Embodying the Classical Tradition | Mandi Gerth

On this episode of Anchored, Soren is joined by Mandi Gerth, Administrative Director of the Cowan Center at the University of Dallas and author of Thoroughness and Charm. They discuss her book, the meaning behind its title, and her vision for teachers as guardians and keepers. She shares her advice for teachers who are simultaneously excited and daunted by the richness of the tradition they get to teach. They explore how teachers embody the classical tradition by cultivating a love for the material and transmitting it to their students, even when the content isn’t their personal favorite.

Transcript

Soren Schwab - CLT (00:00.942)
Welcome back to the Anchored Podcast, the official podcast of the Classic Learning Test. My name is Soren Chua, VP of Partnerships here at CLT, and today we're joined by Mandy Girth. Mandy is a former collaborative model classical Christian school teacher who lives in Dallas, Texas. She currently serves as the administrative director of the Cowen Center at the University of Dallas. She holds a Master's of Humanities degree from the University of Dallas with a concentration in classical education. For over 20 years,

She and her husband have labored to build a family culture for their five children that values books, baseball, museums, home-cooked meals, and conversations about ideas. Her first book, Thoronis and Charm, was published in May and is available exclusively from our friends at Circe Press. And Mandy, I am so excited to have you on the podcast today. I'm holding the book in my hands and I remember where I bought it because I bought it directly from you at a summer conference. So thanks for joining us today.

Mandi Gerth (00:56.82)
It's a joy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Soren Schwab - CLT (00:59.284)
Absolutely. We are excited. I don't think we have enough time to talk about home-cooked meals and baseball, but maybe that's side conversation at some point. there we go. Part two is food and America's pastime. As we always do in the Anchor podcast, let's start with your own educational background. I'm curious, K-12, what was your educational background there?

Mandi Gerth (01:08.255)
You can have me back.

Mandi Gerth (01:26.199)
Sure, sure, sure, sure. So I received a run-of-the-mill public school education. I remember my parents sent me to the kindergarten that was being run out of our church, but that was the only private Christian education I got. And then I remember lots of things about my...

public education that had to do with literature. Like I remember when we read Great Expectations, my teacher brought in Havisham's Wedding Cake with all of the spiders and the cobwebs. And I remember falling in love with Shakespeare while reading Macbeth with one of my teachers. I remember one of my teachers who brought in...

a red rose when we started reading the scarlet letter and she wanted to see how long the rose was gonna last. it's like she wanted us to see the fading beauty. So I had a really great public education. But when I talk to parents about the classical movement and about what's going on in education, I try to remind them that that sort of education that I received and maybe the education that they received is not what's currently being given.

in the public schools. And so I'm just trying to help them understand like there isn't that same commitment to those great books. Like they're not still reading Dickens and they're not still reading Shakespeare. So I received a remarkable public education.

Soren Schwab - CLT (02:41.048)
could.

Soren Schwab - CLT (02:50.38)
you

Soren Schwab - CLT (02:54.712)
Wow. And I've been trying to even correct myself when you sometimes we say things like, yeah, you know, my niece goes to the traditional public school, when really nothing that the public schools today are doing is traditional. So when you went to public school, we could probably refer to that as well. That was a traditional public school education with a more traditional curriculum. And was that was that in Texas?

Mandi Gerth (03:15.905)
curriculum.

No, that was in Wisconsin. Mm-hmm. Yep, a suburb of Wisconsin, Mm-hmm, yes. Mm-hmm.

Soren Schwab - CLT (03:20.128)
Wisconsin, But that was fairly the norm at that point, right? Kind of reading the best of what's been thought and said, being exposed. I'm a product of public school in Germany, but still, you know, we read all the, read all the greats there was never a question as like, should we read Goethe? Like, would be crime not to, right? And so you were exposed to all that kind of on the home front were, you know, was it filled with with books and conversations about ideas? Or was that mostly kind of

happening in the educational setting.

