In October 1947, Dorothy Sayers made an impassioned speech on education at Oxford University. She argued that in modern times, children may spend over a decade in school, yet they never actually learn. Thus, they go out into the world armed with no knowledge of how to think, how to reason, how to converse.
Have you ever listened to television debates and noticed how the grown adults don’t seem to be actually debating so much as throwing irrelevant insults at each other? Or noticed how the debaters seem incapable of giving straightforward answers to the questions they’re asked? Have you ever observed that, upon leaving school, young men and women suddenly, not only forget what they have learned, but are unable to learn new things? Have you ever been reading a newspaper article and been frustrated by the writer’s lack of defining his or her terms?
In her speech, Sayers cites all of these as examples of how society has forgotten the Lost Tools of Learning. “.....although we often succeed in teaching our pupils ‘subjects,’ we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think. They learn everything, except the art of learning. It is as though we had taught a child mechanically and by rule of thumb, to play The Harmonious Blacksmith upon the piano, but had never taught him the scale or how to read music; so that, having memorized The Harmonious Blacksmith, he still had not the faintest notion how to proceed from that to tackle The Last Rose of Summer.”
In the Middle Ages, she postulates, people would not have had this problem. In the Middle Ages, education was not designed to spoon-feed, to force-feed; education was designed to teach. What did medieval educator do differently? They taught using the Trivium, she says. The Trivium consists of three parts: Grammar, Dialectic, and Rhetoric. Sayers explains that, rather than choosing facts for the students to memorize, the purpose of the Trivium was intended to teach students how to learn, how to think, and how to discuss.
First (in the Grammar stage), a medieval pupil studied a language - not just for foreign communication, but for the purpose of understanding the structure and the purpose of language itself - how it works, how to put it together. This stage emphasizes memorization and making education appeal to children. Second (in the Dialectic stage), students learned how to use language - “how to define his terms and make accurate statements; how to construct an argument and how to detect fallacies in argument (his own arguments and other people’s). This stage emphasizes logic and the beginnings of conversations. Last (in the Rhetoric stage), students learned how to express themselves elegantly, logically, and persuasively. This stage emphasizes leadership, conversation, and learning how to teach.
At age sixteen, when a medieval pupil should have completed his education, he was given a final project, very similar to a dissertation project: he would write an extensively research thesis, then defend it in front of a board of masters. He would be questioned thoroughly on his thesis and he must be able to quickly and effectively respond to questions and attacks.
The Trivium also differs from modern education where “subjects” are concerned. Modern schools say that “science” is in one category, completely separate from “history,” which is in turn completely separate from “literature” or “English.” The Trivium teaches that all subjects are interconnected.
Sayers postulates that children should, from an early age, be exposed to Latin; it provides students with a detailed knowledge of grammar, ancient literature, ancient history, culture studies, and ethics studies. (For an in-depth defense of the study of Latin, come ask me for access to a previous essay on the topic!) She also believes that young children in the Grammar stage should do recitations of various subjects, including history, geography, science, and mathematics. They should be exposed to English verse and prose until at least the essence of it is imprinted upon their heart, if it is not memorized word for word. Young children have minds like sponges; don’t ever worry that you’re trying to make them memorize too much.
When they memorize history and geography facts, she says that each date or name must come with pictures of kings and queens, costumes, architecture, flora and fauna; so that a mere word can conjure up images of an entire time period or region. Understanding is not the goal at this age, but memory; if children can recite the parts of an atom now, they will have it that much easier when they take chemistry in high school.
She goes on to describe Dialectic learning: “On the Language side… we can concentrate more particularly on Syntax and Analysis and the history of Language. Our Reading will proceed from narrative and lyric to essays, argument and criticism, and the pupil will learn to try his own hand at writing this kind of thing.” Many lessons will progress into student debates and conversations rather that a teacher presenting material non-stop, and frequent questions on any topic should be encouraged. Asking questions is the first step toward learning how to think. The recitations of their younger days may be replaced by performances of classic speeches, poems, and plays, or by readings of their own work.
Remember that this stage emphasize logic and logical thinking. Mathematics may be taught as an extension of formal logic - or as numeral logic as opposed to linguistic logic. Recall geometric proofs - they are interestingly similar to the logical proofs students of intermediate formal logic may encounter.
“Towards the close of this stage, the pupils will probably be beginning to discover for themselves that their knowledge and experience are insufficient, and that their trained intelligences need a great deal more material to chew upon. The imagination—usually dormant during the Dialectic Stage—will reawaken, and prompt them to suspect the limitations of logic and reason. This means that they are passing into the next stage and are ready to embark on the study of Rhetoric.”
Sayers argues that there can be no definite syllabus for the Rhetoric stage and a certain freedom is required for students. She believes that students may begin to choose specialties and prepare for university or for a career. However, taking a liberal arts point of view, she says that students must continue to at least touch all areas of knowledge - it is unwise to completely abandon mathematics, or history, or literature, or philosophy.
In conclusion, Dorothy Sayers says, “What use is it to pile task on task and prolong the days of labor, if at the close the chief object is left unattained?” What’s the point of worksheets and tests and homework, if they do not serve to teach children how to learn, how to think, and how to discuss? “For the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.”
Bibliography:
Sayers, Dorothy. The Lost Tools of Learning. E.T. Heron, London, 1948.
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