I am printing it (my essay) here as a way to remind and prepare myself for the coming school year. It can also serve as a small summary of what Ms. Sayers communicates in her 1947 essay in case you are at all interested in learning more about this approach to education. (Or, maybe you’ll just become more convinced that the Krum family is crazy, idealistic, and out of touch! Oh well… here goes…)
Response to “The Lost Tools of Learning” by Dorothy Sayers: The main problem with modern education, according to Dorothy Sayers, in her essay entitled “The Lost Tools of Learning,” is that the focus is on segregated subjects rather than on obtaining “tools for learning.” She points out that we are more concerned with teaching the details of individual subjects rather than teaching pupils how to think, and she laments that those subjects are divided by “watertight bulkheads” preventing the integration and natural connections to other subjects. She calls it a “distressing fact” that the intellectual skills we have acquired through modern education are not “readily transferable” to other subject areas beside the ones in which we first obtained them. And while this disregard for imparting an approach to tackling all subjects is her main frustration, she also points to the problem of media influence on pupils who have not a framework for discerning fact from fiction as well as the inability to speak to a specific question, refute an argument, and keep relevant in their discussion.
Her proposed solution is to return to an ancient model known as the Trivium. In this model, the years of education are divided into three phases: Grammar, Dialectic, and Rhetoric. These phases coincide naturally with the developmental stages of children. In the Grammar stage, young children are learning the “language” of various subjects. Every subject has its own language. In history, for example, it may be dates, people, important events, and timelines, whereas in Latin, it may be vocabulary and noun declension endings. They may not comprehend or be able to apply these facts, but they are acquiring the necessary facts or “language” that they will need in future dealings with the subject. The Dialectic stage capitalizes on the natural tendency of the young adolescent to question, argue, and prove others wrong. In this stage the teacher is helping the pupil to embrace logic and the proper mode of disputation. They learn to use language, define its terms, make accurate statements, construct arguments, and detect fallacies. Any subject can be used as material for practicing these skills. The final stage of the Trivium is called the Rhetoric stage. In this stage, pupils use their foundation of grammar and dialectic to express themselves eloquently and persuasively – both through the written and spoken word. This stage correlates to the older adolescent’s yearning to be independent and express himself.
Ms. Sayers is deeply concerned with the integration of all subjects and writes that the Dialectic stage shows how all branches of learning are inter-related. Math, for example, is not an isolated subject but rather a sub-department of logic. She is also greatly troubled by the inability of educated persons to make an immediate connection between “algebra and detective fiction” or “sewage disposal and the price of salmon.” All subjects are connected, and should be taught as such. Ms. Sayers finally advocates that theology is the “mistress science without which the educational structure will lack final synthesis.” In this statement, she is expressing what we as believing Christians should be especially concerned with as we educate our children: that all “subjects” were created by our Lord and ultimately tie together in Him – the Living Word, which is expressed best in Colossians 1:17: “And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”