I begin with a book that rivals in many ways the essay by Dorothy Sayers that got our educational renewal movement started. In fact, C. S. Lewis<\/a> delivered these lectures (the Riddell Memorial Lectures were a series given over three nights at King\u2019s College, Newcastle University on 24\u201326 February 1943) a good four years before Sayers (her paper was read at the Vacation Course in Education at Oxford University in the Summer of 1947). If you have read \u201cThe Lost Tools of Learning,\u201d then you are well prepared to tackle these essays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In three essays, Lewis mounts a defense of objective value in the face of moral subjectivism. He predicted the dystopian future we now live in where tolerance is the reigning virtue, despite the fact that we are not a very tolerant people, at least one wouldn\u2019t think so when one reads comments on social media. This book provides a foundational rationale for the \u201cclassical\u201d part of our movement. (This book pairs nicely with Mere Christianity<\/em>, connecting the \u201cChristian\u201d part of our movement.) And yet it nicely goes beyond what we might consider a fixation on Western civilization as the sole or sufficient basis for a liberal arts education. We see this most prominently in his use of the Tao<\/em> as representative of objective values based on natural law. What he is getting at transcends an East\/West divide and demonstrates that values are meta-cultural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sample Quote: \u201cThis things which I have called for convenience the Tao<\/em>, and which others may call Natural Law or Traditional Morality or the First Principles of Practical Reason or the First Platitudes, is not one among a series of possible systems of value. It is the sole source of all value judgements. If it is rejected, all value is rejected. If any value is retained, it is retained. The effort to refute it and raise a new system of value in its place is self-contradictory. There has never been, and never will be, a radically new judgement of value in the history of the world. What purport to be new systems or (as they now call them) \u2018ideologies\u2019, all consist of fragments from the Tao<\/em> itself, arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the whole and then swollen to madness in their isolation, yet still owing to the Tao<\/em> and to it alone such validity as they possess. . . . The rebellion of new ideologies against the Tao<\/em> is a rebellion of the branches against the tree: if the rebels could succeed they would find that they had destroyed themselves. The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of imagining a new primary colour, or, indeed of creating a new sun and a new sky for it to move in.\u201d<\/p>\nC. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man <\/em>(Harper, 2000): 43-44.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n I could see this book being valuable if you are a teacher or administrator. It is also well worth adopting in an upper-level humanities course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you would like an opportunity to delve deeply into this book, there is an upcoming event you might consider joining if you are located in the American mid-west. The Alcuin Fellowship will be meeting on March 30-April 1 at Clapham School in Wheaton. We\u2019ll be reading The Abolition of Man<\/em> and having rich discussion around the book in small groups. There are limited spaces available. You can register for this fellowship at https:\/\/www.alcuinfellowship.com\/midwestern-alcuin-retreat-2023\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Okay, so I reviewed this book in two posts back in the autumn of 2021<\/a>. Jonathan is a good friend, and this is a good book. I keep returning to it because it offers such a compelling synthesis of Christianity with the liberal arts tradition. The wisdom of this book abounds, and we benefit repeatedly from the insights of a leading New Testament scholar. Yet, Pennington also puts the cookies on the bottom shelf, so to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This book goes well with the previous selection, although it offers a more modern mix of metaphors and imagery. There\u2019s a brilliance in being able to bring such individuals as Aristotle and Steve Martin together as Pennington does. I think you\u2019ll find this is a volume that can speak to teacher and student alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sample Quote: \u201cHence, as we have seen throughout this book, there is insight to be gained from what the philosophers said about all sorts of topics. We needn\u2019t cut ourselves completely off from their wisdom. Rather, we can gather lumber from whatever trees are available as we build the Christ-shaped temple of our lives, with Holy Scripture as the building inspector. As Justin himself said, \u201cWhatever things were rightly said among all men, are the property of us Christians. . . . For all the writers [ancient philosophers and poets] were able to see realities darkly through the sowing of the implanted word that was in them. For the seed and imitation that is imparted according to capacity is one thing, and quite another is the things itself, of which there is the participation and imitation according to the grace which is from Him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That last part gets a bit complex, but the point is straightforward \u2013 any wisdom in the world is from God, who created all, but we Christians have the grace that enables complete understanding. This includes the grandest human philosophical question: What does it mean to live a whole, meaningful, and flourishing life? What is the wisdom we need for the Good Life?\u201d<\/p>\nJonathan T. Pennington, Jesus the Great Philosopher<\/em> (Brazos, 2020): 203.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n My next selection moves away from the humanities and provides something for those STEM teachers among us. Having taught Geometry for several years, I have appreciated how Barbara Oakley spells out effective learning strategies for students. I myself was never a great math student, and diving into teaching math well over a decade ago required going back to the basics. Along the way I found that math itself is not particularly difficult, but it can be quite different than the kinds of learning that goes on in the humanities side of the curriculum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oakley bases her work in solid neurological studies. One of the key insights in her book is to \u201cchunk\u201d mathematical and scientific concepts. A chunk is a conceptual piece of information that is \u201cbound together through meaning.