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Dr. Michael Collender joins us today to give a special sneak-peek at the new Veritas Self-Paced Rhetoric I course that is launching this Friday, August 29th!

• What will rhetoric students gain through doing this course in a self-paced format?

• What students will be best served through this course?

• What were the motivations behind creating Self-Paced Rhetoric?

All this and more in today’s episode – plus, a preview of some exciting personalities that we interview within the course, including people who have worked on the original Star Wars, coached celebrities, and even built a video game empire.

Episode Transcription

Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode.

Marlin Detweiler:
Welcome to another episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Today we have with us a familiar face from Vox in the past, Dr. Michael Collender. Thank you. Welcome.

Dr. Michael Collender:
Thank you for having me, Marlin. I'm looking forward to this.

Marlin Detweiler:
We have a very specific reason here. Michael has created what we call a self-paced rhetoric course using A Rhetoric of Love, book one. Michael has created a course that is entirely self-paced. So let's just jump right in here. Tell us, what were you hoping to accomplish? What problems were you trying to solve in creating such a course?

Dr. Michael Collender:
Yeah, Marlin, thanks for asking that. I've taught rhetoric for over 20 years, and I love the subject. I love interacting with different students, and I've done these different types of courses, live courses but also online courses and in interacting with students in these different areas. I've always thought it would be so much fun. It would be such a wonderful thing to give to students.

A course that really dials in the details into certain areas of rhetoric where a student who wants to grow in a specific area has a course that takes them through these particular portions of the discipline and gives them a firm foundation, helps them to develop their capacities in those different areas. And so one of the great things about a self-paced course is, you know, from having produced so many of them is that you get to really think about the subject that you're wanting to have students master and then design those specific lessons around teaching the students these particular areas.

And so by working on the self-paced course, we've been able to really focus on developing composition skills and skills in reasoning and helping students understand how to organize arguments, help them to understand the different tools available for delivery. Right. So I wanted to make something that met those students needs. And there were three specific students I had in mind as I was working on this.

And the first student is the student who feels anxiety with public speaking, where the student would love to be comfortable with public speaking.

The student who's feeling that way, really what creates that is this feeling of, I'm going to be getting up to speak. I don't know what I'm going to do in this case. But if a student is just so thoroughly prepared with all of the skills needed for that moment, it really reduces the anxiety.

So this class is a kind of space. I don't want to call it a safe space, but it's as an online class, you're getting to work specifically on the skills on the knowledge base that you would need to be able to speak to an audience. But it's in a place where you can grow and develop yourself in that way.

Yeah. So that's one student. And then the other student is the student who maybe has jumped into classical education midway, and they may be less familiar with composition or with logic. The course has built in review sections to either introduce the students to logic and composition, or to be a helpful review of those subjects.

And so the course has that built into it. But then also and this was one of the major in a way this is like the target part of the audience that I was focusing on is the student who is a high achiever, who really wants to master all of these different areas. But then when they're in a class with 20 other people, they can only ask so many questions.

They can only really dial in so much on the subject matter. What if you could have a course that was designed also for high achievers, where they can really focus on these different areas? And so for that reason, I think this course is going to solve basically any problem that these students have. These three types of students.

And I think that they'll enjoy it and grow toward the mastery that the course is aiming to give them.

00:05:03:22 - 00:05:26:20

Marlin Detweiler:
That's and it's wonderful. As you think in terms of detail in composition or detail in logic or one of the areas help us really understand what that means. If you've touched on it at a high level, but really help us understand what that means in a rhetoric self-paced course or a rhetoric course in general.

Dr. Michael Collender:
Yeah. So when students are trying to organize an essay, say, in composition, it's crucial to be able to know how to structure it. How do you build out that argument that you want to communicate in? For those of you who are listening to this, who are familiar with classical rhetoric, there are, of course, the six parts of discourse that students need to know in order to write essays and argue a point classically.

Well, that's really crucial in composition. But we've all had experiences if you've been in the classical Christian world for a while, of students who fit that structure, but what they're presenting is completely boring. So how do you follow these structures in a way that grips students that have this kind of story grip to them? How do you organize an argument in a story format?

So we're reviewing that material and putting flesh on the bones, as it were, so that students can see how to do that. And it's going to be useful to them whether they've had a comp class or whether they're just jumping into this for the first time. So that would be with composition. With logic there are all of these different aspects of logic, different types of arguments that students need to be familiar with, different logical structures.