Mandi Gerth (03:53.783)
It was mostly in education. So my mom did not like to cook. Every house that I lived in, that I grew up in, a super small kitchen. Like when I look back at the kitchens I grew up in, they basically had a microwave and a refrigerator. know, like they were just really small. And I remember my dad telling me when I went to...

college and I wanted to get an English degree, something to the effect of like, I don't know why you read fiction, it's just not true. Right? like, right? Yeah, so it was like doubling down on that. yeah, so my parents were, they gave us a very loving home environment. They made sure that we were very involved in our church youth group to kind of help.

Soren Schwab - CLT (04:26.988)
Challenge accepted.

Mandi Gerth (04:44.97)
help us navigate those difficult middle school and high school years in the public schools. They supported all of our extracurriculars. They ran us to all of our different practices and events. And they would drive me across the city to spend time with friends that I had who lived 40 minutes away because our church was in the middle. They were very, very supportive of us as individuals and cultivating our individual interests.

and pursuits and my parents are some of my biggest fans. But liberal education as I have become really passionate about it was not something that was reinforced at home, but I was supported very much as a person at home.

Soren Schwab - CLT (05:30.646)
Right. And so you go on to college and you pursue a degree in English. At that point, you know, did you consider, want to go into education. I mean, that's something that I want to kind of feature.

Mandi Gerth (05:38.163)
Yep.

Mandi Gerth (05:44.191)
Yes, yes. So, okay, so this is kind of a, this is a funny story which has not been shared publicly, so here you go. Sorry. Exclusive, exclusive to Anchored. So when I was at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, they were in the process of changing their education program from a four-year degree to a five-year degree. And I was also dating my husband at the time, and he was a year older than I

Soren Schwab - CLT (05:50.71)
Alright, first to hear it. Exclusive.

Mandi Gerth (06:08.258)
And so we just decided it would not be a good idea for us to delay our marriage until I had finished this five-year degree. So I changed my major to English and journalism so that I could get out quicker. And I actually ended up graduating in three and a half years because I was motivated.

Soren Schwab - CLT (06:32.364)
You need some external motivation, right? that's incredible. then did you, because you got a master's from University of Dallas, did that come later? Or was that much more like a...

Mandi Gerth (06:34.826)
Sometimes, sometimes you do,

Mandi Gerth (06:44.958)
Yes, much later. Yeah, much, later. So I didn't start that until COVID. So I went into teaching when my youngest started first grade and then the pandemic hit and we didn't really know what was going to happen in education. Nobody did. And what I did know was that I love learning and online learning was what everybody was doing. And so that's when I made the decision to apply.

Soren Schwab - CLT (06:50.552)
Gotcha.

Mandi Gerth (07:13.034)
to the University of Dallas's graduate school program. And I didn't even like tell anyone in my family. I have a distinct memory of just sitting down one afternoon and being like, what am I gonna do next? And I'm like, you know what you're gonna do is you're gonna go to grad school. And I just applied and then walked into my husband's office and I'm like, I just applied for grad school. And he's like, you did what?

Soren Schwab - CLT (07:27.33)
That's amazing.

Soren Schwab - CLT (07:31.864)
what I'm doing.

So, and that, I mean, just the brilliance that has come out of that program, I mean, it's pretty remarkable. mean, I'm not saying it's like, you know, John senior, Kansas-esque just yet, but I mean, who knows? It could, if we're connecting the dots back. And it was in classical education, or least emphasis in classical education. When you were at Madison, had you ever heard that term classical? Or when were you first kind of exposed to the idea

Mandi Gerth (07:50.77)
It is.

Mandi Gerth (07:56.629)
Yes.

Soren Schwab - CLT (08:04.28)
that there is such a thing as classical education.

Mandi Gerth (08:06.141)
Right, right, right. So when my husband and I were married and we had no children, we were living in our first house in Milwaukee and my husband was commuting to work listening to RC Sproul's Renewing Your Mind on the radio. And Douglas Wilson called in because they were talking about education and he said, we're doing this thing in Moscow where we're taking seriously.

