Apprenticeship in the Arts, Part 5: Structuring the Academy for Christian Artistry

In the previous article we explored the need to counter the passion mindset of our current career counseling by replacing it with a craftsman mindset drawn from a proper understanding of apprenticeship in the arts. Apprenticing students in various forms of artistry (including the liberal arts) constitutes the role of the Academy that is most intimately connected to the professional working world. By making real these connections through actual relationships with the practitioners of arts (whether in athletics and sports, common and domestic arts, fine and performing arts, the professions and trades, or the liberal arts themselves) classical Christian schools can go some way to making Comenius vision a reality: schoolrooms as “workshops humming with work.”

Aristotle’s intellectual virtue of artistry (Greek: techne) is by its very nature creative and productive. In order for it to flourish in a school culture, it must draw some of its lifeblood from the natural creative and productive impulse of children as human beings. When they see the products and beautiful creations of the masters of these living traditions, then they will naturally want to imitate them (see Comenius, The Great Didactic, 195-196). Drawing from this natural desire will make unnecessary the carrots and sticks of modern education’s manipulative motivational techniques.

The Example of the Renaissance Guilds

We might be tempted to think that the structure of a system, like a school, has nothing to do with the cultivation of high levels of artistry or genius. We are tempted to think primarily in terms of in-born talent as a fixed entity (see Aristotle and the Growth Mindset • Educational Renaissance), but research on geniuses and elite performers points in another direction. In his book, The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle notes that geniuses “are not scattered uniformly through time and space” but “tend to appear in clusters” (61-62):

Athens from 440 B.C. to 380 B.C., Florence from 1440 to 1490, and London from 1570-1640. Of these three none is so dazzling or well documented as Florence. In the space of a few generations a city with a population slightly less than that of present day Stillwater, Oklahoma, produced the greatest outpouring of artistic achievement the world has ever known. A solitary genius is easy to understand, but dozens of them, in the space of two generations? How could it happen? (62)

The scholar David Banks proposes a number of possible explanations that we might expect: the prosperity of Florence, its relative peace and freedom, etc. Unfortunately, each one of these is disproved by the historical record. Instead, the flurry of genius-level work is best explained by a social structure and educational process relentlessly focused on deep practice: the craft guilds:

As it turns out, Florence was an epicenter for the rise of a powerful social invention called craft guilds. Guilds (the word means “gold”) were associations of weavers, painters, goldsmiths, and the like who organized themselves to regulate competition and control quality. They had management, dues, and tight policies dictating who could work in the craft. What they did best, however, was grow talent. Guilds were built on the apprenticeship system, in which boys around seven years of age were sent to live with masters for fixed terms of five to ten years. (64)

The apprenticeship process that we have discussed throughout this series, it seems, can have better and worse cultural structures for training students in artistry. On a side note, the hierarchy of excellence seems to foster artistic genius more readily than the democracy of talent. In addition, the experience of apprentices at the bottom of the hierarchy mirrors the recommendations of Comenius for students to begin with the most basic and practical skills of the craft, and not with elaborate theory. As Coyle further explains,

An apprentice worked directly under the tutelage and supervision of the master, who frequently assumed rights as the child’s legal guardian. Apprentices learned the craft from the bottom up, not through lecture or theory but through action: mixing paint, preparing canvases, sharpening chisels. They cooperated and competed within a hierarchy, rising after some years to the status of journeyman and eventually, if they were skilled enough, master. This system created a chain of mentoring: da Vinci studied under Verrocchio, Verrocchio studied under Donatello, Donatello studied under Ghiberti; Michelangelo studied under Ghirlandaio, Ghirlandaio studied under Baldovinetti, and so on, all of them frequently visiting one another’s studios in a cooperative-competitive arrangement that today would be called social networking. (64)

This apprenticeship system can be thrown in stark relief with our common vision of what a “liberal arts education” should look like. Are our teachers masters of the liberal arts? Are our students cooperating and competing within a culture focused on rewarding excellence? Or are they simply hearing lectures on knowledge, taking notes and taking tests? Is their educational experience properly artistic in nature, focused on production in the common, liberal and fine arts? Are they systematically and structurally encouraged to try to solve problems of a production, even if they fail again and again along the way? Or are they motivated by grades, and jumping through the hoops of a rigid system?

