BCL: For those unfamiliar with the school, Gregory the Great
Academy is a school unlike most, if not all, other Catholic schools- what makes
the Academy so distinct in its nature and aim?
HC: I think we can talk about the distinctiveness of GGA
from two perspectives: first, from the perspective of its structure or outward
make-up, and second from a perspective that looks more to its interiority or
vision. For the more metaphysically inclined these two perspectives are
roughly equivalent to the matter and form of the Academy.
So beginning with the make-up: the Academy is somewhat
distinctive in three ways (the real distinctiveness comes with the informing
vision, but the the vision and the make-up are intimately related): it is a
Catholic, all-boys, boarding school. The movement from Catholic to boarding
school is a movement from less distinctive to more distinctive in the sense
that there are more Catholic schools than there are Catholic all-boys schools
and more Catholic all-boys schools than there are Catholic all-boys boarding
schools.
The vision that informs the school has often been called
“poetic education”, but it can be given other names as well, for example,
“education according to the Muses.” The first thing to note about this kind of
education is that it is an approach to the liberal arts. What is essential to
education in the liberal arts (grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry,
astronomy, and music) is that it aims to produce a free man (The Latin artes liberales means arts befitting a
free man.) In this context, the
“freedom” being sought after is a freedom from the constraints of
worldly ends, or, stated positively, a freedom to pursue man's ultimate end or
goal which is eternal beatitude.
Poetic education differs from other kinds of liberal arts
education in a number of ways, but I want to focus on three that interpenetrate
and reinforce each other: First, it gives precedence to synthesis over
analysis, in other words, it values the whole over the part. This may seem like
common sense, but in fact most schools, at least implicitly, value the part
over the whole. They do this by emphasizing the acquisition of analytical
skills which allow their possessors to break down wholes into comprehensible
parts. The unspoken premise is that truth is to be found in the part, or, more
fundamentally still, that matter is higher than form or that form does not even
exits.
Of course it is necessary to acquire analytical skills, and
the Academy teaches such skills. The problem lies not with analyzing, but with
taking analysis as the end of the activity of knowing. In coming to know, we
only distinguish in order to unite. Analysis must have a complementary and
completing movement which re-situates and views the analyzed parts in the
context of the whole. The human mind naturally desires to see the whole, that's
why there are scenic overlooks on the side of highways. As St. Augustine said,
“Our whole reward is seeing.”
A second way that poetic education differs from the usual
liberal arts curriculum is in the precedence it gives to experience over what
might be called “remoteness.” This remoteness takes any number of forms, but
three examples are textbooks, scientific experiments, and the increasing use of
communications technology in the classroom.
Textbooks are an attempt to present complex, wide-ranging
and difficult subjects in an attractive and easily accessible form. The problem
with this is that it short circuits the learning process and often deceives the
student as to the true nature of the subject. It is far better for the student
to wrestle with Hamlet or the Odyssey in all their difficulty,
profundity and beauty than to encounter them predigested and excerpted in an
anthology. This principle applies across the curriculum. Better to study the
daises in your own backyard than to read about the exotic orchids that only
grow half a world away.
Experiments have their place in an advanced science
curriculum, but they cannot replace a basic experience of the natural world. A
moment’s reflection reveals how ridiculous it is to dissect embalmed frogs in a
lab when the student has never experienced a living frog in its environment.
What does he really learn about frogs from such an activity? Experiments are
designed to isolate the experimenter, his tools, and his subject from the world
at-large. However, the results of the experiment only have meaning when they
are interpreted in terms of the very world from which they have been isolated.
Many different kinds of digital technology are being
enthusiastically introduced into schools. Most of this is communications
technology, or what is called “media.” It is important to remember that all
human knowing is mediated, and therefore, in some sense uses “media.” Our
senses mediate between their objects and our brains, and our bodies mediate
between the world around us and our souls. Further, Our Lord Jesus Christ
mediates between the Church and Our Father in heaven. So there is no question
of rejecting mediation in general.
However, it is important to critically examine the
messenger, in other words, we must ask, “does this communications technology
communicate?” In the case of the computer, which is the most prevalent form of
communications technology being used in schools, there are serious problems.
When we look at the computer, as it is functions in the “real world”,
day-to-day life of the school, what jumps out is its power to distract. Thus,
even before we question the capacity of the computer to mediate objects
effectively, we see that its versatility as a platform for many kinds of tasks
makes it an ideal tool for never getting
to those objects, for never completing a given task. This power to distract
strikes at the very heart of education which is concerned to build up a habitus,
whether a science or moral virtue, through a continual engagement with a
given object.
A third characteristic that distinguishes poetic education
from other liberal arts education is the centrality of the liturgy. (As Jean
Leclercq notes in his book, The Love of
Learning and the Desire for God, the liturgy itself is a kind of poem.)
There are many ways to look at the liturgy and many things we can learn from
it. Being a work of the Holy Spirit it is inexhaustible and of a transcendent
integrity that resist all analysis. So what I have to say is in no way
exhaustive, I just want to point out two things.
