Recovering Schole in Education

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Welcome, welcome to my last episode of this limited series podcast! It is bittersweet for me for sure! While responsibilities take me away temporarily from this full format, I do plan to continue sharing helpful tips, resources, and insights through social media and my website, so please if you don’t already, follow me on my Instagram and Facebook pages - A True Good Beautiful Life and my website: ATrueGoodBeautifulLife.com .

And so to recap, the telos of this podcast is to share the pedagogical ideas of Charlotte Mason in light of the Classical ideals of the True, Good, and the Beautiful. Because Charlotte Mason belongs to the Classical tradition (the historical traditional understanding of this pedagogy), I wanted to show how these two methods can harmonize well with each other. They both emphasize paideia, which is the classic holistic approach to educating the whole child -- mind, body, and spirit. They both stress living/great books, observing and getting out in the natural world or cosmos, and thinking deeply about a feast of ideas. And while there are many other shared characteristics and goals, the one we are going to talk about today is how Charlotte Mason's motto of “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life,” marries perfectly with the traditional Classical approach to learning, nurturing character, and promoting virtue - schole.

With the revival of Classical Education over the past few decades, many in that field, including my special guest today, are trying to recover this ancient ideal of schole, or restful learning. Today’s education seems to be inhabiting both ends of the spectrum of learning – a style that is too rigorous or one that is too lackadaisical. But today, I hope that we can encourage you to seek a balance by devoting some of your day engaging in schole, which will surprisingly promote wonder, love, and learning for you and your students.

Back in the 4th century, Aristotle wrote that "schole [or leisure, as it it often translated], represents the highest human activity, that our labors were not what life was all about but that work was for the purpose of getting to enjoy leisure” – and that this concept would lead to human happiness (10.7). 

So what does this old Greek word have to do with education? Why revisit this idea from Episode 10? Because this is the final episode for the foreseeable future, I wanted to highlight and dig more thoroughly into this idea of leisure, or schole. I want to leave you with these important thoughts to contemplate as you begin your summer season and think about your upcoming school year. I want to give you permission to stop and rest and to consider cultivating this same rest in your homes and schools. I want to show you how this old Greek philosophy would make Charlotte Mason smile centuries later and how she incorporated it into her own philosophy of education.

My final special guest of this season of the podcast is Dr. Christopher Perrin, and in the next hour or so, he is going to share with us his passion for education and how we can flourish as human beings through this old but forgotten concept of schole. He has recently published a book all about schole and I know you will want to read it. As you listen, see how well this concept matches well with Charlotte Mason's motto on education.

10 Pedagogies of Schole:

1. Make Haste Slowly
2. Much Not Many
3. Repetition: The Mother of Memory
4. The One Who Loves Can Sing and Remember
5. Wonder and Curiosity
6. Schole and Contemplation
7. Embodied and Liturgical Learning
8. By Teaching We Learn
9. The Best Teacher is a Good Book
10. Learning in Community

Favorite Resources:

• The Schole Way: Bringing Restful Teaching and Learning Back to School and Homeschool by Dr. Christopher Perrin
• "The Schole Way" Classical U online recorded course by Dr. Christopher Perrin
• “Schole (Restful) Learning,” Classical U online recorded course by Dr. Christopher Perrin
• The Good Teacher: Ten Key Pedagogical Principles That Will Transform Your Teaching by Dr. Christopher Perrin and Carrie Eben
• Christopher Perrin's Substack Account
• "Bringing Schole Back to School" article by Dr. Christopher Perrin, Substack
• The Age of Martha: A Call to Contemplative Learning in a Frenzied Culture by Devin O'Donnell
• Teaching From Rest: The Homeschooler's Guide to Unshakable Peace by Sarah Mackenzie
• Josef Pieper: Leisure: The Basis of Culture published by Ignatius Press
• Josef Pieper: Only the Lover Sings: Art and Contemplation published by Ignatius Press
• Josef Pieper: An Anthology published by Ignatius Press
• Common Arts Education: Renewing the Classical Tradition of Training the Hand, Head, and Heart by Christopher Hall
• "Schole Sisters"
• An Introduction to Classical Education: A Guide for Parents by Dr. Christopher Perrin
• Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition by Karen Glass
• The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education by Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain
• Wisdom and Eloquence: A Christian Paradigm for Classical Learning by Robert Littlejohn and Charles Evans

"Schole is both fundamental to education and related to other fundamental elements of a traditional classical education: the curriculum of the liberal arts and natural sciences; the conversation contained in the great books or archived human wisdom; the cultivation of the moral and academic (or intellectual) virtues; the cultivation of wisdom; and the inherited pedagogies of wonder, memory, imitation, and practice. This book holds up schole as the chief lens by which we will consider education, but it is already in a dance with these other elements." - Dr. Christopher Perrin, The Schole Way: Bringing Restful Teaching and Learning Back to School and Homeschool

“We are un-leisurely (ascholia) in order to have leisure (schole). " - Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 10.7.6)

“Scholé means something like undistracted time to study the most worthwhile things with good friends, usually in a beautiful place, and usually with good food and drink. It has a range of meaning because scholé is at the same time a disposition of the teacher and student, an atmosphere or setting, and an activity. It was at the heart of our understanding of what education was for about 2,000 years up until about 1900, when education was replaced by the progressive, modern “education” we have today.” - Dr. Christopher Perrin, The Schole Way: Bringing Restful Teaching and Learning Back to School and Homeschool

"A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher." - Luke 6:20, The Bible, NIV

Prayer Before Study: “O Ineffable Creator, who, from the treasures of Your wisdom, have established three hierarchies of angels, have arrayed them in marvelous order above the fiery heavens, and have marshaled the regions of the universe with such artful skill. You are proclaimed the true font of light and wisdom, and the primal origin raised high beyond all things. Pour forth a ray of Your brightness into the darkened places of my mind; disperse from my soul the twofold darkness into which I was born: sin and ignorance. You make eloquent the tongues of infants. Refine my speech and pour forth upon my lips the goodness of Your blessing. Grant to me keenness of mind, capacity to remember, skill in learning, subtlety to interpret, and eloquence in speech. May You guide the beginning of my work, direct its progress, and bring it to completion, You who are true God and true Man, who live and reign, world without end. Amen.” - St. Thomas Aquinas; found in The Schole Way:  Bringing Restful Teaching and Learning Back to School and Homeschool by Dr. Christopher Perrin as well as online - https://classicalliberalarts.com/catholic-theology/catholic-prayer/prayer-before-studying-by-st-thomas-aquinas/

. . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174

1. Consider trying some of these practical ideas in your home and school: keep a commonplace book, take an art class, copy scripture or poetry by hand, choose a literary mentor to read through, start a book club, start a supper club, add handicrafts and the common arts to your weekly plans, read less books in order to dig deeper, hang beautiful art up, have less class periods during the day for more contemplation in each class, build up your home/class library, create a peaceful space for reading, go out into nature and journal, memorize poetry and have a recitation night, pray throughout the day together, keep a sketchbook, include feasting and celebration in your school calendar, play music in the background, read books aloud to each other, have the older kids plan an event with/for the younger kids
2. Get a copy of Christopher Perrin's book, The Schole Way, and see how you can foster this idea and practice in your homes and classrooms. Then read the other books listed above for more insight and recommendations.
3. Engage in handicrafts by making your own books! Learn how to bind and decorate them and then fill them with your favorite quotes like a commonplace book or junk journal.