Rambling thoughts about integration

As I write this morning, I am listening to some news analysis about the Oklahoma University fraternity that chanted their racist pledge on camera recently.  I am glad to see such racism universally condemned.  How were  these young men allowed to lead their privileged lives without confronting questions of moral virtue until young adulthood? It ties in well with my recent ponderings about integration.

I have not been thinking of integration as the opposite of racial segregation, though it certainly is that, but in terms of our current educational model of separating everything into differentiated subject area studies, and what that leads to.  When we learn "English" as separate from "history" or "logic" or "composition", we miss a huge aspect of what education ought to be about.  The whole concept of a "university" was that all things were brought together, not separated.  When we view our world as separated into categories that don't overlap, we have failed to educate the whole person, and we have made it impossible to educate in a way that develops moral virtue. When "ethics" is its own course, and never meets "math" or "business", we should not be surprised at the moral failure evident among us. The young men mentioned above are a result of our culture's disintegrated education, disintegrated families, and the tendency to sin which exists in all human hearts. What a tragedy.

An integrated education aimed at nurturing virtue cannot cure all that ills us.  It can, however, shine light in dark places, and call forth that which is good and beautiful and true,and, by implication, help us to name the evil that lurks in our own hearts.

Wednesday without words

On students as fledglings

I recently reread C. S. Lewis' Abolition of Man (or more exactly, listened to the audio version of this, which I had previously read.) I always marvel at Lewis' logic, laugh at his wit, and ponder the truth he shares. The whole "men-without-chests" metaphor here has long been a favorite with me to describe the results of progressive or modern education.

What really struck me and left me pondering this time, however, was what he said about good teaching prior to progressivism.  He describes this teaching as flowing seamlessly out of a philosophical and moral ethos that was unskeptical of the notion that there was, indeed, right and wrong, good and bad, a moral wisdom to be preserved.  He contrasts this type of teacher with the progressive teacher when he says:

They did not cut men to some pattern they had chosen. They handed on what they had received: they initiated  the young neophyte into the mystery of humanity which over-arched him and them alike. It was but old birds teaching young birds to fly.
~C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, part 3

What a great definition of teaching:  A good teacher takes the fledglings under her care and does nothing more than prepare them and kick them out of their comfortable place. It implies a transmission of humility before God and a teachable spirit that must be modeled, and is at the heart of all real and true education.

A good teacher fledges her charges. I like that.

Grammar for the win

This morning we heard an excellent sermon from Ephesians 6.  But the part of the sermon I keep ruminating over is a point of grammar.  Verse 10 of that chapter says:

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might."

In this verse, the command to "be strong" is actually in the passive voice.  For those of you who have taken composition with me, you know what that means.  It means that the action is not being done by the subject, but being done to the subject.  I sometimes call the passive the voice of victimhood to help my fledglings remember that in passive voice the subject is the victim of the verb.  So, according to my learned pastor, instead of a straight command to do something here, to "be strong," the sense of this verse is more along the lines of "Be kept strong."

Now that may seem like a superfluous difference of trivial semantics to you, Gentle Reader, a mere trifling with words.  But the difference here is huge.  If this verb is active, I am left in sheer exhaustion of resources.  How can I be strong in and of myself when the slings and arrows come my way?  But if I am to be kept strong, ah, then I can sink into the arms of Christ, and trust Him to keep me in perfect peace. I am a victim of His grace and protection. And that is a huge difference.

Grammar: it is not just for English teachers. It makes theologians of us all.

Blue Steel

Coincidence?  I think not...

Pondering language and blessings.

Last night I spoke with my eldest son about a talk he had given earlier in the evening on the idea of linguistics: how the words we use and how we name things, has an actual influence in the ways we can think about and act in the world. For instance, did you know that in Chinese there is no future tense? They have present and present-progressive tenses, but no true future tense. Some people feel the problem the Chinese have with an apparent inability to save money for the future is that they have no category to talk about the future. He also shared the idea that perhaps women's suffrage started in English-speaking nations first because we never had gender categories for nouns in our language, and thus had no inherent categories to keep feminine/masculine separate in the way that other languages did.

Our discussion called to mind a recent read of mine.  The novel Lila by Marilynne Robinson is a first-person narrative of the life of a brilliant and resilient woman raised in ignorance and poverty.  It begs this question: if a person is raised without the vocabulary of categories and words to express feelings, how much does that affect her abilities to think about and process her life?

It also reminded me of a study I heard about a few years back, when someone tried to measure the theological understanding of young church-going teens.  What that study found was that the teens did not have sufficient theological vocabulary to express their beliefs, so their understanding was significantly stunted.

These ideas about language fascinate me.  We are hard-wired for language.  It provides richness and depth to our lives, and is a tremendous gift of God to us; something to be nourished and cherished. That really is why I love teaching-- to try to inspire the same love, fascination, and thanksgiving for language.

As I discussed these ideas with Ben, grappling with his linguistic theory which was quite over my head, he said something else.  He said, "You know mom, I first started asking questions about this sort of thing long ago in our Worldviews class.  That is where I first got the idea that how I thought about something would alter its reality for me.  Thanks for that." Suddenly all my highfalutin ideas were forgotten.  I asked him, "Are you rising up and calling me blessed?"  "Why yes, yes I am." he laughed.

What a blessing. Oh, the power of words...

 Her children rise up and call her blessed...    
~Proverbs 31: 28a 

Wednesday without Words