First, the liturgy is the end or purpose of the Christian
life made present in time, or, looked at in another way, the liturgy brings us
into the presence of the end of the Christian life; it is a participation,
already on earth, in the life of the blessed. Now, as I’ve already mentioned,
the end of the liberal arts is to free men from the seeming urgency and
finality of worldly ends so that they may pursue beatitude. Thus the liturgy is
intimately connected to the liberal arts. (Historically this is the case since
the tradition of the liberal arts began with Plato’s Academy, and the Academy
was an association established to worship the Muses.) It has an irreplaceably
centrality in a liberal arts school since only the liturgy can open the school
to the divine world, thus protecting it from the everyday world which
continually threatens to enclose it.
A second thing to note about the liturgy is that it is a school
of praise. The book of the Apocalypse, which lifts the veil on the heavenly
liturgy, gives us a glimpse of the praise of the angels and saints. They praise
God as both creator and redeemer of the world.
The philosopher Josef Pieper entitled one of his books, Only the Lover Sings, taking the phrase
from St. Augustine. What does the lover sing? He sings praises. He praises God
and his whole creation—women, wine, the deeds of great men, dappled
things—everything under the sun and above the moon. It is here that we are
closest to the heart of poetic education. All the great poets are lovers. It’s
their love that gives them eyes to see and tongues to sing with. Poetic
educations aims to open its student’s eyes to the True, the Good and the
Beautiful, not as dead subjects in a textbook, but as objects worthy of praise.
HC: There is a long tradition of single sex education.
This wisdom teaches us that boys and girls fare better when they are educated
separately especially after they reach adolescence. This is both because they
are different and deserve different approaches, pacing and even different
courses of study, and because when educated together they greatly distract one
another. This is especially true for boys.
Boarding schools are especially appropriate for boys since
the male trajectory involves breaking away from home to search for adventure
and to make a way in the world. Chesterton tells the story of the man who left
England on a great sea-faring adventure and found himself on the shores of a
strange and wonderful island. The island turned out to be England but he only
came to see it in all its truth and beauty by leaving it.
BCL: Do those two elements specifically play into the nature of
what you are doing?
HC: A boarding school works well for poetic education
because it allows for a certain withdraw from the surrounding culture and the
creation of a new culture reinforced by peers. As I’ve already emphasized,
poetic education aims to educate the whole man. To do this effectively there
has to be a certain asceticism, a withdraw from technology, media, and popular
culture in general. Music is especially
important since it speaks to the heart.
Certainly the parents are the primary educators of their
children and the home and family provide the first culture of the child. A
boarding school cannot replace this, but it can complement and complete it to
some extent. When children become adolescents they become much more aware of,
and in need of, the social life of their peers. At its best a boarding school
provides a wholesome “micro-culture” in which students reinforce each other in
the formation in virtue given by the school. This prepares them to enter the
wider culture outside of the school.
BCL: Why is this mode of education and its content so vital to
the future of the Catholic child?
HC: To say that poetic education is “vital to the future
of the Catholic child” is to make quite a claim! This type of education is not
a substitute for mother’s milk or the Eucharist. However I would say that there
is a need for the positivity and hope of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful
that poetic education provides. Children can only grow and thrive when they are
given high ideals and the hope that they can brings these ideals into being in
their world. Neither careerism nor the sly cynicism and nihilism of the culture
of death provide this.
BCL: Where should the Catholic men of tomorrow (the children of
the Catholic families today) take our Culture, Country, and Church?
HC: That’s a big question! If I could adequately answer
it I would probably quit my job and run for President. Generally I would say
that in all of these areas there is a need to return to the wisdom of
tradition. Doing this does not mean holding on to particular historical forms, but recovering
what is essential in historical forms, returning to eternal principles. For
example, the same truth can be expressed in many different languages, in many
different places, at many different times. Of course some languages may express
this truth better than others, but still the same truth is expressed.
In popular culture today there is a continual polemic
against tradition and authority. Often this is cloaked by a storyline or by the
sheer repetition of these themes, but the message is communicated on the level
of images and attitudes. Against this we need to defend the wisdom of tradition
and show its relevance, beauty and vitality.
BCL: What people, experiences, and texts have shaped the way you
think and speak about Catholicism, Education, and Culture?
HC: Gregory the Great Academy has its roots in the
Integrated Humanities Program at The University of Kansas. The leading lights
of this program were professors John Senior, Dennis Quinn and Frank Nellick.
Three of Dr. Senior’s books have been especially influential in forming the
philosophy of Gregory the Great Academy: The
Death of Christian Culture, The
Restoration of Christian Culture, and The
Restoration of Innocence: An Idea of a School. (This last text was never
published.) Late in his life Dr. Quinn published a book, which summed up a lot
of his thought, called Iris Exiled: A
Synoptic History of Wonder.
These three professors occasionally talked about books that
greatly influenced them and the program they founded. Leaving aside the
classics such as Plato’s Republic,
the Rule of St. Benedict, and the Bible, three come to mind: The Love of Learning and the Desire for God
by Jean Leclercq, O.S.B. (which I’ve already mentioned); Leisure the Basis of Culture by the German Thomist, Josef Pieper;
and Werner Jaeger’s Paideia: The Ideals
of Greek Culture.
In addition, there are two recent books by Stratford
Caldecott that recommend a kind of
education very similar to what we are doing, but which also offer fresh
approaches and resources. These are: Beauty for Truth Sake: On the
Re-enchantment of Education and Beauty in the Word: Rethinking the
Foundations of Education.
PART 2 of the Interview is forthcoming...
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