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Have you heard that Veritas Press will soon be releasing a new logic curriculum? Join Michael Eatmon, Dr. Cindy Felso, and Marlin Detweiler as they lay out what students will learn in the all-new Veritas Press Logic II textbook!
Episode Transcription
Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode for better readability.
Marlin Detweiler:
Welcome again to Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Today we have with me people I've known for a while. And, I have the pleasure of working with Cindy Felso and Michael Eatmon. Welcome, guys.
Michael Eatmon:
Thank you. Thank you for having for having us.
Marlin Detweiler:
Cindy and Michael are the authors of a book that is currently in production, called Veritas Logic II. It's the second of two logic texts that we are producing, and I thought it would be good to have them talk about, what they've enjoyed doing with that book and what, you, as a listener might expect from it.
Marlin Detweiler:
But first, let's get you a little bit more familiar with our guests. Cindy, tell us a little bit about yourself, your family, your education, and what you do.
Cindy Felso:
Okay. It's kind of I'm going to try to keep this to a nutshell, because it's been a little bit of a long, circuitous route in my life. But I guess I could just say I set out with certain plans and God had other plans for me, as I've heard so many other people say, I started out– I was undergrad, I was an economics and finance major who had planned on a career in banking, went into banking and was miserable, absolutely miserable.
But I think the writing had been on the wall for years. Ever since when I was young, I would take my younger brother, who may still blame me for this now. I would make him read books. I would make him do book reports for me; I'm a learn-aholic. I love to learn myself, and I just loved to teach and think about how to explain things and use analogies and all that kind of stuff.
So I left banking. I decided I was going to become a certified– New Jersey certified public school teacher. I was certified K through 12 in English and General K-8. And then I didn't really like classroom teaching. and I went into corporate training and I worked for a company called Engineering in Princeton, New Jersey. That was one of the first CBT computer based training companies. They paid for me to get a master's degree in educational technology, and I had a ball. I got to work with truckers and oil industry professionals, and I would meet with them. They would explain how they did the things they did, and then I would design computer based lessons that could be taught to people in the industry, even things like unrigging your big rig trucks and stuff I never would have thought I would have done.
And long story short, then I had children. I have five kids who are not kids so much anymore. They range from 21 to almost 31. And I started homeschooling them because the Lord just put on our hearts that that's what needed to be done. And I felt like, well, “God, you were preparing me for this all along. This is what I do. You gave me this love of learning, this love of teaching.” And I homeschooled my kids all the way through for the oldest ones. My youngest graduated from the Diploma program at VSA. And in that time, I just went crazy learning everything with them. I learned more through homeschooling than I learned in anything else, even my master’s program.
Marlin Detweiler:
I love hearing parents talking about the learning that they got while watching their students learn at Veritas. That's great.
Cindy Felso:
Yeah, I, I learned Latin, I was studying Wheelock's, I was doing all of these things. And the logic I had learned in college, you know, it was nothing compared to digging into it in homeschooling. Then I started teaching and also math because math is really my main love, I guess math and logic. So overlapping! and I just started teaching at homeschool co-ops. Teaching kids would come to my house and teaching them because I found if you teach these things in a different way, it's not like just throwing all the facts at a kid. They bounce off a week after the quiz. You can really give them these tools, and they will have them for the rest of their lives. And I just became so excited that I signed up to get my doctorate at Regent University and studying educational psychology, because I still just wanted to really master this idea. How do we best teach? How do people learn? And with Regent being a Christian university, I met the right answers. I met the answers that we are designed to learn. And I had the idea that I was going to go ahead and go out, become a college professor at some point. And in my dissertation phase, I interviewed with VSA to just teach a few classes here and there, hopefully magic. I mean, math or logic!
Marlin Detweiler:
Math is magic sometimes.
Cindy Felso:
Yeah. And I was hired. That was seven years ago. I am still here.
Marlin Detweiler:
And you're stuck!
Cindy Felso:
Yeah. I'm stuck! And I love what I do. I love my students. And this has been just wonderful to get to work on the logic book because it brings just like God has a way of doing this. Everything we ever encounter or go through in life, he's preparing us. So all those different – I have taught from practically every curriculum out there when it comes to logic, and I've seen how different students learn in different settings. And now I can finally think about that and bring it to this project.
Marlin Detweiler:
Wonderful, wonderful. Michael, I know you got this before here. So, people, maybe some listeners may be familiar with you, but tell us a little bit about yourself.