And so the course actually provides the opportunity to work through learning about categorical logic and learning about propositional logic. Hopefully this is review for the students. But some students, maybe they've had a critical thinking class and they've just learned about informal fallacies, but they haven't had the chance to be exposed to formal logic. Well, this class will actually walk them through learning formal logic.

And it's not a formal logic class. It's not a replacement for formal logic. They should, of course, be taking formal logic at Veritas Press. But for students who are just jumping into this, it's going to orient them so that then they have the skills to continue learning the higher levels of rhetoric.

Marlin Detweiler:
You know, one of the things that I have come to realize as a so we say mature adult, is how my communication skills have evolved over the decades and how I've realized what is helpful in conversation, what is persuasive, what is effective, what is kind and direct, all of those things. And what I realize is what we're trying to do with students is bring all that to bear in an academic setting so that one doesn't need to learn it by the seat of their pants.

Over decades of mistakes and learn it academically so that they can then quickly learn to apply it and shorten the learning curve, presumably by decades, to be an effective, articulate, enjoyable communicator that really succeeds as a result. What do you see that's helpful and unique in the self-paced course that will help students do that?

Dr. Michael Collender:
That's a great question. There's a kind of quick wittedness that depends upon having thought through the whole world of thought, ideas, communication that those conversations are built upon. So, and I'm going to take this in a kind of strange direction, but bear with me. Yesterday I went to Costco and I was talking to this seven year old kid and he was so articulate.

And his mother is I was talking with him. I asked if he wrote a lot because he was just so articulate. And his mother said, I'm really struggling with getting him to write, but he reads so much, right? His mind was active in reading. Basically, he was an early omnibus student, but he didn't know that omnibus has been invented for him.

But that's the whole idea of why we do classical education is to get students reading, to get them thinking about all of these different aspects that then are the thing that gets activated in conversation. Well, how do you take somebody to the place where their mind can see all of those different things? Well, here in this case, this kid isn't writing, but his mind is just so active.

That kind of getting your mind to think about all of these different things and think about information and communication in these different ways is what that Rhetoric I course does. And of course, you know, the rhetoric two textbook is specifically about conversation in it, and it has all of those different elements in it. But to get to that point where we're practicing conversation and how do you have that witty come back, it's really important to build this foundation.

That's really the foundation for conversation and also debate and all these other aspects of rhetoric.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, it is a course like this is such a significant contributing factor to a young person's ability to communicate and make them so enjoyable in various contexts. I remember one of the things that made me so proud of my children that I enjoyed hearing so much, was when an adult would come up to me and say, I just had the most wonderful conversation with your son.

I only have four. I had son, so it could have been any one of the four of them, and it was so enjoyable just to be able to talk to them, and their ability to communicate and relate to all kinds of things far beyond what was expected or typical of their years, and that that was real heartwarming, because those are the kinds of things that help children become good adults and effective in what they're doing and become leaders and become people that know how to interact and get along with people.

And it really is a remarkable thing. Is there anything about, you mentioned that the self-paced course will help the reluctant rhetorician or student rhetorician, are those the kinds of things that was that a driving factor for you in creating this to make it so that the person that had the anxiety of being part of a group, and this was kind of a stepping stone for them.

I know you covered these things before, but I'm asking you to kind of revisit them so that they're not lost on the listener. What are the real benefits of this self-paced course that way? Yeah.

Dr. Michael Collender:
I've had all kinds of different students, and I've had the students who are really talkative, and they just are able to jump right into doing rhetoric, and they feel very comfortable with it.

Marlin Detweiler:
What percent of students fit that category?

Dr. Michael Collender:
That's the least in my experience, at least maybe 30 or 40%.

Marlin Detweiler:
Okay. And it's largely yeah.

Dr. Michael Collender:
Yeah, jump into it. And part of that is we're in a context.

Marlin Detweiler:
The students came up in a classical setting, so they were encouraged to engage. Yeah.

Dr. Michael Collender:
Right. So there are though I'd say maybe 20% or 30% depending on the class where they do struggle and feel some anxiety. And some of that comes from in recent years, we've had students from public school setting or some other school setting join us because of the different things that have been happening around the world and in culture and with Covid and whatnot.