In short, apprentices spent thousands of hours solving problems, trying and failing and trying again, within the confines of a world build on the systematic production of excellence. Their life was roughly akin to that of a twelve-year-old intern who spends a decade under the direct supervision of Steven Spielberg, painting sets, sketching storyboards, setting cameras. The notion that such a kid might one day become a great film director would hardly be a surprise: it would be closer to unavoidable (see Ron Howard). (64-65)

The Renaissance Guilds offer us a compelling vision of how the academy could be structured for artistry in a way that transcends the conventions of the modern school.

Adopting an Apprenticeship Model of Grading

This leads us to a first implication for the academy of our better understanding of Apprenticeship in the Arts. Students should be induced to create and produce with excellence, not by the overuse of fear or love, grades, punishments or rewards, but by their natural desire for imitation, creativity and production. Charlotte Mason put it this way:

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These principles are limited by the respect due to the personality [i.e. personhood] of children, which must not be encroached upon whether by the direct use of fear or love, suggestions or influence, or by undue play upon any one natural desire. (vol. 6, p. 80)

For this reason, and to avoid the grade inflation so typical of schools today, at the school where I serve as principal we have adopted an apprenticeship model of grading for our younger students and in artistic subjects for older students .

This Apprenticeship model attempts to assign accurately a student’s level of mastery of grade-level artistic expectations. Since, as we discussed before, so much of K-12 education consists of training in the arts (if we include all the skill development of the liberal arts as well as the fine and performing arts!), it makes the most sense to assess students’ progression through the traditional vision of apprenticeship. When learning an art, every student begins at the level of novice, where the entire nature of the art and its practice is still new and unknown to the student. Through introduction to the art and early experiences in beginning to imitate a master, the student proceeds to the status of apprentice. At this point the student must still be watched closely by the master as he or she is producing, since the apprentice is liable to make mistakes and therefore still in need of some hand-holding and regular demonstration or correction to help the student practice the art correctly. After the student has gained some facility and can work mostly on his or her own, he has attained the status of journeyman, being able to produce the goods of the art dependably and with a measure of both autonomy and excellence. Finally, when a student displays a high level of artistry, excellence and a seasoned understanding that implies the ability to teach or train others in the craft, he or she has become a master, at least of that subskill.

Apprenticeship Model Grade Levels

Novice — a student who is new to the art and unacquainted with the processes that lead to proper production
Apprentice — a student who is imitating the processes with some measure of success, but is also in need of frequent support and correction by the master
Journeyman — a student who can produce the beautiful goods of the art with some autonomy and creative artistry
Master — a student who consistently displays artistry and independent creativity, as well as the mastery that implies the ability to train others in the art

Adopting this sort of grading philosophy and system in a school can help clarify for teachers, students, and parents the actual nature of much of the educational project. When traditional grades are used it is often unclear whether or not students should be graded mainly on the completion of assignments or their effort, as opposed to their understanding and mastery. While no doubt students who work hard should be recognized in some way, when artistry is being judged it can actually be demotivating to students to adopt an A for effort standard. Objective grading honors the facts that students’ consciences are sensitive to and can observe quite clearly in front of their faces: some students produce more excellent and beautiful work than others.

At the same time, this apprenticeship model avoids the judgmental approach of a traditional, objective grading system, because it creates a story arc of progression from the lower levels. Everyone starts out as a novice in any area of artistry. Very few students will attain mastery of any art or subskill in a given year in which it is introduced. When this expectation is introduced and normalized in a school culture, the rare situations of student mastery can be appropriately recognized and celebrated in a way that encourages all other students to continue to strive for excellence.

That said, overemphasizing the judgment of grades can also be detrimental and ineffective. So even though it is important to retain the assessment of students’ mastery levels, perhaps the more effective assessments are cultural. When students are being trained to produce in a craft, their work should be displayed before their peers, their parents and the school community. This inspires the natural motivation to do their best and involves the natural judgment process of the community for what artistry looks like. Because of this, academic events, performances and competitions provide the natural clearinghouse for developing a culture of artistry.