Michael Eatmon:
Sure. Thank you. Thanks for the invitation. So my story began as Cindy’s did, completely unrelated to what I'm currently doing. So as I went through college and imagined my future, I envisioned that I would be a college academic over in the British Isles until I dropped dead with a pipe in my hand and a smile on my face, and it didn't work out that way. God, of course, had other plans, and soon after college I moved from the southeast down to Florida, began my seminary training, and it wasn't too long into my seminary preparation when in fact, Marlin, I met you and Laurie, and R.C. Sproul and others at the time who introduced me to this idea that I had sometimes blessed and sometimes cursed over the years.
And that is this classical Christian education. Blessing, because it is a treasure chest chock full of gold, of what's true and good and beautiful and cursed because I have been reminded time and time and time again both that I didn't get that kind of education when I was growing up. And number two, that I'm running out of time to get it.
I'm not as young as I was when I graduated from college, so soon after that period, and over the course of the next dozen years, I formally studied classical and modern foreign languages, theology, and philosophy. But in undergrad and graduate educational settings. But I also began work at a Christian classical school here in Central Florida, at the Geneva School, where I served for 15 years, both as teacher and as Academic Dean, teaching and as teachers often do in small classical Christian schools, particularly in the early days teaching everything except that course for which you need a break to have your lunch. And that was the case for me. But I spent most of my time at the Geneva school teaching math. Interestingly, there's a significant overlap there with you, Cindy, math, logic, and foreign language, and those really are and have been for quite some time my passions. I'm interested in all kinds of other things, but I'm especially passionate about those.
In 2008, I left the Geneva School, have been working since as an education consultant in different capacities. Soon after leaving the Geneva School, I worked with the Rafiki Foundation, which is an organization headquartered here in Central Florida with work in ten different nations of sub-Saharan Africa, working to take classical Christian education to the African continent. And I found that work also rewarding.
And it was while representing Rafiki. In fact, I hope Rosemary Jensen isn't listening to this. It was while working with Rafiki, but attending an ACCS conference, that the Detweilers and I, and Laurie – In fact, I think it was, and I reconnected. This was about 12 years ago, and this is a bit of a paraphrase, but the message that I heard was, “Hello Michael, how are you? God loves you and Veritas has a wonderful plan for your life.” Ha! There's something to that, something to that effect.
And that that began a re-union of my professional work and personal life's story with the Detweilers individually and with the greater Veritas family as a whole. So over the last 12 years, I have served as the Director of Curriculum Development for Veritas Press.
So the fraternal twin to Veritas Scholars Academy in the Veritas family and I have worked on about a dozen different products and projects, some of which are ink on paper, some of which are facts. And where we find ourselves today, talking about this conversation, I think represents products 12, 13, and 14, something like that. Student edition workbook and teacher edition of Logic II.
Marlin Detweiler:
But wonderful, wonderful introductions. Thank you. We're talking today about the Veritas Press Logic Curriculum. The first book is out. The second book is for the most part out as we speak. But it will be, this is being recorded in April of 2024, and it will be finished shortly. And so we thought it a good thing to talk about why we would do a logic curriculum when there are probably six, eight, a dozen logic curricula already in place.
Give us a little bit of, first, maybe we'll do it a two-fold question so that you can pass the questions. Parse the answers. The first question is, what are the objectives of Veritas? Logic, maybe logic in general and Veritas in particular. And then with regard to the particularity of Veritas, what sets Veritas Press logic apart from the others? As you know, we like to use the phrase “how can we build a better mousetrap?” So what makes Veritas logic a better logic mousetrap?
Michael Eatmon:
so I'm going to jump in and provide a kind of global perspective. And then Cindy, who has been on the ground working with some of these other curricula over the years, I think will be able to give a more tactical analysis. So from the more global perspective, I would say our overall objectives in developing our own logic were fundamentally twofold.
From my perspective, number one was to provide the highest quality educational materials we can in the two main branches of logic. Logic I focuses on informal logic, which I'll unpack in just a moment, and Logic II focuses on formal logic. Now, within each one of those tags, then we focus on different aspects of informal and formal logic. Within informal logic, we zeroed in on two different kinds of reasoning inductive and abductive reasoning.
This isn't going to be a seminar on those two disciplines. So I would just encourage folks to take a look at that text.
And then as we use these as frames for the conversation, we explore four key aspects. Key areas of informal logic.
We take a look at its grounding in a theory of knowledge. So the first section of the book deals with epistemology.
Then we in the next two sections, take a look at common impediments to sound thinking and reasoning. One area we look at initially is that of cognitive biases. The other area we look at is that of informal logical fallacies. These two are not the same thing, and I must add that our approach to informal logic gives, I think, a great deal of attention and too much missed attention in many other materials to cognitive biases. So cognitive biases, of course, deal with how the brain misprocesses information. It's not a reasoning defect, it's a process error.
And then the fourth section in the text takes a look at the basics of argumentation theory and ethics.
