Schole: Restful Learning in the Classical Tradition

I believe the true aim of education is to order the affections of our children.  It is to teach our children to love truth, goodness, and beauty.  How do we order the affections of our children each and every day as we learn together in our homeschool?  The answer is in the ancient practice of schole!

Schole is the Greek word for leisure.  It is the origin of the Latin word "scola" and the English word "school".  Schole is restful learning​.  It is the life-giving pursuit of knowledge.  It is the pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness in a slow and contemplative way.  It is undistracted time to study and think deeply about worthwhile things.  Schole is the classical ideal of education.

Raphael's School of Athens

To me, Raphael's "School of Athens" fresco is the perfect example of schole.  It is the perfect example of restful learning.  It is my homeschooling inspiration. 

 When I look at this fresco, I am reminded that learning should be restful.  It should be slow and deep.  It should be about discovering and delighting in God's truth, goodness, and beauty. It shows me that we need to take the time to slow down and savor our learning.  We need to take the time to dig in deeper.  After all, how are we going to truly know and love anything if we just rush by it?  If we want our children to know and love God and His creation, then we must let them linger in His truth, goodness, and beauty.  We cannot just rush through to get it done and check it off our list.

In this fresco, I see the kind of learning I want my children to experience each and every day.  I see gathering together.  I see reading.  I see contemplation.  I see deep thinking.  I see creation.  I see an unhurried, relaxed, and restful learning. 

It is this restful learning that I am trying to give my family...  So, how do we actually do this?  How can we put schole into our homeschools?  How can we make restful learning our top priority? 

Here are a few principles to guide us...

1. Multum non Multa (Much not Many):  Do a few things well, not many things poorly.  You could even say, "quality over quantity".  Dive deeply into a few subjects instead of just barely covering many subjects.  Dive deeply in a few good books instead of rushing through 20 books in the same amount of time.  Dive deeply into botany or astronomy or physics, spend months studying just one.  We learn more when we linger.  When love more when we dive in deep instead of just scratching the surface.  
2. Festina Lente (Make Haste Slowly):  You make the most progress when you take your time.  Do not rush through to get it done, but instead take it slow, be diligent and master each step before moving on.
3. Repititio Mater Memoriae (Repetition is the Mother of Memory):  We want to make learning permanent.  We will remember what we do again and again.  So we must repeat and repeat until the material is a part of us.  

Here are a few practical ideas to implement...

1. Come together as a family.  When we gather as a family to learn, we are encouraged to take our time and enjoy our learning together.  We are better able to connect with each other and our material.  We come together every morning to start our day with a focus on the true, good, and beautiful.  We are able to delight in and rejoice in and study and think deeply about God and His creation.  It creates a lovely bond of family and learning.
2. Add food and drink to your lessons.  I begin our morning lesson time with a snack all ready and sitting at each child's spot at the table.  It is a great incentive for them to come to our lessons happily.  In fact they look forward to it every day.  I also serve tea and treats or milk and cookies with our afternoon lessons in history and science.  I believe this helps to create an atmosphere of slowing down and savoring our learning.
3. Skip the workbooks, worksheets, and cut and paste activities whenever possible.  Besides in math, these seem to almost always be a waste of time and energy.  It is just busy work that leaves very little lasting impression on our children's hearts and minds.  I would even say that it takes the love out of learning.  Instead...
4. Use beautiful books and read-alouds along with oral narration.  All subjects and all material can be taught using beautiful books, stories, informational texts, and reference books.  Reading and collecting ideas and information in this way inspires a love of learning.  It encourages contemplation and pondering.  It also encourages questioning and discussions.  When you add oral narration after the read aloud, you are providing children the opportunity to think again about what they learned and express it in their own words.  This makes it become more a part of them.
5. Ask questions.  Have discussions.  When we ask questions and have discussions about the ideas and facts we have collected, we are cultivating the habits of slowing down and of deep thinking. 
6. Create your own lesson books.  Draw your own illustrations and diagrams to go with each lesson.  Write your own sentences and labels to go with the illustrations.  Make each lesson a new entry into your very own child-created lesson book.  This practice gives our children the time and place to think deeply about their learning and to create something new and of their very own with the material covered.   ​

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things."
​~Philippians 4:8