Ep 07 | The Instruments: Discipline (Principle #7)
If we habit train, is it even authentic?
Modern talk tells us authenticity is a great virtue, possibly even the highest virtue. We should only ever do that which feels most satisfying to us at the moment, and only if it comes to us spontaneously and organically.
#liveauthentic #youdoyou #mytruth
If we could only be our truest selves, free from internal and external constraints, we’d be happy. Maybe even have world peace.
This is obviously untrue. But it does lead to a good question: if we habit train our children, is anything they do authentic? Or, to put it another way, does habit training program a machine or form the affections of a person?
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READ THE TRANSCRIPT
Okay, before we get to today’s episode, have I got something to tell you. Actually, I have two things.
First, over on the website, there now exists Commonplace Market! I have a shop! Yes. I know. I’m excited. I just added the new Commonplace Guide for Family Rules, which you’ll hear mentioned in today’s episode, and I’ll be adding more resources soon. If you want to take a peek, or even purchase the guide, you can hop over to the market through the link in your episode notes or by visiting thecommonplacepodcast.com/market.
The second thing is that next week marks the first year of The Commonplace podcast. I can hardly believe it. I’ve had such a blast working on this project and connecting with so many of you, so I wanted to do something fun to mark the occasion. Which means…books. I asked a bunch of wonderful people and publishers to give me free books and resources so I can give one of you a pile of classical goodness. How do you enter? Great question. Come follow me over on Instagram @thecommonplacehomeschool so you can enter next week and possibly be the mother-teacher who wins a very large brown paper package tied up with string.
Seriously guys. This giveaway has all of my favorite things.
All right. Let’s get to it.
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Principle #7: By "education is a discipline," we mean the discipline of habits, formed definitely and thoughtfully, whether habits of mind or body. Physiologists tell us of the adaptation of brain structures to habitual lines of thought, i.e., to our habits.
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If you’ve been around here for a bit, then you know we’ve touched on the basics of habits from a few different angles. We had a whole mini-series last season and they seem to kind of pop up…everywhere. And that’s partly because, in the early years, there are a lot of habits to teach. Kids are kind of wild. And if you don’t believe me, let me slap some deep philosophy down before you. It was Plato who said, ‘Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.’
Okay, I’m kidding. Not about the quote; that’s actually a true one. But while kids aren’t animals, they don’t necessarily think, feel, and do the right things at the right time and in the right way. And it does seem like the early years require a great deal of effort in habit training, particularly to lay a good foundation for the coming years of formal education.
A helpful note to keep in mind about Mason’s instrument of discipline is that you’re setting the norm for your children with this tool. Knowing that habits run in 99 out of every 100 actions, you’re trying to help your child find the smoother path towards virtue. You want to help them form the muscle memory—in the mind, the heart, and the body—so that they choose what’s good without having to think about it. The expectation is not that you’ll teach a habit and never again will your child run off the track or choose to disobey. The expectation is that if you’ve set the norm for your child when they veer off track, they should feel off and experience a tug back in the right direction.
So, to recap the general idea: we should set truth, goodness, and beauty as the norm for our children by training them in good habits.
But what I want to talk about in today’s minisode for this instrument is an angle I haven’t touched on before but find completely necessary to think through in our current culture.
I want to talk about authenticity. Because I think there’s a valid question in the middle of this along the lines of: is it authentic if they’re just running on an auto-pilot track we trained them to follow? Is this kind of like behaviorism? Do our kids really mean it? And that’s the part of the conversation I want to zero in on today.
But, before we get there, we need to think about authenticity in our modern world.
I’m sure you’ve noticed, all around you, that one of your primary life goals should be authenticity. That you being you—fully, completely, and freely you—is a matter of life or death, of joy or sorrow, of freedom or oppression.
Before I go too far down the path of this new modern virtue, let’s get a basic definition down, so we’re on the same page.
To be authentic is to be true to one’s own personality, spirit, character, or ‘self’; in our current time and place, it means you do you, follow your heart, live your truth.