Many of these school events almost go without saying in the school calendar, but their value is often overlooked and neglected. Why do students work so hard for artistry in sports, when they might not for other school activities? Because their artistry is clearly on display and being judged through the natural cooperative-competitive environment of the game or tournament, with spectators watching for their success. In the same way, a classical Christian school can make much of liberal arts through academic events like a Spelling Bee, Speech Meet, or public debate, with rules strictly followed and mandatory participation, and with audiences and judges in attendance. In the same way, when classes perform recitations (i.e. memorized passages of scripture, poems or historical speeches) in front of the entire school and teachers are encouraged to impart a dramatic flair, the training of the rote memory turns into the artistry of rhetoric.

Viewed in this light, school concerts and plays, competitions and games, art galleries, and displays of student work at events are not nice extras at a school. Instead, these school community activities become earnest teaching and learning moments that apprentice students in the arts and create a culture of craftsmanship in the academy. Academic events should be chosen with care and conducted with reverence for the mission and beating heart of the school. Although a school calendar can become overscheduled, we should remember that such performances, whether high or low stakes, are opportunities for cultivating the natural motivation of students to excel in artistry. Such opportunities are potentially transformative educational experiences and should be viewed as a crucial piece of the curriculum or course of study.

Understanding the motivational value of proper grading in an apprenticeship model as well as the role of academic events, competitions and performances can go a long way toward creating a culture of artistry and excellence at a school. But we should not be unaware of the deeper spiritual ramifications of this process.

Apprenticeship in Christian Perspective

First, we need to remember that the creation of beautiful and good things is innately human. God created mankind in his image as the stewards of creation and he commissioned human beings with the cultural mandate: the call to fill the earth and subdue it. This is rightly interpreted as an invitation to all the creative arts, or techne which use the stuff of earth as the raw material for the creating beautiful and good artifacts. (Read Aristotle’s Virtue Theory and a Christian Purpose of Education.) That is precisely what we see happening in Genesis 4. In spite of sin and its disastrous effects displayed in Cain and Abel, we see the progenitors of various common, liberal and fine arts:

Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play stringed instruments and pipes. Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron. (Gen 4:22 ESV)

Thus the apprenticeship model was born. We might note that it was initially passed down in families; apprenticeship and the father-son, mother-daughter relationship went hand in hand.

So apprenticeship in true, good and beautiful arts is human and therefore part and parcel of a redeemed Christian life. As human beings created in the image of God, our lives are most whole and fruitful when they fulfill the creation mandate through some type of artistry, through culture-making to borrow Andy Crouch’s term.

But secondly, we can note from the traditional and familial nature of apprenticeship, that it often carries with it, by nature, the lifestyle of the master craftsman. All the arts are embodied by their master craftsmen in a way of life, involving their beautiful creation and practice of the art, ideally alongside a full and good life. But let me be clear, this very fact means that apprenticeship in the arts as a means of bringing up children in the discipline and nurture of the Lord (see Eph 6:4) must be embodied as part and parcel of a whole Christian life.

So if Christian parents apprentice their child to a pagan man who is a master of rhetoric, they should not be surprised if their child eventually takes on the moral and spiritual faults of this man, even if they also gain some of his rhetorical skill. That is how human beings work. In the same way if a young girl is apprenticed to an immoral dance or music teacher, who is immersed in a pluralistic world with its values, it is not impossible that over time the influence of that world will be transferred to her alongside the art.

This is one of the forgotten premises by which our Christian classical schools attempt to operate. In the modern factory model of education we have forgotten what Jesus said: “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40 ESV). Disciple – apprentice – student. We have forgotten that these are roughly equivalent terms

Of course, when we follow Quintilian’s lead and partially apprentice children to many different arts (see On the Education of the Orator I.12), we minimize the potentially negative influence of any one teacher, but we do not really depart from this principle. In fact, we might say that at an ideal classical Christian school, a university or wholeness of the arts and sciences, this apprenticeship process under the leadership of a head master, a head magister or teacher, or else a principal or chief teacher (this is what these words original meant), the whole school of teachers pass on a communal way of life together. The culture of the school with all its teachers, curriculum, classes and traditions, apprentices the individual students.