And so they'll jump in and some of them have anxiety about speaking and it would be really easy to say, well, hey, you need to step up. You have a duty to speak. Let's go ahead and jump on your case. But one of the things I think is really important in the way that students come to be able to speak is that they have to trust the person who's teaching them, but also learn to trust their voice and learn to grow into the skill set.

Right. And there's a way that creating high stakes situations, which sometimes a class can feel this way, creating a high stakes situation where there's a feeling of risk, social risk with an environment that you're not familiar with. There's a way that that can create problems for the voice to feel safe to speak. And of course, do we want to have courage?

Yes. Do we want to encourage students to jump out? Yes. But I think there's a way that even for people who would be hearing me right now and they'd say, hey, kids need to toughen up. I totally get that. But all of us have been in situations where we didn't know what was expected of us.

We didn't know the people who were there, and maybe even you were in a situation. I know I've had this experience where I was in a situation that I was kind of set up to fail it.

And the way that you feel going through that situation and the way that it affects the way that you think is a very difficult and painful experience which is contrary to skill building. And Solomon talks about this in Proverbs. There's a proverb that's often translated as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

But that's actually not what it says. What it says actually in Hebrew is iron with iron sharpens. So one man sharpens the face of his friend. And so what makes the countenance be able to be sharp in public speaking, in social interaction is when we are developing those skills with trusted other people who are our friends, and a great dramatization of this.

If anybody is curious about this, is the movie The King's Speech. Yeah. Where you see lying low.

Marlin Detweiler:
I wouldn't have thought of that. But you're right.

Dr. Michael Collender:
But that's where there's this development of George the Sixth’s ability to speak in his friendship. And that is very much what that proverb is describing in Hebrew. And now somebody might say, well, it's a self-paced class, right? You're not getting that because there isn't this community, but the reality is, and you've been a part of this, we've designed this with love for our students, with the students who will take this.

We're trying to make this thing that loves them, that they feel is excellent and they feel meets them with their needs. And obviously, my contribution to this is I'm taking decades of experience to build this. But there have been a lot of eyes on this. Right. Your eyes have been one set but also Laurie and the whole team.

Yeah. Just we're trying to love our students and really help them have this high quality experience as they learn about all these different skills in this way that will have that effect with the student with anxiety. But then also for the student who really wants to go get it and they want to work through all of the different facets of rhetoric.

We're trying to cover both of those. And I think it's going to be a great experience no matter who you are.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. Well, one of the things that I know, though, that really makes the course exciting and fun is that you've had an enormous amount of interviews with notable people that will add a lot of color and a lot of significance to the course content. Tell us some stories about the people that you've been able to interview and are a part of the course.

Dr. Michael Collender:
Yes. Well, what we've done is we have subject experts in different areas who've joined us in the course, and I just feel very lucky to have them jump in. And all of them were very eager to do this because this is a way to help young people grow in their speaking experience and in their ability to think.

And so, just some examples of this. We have Roger Love, who was the voice coach for Bradley Cooper for A Star Is Born. And he explains how you lay the foundation for great public speaking. He's worked with Selena Gomez. And if you were to take a list of all the people who've worked with him, it's a who's who of Hollywood.

But it's like $150 million in record sales and a bunch of Grammys, right? But what he's doing is he's specifically talking about where do you start and how do you build this foundation for developing an incredibly powerful voice? So not only that, we have also there's a section in the book on architecture and the relationship between architecture and the structure of arguments.

So we have Allen Roderick Jones, who designed the cantina in Star Wars and also part of the Millennium Falcon and the rebel base in Yavin. Right. So this is one of the most iconic production designers ever who's explained to us how architecture relates to story. We have Nolan Bushnell, who created Atari. So anybody who's listening to this, if you played Atari, this is the guy who made the Atari.

Marlin Detweiler:
He was a teenagers of today and they got Atari was.

Dr. Michael Collender:
Basically this is the father of the video game.

Marlin Detweiler:
Right? Yeah, I think.

Dr. Michael Collender:
It's a commercial video.

Marlin Detweiler:
I'm going to guess that there's some 15 year olds out there that don't know what Atari was.

Dr. Michael Collender:
Right. So the father of the video game, the actual guy who created the video game, the commercial video game that we all play, that technology, he talks to us about how to develop curiosity. And he was the mentor of Steve Jobs. And so he's explaining. He wrote a book called Finding the Next Steve Jobs, but he talks to us about how you develop curiosity.