\u201d (54) That \u201cmeaning\u201d bit is significant because there\u2019s a sense of the personal importance. The chunk attracts information or ideas to it, providing for mental leaps as separate units of information bind together through neural networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She provides three steps to forming a chunk. First, you focus your attention on the information to be chunked. (57) She advises learning in a low-distraction environment, free from screens. One of the core concepts here is that old neural networks enable you to form new neural pathways. In other words, we build from the known to the unknown. In essence, we want to create these chunks off of ideas, concepts or information that we already know well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second, you need to understand the basic idea (58). She differentiates the initial moment of understanding \u2013 the \u201caha!\u201d moment \u2013 from the kind of understanding where you can close the book and test yourself on the problem. This is very much the way narration works. Being able to bring forward the formula, the steps, or the process in mathematics demonstrates that the idea is understood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Third, you need to connect the basic idea to a context (58-59). In other words, a student needs to know when, say, apply the Pythagorean theorem, and when not to. She likens the chunk to a tool, \u201cIf you don\u2019t know when to use that tool, it\u2019s not going to do you a lot of good.\u201d (59)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chunking is not only valuable in mathematics, but across the curriculum. You can chunk historical concepts or literary terms. Chunking can be a pathway toward integration as we allow that chunk to attract more and more concepts to it. I think this is similar to Charlotte Mason\u2019s expression about ideas, \u201cIdeas behave like living creatures\u2013\u2013they feed, grow, and multiply.\u201d (Charlotte Mason, Parents and Children<\/em>, 77<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sample Quote: \u201cA synthesis \u2013 an abstraction, chunk, or gist idea \u2013 is a neural pattern. Good chunks form neural patterns that resonate, not only within the subject we\u2019re working in, but with other subjects and areas of our lives. The abstraction helps you transfer ideas from one area to another.<\/strong> That\u2019s why great art, poetry, music, and literature can be so compelling. When we grasp the chunk, it takes on a new life in our own minds \u2013 we form ideas that enhance and enlighten the neural patters we already possess, allowing us to more readily see and develop other related patterns.\u201d<\/p>\nBarbara Oakley, A Mind for Numbers<\/em> (Tarcher Perigee, 2014): 197.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n What I like about this book is that her strategies are not simply about how to test better to get good scores on tests or entrance into college, etc. Instead, she sees how this can be a pathway to deep meaning in life through acquired skill, and how an individual can achieve creativity in multiple domains of knowledge through accumulated competence. The quote comes from a section entitled \u201cDeep Chunking,\u201d which segues nicely to our next book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Associate professor of computer science at Georgetown, Cal Newport not only delivered a best-selling book, but coined a phrase that has become part of the cultural parlance: \u201cdeep work.\u201d In many respects, this is a counterpoint to Nicholas Carr\u2019s The Shallows<\/em> inasmuch as Newport accepts the premise that the internet has made us shallow and then goes on to propose a solution by going deep through focused attention. The book is designed in an interesting way. Newport begins by spelling out three ideas that get at the \u201cwhy\u201d of deep work. Then the second part of the book spells out the \u201chow.\u201d Here I want to focus on the first part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Newport\u2019s first two ideas interact with the new economy centered around knowledge work: deep work is valuable largely because it is rare. This points to a \u201cmarket mismatch\u201d where talented individuals who are able to produce knowledge that is deep. His third idea is that deep work is meaningful. This is an idea that riffs on the metaphorical meaning of the word \u201cdeep.\u201d When our work connects to something of the human experience, there\u2019s a depth of character that has intrinsic value. I like how Newport develops the concept of craftsmanship as a sacred practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sample Quote: \u201cOnce understood, we can connect this sacredness inherent in traditional craftsmanship to the world of knowledge work. To do so, there are two key observations we must first make. The first might be obvious but requires emphasis: There\u2019s nothing intrinsic about the manual<\/em> trades when it comes to generating this particular source of meaning. Any pursuit \u2013 be it physical or cognitive \u2013 that supports high levels of skill can also generate a sense of sacredness.\u201d<\/p>\nCal Newport, Deep Work<\/em> (Grand Central, 2016): 88-89.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n As our skill increases, our sense of the meaning we are generating also increases. One gets plugged into the creative impulse that is part of our own imago Dei<\/em> createdness. Now this is a point that is likely remote from Newport\u2019s thinking, but his use of the word \u201csacred\u201d points in this direction. Newport goes on to explain his second key observation that to access this deep meaning, we must embrace deep work as the portal to cultivating our skill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the reasons why I recommend this book is that it has provided a framework for understanding how our educational renewal movement \u2013 perhaps counterintuitively \u2013 gives our students a strategic advantage as they enter the new economy. By encountering the deep ideas of the great works our students get connected to a level of depth not present in the school system. Many of our schools feature intense instruction on writing and rhetoric, which is essential to the knowledge work Newport describes as so rare and valuable. Graduates from classical schools are well trained to do deep work. So, by reading this you can cultivate the habit of deep work in yourself and your students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My final selection is a textbook ostensibly for college writing. This year I adopted this title for our junior rhetoric class. It is full of practical advice for writers learning how to build effective arguments in academic writing. We are using the fifth edition, which came out in 2021, but any of the editions that have come out since the original 2006 edition features most of the same contours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The central idea of the book is that effective argumentation begins with a good understanding of what others have said before venturing into an expression of one\u2019s own beliefs. They posit that \u201cworking with the \u2018they say \/ I say\u201d model can also help with invention, finding something to say. In our experience, students best discover what they want to say not by thinking about a subject in an isolation booth but by reading texts, listening closely to what other writers say, and looking for an opening through which they can enter the conversation.