Tammy’s Reviews > The Lost Tools of Learning > Status Update

What would she say about conspiracy theories or psychological operations that make truth look like conspiracy theories? The echo chambers and bubbles of media and news outlets. The inability to question what is presented with clear thinking? How many graduates are life-learners who are able to learn without explicit teaching? Who can discern what book is well-documented and what is lacking?

Sayers is wondering why people are influenced by advertising and radio programs since we have such a high literacy rate. She is saddened to hear discourse and the lack of ability to have a reasoned argument. It seems like few can run a committee. People argue without defining terms. What would she say about YouTube, social media, talk shows, and basic lack of knowledge much less the inability to speak reasonably.

Neurologically, (this is my musing) we are told that the prefrontal cortex does not fully mature until the mid-twenties. How does that square with an earlier time? Was it always the case? If not, what has changed. I don’t know the answers. The stock argument for prolonging education is that there is more to learn then (in the 1940s). Even more so today. But, do we really know more?

Sayers is not a Luddite. She wants to consider the purpose of education which she believes contemporaries of hers have gotten wrong. Society has gotten it wrong for centuries. First, consider how long we extend adolescence in compared to the Tudor era. Young men went to university at a much earlier age and were held to be competent afterwards. I think the lack of maturity is even worse today.

It cracks me up that she could not imagine her ideas implemented because it would involve examining education in the Middle Ages. “[The Floretine mind] believed, not only that the seven Liberal Arts were fully under the direct outpouring of the Holy Ghost, but that every fruitful idea, every original conception, whether in Euclid, or grammar, or music, was a direct inspiration from the Holy Spirit.” CM

I have the same question for Sayers that I do Lewis and Tolkien because their mothers had taught them at home before they died young. As the latter is Catholic, he sent his kids to Roman Catholic schools. Had they ever heard of the work of Charlotte Mason? If so, what did they think of it? It can probably never be answered. Sayers’ case is important since her essay unleashed ripples decades after her speech.

Sayers begins with an apology for not being a teacher and airing her opinion about education. I think that opinions are fine and I will listen to see if they are formed justly. She makes a similar point as the book Range. Too much specialization is not good. Like all of us, she was a student and has helpful insight. I wonder if she would have changed anything had she seen the fruit of this speech.