Now, I can understand if you’re thinking, “But Autumn, you can be authentic in a good way. Like, being genuine or not pretending to be something you’re not.” And, of course, listener, you are correct. There are comparative categories in which authenticity is helpful.
But for right now, I’m speaking about the improper use and elevation of authenticity all around us.
So, back to our working definition: to be true to own’s on self. What does that even mean? Well, our concept of self and authenticity didn’t just pop up in the last 25 years. We’re eating the fruit of the Romantic expressivism of the late 1700s today and it looks like Eat, Pray, Love-ing our days away until we finally become the masters of our fate and the captains of our souls. Realizing our humanity, or giving expression to our own desires and feelings, is the hallmark of the modern man. If I feel it, it must be true, and who are you to tell me differently? The proper philosophical jargon for this is the expressive individualism of the therapeutic man, but the helpful thing to remember is that feelings are central to how we understand, define, and act as modern people.
It’s surprising to some that the way we view the world today is not the way people have always viewed the world. I’m guessing it’s less surprising to a bunch of classical mother-teachers, but I’m really in a defining mood today, so let’s lay this out too. There are two categories for viewing the world: poiesis and mimesis. I bet you’ll know immediately which one is classical. Poiesis sees the world—including ourselves—as the raw material out of which people can make meaning and purpose. Mimesis, in contrast, sees the world as having given order, meaning, and purpose, and so we are required to encounter that meaning and conform to it.
Mimesis is the classical way.
And for a long time, it was the primary way people understood the world. From the political man of the Greek polis, to the religious man of the Middle Ages, and even up to the economic man of trade and work, people have understood themselves within a larger community narrative.
And this is important. An external order defines and gives meaning and purpose to life within it, but without an external order, we no longer know why people exist. When we shifted into the therapeutic man whose inner feelings and desires are the basis of meaning in life, we found ourselves in a mess. It’s an up-in-the-air-whatever-you-want-self-creation type of thing with no clear picture of the flourishing life.
Where’s our teleology? What’s the point? Why does it matter?
People are designed for purpose and meaning, and they’ll create it themselves when left without any direction. And this leaves us with the therapeutic generation who turns to self-creation, to authenticity as they feel it to be.
The individual is king. And no one or no thing can challenge that inner feeling throne without attempting harm on the individual. But that leaves me wondering: what then is the point of education? Of motherhood? If we’re not knee-deep in the good work of formation, then what are we doing?
The reason why we’re going down this little rabbit trail today is that you will find some pushback on Mason’s instrument of discipline in the fight for authenticity. Habit training sounds like behaviorism-in-action, like programming a machine or training an unmanageable animal to perform the tricks we want.
It sounds completely inauthentic. Which is, like, the worst.
But here is where we’re going to pivot and make it classical.
Hear me now: setting truth, goodness, and beauty as the norm for our children by training them in good habits is the best chance we have at authenticity. Like, the real kind.
The reality is that there is a standard of goodness that exists outside of our thoughts, feelings, and desires; that there is a King upon a throne, and he has given order, purpose, and meaning to every atom of his creation. The cosmos are ordered, our world is ordered, and we must learn to be ordered too.
And we know this because there has been one perfectly ordered person in the history of the world. He loved the right things, the right way, and he is the most authentic person. He is the one we are to become like.
Christ is our ideal type.
In classical education, we’re pursuing an ideal. The ‘ideal type’ is the form or pattern to which we are trying to conform. It’s what we want to become. And for us, what we want to become is more human.
I know, that sounded a little weird. Aren’t we all humans? Whether or not we’re classically educated? Yes, we are all humans and we maintain the dignity of those made in God’s image whether or not we love Shakespeare or keep our rooms cleaned. But, we are also formed by the things we repeatedly think, do, and love—our habits. And our formation can be bad, good, or, most likely, a mix of the two.
Just consider the impact of a life of many tiny moments of selfishness, impatience, and slothfulness. Do you know any older people who are bent into themselves, unable to consider others or share a kind word? Consider the impact of a life of many tiny moments of service, gratitude, and courage. Do you know any older people who fill a room with joy, keep a spark in their eye, and have a wise word for any situation? While we are all still human, we can become more or less of what God calls us to be. We can be authentic, more like Christ, or inauthentic, less like him.
