How Literature Shapes the Souls of Young People
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Welcome to the Hillsdale College K-12 Classical Education Podcast, bringing you insight into classical education and its unique emphasis on human virtue and moral character, responsible citizenship, content-rich curricula, and teacher-led classrooms. Now your host, Scott Bertram. Thanks for listening. The Hillsdale College K-12 Classical Education Podcast is part of the Hillsdale College K-12

podcast network. More episodes at podcast.hillsdale.edu or wherever you find your audio.

You also can find more information on topics and ideas discussed on this show at our website, k12.hillsdale.edu. We're joined by Carissa McCarthy, a fourth grade teacher at Seven Oaks Classical School in Ellettsville, Indiana. Today we're talking about how literature shapes the souls of young people, or the moral imagination. Carissa, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Before we get started, tell us a little bit about...

Your job is a fourth grade teacher and something about Seven Oaks, please. So I've taught fourth grade for four years. I teach every subject. I'm with the kids all day and it is the most rewarding and most challenging job I have ever had. I think I have learned more about what it means to be human from these fourth graders than actually living life. Their stories, the way that they talk,

take what I'm teaching them and apply it to their life and then regurgitate it back to me in a beautiful way. Just open my eyes to see the world in a new way. And so I'm so grateful to be able to teach every day. As we get started here, we have to perhaps tell people what we're talking about, which is the moral imagination. So how do you define the moral imagination and what are we going to be talking about here today? Yeah, great question. The moral imagination, I...

tried to write a definition, and it's just so much more than a piffy definition that we can memorize, because we really try to teach our children morals. That's the point of the Hillsdale K-12 education is to teach virtue. But I have found that it's not enough just to say, do not lie, do not steal, do

Be good. There needs to be a connection between these rules, these virtues, and how to be a good human and the children caring about what they love, their affections. And we can talk about courage all day long.

But it's so hard to find because it's outside rationality. But when we read the tale of Despero and we see this tiny little mouse, you know, do something brave and courageous, we actually understand what courage is and how we can do it in our life.

We can talk about sacrifice all day long, what that looks like, how to do it. But when we read the Red Badge of Courage or Where the Red Fern Grows, it actually becomes real and we can imagine how we would do sacrifice in our own life. How do we sacrifice what we love for the sake of the world, the sake of our family? We can discuss the virtue of friendship all day long.

But when we read in Anne of Green Gables, the friendship between Anne and Diana, it actually comes to life more. And that's what the moral imagination does. It allows us to take those things that are outside rational thought and actually learn what they are and give us ways to implement them in our own life. For example, this past year, I had a student who just lied and lied and lied. And I knew she was lying. I had evidence.

And I would just say, like, do you want to be a woman of integrity? And she's like, yeah, and then would continue to lie. And I was like, how do I get it across to this girl that she is lying and she needs to own up to her mistake? And I remembered how much she loved George Washington. And we've talked about how George Washington is a man of integrity, a man of his word, what he said he did. And when he made a mistake, he owned up to it.

And so I finally went up to her after she lied to me about stealing a cookie. And I was like, you're not acting like George Washington right now. And the look on her face, because she wanted to be like George Washington. And the look on her face when she saw that she wasn't measuring up to the standard of George Washington, she immediately confessed her lie and was like,

Oh, my gosh. I'm so sorry. I didn't know that, that I wasn't being like George Washington. And that moment where I was like, I was just trying to teach her a moral. I was just trying to teach her a rule like don't steal. But the moment you shift it to a story, to a historical person, it came to life and she realized her mistake and wanted to change it for the course of her life.

Why is that? Why is storytelling, by extension literature, such a powerful tool in teaching children these virtues and also shaping their moral imagination? Yeah, I think about that because we love stories so much. And so often, like, we read a story and then we forget about it. But it actually sits in our brain for so much longer than we think.

And it allows us to imagine what should be done, what ought to be done safely. We can travel through the forest and fight alongside Sir Lancelot without actually having to fight, without actually having to risk the fact that our head may be cut off.