There was a fellow that we interviewed who was friends with the Rolling Stones and the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. He was right around that time he was a singer for the Vince Taylor Band, but he shared the stage with all of these people. He was there when John Lennon, like he was sitting with John Lennon as he was writing the songs for the Beatles.

Right. And this guy is talking about, his name is Prince Stache. His friends call him Prince, but he talked to us about how you cultivate creativity, looking at his experience with all of these great artists in the 20th century, how do you develop creativity in your life? We interviewed Bruce Bryan, who was wrongly incarcerated for 29 years for a crime he didn't commit.

And when he got out, he was actually interviewed by Joe Rogan. But he talks about the power of silence. So the last chapter in the rhetoric one textbook is Love is Silent. And so he explains to us the power of silence and the way that it works on you. And he makes the argument in that interview that when he spent those 29 years.

In prison, that it wasn't that he was serving time, but rather it was time that was serving him and how it was that he came to that mindset to be able to see that and the way the Lord moved in his life to see this so and I could go on with a number of these interviews, but I trust that gives you a flavor.

It's just an incredible group of people who were willing to share their expertise and talk to us about how to get really excellent at the different aspects that the curriculum is covering. But like we were talking about earlier, what we're trying to do is to help our students master all of it. Yeah.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. What an exciting way to capture a student, too. It's always a fun thing to be learning from something that you can relate to because it's important to you in your life. I remember as a student that the things that I enjoyed studying and learning were things that I could relate to. And these videos that you just described are clearly things that children and adults will relate to in wonderful ways.

And I really think that I look forward to hearing many testimonies of people who have enjoyed and benefited from this self-paced rhetoric course. What else would you like to say about it as we have people hear about it from you, the author of the course.

Dr. Michael Collender:
Well, it's my passion that students. Become excellent at all of the skills in rhetoric. I've seen many. Many teachers have public speaking sessions where you go and spend a day and they teach you how to speak.

There are very specific areas, skills, knowledge sets that students need to have to be world class communicators and if I can do something that I think you'll understand it, but I would ask the audience to forgive me in giving these examples. But one of the things I'm noticing right now with my sons is that they've gone through the Veritas program, and they're able to do certain things now that their peers just simply can't do.

And the reason why I'm asking for forgiveness from the audience is I know it sounds like I'm saying, hey, look at my kids. They're awesome. But what I'm actually trying to communicate is that they went through the Veritas course sequence. And this goes right back to Quintilian is, you know, Marlin, the way that you get an orator is you have to give them an entire classical education that begins when they're little kids.

And my sons have had that. And so they're just able to do things in their own preaching. So they're both, they both help out at our church. My son is actually on staff, my oldest son, Jackson, is on staff with the church, but they're just able to do certain things because they've worked on the details of all of these different skills.

And one of the things I've really wanted to do is to have a course where I could actually go into all of those details and give those to students and have them develop themselves in ways that even teaching the subject. I always feel every year that I didn't get to everything that I wanted to or, you know, if only we could have spent more time on this, or if only the students could have worked on this aspect more.

But to have a class where I could actually do it all right, to cover it and just cement that position, it's just so wonderful. And the reason why it's so wonderful, Marlin, your kids were all your sons were all classically educated. So I know you know what I'm referring to, to be able to see the product of that when students graduate.

And for me now getting to see this with my sons, you've graduated. There's just nothing like it. It takes so much work as a parent. But then to see that achieved, it's just so wonderful. But also part of the way that you get there, as Quintilian talks about, is you have to work with teachers.

And so it's not just the work of one parent, but it's best when you have lots of different experts in different areas contribute. And so that's what we're trying to do with this course, not just with me, but also with all of these world class experts who are at the height of their field, who are also speaking into these kids lives.

And my passion would be that just as many people as possible get to enjoy this and experience it for themselves.

Marlin Detweiler:
Michael, thank you so much for your passion for the work that you've done and for telling us about it today. And folks, I hope you'll take an opportunity, if you haven't already, to check out the Veritas Press Self-paced Rhetoric Course, using a Rhetoric of Love, volume one, the first book in a two year series.

Marlin Detweiler:
Michael. This is really fun. It's a fun thing to see this to have come to fruition. Thanks for your work.

Dr. Michael Collender:
Thank you, Marlin.

Marlin Detweiler:
And, folks, thank you for joining us on this episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of Classical Christian Education. We hope to see you next time.