You see, all those tiny moments in life, all the things we repeatedly think, do, and love, are habits that are making us a certain kind of person. And everyone experiences this, whether you’re following your own heart in everything or trying to learn the given form before you. You can’t escape the power of habit even if you think opting out of habit training allows your child to be more authentic. Habits will form. They have to form; it’s our design. So if we’re able to become more human, more authentic in the true sense, then we should think seriously about what habits are being formed in our children and homes. Where does this habit lead? And do I want my kids or myself to end up there?
Mason’s instrument of discipline isn’t about programming or behaviorism or controlling the self of a child. It’s also not about allowing our ephemeral, temperamental, shifting emotions and desires to be king, but it does take the full personhood of a child into perspective. So, please don’t think I’m tossing the emotions baby out with the bathwater. Mason’s instrument is about partnering with our children—in their development, feelings, gifts, challenges, and quirks—to set them on the path that leads to life. It’s about creating a norm for a child that helps them pursue truth, goodness, and beauty in those tiny moments of life that culminate into a formed person. Mason said habits rules in 99 out of every 100 actions; we don’t even think about most of them once they’re formed. But we do need to think about them as they’re being formed.
Every so often, I mention one of our family rules in an episode. They’re like our high-level family habits, the big overarching rules by which we learn to think, love, and do as God intended. Each family rule starts with a reminder of who we are because our actions are tied to our identity, and we Kerns are learning to be like Christ. These rules are for the family, because we’re all under God’s authority and learning to be conformed to the ideal type, and my off-track feelings don’t get to be king any more than my children’s. We’re on God’s team, it’s who we are, and so our habits aim in that direction. We know that at any given moment, our internal compasses of feelings and desires may run off track, but the standard set by God will always lead to truth, goodness, and beauty. As we keep trying to order ourselves to his standard, we’ll be formed in a way that makes his reality our norm and the path towards virtue a little smoother.
Because that’s a big part of habit training in our homes. We’re not going to be habit training to salvation—don’t get me wrong—but we can help our children be more sensitive to truth, to goodness, and to beauty. We can put the best seeds of ideas in the richest soil around their hearts and pray for God to make things grow. We can give them clear eyes and ears, so when they see and hear the gospel, they recognize the paint strokes and the melody.
The instrument of discipline is not inauthentic, it’s one of three tools we have to help our children towards an authentic life: a life of joy, of ordered affections, of wisdom and virtue, of the ideal type.
You know what really gets me about habits and formation? It’s that authenticity is the good fruit. A characteristic of virtue is that it’s easy to do but also that it’s pleasurable. Learning the habit is the hard muscle work and it can be difficult, tiring, or overwhelming. It’s a lot to override a habit track buried deep in your brain and heart. But once it becomes second nature, once the new track has taken priority, it becomes easier to tell the truth or remain patient. And because God says that honesty and patience will lead to a joyful life, we then get to experience that delight. Which makes us love goodness even more, and continue to choose it again. We actually learn to love what’s right, not just operate like a machine programmed against its will towards what’s right. We train, we form, we delight.
It’s like that quote I always see on everyone’s Instagram letterboards: Cease endlessly striving for what you want to do and learn to love what must be done. Yes, we can learn to love what must be done; habit training, the instrument of discipline, can only be counted as effective if, in the end, our children rightly love what we’ve shown them to be God’s norm.
So, world, you can keep your endless striving and call it authenticity. I’m setting the pace for learning to love what must be done by teaching habits of truth, goodness, and beauty. I’m grabbing my kids and heading straight for the wardrobe where we’ll find virtue and wisdom, good triumphing over evil, and the promise that when the King shakes his mane, the dawn of the new, true world will begin.
Because more than anything, I want my children to grow into what they were intended to be: image bearers—fully, completely, and freely.
Or, to steal my favorite Reepicheep’s words and heart: “My own plans are made. While I can, I sail east in the Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan’s country, or shot over the edge of the world into some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise.”
Want to join me? We’re going further up and further in.
I’ll see you guys in two weeks.
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