughters of memory and art).
  • Christianity: replaces muses with the Holy Spirit.
  • Training the soul through words: love for good, beautiful, and true through stories.
    • Example: Achilles embodies courage and justice.
    • Example: Ane wouldn't gossip.
    • Imitation of virtue: becoming virtuous through imitating those they love.
  • Training the soul through form (melodies, tones):
    • Music's effect on disposition: changing how the soul receives messages.
    • Tones (e.g., Lydian): causing joyful, victorious, mournful, or submissive reception.
    • Matching tones to stories:
      • David and Bathsheba sung mournfully.
      • Ancient Greeks/Socrates were particular about tones for teaching children.
    • Music excites or calms the soul; emotional response.
    • Modern education: less emphasis on tones/forms, primarily focusing on music's emotional effects.
  • Tones and Scales: An a minor scale is the Dorian mode, and C major is the ionic mode.