Christian education and I've written this book about it. And that's when I bought the book and I just started, right? And we didn't have any children. But when I read Rediscovering the Lost Tools, it resonated with me because I remember I had that rich high school education and then I went to Madison and I continued to have this liberal arts sort of influenced education. So when I read about

doing that for K through 12, it makes 100 % sense, right? So to me, it was like, well, this makes a ton of sense. This would be how you would want to educate children. And then at that point in the movement when we started having children, really the only classical schools available to us were the ones that were on the college prep trajectory, right? So they were recovering components of classical education, but in the service or for the telos of

Soren Schwab - CLT (09:18.508)
Hmm.

Mandi Gerth (09:25.821)
you know, getting these kids into elite colleges. So we put our kids in a five-day parochial school that I felt was academically rigorous, but I knew I would have to do some of the work at home. Like I would be teaching them Latin at home and things like that. We would be reading books as a family that I knew were on the book list. Like I was doing a lot of work at home to help. And then when my husband and I had outgrown our house in Oconomowoc, I just said to him, what if instead of moving across the city, we move across the country?

and we get ourselves into a situation where we can put our kids into a true classical school. And he was courageous and kind enough to go on that adventure with me. And we moved them down here to Dallas and put them into a collaborative model school where they started to learn Latin and they started to read the great books. And they were on the Susan Weisbauer trajectory or the rotation of history and literature for the four year cycle.

Soren Schwab - CLT (10:16.078)
huh.

Soren Schwab - CLT (10:21.24)
By the way, shout out to maiden name Alicia LaDuke, now Santella, who's the reason I know how to say Oconama Walk, because that's where she's from. She went to Hillsdale together. And then, course, fast forward a decade or so, there's now a Hillsdale classical tour school right there in Oconama Walk. It is fantastic. And she actually works there now. So full circle Oconama Walk.

Mandi Gerth (10:29.919)
Yep.

Mandi Gerth (10:39.687)
in Oconomowoc. Yeah, it's like one of their best. Yeah.

Mandi Gerth (10:47.497)
There you Yep, that's amazing.

Soren Schwab - CLT (10:50.178)
Don't ask me to spell it, but I know how to say it at least.

Mandi Gerth (10:53.341)
Yes. So the baseball team that my son played on in O'Connell Walk was called the Five O's because there are Five O's in O'Connell

Soren Schwab - CLT (10:59.224)
There are five O's in. Wow, that is brilliant. Five O's. You just mentioned recovering lost tools. And I think when, you know, Jeremy or I, we get asked by maybe by folks that are new to classical education or classical Christian education. Hey, what are some what are some books we can read? That is certainly one of them. I think and I'm going to again be on record here, I think in five to 10 years.

Your book is going to be mentioned up there with Interestingly a lot of them have an and in between norms and nobility right wisdom and eloquence Mandy your book is called thoroughness and charm and it is absolutely fantastic I can't wait to to talk about it. The subtitle is cultivating the habits of a classical classroom Now I have to ask you How'd you come up with a name thoroughness?

Mandi Gerth (11:37.365)
Yeah.

Soren Schwab - CLT (11:57.974)
and charm. doesn't roll off the tongue as right, especially for the German here struggling with with THs.

Mandi Gerth (12:02.483)
Yeah. Yes. Well, thank you for that sweet compliment, Soren. This has been a long journey of obedience, and I'm grateful for your kindness there. So one of the liturgies that I created for my first fifth grade classroom included reciting this Aquinas prayer that I used at the beginning of the book.

It says, creator of all things, true source of light and wisdom, origin of all being, graciously let a ray of your light penetrate the darkness of my understanding. Take from me the double darkness in which I have been born, an obscurity of sin and ignorance. Give me a keen understanding, a retentive memory, and the ability to grasp things correctly and fundamentally.

