What I would like to do here is recommend some books. The list can be used in several different ways. If you are a headmaster, you could turn your teacher training sessions (or some of them) into a book group. Pick a book, have everybody read it, and then select one of your teacher training sessions as a time to discuss and answer questions. Another use might be a personal one. You are a teacher in a classical Christian school, and you have a real desire to up your game.
In presenting this list, I am going to include some of my own titles. And though my natural inclination is to be coy about such things, I will do this thing without embarrassment. That is because I wrote these books for a reason, and that reason turns out to be identical with the reason for this particular article.
So these would be the books that I would like to see internalized by every classical Christian school teacher. Life would be lots better if that happened. The sun would come out. Flowers would bloom. Angels would smile. Children would caper.
The books are not presented in any particular order, and the list is intended to be provocative, not exhaustive. In other words, these books are a great place to begin, and I believe they will help you find the other books that you should be reading next. For there is no recovery of our cultural legacy without reading, and without reading a lot.
The Abolition of Man (C.S. Lewis)
This small book contains a formidable assault on subjective relativism by C.S. Lewis. The lectures that formed this book were presented by Lewis at the same time he was writing his magnificent novel, That Hideous Strength. The books should actually be read as a set. Lewis demonstrates that the modern approach to education, far from being simply a defective form of education, is actual the embodiment of an anti-education. If education is more about formation than just information, this anti-education is about the formation of nullities, of un-men, of former humans. Lewis traces the downward spiral as he describes the abolition of man, an abolition that begins in elementary school textbooks.
The Seven Laws of Teaching (John Milton Gregory)
John Milton Gregory does a wonderful job here in describing the actual process of teaching and learning. One wit once said that teaching was the process whereby information passes from the notes of the teacher into the notes of the student, without passing through the mind of either. Gregory is at war with, and he does a wonderful job breaking the task of teaching down into its constituent parts. Some of the laws will seem self-evident, but all of us have had experiences with poor teachers who did not seem to grasp some of these laws, even the most basic. For example, the first law is that the teacher must know the lesson or truth or art to be taught. He has to know what he is talking about in other words. The fourth law is that the lesson to be taught has to explained in terms already understood by the student. This is really good stuff, really foundational.
The Case for Classical Christian Education (Douglas Wilson)
Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning was my first book on classical Christian education, and it was written when Logos was about ten years old. About ten years after that, I wrote The Case for Classical Christian Education. Recovering was written during takeoff, and The Case was written after we were at cruising altitude for a while. This second book fills in a lot more detail, and is probably the best book for a novice to start with.
A Justice Primer (Douglas Wilson)
This book might seem like an odd selection because it does not pertain to education directly. But a school is filled with sinners, and if the school is thriving and successful, it will be filled with hundreds of sinners. This means that there will be many occasions where teachers, and administrators, and parents will have to adjudicate various offenses, and they will have to process what they hear. The board will hear appeals through the grievance policy. Parents will complain about a teacher’s behavior to the headmaster. A teacher will have to judge between two students who have had a quarrel. When these things are left unaddressed, it will all blow up eventually. When they are addressed ham-handedly or poorly, they blow up sooner than that. Understanding the biblical principles of justice is fundamental to the running of a good classical Christian school.
On Christian Doctrine (Augustine)
Augustine was, before his conversion, a classically trained rhetor, and he provides us with a wonderful example of what that ancient education could do. He also provides us with a good example of how the ancient Christians of Augustine’s era understood their obligation to integrate their Christian faith with their classical learning. There were various tropes that were used to describe this. The most famous was that of the Israelites plundering the gold of the Egyptians at the Exodus. Another one was the Israelite warrior seeing a beautiful woman taken captive. He was allowed to marry her, but she had to mourn her parents for a month, and get rid of all her pagan trappings. Reading this book will help modern classical Christian educators understand the ur-beginnings of our movement, and will no doubt lead to other examples of the same kind of thing.
Classical Me, Classical Thee (Rebekah Merkle)
This short book was written for students, the recipients of a classical Christian education. The point is to explain to the students what we are doing to them, and why. It would be a good idea for teachers and parents to read it so that we can all be singing off the same sheet of music.
Christianity and Classical Culture (Charles Cochrane)
This book is an outstanding overview of the relationship of Christianity to the culture in which Christianity grew and became a world-transforming force. The subtitle is “A Study of Thought and Action from Augustus to Augustine.” If you want to know the essential dynamics of the collision between two alien worldviews, this would be the place to start. I would suggest reading this prior to reading On Christian Doctrine by Augustine. It will set the stage for you.
The Mind of the Maker (Dorothy Sayers)
Dorothy Sayers is the godmother of the modern resurgent classical Christian school movement. She gave an address in the 40’s titled The Lost Tools of Learning, an address that was the inspiration for the founding of Logos School. That address is not included in this book (but it is an appendix in Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning), but this book gives you a glimpse into what Sayers was all about. She wrote detective fiction, she translated Dante, she wrote on education theory, and in this book, she writes on literary creativity and Trinitarian theology. If you want a good place to start with Sayers (after Lost Tools), this would be the place
Why Children Matter (Douglas Wilson)
Why Children Matter is a book on biblical child-rearing that grows up into a case for bringing up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, which in its turn applies directly to the task of education. Christian education is not a stand-alone piece, in other words. The Christian family is a worldview issue, and it involves covenant, and promises, and duties, and dinners, and more. This book places the school in its proper context.
Idols for Destruction (Herbert Schlossberg)
We are seeking to provide a Christian worldview to our students, doing this in a world that is overtly hostile to any such attempt. The world outside your home, and your school, and your church is a world that is at war with everything we are seeking to do. The reason the world is at war with us is because the world is dominated by idols, and Scripture teaches us that the living God and idols must necessarily be in antithesis. This book is a wonderful description of what we are up against.
Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl (N.D. Wilson)
If a robust classical Christian education is successfully delivered, what are the results? I want to argue that the outcome of what we are doing is decidedly Chestertonian. For a modern example of the kind of thing, this book serves us well. Classical education is not supposed to be a dour classroom with a Miss Gradgrind making the kids choke down a bowl of driveway gravel, with each pebble in the ablative case. In contrast, if we do this right, the results should be filled with exuberance.
So read with exuberance . . .
Great list!
Great list and some I wouldn't have thought of for the topic. Glad you included Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl as the example of what this all should produce. It's a fantastic example of the goal!