Writing should be considered the 8th wonder of the world.
Think about it for a moment: When you read words, the ideas from another person’s mind are being teleported directly into your own! Two people can communicate from anywhere in the world from any point in time. You can read my thoughts here from anywhere on earth, and both of us can read the thoughts of medieval thinkers who have been dead for centuries. Reading is both a method of teleportation and time travel.
I teach in classical education, which means reading is a paramount activity. We would rather students read than do almost anything else. From the earliest grades, we teach students the basics of spelling, phonics, and grammar so that they may begin reading and learning through books as early as possible.
We have this focus on reading because we want students to be exposed to the greatest ideas in history. By learning to read well, students can get into the minds of great thinkers and process this thinking for themselves. It is roughly equivalent to having your teachers be the best thinkers in history!
Reading Matters for Parents, Too!
Of course, reading is not solely an activity for children in the school; parents ought to be reading, too! A classical education will not be nearly as effective if the parents are not also engaged with the classics. (Before you think I am being condescending, I read very few classical works until I became a classical school teacher! This advice applies to me as well as you.)
Parents who read the classics are modeling for their children what lifelong education looks like. A proper education is never something we arrive at; it is something we are always working towards. When parents read the Great Books, they are showing their children that education does not end when you move the tassel at the end of high school graduation. (Or college/grad school graduation)
Additionally, parents who read to their children are setting them up for success. The child who has their parents read to them each day will do far better than the student who is primarily informed by TV or social media. Give me a student who grew up listening to a parent read Frog and Toad and Narnia over a student who watched 100+ hours of educational TV any day.
Reading is Deeply Christian
To say reading is deeply Christian is not to say that non-Christians can’t be active readers. Non-Christians wrote a large chunk of the books we read in classical schools. Rather, what I mean is that Christ tells us that part of the Christian life is loving God with all of our minds. One major way we engage our minds is to read and wrestle with the thoughts of the great thinkers who came before us.
If you were like me and had largely been out of reading the great works, the best thing to do is simply get started. Pick a book and read it. It may take you a while. It may be hard. But the activity of reading will always pay off if you stick with it.
Some ideas to get started:
- Mere Christianity by CS Lewis (A staple work of Christian Basics)
- Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan (An allegory of the Christian life. The one here is modernized- As of this post, the Kindle version is free!)
- Socrates’ Children by Peter Kreeft (Not a classic, but this set of books provides a very accessible introduction to the 100 most important philosophers. Each entry is short and helps orient you to the ideas that have shaped the world you live in)
Also you can find some of my previous reading ideas here
(Photo by Olena Bohovyk on Unsplash)