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Join us for a sneak peek at the up-and-coming Veritas Self-Paced Rhetoric course, featuring Dr. Michael Collender, editor of A Rhetoric of Love and author of A Rhetoric of Love Volume II.
What is Rhetoric? Why learn it? How will the new Self-Paced course work? Answers to these questions and more await you in this episode of Veritas Vox!
Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode for better readability.
Marlin Detweiler:
Hello again and welcome to another episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Today we have someone who's quite familiar to me and may be familiar to you, Michael Collender, one of the teachers of Veritas Scholars Academy. Welcome, Michael.
Dr. Michael Collender:
Marlin, thank you for having me. And it's an honor to be on the most downloaded classical Christian podcast in the world.
Marlin Detweiler:
Well, that's kind of you to mention. And we're kind of enjoying having that be the case. Michael has taught a whole lot of things for us over the years and has created classes and that sort of thing. Before we jump into our subject here, tell us what all you've taught for us.
Dr. Michael Collender:
Oh, my. I've taught a number of Omnibus classes over the years. And then I have been teaching rhetoric here for, I think, the whole time that I've been here. That's really been my profession is teaching rhetoric. But also, I teach economics and psychology, film, and worldview, too. I also teach Omnibus classes still during the summer. So, yeah, an assortment of classes.
Marlin Detweiler:
A lot of things. And very much beloved, been here 16 or 17 years, I think.
Dr. Michael Collender:
I think we're coming up on that. Yeah. I think this is the 16th year.
Marlin Detweiler:
That's wonderful. Well, today we want to talk about something that has been a real project that you brought to us, that you have really wanted to do. And you and I really want to hear more about it, so we're looking forward to that. Michael was involved with Doug Jones in both writing and editing our rhetoric curriculum.
Michael edited the first volume and wrote the second volume. Doug Jones reversed roles with him. And the rhetoric curriculum has been a wonderful addition to the Veritas copyrights. Michael then thought about how he can take that course into a very different area. Tell us about what that is. I'll let you introduce what it is, but tell us what you're thinking has been from the time of creating the content, the rhetoric texts to today and the project that you're working.
Dr. Michael Collender:
Oh. Thank you, Marlin. Yeah. The rhetoric textbook focuses on the theme of a rhetoric of love. So all throughout the Bible, we see this as a theme in the New Testament that we communicate in a way that is fundamentally rooted in love and as a result of that, that type of communication is even better than speaking in angelic tongues.
Right? That's really where the core of wisdom is at. But to do that well, you have to love in the details. If you think about it like your house, if you want to love somebody who comes over to your house, you end up loving them in trifles, in good manners, in all of these little details. But it's the love that comes through those details that makes your hospitality so powerful.
If you've ever been over at somebody's house and they're technically being hospitable, but you know that they don't love you, it just feels really weird and gross, and that's kind of the feeling that I think a lot of people have about the subject of rhetoric, that rhetoric is this way of manipulating people. Yeah, that it's this way of manipulating people and controlling them.
And so it makes us afraid in the same way that if we were to go to somebody's house and they were super creepy, but we're keeping all the rules of good manners, we would just want to run away. Well, for that reason, love really is at the center of what rhetoric is. I made this argument in a Ted talk a couple of years ago that really, that's what love, what rhetoric is, is it's loving people in the details.
And so one of the things I've really been excited to do is to do a self-paced rhetoric course that focuses on training students in rhetoric. But in all of these details, building out all of these skills for students. And I'm trying to take 20 plus years of teaching rhetoric and all of these student spaces and all of these different areas of skill where I had to work with different students to develop their abilities. And I'm trying to make a self-paced class that does that for any student who takes it.
Marlin Detweiler:
So a self-paced rhetoric class. I know the answer to this because we're working together on it, but that seems a little bit unusual. Tell us how that will work, why it's not something to be thought of as odd.
Dr. Michael Collender:
Well, that's a great question. And the reason why is that class is being built with attention to a problem that I think we're facing now as a society. So recently I was running, and in some experience I was having in my own teaching by a friend of mine who's a dean of academics at another school, and just noticing students feeling anxiety when being given feedback and whatnot.