This insight about apprenticeship as resonating with the nature of true Christian classical education is well-summed up in a statement of the school where I serve as Principal, Coram Deo Academy. We say that we apprentice students into the Great Conversation for the purpose of the Great Commission and the Great Commandment.

To sum up, so far I have indicated by two statements the way in which apprenticeship in artistry, i.e. various arts, established traditions of craftsmanship, whether liberal, common or fine, contributes to the spiritual development of children. Those two ways are, first, through the fulfillment of our human calling in the creation mandate to act as sub-creators of good and beautiful things. This is what it means to fulfill our purpose as human beings, and therefore artistry is part of how we experience the redeemed Christian life. But second is through Christian apprenticeship into the life of good works established for us by Christ the true Master’s life, death and resurrection, the life of those apprenticed to him and characteristic of the family of God. And we should recall again the warning attached to this point, that non-Christian masters, teachers, artisans are by nature liabilities as well as potential sources of the blessing of artistry.

Entwining the Spiritual and Artistic Goals of the Academy

Because of this, the classical Christian school rightly has a high bar of qualifications for its faculty based on spiritual maturity. The character of the teachers will inevitably have a long term influence on the character of the students. Structurally, then, the leadership of a school should not only develop careful recruiting and hiring processes that are intended to ensure the Christian maturity of its teachers, they should bake into the life of the school some measure of the spiritual practices of the church that aim at developing spiritual maturity. It is not that classical Christian academies should attempt to replace the worship and community of the local church, but by involving the faculty and staff in the rhythm of prayer, worship, and scripture reading, characteristic of the universal church, the discipleship—or, should I say, apprenticeship—of the Christian life become evident in the school culture.

It is important, in this connection, to fuse our goals for training in artistry through assessment and artistic events, with discipleship in an appropriate and not an artificial way. The cross country coach can lead students in prayer before a race. The Spring Concert can feature the famous poems, spirituals and hymns of Christian worship, artfully performed. Academic events can include brief homiletical exhortation and instruction as part of the program, alongside the competition or performance itself. Assessments, awards and recognition of artistry can be publicly relativized to higher spiritual ends. Excellence in artistry can be deliberately and intentionally pursued soli Deo gloria, with glory to God alone, as J.S. Bach signed his masterful musical compositions.

Further, the leadership of a school must be careful not to compromise core spiritual commitments for artistic ends, whether in hiring faculty or staff or in the nature of the content or practices. It can be so easy to tolerate that borderline coach or drama teacher, or to skate the line of acceptability in some way. Because, after all, the sports team or play is so important to the kids and their families…. Often this is a false dichotomy, but even when not, we should be willing to sacrifice high quality artistry for gospel purity whenever necessary, remembering Jesus’ words: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36 KJV) The value of intellectual virtues can never outweigh that of spiritual virtues. As Paul says, “For while bodily training is of some value, godliness [i.e. piety] is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Tim 4:8 ESV). That said, artistry can be used in support of higher ends; prime examples are musical worship and preaching (derived from two of the traditional liberal arts, music and rhetoric).

The classical Christian school is the ideal place for this beautiful fusion to occur and be actively trained. Such considerations should color an academy’s vision of their school’s or their students’ future greatness. Kolby Atchison has discussed the application of the Hedgehog Concept from Jim Collins Good to Great to classical Christian schools. Decisions about which arts to pursue and prioritize, when the list of possible arts seems endless, would benefit from careful thought about a school’s Hedgehog Concept: what the school can be the best in the world at will involve the culture, events and arts that are emphasized in the curricular and extracurricular programs. Innovations in a school will often occur here as leaders capitalize on local opportunities and the community’s unique giftings.

After all, we can become like the Renaissance Guilds in every area of artistic excellence possible. Greatness requires focused effort on particular arts. And true Christian artistry focuses us even more narrowly on what will serve Christ in our generational moment. As C.T. Studd wrote in his famous poem, “Only one life, ’twill soon be past, / Only what’s done for Christ will last.”