Grant me the talent of being exact in my explanations and the ability to express myself with thoroughness and charm. Point out the beginning, direct the progress, and help in the completion. I ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

So that was the prayer that was part of our morning liturgy and where I just was starting to think that like I want my students to think things through thoroughly and I also want them to be winsome in their explanation and to me pulling that text from the Aquinas prayer was just the perfect title for the book.

Soren Schwab - CLT (13:29.88)
Yeah, it's absolutely beautiful. And I know a few teachers that prayed before every school day and ask. Yeah, I mean, just absolutely beautiful. Mandy, you mentioned your homeschooling, your five kids, and then you were, I think, teacher of fifth graders. Was that right? You went from teaching five to being a fifth grade teacher.

Mandi Gerth (13:52.181)
Correct, right. So the way that the collaborative model works is that you send your kids to school for two or three days depending upon the institution and then you as the parent are responsible for like a homeschool component. And so when I started,

Soren Schwab - CLT (14:01.102)
Yeah.

Mandi Gerth (14:11.676)
really delving in and immersing myself into classical education, pedagogy and philosophy and practices. I started reading a lot because I wanted to be a good homeschool teacher and I really wanted to understand the curriculum that the kids were learning and how it all connected and worked together. So I went from...

being their home day teacher to being a classroom teacher of 13 fifth graders that first year and so the reason why the book came into being is because as I was contemplating what I had just signed up for and how The the weight of that calling was keeping me up at night. I was thinking to myself that

I was most anxious about managing the actual classroom and all of the transitions in the class day, but I also felt as though I had this unique opportunity to enculturate and to mold and shape my students in a way that mattered for eternity. And I didn't want to be bad at that. I didn't want to fail in that regard. And so...

what I started doing was trying to figure out are there ways in which I can make every moment count and also make it count for eternity. And so I started planning all of these liturgical practices for my transitions that helped build a classroom culture. So that's how it all began and that was the start of the book.

Soren Schwab - CLT (15:42.37)
Yeah, I mean, is, you know, I'm just just teaching a few fifth graders, right? Like how, you know, and but the way you're talking about it, I mean, it's, it's, it's, we're shaping, you know, souls for eternity. That can be pretty intimidating, right? Thinking about, okay, so I'm going to this classroom, this classical classroom where we have this rich tradition. And there's so much on the line.

would you say to to you know teachers that maybe start here in the next few weeks? Because there could be this weight right? But at the same time, there's also this like, this beauty of the tradition that you are inheriting as a as a teacher? How do you how do you navigate that?

Mandi Gerth (16:30.396)
Yeah, it's definitely hard to manage and it's definitely hard to navigate. And I think that nobody has to apologize for where they start. They only have to apologize if they decide to stay there. Like we all come into, we all say yes at different points in our own journey. We all answer the calling whenever we're asked to do it and whenever it is right. So.

you start somewhere, but you don't have to stay there. And one of the things that I like to tell new teachers is start by getting to know your curriculum really well. Like make sure that you really, really understand what it is you're teaching and why you're teaching it, and then just begin zooming out. So then start thinking through.

Like, well, why do they read that in fourth grade and why do they read that in sixth grade? And how can I make sure that I understand where my students have come from and where they're going? And then you just keep zooming out. Right? So I think what's liberating about this approach is that if you just go out to like, Substack and you type in like,

how to be a better classical teacher. Like you'll have book lists of like 200 books or you'll have like somebody who's reading all of the ancient texts in one year. And you're thinking like, I can't do that. But what you can do is you can just start mastery over your curriculum and then you can zoom out a smidge and figure out like, well, what did they read the year before they got to me? And then what are they reading the year after they get me? And then you can just really start understanding, like entrenching yourself in what your school has chosen for its curriculum.

Soren Schwab - CLT (18:08.366)
Hmm.