\u201d (xviii). As classical educators, we are very aware that the great books tradition is all about the great conversation. How better to take advantage of the plethora of books we read than by utilizing that conversation to initiate new pathways for our students to explore based on the \u201cthey say \/ I say\u201d model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another feature of this book is how it utilizes templates. The authors recognize the liability of training students to use templates. \u201cAt first, many of our students complain that using templates will take away their originality and creativity and make them all sound the same.\u201d (13) But through practice and instruction, students begin to see how there is a basic structure to how good argumentation works. Even after initial exposure to these templates, we can analyze academic writing to identify not only the basic \u201cthey say \/ I say\u201d structure, but also finer points of perspective, argumentation, and analysis. For students raised on the 10-sentence paragraph and the five-paragraph essay, this approach to templates builds on earlier types of templates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Students are able to practice utilizing two major questions as they work through this book. There is the establishment of relief (using an idea from sculpture), between what you are proposing and what others might say. Students begin to become sensitive to the question, \u201cOh yeah, who says otherwise?\u201d The other question that students learn to become aware of is the \u201cso what?\u201d or \u201cwhat difference does this make?\u201d set of questions. For students in junior rhetoric, this is excellent training for the work they will accomplish the following year during senior thesis. The essential skills students learn in this book are critical analysis of sources, summary of conventional viewpoints, handling controversial topics, and expressing the application and consequences of one\u2019s point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One chapter I really appreciate is the chapter on revision. For many students, revision amounts to identifying typographical errors and eliminating the teacher\u2019s red marks. Well, the approach taken by the authors provides a handy guide to how to make substantial revisions to an essay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sample Quote: \u201cOne of the most common frustrations teachers have \u2013 we\u2019ve had it, too \u2013 is that students do not revise in any substantial way. As one of our colleagues put it, \u201cI ask my classes to do a substantial revision of an essay they\u2019ve turned in, emphasis on the word \u2018substantial,\u2019 but invariably little is changed in what I get back. Students hand in the original essay with a word changed here and there, a few spelling errors corrected, and a comma or two added. . . . I feel like all my advice is for nothing.\u201d We suspect, however, that in most cases when students do merely superficial revisions, it\u2019s not because they are indifferent or lazy, as some teachers may assume, but because they aren\u2019t sure what a good revision looks like. Like even many seasoned writers, these students would like<\/em> to revise more thoroughly, but when they reread what they\u2019ve written, they have trouble seeing where it can be improved \u2013 and how. What they lack is not just a reliable picture in their head of what their draft could<\/em> be but also reliable strategies for getting there.\u201d<\/p>\nGerald Graff & Cathy Birkenstein, They Say \/ I Say<\/em> (Norton, 2021): 149.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n After this introduction, which describes what many a teacher has felt, the authors provide guidance on how to make substantial revisions to an essay. The chapter on revision concludes with an excellent revision checklist. Students regularly run into the same frustrations we have with revision. They have a sense that they could express their thoughts in a better, more sophisticated way, but they are unpracticed in how to excavate their own writing with a view to finding the veins of gold, let alone finding the weaknesses to correct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hopefully this list of books to read in 2023 will inspire you to dig into some different areas where you can become a more inspired and skilled educator this year. There are tons of other books I could have recommended, and you likely have some of your own that are top of your list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even more essential than reading the selection of book listed here is building the habit of daily reading<\/a>. Even a little bit on a daily basis begins to accumulate to a significant amount of input into your life. With lesson planning, grading, meetings and family life, it can be difficult to carve out time to read. Steven Covey talks about how important it is to \u201csharpen the saw.\u201d For us educators, reading is one of the best ways for us to cultivate the joy of learning we want to inspire in our students. So whether it\u2019s these books or others that spark interest in you, take a moment even now to read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s January of a new year! And so you are probably inundated with a number of calls to implement new habits, to try new practices, and to start new programs. Hopefully this list of recommended reading for 2023 cuts through the noise and provides you with at least one great read for the upcoming year. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[635,214,585,637,4,636,493,194,247,14,380,27],"class_list":["post-3493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-barbara-oakley","tag-c-s-lewis","tag-cal-newport","tag-cathy-birkenstein","tag-deep-work","tag-gerald-graff","tag-jonathan-t-pennington","tag-mathematics","tag-objective-values","tag-philosophy","tag-reading","tag-rhetoric"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/educationalrenaissance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image.png?resize=207%2C315&ssl=1\")
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<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nJonathan T. Pennington, Jesus the Great Philosopher<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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Barbara Oakley, A Mind for Numbers<\/a> <\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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Cal Newport, Deep Work<\/a><\/em><\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, They Say \/ I Say<\/a><\/em><\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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Conclusion<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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