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

Her ideas were untested at the time and I can see why she would say that. She concludes that we have lived off the capital of the tools for thre hundred years and, at some point, things will fall apart because they have not been watered.

She says that kids educated in this way might not test well in comparison to peers under modern methods until they make it through Dialectic. We see the same thing. Our kids don’t test as well but they have soft skills and they can think. She also believes that public school and the universities would not like it if this happened. The tools are far more valuable than the subjects. Well, she calls her ideas sketchy.

She does like the idea of presenting and definding a thesis at the end of high school. She envisions Grammar to be 9-11 yo, Dialectic to be 12-14 yo, Rhetoric to be 15-16 yo. Students who go vocational and workforce will not do Quadrivium. Post-rhetoric, the university bound students will then do the Quadrivium before going to the university. This leaves us with the question. Is the Trivium enough for life?

I don’t agree with some of her ideas concerning literary appreciation. Too much destructive ciriticism at any age has the risk of generating cynics and skeptics. She says it’s natural for subjects to emerge and some specialization is fine but core subjects should always be learned. The key is balance STEM kids with humanities and vice versa. High school is too early for excessive specialization.

This sounds like self-education because students are encouraged to forage for information at the library and learn what is an authoritative source. She thinks that at the end of Dialectic kids will start to see how little they know. I’m not sure that is true anymore. LOL She believes that the imagination is dormant while logic and reason rule. I don’t think so. The kids of all ages at my school are imaginative.

Advanced arithmetic, algebra, and geometry go with Dialectic. I would agree. She sees history as material for discussing ethics and theology in what happened in history. Theology furnishes materials to argue and debate conduct, morals, dogma, ethics. Geography and sciences also offers material for Dialectic. She gives a wonderful example from Leslie Paul’s “The Living Hedge” discussing an extraordinary rain shower.

They are ready to focus on syntax and analysis in the logical construction of speech as well as the history of language. I like what she says about reading. They go from narration and lyrical language to essays, argument, criticism (however, I think care should be taken in criticizing literature--we don’t want cynics and critics to emerge. Some lessons may be debates and recitation may become dramatic performances.

Logic fell out of favor because of postulates. Moderns could not accept the idea that the hypothesis of an if-then statement may be false if it is not already proven. (However, they are quite happy to accept a singularity. LOL) Sayers finds value in logic because it heps you detect invalid inferences. Given enough vocabulary and the formation of words from the Grammar stage, the Dialectic can begin.

I agree with her 100 percent. Learning the Bible as a single narrative of Creation, Rebellion, and Redemption, plus learning the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and Creed are goo, too. We adore the psalms. Our textbook for the Bible is the Bible! The question now is when to start the Dialectic stage and that requires a discussion of logic first. Moderns have dropped logic and I agree that it is a shame.

I find the concept of every subject having a “grammar” in terms of tools. I do not think I would pick the same tools. She does recommend not seeing these activities as subjects, but rather they are a gathering of materials. I do agree with not explaining too much and answering the intelligent questions of children. I think she puts too much emphasis on memorizing. She values theology as the key to synthesis (bravo).