His Mind Holds Summer
Intro
This is Time's Corner, a weekly newsletter by Christian Leithart. I’m the editor of Good Work magazine and the creator of Psalm Tap, a yearly colloquium for church musicians. By day, I teach, and by night, I edit this newsletter.
Registration is open for Psalm Tap 2023. If you’re in the Birmingham area during the third week of July, please consider joining us. (Did I mention it’s free?)
Last, don’t forget about the Thursday question, which is at the very bottom of this newsletter.
His Mind Holds Summer
What’s a schoolboy thinking? In April, he’s looking forward to June, and in August, he’s remembering July.
It’s not that learning doesn’t interest him. He will ace any quiz you give him about baseball stats or football rosters or Star Wars or ham radio. The mind craves knowledge as the body craves food, Mason says, and he will root out morsels that appeal to him. So why, in the classroom, does the schoolboy refuse to eat?
I’m speaking broadly, of course. Many boys take to their lessons—some even take pride in them—and many who don’t are simply lazy or undisciplined. But the average young man, I think, views school in the same way as Robert Francis’s farm boy:
The lesson, the long lesson, has been summer.
His mind holds summer, as his skin holds sun.
For once the homework, all of it, was done.
In other words, school must be endured till summer comes, when the real learning begins.
What will make a young man care about school? I suggest three things: teamwork, responsibility, and challenge.
First, a boy thrives when he feels himself part of a team. He needs to measure himself against other boys and (especially) men, and he wants to be sure that his presence is needed. If it’s not, he will know, and he would rather be somewhere else. This is easy to see in sports, but less clear in the modern school, which is designed to measure individual progress. How does one make a boy feel like a school needs him?
In his book-length profile of Frank L. Boyden, the long-time headmaster of Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, John McPhee says, “A new boy at Deerfield cannot have been there very long before the idea is impressed upon him that he is a part of something that won’t work unless he does his share.” Boyden was by all accounts a headmaster of exceptional quality who inspired devotion in students and faculty alike, but he didn’t have a secret recipe for success. When asked why his school was so successful, he said,
We just treat the boys as if we expect something of them, and we keep them busy. So many of our things simply exist. They’re not theory. They’re just living life. I expect most of our boys want to do things the way we want them done.
And:
My philosophy—I can’t express it, really: I believe in boys. I believe in keeping them busy, and in the highest standards of scholarship. I believe in a very normal life.
“I believe in boys.” Deerfield students had many chances to experience Boyden’s trust firsthand: rather than hand out report cards, Boyden sat down with each student six times a year and told him where he stood academically. He also asked the boys about their classes and about their teachers, impressing upon them the idea that their thoughts mattered (even if, ultimately, Boyden disagreed). Boys that feel like part of a team are just as likely to get in trouble, behaviorally and academically, as though who feel like outcasts, but they are much more likely to likely to listen when they are called out. Between 1902 and 1966, when McPhee published his book, Boyden only expelled five students, and all five were let go because they showed no remorse for what they had done.
A boy may always feel the draw of summer, but if he can be convinced that his presence at school matters, he’ll find it easier to apply his energies to the task in front of him.
Next week’s newsletter will be about giving boy’s responsibility.
Dispatch from Broken Bow
Things done in the past two weeks:
Celebrated the Resurrection by gathering the most child-like gifts imaginable: candy-colored plastic eggs filled with chocolate.
Rescued the following from a neighbor’s trash heap: seven-foot slide to attach to our playhouse; canvas director’s chair; four-person Cullman tent.
Slept in aforementioned tent during our second family camping trip.
Home-Depoted five bags of sand, sixteen bags of topsoil, and twenty-eight bags of gardening soil to fill our new raised beds.
Tried (and failed) to feed a cricket to a salamander.
Links
The Random Airport Viewer shows you a photo of a random airport or runway from around the world. Here’s my favorite (in Loudenvielle, France):
I’ve had ample opportunity in the past few days to use this simple tool that pads the edges of an image to make it square. One of those gadgets with an overly specific use that seems pointless till suddenly, one day, you’d pay a stranger $100 for it. Like a waffle iron.
I love essays (and books!) that examine in detail some aspect of the human world that we usually take for granted. Marcin Wichary does exactly this in his essay on designing the perfect link underline on Medium.
Upcoming
The second issue of Good Work will be mailed to subscribers in April (Deo volente). Sign up to get your copy. It's free.
My church has been doing a series of talks on various fun topics for the past few months. The last one is called “You Should Be Reading Flannery O'Connor.” New date: May 28 at 4pm. Location: here. Price: Free ninety-nine.
Registration for the fourth annual Psalm Tap is open! Catch up on previous Psalm Taps here.
Up To
Reading: More Buchan.
Watching: Arrested Development. The humor in that show is so self-referential, it really makes you feel like part of the family.
Thursday Question
Thursday’s issue will be devoted to your replies to this question:
What do you think is one necessary ingredient to a boy’s education?
About
I’m Christian Leithart, a writer and teacher living in Birmingham, Alabama. I’m not active on social media, but you can read my blog here. Use the button below to share this issue of Time’s Corner, if you so desire. Thanks much for reading.