Book two, Logic II focuses on formal logic. And here the reasoning lens we're looking through is not induction or abduction, although they do appear on occasion. But deduction. Deduction is the reasoning of certainty. And it says there's absolutely no way for these premises to be true. And that conclusion to be false. So what we do is we train students in deductive reasoning, the reasoning of necessary inference. And within that text, again, we've divided it into four different foci. The first section is a kind of condensed recapitulation of the foundation. The theory of knowledge, what an argument is, its anatomy and structure. And then we launch straight into categorical logic. So categorical logic takes up the larger chunk of the first half of the book.
And then taking up the larger chunk of the second half of the book is propositional logic. Now, I probably should say something about propositional logic. And that is if someone were to open logic two up in the middle of the propositional logic section, they would say, “Is this logic or algebra?” And then if they flipped a few pages later, they would say, “oh, no way, it's geometry, because that's a two column truth.” And there is indeed a great deal of overlap and cross-pollination.
And then the fourth section of the book is an introduction to debate. So I said that there were two macro objectives, and one of them, provide the highest quality materials we can in informal and formal logic. But the second objective for me was to say however important these skills are, however important it is to develop a good logician. I also want for our materials to help transform hearts and minds. So that we have better persons who are using the tools.
Marlin Detweiler:
Wonderful, wonderful. Cindy, what do you want to add to that?
Cindy Felso:
Wow, he did such a great job of just laying that out so systematically. I guess what I would like to add, I think what's been wonderful is I believe that Michael and I have just really been on the same page as far as our philosophy of education. I think we see things so much the same way, and I think we've both been on board with wanting to have those bigger goals met.
And the way– I think we've struck a good balance. I've only been involved with writing book two, but I think the way that we are writing it to include teaching students through analogy, bringing in different situations, some of the narratives in it that can kind of connect what we're studying to real life and continually repeating certain concepts so that it's not that way, that many books today just kind of throw a lot. “Oh, here's all of the rules. Here's all the topics. Just stick it in your head.” And we're not doing that. We're having those really integral concepts come back over and over again when you least expect it, it comes back up. And I think that's the best way for students to learn.
I think we're also following our Lord's command about treating others as we would have them treat us. We're loving our neighbors, these children, especially since many students will take their first logic course in the middle school years. And I know, you know, Dorothy Sayers kind of lining it up the different years with the different stages of classical education, so that the logic stage lines up with middle school. And she pointed out that they like to start arguing, which, oh, sure, they do.
But the thing is, I see it as we're bridging from a grammar stage into that logic stage. There's so much grammar they still need to get, and they're ready to just take off on the first day of class. In any logic class I've ever had, they start saying, when are we going to debate? And they aren't ready. They need this undergirding. And I think the way we've designed this will really give them that undergirding.
Marlin Detweiler:
One of the the follow up questions, which I think we're ready to jump into, is what sets it apart, what makes it a better mousetrap? And one of the things that for two decades was a question in my mind, which is best to start with formal logic or to start with informal logic. And I've seen it done both ways.
But the process that we went through of designing this curriculum made me realize that it is absolutely best to start with informal logic and go to formal using one of the principles, from John Milton Gregory's book. And that is, to go from the familiar to the less familiar for the student, it's an aid in learning, and it's also allowed us, because the student is a little older and has done a little bit more, sophisticated math and other things to get into formal logic and a level that I think exceeds any of the curriculum that we have used, or are aware of. But what would you all say the better mousetraps are that we've been able to create?
Michael Eatmon:
That is a great question. There are a few different, better mousetrap mechanisms that come to my mind. One of them, frankly, that began as a chapter or two, one-off in book one, but I think has become an integral part of what sets us apart is the casual and even narrative interaction that goes on not only with the characters. I mean, honestly, I think I'm approaching the end of book two, and I think I'm going to have to say goodbye to Renny and Jose, and I'm not sure I'm ready for that. I think I might need counseling. So I appreciate that because I believe strongly, as you see in A Rhetoric of Love, I believe strongly in the power of story to pull the reader in and to say “This stuff that I'm studying is not just stuff to cram into my head. This is stuff that is relevant in reality. And I can associate with Renny. Oh gosh, my sister is like, Jen, I'd love to have a teacher like Mrs. Sagewright, which arguably is Doctor Bell,” so yeah, but, and so I appreciate that better mousetrap idea.
Another thing that I believe helps set us apart is that I am not satisfied with a mere algorithmic approach to teaching math, for that matter, or logic simply to say, here's a set of rules just memorize them- whenever you see any situation that kind of looks like this, just plug and chug. Plug it into the formula, get the answer, don't ask questions. I don't come from that school of thought. I would rather particularly when we're dealing with students who are engaging not only in dialectic conversation, but dialectic reasoning. I would rather say, here is what we are saying you ought to do, but here's why. And can you discern why this is the better way to do this, or the best way to do this?
