Life of the Mind: Brookewood & Avalon Schools

Rich McPherson joins me to discuss Fr. James Shea's long essay From Christendom to Apostolic Mission: Pastoral Strategies for an Apostolic Age.  The essay asks that we first acknowledge we are no longer living in a culture governed by Christian values and institutions and then that we adopt approaches commensurate with this shift.  The apostolic age brings with it an optimism as Christians find themselves sharing a sacramental vision with others, rather than being disappointed that others don't always already hold that vision.  This conversation is especially fun and successful because Rich and I have each immersed ourselves pretty fully in this inspiring text.

David Steiner, the executive director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, is the author of A Nation at Thought and spoke at the New York Encounter, where he spent his day with Avalon and Brookewood president, Rich McPherson.  Steiner's dark view of the current ed scene is interesting to us, as is his book.  Steiner believes in teaching for content (not skills in isolation, as has been the emphasis in contemporary education for decades) and connecting great texts to the deep, meaningful questions they raise.  He thinks American teaching in general lacks urgency.  Rich and I had a wide-ranging conversation, and I hope you enjoy it.

Elizabeth Eames, a passionate English teacher at Brookwood, dives into the necessity of reading entire books to enrich students' understanding of literature. She discusses the impact of a recent Atlantic article highlighting the reading struggles of college students. Eames emphasizes the balance between structured learning and student engagement, especially in a digital age where technology can hinder deep reading. The conversation also touches on the transformative power of literature in fostering empathy, as exemplified by texts like 'Anna Karenina'.

In this new episode, I (host Cherie Walsh) talk with Andrea Francois and Fr. José Medina about Christine Rosen’s new book, The Extinction of Experience.  Building from our previous work on Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, our conversation begins where Rosen’s book does:  the degree to which our experiences are increasingly mediated by our technological choices and how, as a result, we become spectators rather than agents of our activities.  This change in how people live of course has implications for our students and for ourselves, as we all strive to embrace our lives as fully present, embodied creatures.

I am excited to talk with Andrea Francois and Fr. José Medina about Jonathan Haidt's book The Anxious Generation.  Haidt's book was the faculty summer reading at Brookewood, and we like his thesis.  We talk about the phone-free school day in terms of attention, embodiment, reflection, and reasonable physical risk.  For us, going outside in what Haidt calls "Discovery Mode" has been part of the curriculum for years, and we've tightened up our phone policies this summer as the data has come in about the clear correspondence of social media use and the rise of anxiety and depression, especially among girls. Quentin Walsh ended up producing this one after all, so we thank him for helping to balance us out, as it were.

Andrea Francois and Ann Vitz join me for a discussion of Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch.  The novel uses its contemporary idiom (and some rough material) to discuss some of the great themes of literature:  art vs. life, mortality, the role of tradition in modern life, and so on.  We read the books behind the book (Keats, Dostoyevsky, Dickens, and so on).  Finally, we appreciate the novel's ultimately Catholic worldview and find the characters and world fully drawn and ineluctably memorable. (NB:  One of us quotes a vulgar word from the text, and maybe this is an episode not to listen to with the kids in the car anyway...)

David Booz and Andrea Francois join me to discuss Brief Loves that Live Forever, Andrei Makine's 2013 novel exploring the end of the USSR.  David was keen to talk about Makine, as Erik Varden mentions him in The Shattering of Loneliness, among the non-Christian writers whose works feature a longing for meaning beyond ideology or pleasure.  The novel explores the childhood and later life of its nameless narrator in chapters that read as luminous vignettes with moments of real emotion that allow for glimpses of the transcendent.

David Booz, Head of the Theology Department at Brookwood, discusses Erik Varden's transformative book on Christian remembrance. He shares how Varden's exploration of memory intertwines with communal identity, beauty, and suffering, especially during the Lenten season. The conversation delves into literary perspectives on longing, examining the duality of comfort and risk in desire. Booz also highlights the moral complexities of love and forgiveness in Christian tradition, illustrating how acknowledging our past can lead to spiritual growth and understanding.

In this episode, Fr. José, Brookewood chaplain and teacher, and I talk about the diaries of Etty Hillesum.  Hillesum was in her 20s in the Netherlands when she wrote her diary about her external experience during the Nazi occupation and more importantly about her internal experience of God.  

David Booz and Andrea Francois join me for a discussion of Professor Yascha Mounk's new book, The Identity Trap.  We talk about what we learned from reading Mounk's history of identity politics from Foucault to Ibram X. Kendi, and we discuss Mounk's conclusions about the promotion of universal values.  Mounk's book is significant in part because he comes to the discussion from the left.  We find plenty to agree with him about, even as we wish he had gone further in acknowledging the Source of the values he touts.