And as I was describing things that I was seeing, he said, you know, we're seeing the same thing at our school. And he's in conversation with a number of deans of academics at other schools, and that they're all noticing that in that 16-year-old, the teenager age group, there are a number of things that are emerging that we could think of as students being fragile in certain ways.
And this is something that really is not, I think it's not parents' fault. Right. In fact, there are a lot of parents who are noticing things like this and they're really trying to serve their kids. But these kids have grown up in a context where if you think of a 16-year-old now in 2024, when was that kid born? In 2008.
And what's happened in the United States and around the world since 2008? Right. We have the Tea Party movement. There's been all this divisiveness, the rise of YouTube and online social media, where algorithms are driven by negative emotions. And so you have all of this content where these kids are now online interacting with each other online.
But all of this social media is driven with this negative content, while at the same time, like we all grew up face-to-face interacting with each other. Well, what do you do in a situation where kids are online? They're having these experiences online, through social media. And the social media is stirring up. Well, we might say in the world of professional organizational development, it's a lack of emotional intelligence because of the kind of content they're being fed with.
They don't have the normal experience that we had in developing our emotional intelligence, which doesn't mean that they're not intelligent. It's just they're put in a situation that’s the worst possible world for developing. And parents are facing these challenges too. So I've worked on building this class with three kinds of fragility. Related to this new world that we're encountering. And the first one is –
Marlin Detweiler:
What you're saying is you're addressing three forms of fragility by how you're building this class.
Dr. Michael Collender:
Yes.
Marlin Detweiler:
You're using this class.
Dr. Michael Collender:
Well, the rhetoric is supposed to make students antifragile where they can handle any situation. So we want to take all of the tools of classical education and equip students to be eloquent, to be able to handle situations and communicate and relate to others. But we want to do that in a world where we're also encountering all of these other things. Right. We want to equip these students to be master communicators in any particular situation they meet.
Marlin Detweiler:
Talk to us about these three things. Now, really unpack this. This is really the heart of what we're talking about.
Dr. Michael Collender:
Right. Well, regarding the situation with kids feeling anxiety, if you think about it, you're taking an online class, right? Or even a day school class and you're just learning these skills in public speaking, but you don't know them yet, but yet you're having to perform them out in front of people, right? It creates all kinds of opportunities for students to want to hide, to not feel safe in communicating.
And what will we as adults want if we're in that situation? You know, I would appeal to fathers in this if you want to be a good father to have the opportunity to connect with other guys who are good fathers, who can talk to you about the things that you can do and set you up for success.
That's what you want. The same thing with your church. You want to have your church giving you resources to set you up for success. It's the same thing with teaching, right? If you're a student, you want to be set up for success. And so what happens if in a self-paced environment where you get to work on these skills on your own, you could develop all of these abilities ahead of time and then step into a live classroom like a rhetoric class.
But with all of these abilities that you've trained yourself in, it's an opportunity to step into a world of learning public speaking and communicating with a lot more confidence. So I'm designing the course specifically for that student. But also there's another student. What about the students who, in the midst of the world that we're in right now, they have wanted to and parents maybe have pulled them out of a public school situation or a difficult school situation.
And now they've discovered classical education, but they're coming into it mid-stream. Maybe they haven't had comp or maybe they haven't had logic, or it was just like a general critical thinking class, but not really a formal logic class. This course is designed so that you may not have any of that background, but you can still step into it and it basically teaches you the elements of comp and writing and organizing your thoughts and logic.
And we have a number of weeks on formal logic where these subjects are taught. But the way that they're taught allows the student to get immediate feedback on the lesson where you might get a ten-minute lesson and then you immediately apply what you're doing with questions, or with a game, or with some sort of exercise that directly relates to that lesson.
So that the students who haven't had the background can get equipped for the class in the middle of the class. Right? So that's a different kind of fragility from the first student. But then there's a third situation where you've got some classical Christian students just eat classical Christian education for breakfast. Right? They just love it.