Or we may lose an arm. It's a safe place to learn. And children need a safe place to learn. We cannot just be sending them out into the real world to face these hard problems. We need to give them experiences. And they are, kindergartners are five years old. And they, their experience in life is so limited. And so stories build experience. And the moral imagination is based on

the richness of experience. So the more that you experience, the more that you are able to imagine, the more virtue you are allowed to see. And so stories give children experiences that they wouldn't otherwise.

Many pieces that you'll read with your students are decades old, a century old, more than that in the case of George Washington. Does that time difference matter at all? No, the time difference does not matter. That's actually the beauty of it. We get to rely on the past. Edmund Burke is the first person who coined the term of the moral imagination. And he was writing Reflecting on the French Revolution, which is a book that I wrote about

is extremely radical. They were trying to replace the calendar. They wanted to make the week 10 days long instead of seven. And Edmund Burke saw that this hyper rationality of the French Revolution and of the Enlightenment was actually detrimental to the moral imagination. He saw that

When you take away the moral imagination, you have a void. And what's going to fill that void? Passion, lust, anger, greed, power, money. And those are terrible things to have for your society, which ultimately lead to violence. And that's what happened in the French Revolution.

And where do we get the moral imagination from is from the past. And when we remove the past, we're no longer having that connection and learning from them. And they've already walked through all these trials. So we don't have to. Now, it doesn't mean all tradition is good. There is some bad tradition. But when we remove all tradition, we actually miss out on what has come before, which actually is beautiful wisdom. Okay.

It starts with Burke, French Revolution. Is there anything else we want to say about the history of the moral imagination and perhaps how that concept shifts or adjusts over the years? Well, it went from Burke to Russell Kirk, which I think is really fun that it rhymes. And Russell Kirk did, I believe, most of the writing on the moral imagination. But C.S. Lewis takes it really far. T.S. Eliot takes it really far. Irving Babbitt takes it really far.

Gertrude Himmelfarb, all these people are riding on the moral imagination. And this was in 1900s. So it's a relatively new concept, but I think it's been going on for much longer. But they are the first ones that coined the idea and wrote about it. Totally.

Talking with Carissa McCarthy, fourth grade teacher at Seven Oaks Classical School, about how literature shapes the souls of young people. What does good moral instruction look like? As a teacher, my first year, I just wanted to be like, here's how to live the good life. You do this, you do this, you do this. Here's a list of rules.

But that's not enough. They need a picture of what is good so that they can taste the virtues and see that they are good. Or in this case, if we're going with the food metaphor, that they are scrumptious and worth doing and worth desiring. So if we just tell them to do something, they're going to want to rebel. They're going to want to do the opposite. But if we show them what that looks like, it actually comes to life and they're going to want to recreate it in their own life.

So we need to read, read, read stories and not pick them apart. I think so often as teachers, we just want to get to the deeper meaning of the story. But to actually let it sit in the child's brain is one of the most important things. My first year of teaching, some of the kids in my class were doing some bullying. They were just being mean to one another. So it's like, I'm going to read them a story, teach them how...

evil bullying is. So I chose The Ugly Duckling, which I remember my parents reading and being, this is why you shouldn't bully. You should be kind to everyone. Everyone's unique.

And so we're reading it. We're reading it. We finish it. And I'm just letting it sit. And this one boy raises his hand and goes, why are we reading this? This has nothing to do with being nice to one another. And I looked at him and I was like, oh, my gosh, he's not getting it. And he was like, this is a story about beauty.

Miss McCarthy, you tell us all the time to love the beautiful thing, and that's what the ugly duckling was doing. Everyone else was focused on their farm activities, but the ugly duckling just wanted to be a beautiful swan. He was looking for beauty, and I think we should all look for more beauty.