Mandi Gerth (18:09.66)
And then you get to understand, well, I have opportunities to prepare them for that thing or to build on something that they've already received. And that to me is how you build this cohesive sort of school culture. And it's also how you as a teacher become more comfortable with this embodiment.

Soren Schwab - CLT (18:25.922)
Yeah, more comfortable, confident. Because I think the biggest worry usually with new teachers is if the students ask me questions, a question I can't answer. And that takes a lot of humility, but also in you in your first chapter you call it become guardians and keepers. I love that. Guardians and keepers. Can you elaborate that a little bit? What do you mean by that?

Mandi Gerth (18:52.52)
Yeah, so that's a phrase that kind of just kept coming to me when I was talking to people about what I felt like we were supposed to do as teachers in a classical school. And to me, what it points to is that I think we're frustrated with the state of progressive education in America. And we look at what's going on out there, and we get frustrated by it or angry about it.

and we don't really know what to do about it. And I guess my response to that is, well, we guard and we keep. We understand what it is that we're over here doing and why, and then we just continue to guard it and keep it and pass it on. And we let that just be the goodness of where we are, and we let that kind of speak for itself. Like, I'm over here,

protecting and preserving and passing on something that I think is super valuable and very transcendent and changes people's lives. And I'm just gonna keep doing this thing over here really, really well. And I'm gonna be okay with that. Like I'm just gonna get happy here and comfortable here and do it well. So I think we guard, yeah, we guard and we keep, right? We understand what it is that we have at our disposal and we get kind of...

Soren Schwab - CLT (20:01.23)
You know.

Mandi Gerth (20:11.133)
comfortable with it in the sense that we want to make sure that we understand it well enough to pass it on.

Soren Schwab - CLT (20:17.122)
Yeah, yeah. And you used the word earlier that can be liberating, right? Because you're also not building everything from scratch, right? There is a there is a what is it Chesterton, right? The soulless society as it passes from one generation to the next, you are passing something on which, yes, in a way, right? It can be overwhelming and a Herculean task, but at the same time, it has been done before. And the texts and the works and do speak for themselves.

Mandi Gerth (20:41.683)
Mm-hmm.

Mandi Gerth (20:46.407)
Yes, for sure.

Soren Schwab - CLT (20:46.894)
You get that a lot and I think you visit a lot of classical schools now and now that the movement is becoming, for lack of a better word, bit more mainstream, we'll probably see some classical schools calling themselves classical schools and their justification is, well, we read some old books or, well, we do actually offer Latin. And while I'm always advocating for reading old books and doing Latin,

Mandi Gerth (20:59.791)
Mm-hmm, sure.

Mandi Gerth (21:08.168)
Right.

Mandi Gerth (21:11.431)
Mm-hmm.

Mandi Gerth (21:15.751)
Me too.

Soren Schwab - CLT (21:16.088)
doing classical education and doing it well is a bit is a bit more than that. You argue that teachers need to embody, embody the classical tradition. How do you do that? I know you could probably talk for hours about that, but how do you how do you embody the tradition itself?

Mandi Gerth (21:36.136)
Yeah, so I think that your classroom culture comes from your affections and your attitudes. And so I think you build a classroom culture by examining what it is about the classical tradition or your curriculum that you particularly have an affection for. And then you examine where you might not have the right attitude and you work on changing that. And then you figure out ways in which you can bring more of that.

glory or the things that are necessary for your students to better understand this text or this poem, you bring it to them in such a way that you demonstrate your own love for it. And then they start to love it because you love it, right? So a text that was very influential in the writing of Thoronis and Charm is James K. Smith's You Are What You Love. And so I like to tell teachers, you are what you love and

what you love your students will love and what your students love they will become. So that's what I mean by embodying, right? Like we have to wear our loves in front of our students in such a way that they start to love them too. So we have to be very careful about what it is that we love. So we have to start.