You know, had so many Omnibus students that are like that. But what happens when you're in a class where the teacher is also trying to meet the needs of other students, and you may not get the review? That would be so helpful—a review of comp, or a review of logic, where you get to take all of these principles that you learned at one time you were really good at.
But now you're not getting to apply them in the new class in the same way. And I have to be really careful here because I teach for next year. I'm teaching three live rhetoric classes, and I feel like I'm kind of eating my own class at this point. But it's a real thing, right? You want to be able to work through all of these different skills with students, but you don't really have the time as a teacher because you're teaching.
You know, in my case, I'm teaching 20 students in a class. Right. How do you get into the details of that? Why specifically? I'm designing this class for that. Also, that high achieving student, which isn't to say that the other students aren't high achieving, but these are different kinds of fragility that we're working through for that student that just wants to excel.
What if you could go through a rhetoric curriculum class where all of these fundamental core skills are fine-tuned and honed? So that you can master every single one of them, and you can know immediately the kind of mastery that you have in that situation, right, to be able to do that and to be able to build.
Marlin Detweiler:
To get immediate feedback for 20 students, every class.
Dr. Michael Collender:
Right. You just can't do it now. Which is not to say that the online experience is bad. I think it's actually very, very important, right, to be able to socialize with other students. It's wonderful and crucial. But I'm approaching this from the perspective of just as a rhetoric teacher, I love being able to, you know, and I'll do this when I'm teaching where we're at the beginning of the class, I kind of don't really grade severely.
Not that I try to grade severely, but it's not like I'm trying to ding them for this thing or that thing. Rather, I really am trying to get a sense of where the student is in themselves, what they're bringing to the experience of the class. Right. And then I try to work on those things specifically with that student.
But there's only so much time in a class with 20 students where you get to work on those things. But to have a self-paced class where, from the basis of my experience, to be able to work through all of these little things, to move a student from beginner to mastery, it's really exciting. I just love it.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. How do you see where are the use cases you just described individual students. Of course, the self-paced class can be taken any time by somebody in any place, right? How would you describe the use cases that you see it being put to then beyond the three forms of fragility that you think it addresses?
Dr. Michael Collender:
Well, any situation where a student doesn't have, say, immediate access to being able to do a speech class or rhetoric class with a number of other students, or where someone may not have a rhetoric teacher available. Another thing might be classical schools that want to develop a rhetoric program, but you may not have a rhetoric teacher yet, or...
Marlin Detweiler:
Or not enough students to afford the rhetoric teacher that might be available. Right?
Dr. Michael Collender:
Or quite frankly. I was talking recently with a lady who does advocacy and campaigning for a political candidate. She was telling me that they find staffers who are willing to write speeches for these politicians. Politicians' offices that want to have really great communicators can work through this course.
It really is the sort of thing that anybody who wants to gain mastery in this area... I am designing this to give that at whatever age. I'm targeting it toward high school students primarily, but it's designed to equip people.
Marlin Detweiler:
Well, a self-paced class can be taken by any number of people at any number of ages. This makes perfect sense. The whole category of effective speech writing and politics is one example. Another example is, frankly, sermon writing.
Dr. Michael Collender:
Yes. This is a course that anyone interested in ministry would benefit from. And quite frankly, not to toot my own horn, but both of my sons, who went through Veritas and have graduated now, the kind of mindset that I was applying as a parent, thinking about how to equip them as public speakers, that's what I'm trying to put into the self-paced course.
Both of them are invited to speak and they're active in their church, in leadership, in public speaking, using the skills they learned at Veritas. For many of the families who are hearing what I'm describing, I've heard from them the same sort of thing that they love this. This is what this course is designed to do.
Even if you're not in a situation where you have access to a live classroom or, for time reasons, you can't do our online rhetoric class, tell me.
Marlin Detweiler:
Look, 5 or 10 years down the road and tell me what you would hope to hear from the people who have taken the class and the next couple of years and have lived with the results.