So I think that kind of engagement with the student in meta logic, why is it working in the way that it's working is also important. And then I also think that a frankly, another aspect that sets us apart is the workbook. And this will sound maybe kind of funny, but this workbook is not a series of photo reproducible handouts, you know, where you just say, “Okay, there's one idea, do 30 of these problems, and then move on to the next worksheet.” It's not like that at all. Each one of these workbook chapters really calls on the students not only to demonstrate some concept learned, or skill acquired, presumably acquired in a given chapter, but put it into practice.
But then there are also so many opportunities to take some of the principles that are introduced in the chapter Concepts and Skills, and apply them either laterally to things that are not discussed in the chapters, or to go much more deeply into some topics that are only touched on in the chapter. And so, from my vantage point, I view the workbook almost as student edition, part two. And I think both of them, taken as a whole, really constitute a full-orbed Logic II experience.
Marlin Detweiler:
Cindy, you've taught maybe even more curricula than I'm familiar with or that Michael is familiar with or has taught. What do you see as making the Veritas logic be a better mousetrap?
Cindy Felso:
I think I'm 100% in agreement with Michael, especially this workbook part, which at first as I came on and I'm not writing the workbook, I was just reviewing the workbook exercises, and I kind of– it took me a while. I had this idea we needed to have all of the exercises to teach something within a chapter of the book, and then the old workbook practice.
And as I started to realize what Michael was setting up and started kind of jumping on board, I got really excited about this because I thought, “This is terrific.” The workbook exercises are allowing the student to level up in their skills to dig in deeper, like he said, and see connections laterally. I don't think you can beat that, and I don't. I haven't seen it out there anywhere. Most of anything that I have seen has basically done a very similar approach to a public school approach, and whether it has the classical content or not, it's still that same approach. The presentation here, just use it several different times, go on to the next presentation, and it's not giving you those tools.
I see students and I can see it in my classroom right now. We're kind of as we go along. We're starting to use Logic II in the classroom. They're more comfortable. They are seeing connections. We're not doing a million proofs, but we're digging into a few proofs and it's working.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. It's always fun to set out with a plan and to realize there's no point in doing this if we can't produce something that's better. And to come, right at the end of the project or near the end of the project and to realize our goals, to realize we've realized our goals is really fulfilling. Thank you.
Well, I have one last question. What do we hope to produce? What do we expect our logic curriculum to produce in our students? This, sometimes pragmatism matters, and this is one of those instances. I think it's a very important question. What do we think will help make our students different?
Cindy Felso:
I can take this one first.
Michael Eatmon:
Yeah, sure.
Cindy Felso:
I just have this idea about lenses. And that was the analogy that was used in the first Veritas Press book, just really giving them tools that they can take with them for the rest of their lives, giving them a lens to view all of their subjects and everything they encounter in life. I mean, everything has a logic to it.
So always being able to have that weight, we should be able to see the steps leading to any sort of conclusion. We need to question the premises of anything that is being proposed to us in any subject, in any conversation. I hope that that's what we're giving them.
Michael Eatmon:
I love that, and I couldn't agree more. And I'll echo by saying, I hope and believe that the students who take these courses and really dig themselves into it will leave on the other end with a far deeper and heavier toolbox, frankly, for the discernment and discovery of truth, goodness and beauty as they present themselves to them in the form of claims and arguments purporting to be true or good or beautiful, the students will have better tools with which they can explore them, analyze, ask the question and answer in what's being said here and is it true?
So on the one hand, a heavier set of tools. On the other hand, I hope too that when these students leave that they have found in this two part program, a hand off– a bridge to the rhetoric series as well, because I didn't conceive of the two logic courses in isolation. But to fit hand in glove with the effective, persuasive, winsome communication of truth, goodness, and beauty. And now they have the basic thinking tools to do so.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, that's a great place for us to finish. Thank you so much. Thank you not only for today, but for the work that you have done. As one of the editors, I've read every word and enjoyed most of the time reading it. Some of that mathematical logic, I told Michael that you didn't hear me say this before, and I'll admit it publicly. I would have had to have gone a lot deeper than just editing to really have have gotten it. And I had him assure me that there was enough practice. The students would master it because some of it gets to be pretty thick, and it's very good exercise for the students.
Thank you for joining us.
Michael Eatmon:
Thank you.
Cindy Felso:
Thank you.
Marlin Detweiler:
Folks. Thank you for listening. You've again been part of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. We hope to see you next time.