as Joshua Gibbs says in Love at Last, we have to be careful about our tastes, right? We have to be developing better taste as classical educators and that's getting more more comfortable with your school's curriculum and the ideas that undergird the tradition, right? So starting to understand kind of the breadth of the walkway that you're on. I use the image in the book of like,

teachers walk on this tightrope and we don't want to fall off, right? We don't want to be asked a question we can't answer, but at the same time we want to be considered humble and teachable, right? So we're walking this tightrope and I just sort of say like the more comfortable you are, it becomes less and less of a tightrope. Like it becomes just a wider path that you can walk on and you feel a little bit more comfortable answering questions and having conversations and crafting questions to ask your students.

Soren Schwab - CLT (23:45.112)
So, and I used to teach literature and you know, when you, especially when you're new, you inherit a curriculum, right? Or a list of books that you're gonna teach. so you've probably heard that man, he's like, yeah, that book's just not very good. Or I just don't really love that book. And I know I gotta teach it, but what would you say to teachers who have that kind of attitude? Because we've all been there.

Mandi Gerth (24:12.466)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. No, for sure. Yeah, like we've all been there, right? And I think the challenge to us is that these books have been chosen by somebody in authority because they're believed to be great. And so we do a good job of trying to love them well.

Soren Schwab - CLT (24:12.527)
We've all, think you mentioned in your book, was it the secret garden or there have been books, right?

Mandi Gerth (24:33.018)
Right? You can go to your curriculum director or your administrator and say like, I really think we should read this book over this book. You can voice your opinion, but in the meantime, your job is to teach this great book really well, even though you would have chosen a different one if you had been in charge. This is the great book that you are to learn to love and to bring that love to your students. And I...

And I bring up the example in thoroughness and charm of how once you find other touch points in the tradition to help you interpret the thing that you're struggling with, you might enjoy it more, right? So I started to enjoy Secret Garden more when I was actually reading Taming of the Shrew and writing a paper on it at the University of Dallas because I started to realize like,

I have two heroines here who are miserable and making everybody miserable around them and they need to be changed from the outside. Like something needs to grab hold of their heart and change them so that they become a better person. And so then I was like, now I can teach this book. Like now I am all in on this book if I can teach it from that perspective, if I can help my students see that part of it. So that would be some of my encouragement is like,

Find something else that helps you get a handle on the thing that you're struggling with. And then I would also say that Clark and Jane in their book say that culture gives curriculum its life. So if you're feeling like your curriculum is really lethargic, it could be that the culture of your classroom is not supportive. It's not vibrant, and therefore you're having a really hard time with this book. So that would be my other exhortation is like.

Think hard about the culture of your classroom, your own attitudes and affections, and then find other handles to get on that text that you're struggling with.

Soren Schwab - CLT (26:22.006)
Yeah, yeah, I love that. And I'm going to quote you here in a second. I remember, you even when I still lived in Germany and I became enthralled with American culture and history and then American literature. so that, you know, going to Hillsdale, I took a lot of American lit classes. And there's always a little bit of that, you Brit lit people. right. And I never got into Dickens. And I think I just blamed it on, yeah, it's just he's too verbose and he's this and that.

and in your book and I was reminded that yesterday when I reread parts of it you say when you struggle with the great text assume the problem is you and I had that humbling experience I think it was about a year ago where I'm like wait I got to practice what I preach like Dickens is great so clearly the problem is with me and I really now would I still say that I maybe enjoy some other authors more but my goodness with

Mandi Gerth (27:17.874)
Something more?

Soren Schwab - CLT (27:20.974)
that different even just that different lens and the different attitude. I now love reading Charles Dickens, you know, but it it does kind of come with this. No, no, no, I'm, I'm inheriting this tradition that has been deemed great by people much smarter than I am. And so I should probably try to try to understand why, you know,

Mandi Gerth (27:40.53)
Why? Yeah, yeah, I think that's, I think that's important to do.