Dr. Michael Collender:
Well, a couple things. One for the kids themselves, that they would come back and say it's so valuable to have mastery of all these different areas of rhetoric, where I can see how to communicate to an audience, but also how to organize my thoughts, how to argue, and in any situation that I face. I'm not afraid.
I can be confident that I can step into that situation and handle myself. So that's a very important one. But also with families, the joy of being able to see your kids go on and succeed and be confident in those situations. There's something as a parent that just feels so good when your kids are making wise decisions, but where they're able to contribute leadership and they're able to handle themselves.
My hope in two years, five years, ten years down the line, when those moments come where they're able to take advantage of the moment, right, where there's this thing where they could be the one who speaks, and that choice ends up accelerating their opportunities or their career. The joy that brings to a family to see their kid, to see their student able to do that, there's just nothing like it.
Marlin Detweiler:
That's fascinating. It's wonderful to see these things develop. We appreciate people like you that bring ideas to us that we can help facilitate, to bring to the marketplace, and really excited. What's the availability?
Dr. Michael Collender:
You mean how many people will be able to access it?
Marlin Detweiler:
Now, I know that that's unlimited, and I suspect that's known intuitively by our listeners. When will it first be available for use?
Dr. Michael Collender:
Right. I would expect that people who are signing up for it will be able to use it for this coming school year.
Marlin Detweiler:
So 2025-2026.
Dr. Michael Collender:
That's right. The 25-26 school year. There is, as you might imagine, a lot of editing and production involved. I teach a full load at Veritas, but it is coming together and it's exciting just to see it assemble. So one of the things I have a personal passion of trying to understand wisdom, and wisdom is defined as I would define it.
And I think this is what Proverbs is getting at as the skill of using information to make things of lasting value. As I'm putting this course together and also with the rest of the team, I'm striving to use information, you know, through the skill of the experience that I've gained over the last 20 years to make something of lasting value, where students are going to have this resource for years to come.
But in doing that, as a parent, if I put that hat on, the thing that I'm working on is my kids, and I'm taking all of my experience, like many parents are, taking that experience, that work, trying to apply skill and information to make something of lasting value, which is the equipping in the life for my students.
Right. Or, you know, in this case, for my kids. It's my hope that this tool I'm working on would be a service to them and help them in that journey of making what they're making, which is of eternal, lasting value.
Marlin Detweiler:
What sounds like a good stopping place, but I don't want to cut you off. Is there anything else that you want to say about it?
Dr. Michael Collender:
I'm just so like, as somebody who loves rhetoric and loves students and has done this for a number of years, I like the opportunity to make this and bless families and students in ways where I could never get this many students, you know, who could be served by this into a classroom to equip them.
But to be able to build this, it's one of those highlights of your life kind of thing where, as a teacher who's passionate about teaching rhetoric, it's just incredible to be able to do this and to be able to give this to parents. Over the years, having taught here for 16 years and getting to meet parents at the end of the year gathering and just the investment that they make in loving their kids, to be able to make something that fits into that vision that they have for their families. There's just nothing like it.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. It's yeah. You touched on something there that really gets me up in the morning, and that is the excitement to be able to do the things that we do and then hear the feedback that we do from Veritas families. It's wonderful, and having a passion of yours be able to be focused on this way and leveraged for the benefit of many is really... I can understand that. That's a wonderful thing.
Dr. Michael Collender:
Well, it's like the choice that you made, you know, where you shifted over from one area of business. I know you would have made so much money in that, but then to take all of those business skills because you're passionate about having families be equipped and get classical Christian education. All that business skill at the service of other families, you know, I imagine that's incredibly satisfying for you too.
Well, and also making the system that is financially stable for serving all these families. It just must be very satisfying.
Marlin Detweiler:
Thanks for noting that. We're in the same boat for that one. Yeah. Well, thanks, Michael. Great to have you on again, folks. Thank you again for joining us at Veritas Vox. We hope to see you the next time, Michael.
Dr. Michael Collender:
Thank you, Marlin.