Soren Schwab - CLT (27:45.09)
Yeah, yeah, so still still American lit guy, but Okay, that's okay, yeah Fair enough fair enough. let's talk a little bit about and you mentioned those those those terms before enculturation and and and transmission what are some ways and you alluded to them already. What are some ways that that teachers?

Mandi Gerth (27:49.714)
Well, good for you. There aren't as many of those as Britlets, but... Yes. Yes, yes.

Mandi Gerth (28:06.517)
Mm-hmm.

Soren Schwab - CLT (28:16.076)
new or old can do that, can enculturate and transmit that kind cultural piece.

Mandi Gerth (28:19.162)
Right. Right.

Yeah, so when I was doing research for the book and when I was thinking through what was working in my classroom, two things kind of stuck out to me. One is from Norms and Nobility where Hicks says that education is, the cultivation of the human spirit to teach the young how to know what is good, to serve it above self, to reproduce it and recognize that in knowledge lies this responsibility.

So to me, he's saying not only do we teach them something, but we teach them what to do with it, that they have a responsibility with it. And to me that that kind of work has to happen alongside culture. And then I was also reading Charles Taylor's social imaginaries by way of Karen Swallow Pryor, who introduced me to him. But the idea being that like a stripped of all of its fancy language.

Soren Schwab - CLT (29:05.015)
Mm-hmm.

Mandi Gerth (29:21.048)
We do certain things as like mini cultures, like as a classroom or as a family or as a church community or an ethnic community. You do certain things because of what you believe to be true. But then those things also reinforce what you believe to be true. So it becomes this cycle. And I thought to myself, this is absolutely what happens in the classroom. I'm going to do certain things in my classroom because of what I believe to be true. But then these practices will also help my students.

They'll also reinforce for my students what is true and will help them continue to perpetuate it, right? So when Hicks says that we have this responsibility, right? We have to recognize what is good, to serve it above self and to reproduce it, right? So that to me was this idea that that's largely a cultural task that has to be, that the teacher has to be mindful of.

Soren Schwab - CLT (30:13.122)
Wow. And that's is a perfect transition because I remember in your book, I think you mentioned it and I've observed teachers, right? I mean, we only have 45, 50 minutes and for like five or 10, they talked about football game from last week, right? Or they, you know, they talked about other things. And then I had teachers that memorize poetry, right? Or had other routines, right? And so I would love to...

Mandi Gerth (30:35.355)
Mm-hmm.

Soren Schwab - CLT (30:39.438)
talked to you a little bit about that because you mentioned that earlier, right? Like implementing the surgical practices and kind of looking at the classroom and the class day as liturgy. And you talk a lot about memorization. And that's just not something that today's culture we still talk about, in fact, and I couldn't find it. But just recently, I saw a tweet or a post by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Just about stop making kids memorize things that they can look up. Why would you memorize anything? Everything is at the tip your hand with these smartphones. Can you connect these for me, the liturgical practices, maybe not the Neil deGrasse Tyson, I don't try not to explain that, but the role that repetition, something that oftentimes we view as a negative, that repetition and memorization plays in the school day.

Mandi Gerth (31:24.465)
you

Mandi Gerth (31:36.71)
Yeah, I was just reading something by Donald Cowan who he basically said like, I want every student to have a calculator at his disposal, but they also need to memorize their multiplication tables. And his point was that estimation and theory are easier if you have your multiplication tables memorized. And I think that pertains to what we're talking about here, right? So it's not that you can't

look up an Emily Dickinson poem, it's that when the Emily Dickinson poem becomes part of who you are, you have something inside of you at your disposal that helps you apprehend reality correctly and helps you put into context the new data you are getting. And so that's the problem I think that we have right now is that we have a culture of kids who don't have this social imaginary. They don't have a framework that is

Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian in which they can, they know what to do with the data that they're getting. have a way of putting it into a hierarchy of meaning. And so to me, all of these liturgical practices and these memory projects are a way of helping provide that framework. So for example, I like to say, teaching your students orthodox prayers will help them be better at praying spontaneously.

and extemporaneously if their coach says, you hey, would you please pray for the team as you're, know, in the huddle before the game. Like they have something to say because their thoughts on what should be said in that moment have been informed by something else. So that's what I see the glory and the beauty of all of that doing is that it gives us a way for our students to have a context and a framework to situate themselves.

in their present reality, in their situation, but it also allows them to think critically about things that are coming at them.

Soren Schwab - CLT (33:38.83)
Do you want to share just maybe a couple of examples of maybe either classrooms you observed or your own fifth grade classroom, what that would kind of look like throughout the day, right? Do you start every morning the same way? What about some of those transition periods you mentioned, maybe afternoon?

Mandi Gerth (33:53.778)
Sure, right, right. So what I like to tell teachers is if they believe me that this is all good, that they should do something about it, what I tell them to do is to look at their schedule and to figure out where in their schedule they need to make a transition from a subject to a subject or from a class period to another activity. Like where are their natural transitions in their day? Or,

Soren Schwab - CLT (34:01.774)
you

Mandi Gerth (34:20.643)
If they just have a 55 minute English block that they teach four times in a row, how do you want to get the students into the classroom, out of the classroom? How do you want to transition them from lecture to essay writing? There are transitions even in a 55 minute teaching block. So start thinking through, where do I naturally need to transition from one thing to the next? And then how can I put something meaningful and glorious?

as that hinge, like how can I use that hinge to point them to something else? And it can be a poem or it can be a song or it can be a catechism or it can be a call and response, but there's lots of ways in which we can pack in extra things that help them continue to perpetuate the learning or to take the thing that we've taught them someplace else and apply it or connect it elsewhere.

Soren Schwab - CLT (35:13.326)
that. Absolutely love that. Usually, and our listeners of Anchored know that the last question is always the same. But I would love to put a little spin on that, right? Given our conversations, usually I ask, you know, what's one text or one book that has been most impactful? With you, I would love to ask, what is one poem that if you can leave with our audience that they ought to, well, first read?

and then memorize which would it be in

Mandi Gerth (35:46.513)
Yeah, I'm going to ask you to read, or to memorize. There is no frigate like a book by Emily Dickinson. And I'm asking you to do this because it's short, because the meter is pleasant to the ear, and because it's an easy thing for you to put into one of those transitions. It goes like this. There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away, nor any corsairs like a page of prancing poetry.

This traverse may the poorest take without a press of toll. How frugal is the chariot that bears the human soul. So the other really glorious thing about that poem is that even if you recite this with third graders, fourth graders, fifth graders, the elevated language in that poem is significant and helps them start to connect beautiful words to glorious ideas, right? So frigate is a book that they won't know. Coursers is a word that they won't know.

that poetry can prance is an image that they're gonna have to explore. What is a traverse? What does oppressive toll mean? What does it mean to be frugal? Like there's lots of things in here and it's eight lines. There's lots of opportunity for discussion in there and it won't take you very long to memorize it or them.

Soren Schwab - CLT (36:47.438)
Yeah.

Soren Schwab - CLT (37:06.173)
Absolutely beautiful. Mandy, this has been so delightful. I wish we could talk for another hour, maybe in part two, baseball home-cooked meals and more poetry memorization. But again, we're here with Mandy Girth, who is not only the administrative director of the Cowen Center at the University of Dallas, she's also the author of Thoronis and Charm, sold exclusively by the Searcy Institute, Searcy Press. Go get the book, read it, and if you're a school, consider

Mandi Gerth (37:10.697)
Hahaha!

Soren Schwab - CLT (37:34.99)
collaborating with Mandy. We're so excited Mandy for what you do, for how you're schools, how you're blessing them. And yeah, really appreciate your taking time today.

Mandi Gerth (37:48.219)
Thank you, sir, and it's been a joy.