Whoa, this child got something way different out of the Ugly Duckly story that I did not imagine. And if we pick apart stories all the time, we're going to miss out on those moments that actually show kids what the good life is. The image of happiness.

the ugly duckling became to him an image of beauty. And now that boy is going into eighth grade and we talk all the time about the ugly duckling and that image of beauty that's imprinted in his brain because of a good story. And so I think we really got to

take a step back from trying to dissect everything. The same thing with poems. Just letting them sit and letting the kids pick out the images from the story that they see. Another thing that I struggled with is repetition. Kids love reading the same story over and over and over again.

And at first I was like, don't read the same book, get a new book. We would finish a book in literature class and then the next week on their reading log, half of my class would be rereading the book. And I would stand up there and be like, okay, we cannot reread the literature book for a reading log. We need to pick a new book. And they're like, why? And I was like, well, I'm the teacher. I want you reading other things, you know? And then it clicked one day when...

This boy was swinging and he was telling me how much he loved The Hobbit and now he's read it four times. And I was like, why do you want to reread it? And he's like, well, I get to try and fail with Bilbo.

And I was like, whoa, that's the point of repetition. They get to redo the things over and over again. Learn, fail, get up, try again. And they don't actually have to do that in their own life. They get to do it in the safety of a story. And so now I encourage the kids to reread the book if they want to. So that's really important. And then something I started doing this year, which is really helpful, is...

some reflection sheets. Instead of like having the kid write a sentence, I'm stealing the learning time of my classmates, I will do better. Instead, I've asked them to pick a literature character, pick a historical figure that they admire and figure out what they admire about that character and

how they can do that in their own life. And that has been a way more effective tool to implement discipline and behavior change because now they want to be like Bilbo. Now they want to be like Almanzo. They want to be like King Arthur. How can I implement that in my own life? And I brought an example of a student who,

His reflection, I actually had all my students do this at the end of the year, just to close out the year. And this is what he wrote. King Arthur is who I want to be. He started the roundtable because he loved justice and truth in the right way. I want to love justice and truth. He did not always jump to conclusions like I do. After his death, he stood for hope.

This year has been very hard for me, and there have been times where I thought my anxiety would be too much and I would not make it through. But the fact that he was going to be coming back one day reminds me that I can get better and that the world is not always going to be evil and dark. I can become like King Arthur by believing that there is light in my anxiety and challenges and reminding my friends of it too.

And this boy, when we finished King Arthur, tears were streaming down his face. And he was like, it's so sad, but so hopeful at the same time. And that image of King Arthur coming back is an image of hope for him that carried him through some really hard challenges that he faced.

And that's what good literature is for. And that's what good moral instruction does, is it gives images to children so that when they face challenges, they know what to do. Another story about knowing what to do based on a book is I had a student. She was extremely low in reading, extremely low in general. And she

She her grandfather died and her grandfather was one of the people that took care of her mainly. So she was gone for like a week when she came back. I like talked to her. I was like, if you need anything, just let me know. Like, how are you doing? And she's like, Miss McCarthy, I knew what to do. I was like, that's not how you respond to a question. How can I help you? And so after asking more questions, she was like, I knew it was OK to be sad and to cry.

And I was like, how did you know that? And she's like, well, Sir Lancelot cried when King Arthur died. Little John cried when Robin Hood died. And they were best friends. And I was best friends with my grandpa. So I knew it was okay to cry. So I cried a lot. And now I feel better.

And I started tearing up. I was like, that's so beautiful. Because if this girl had not read those stories, who knows how she would have responded. Would she have gotten angry? Would she have shut down and just pushed that emotion away? But these stories told her what to do. And I just love that, that the story taught her. I didn't teach her. Her parents didn't teach her. It was this book. They're really creating these stories

vivid landscapes that students can utilize, perhaps escape to at times, but the idea that they can place themselves alongside someone who's trying to do something heroic. They can place themselves alongside someone who is reacting to a tragedy, and they can have those emotions and understand those emotions before they experience them in their own lives. That is powerful.

Yeah, that's the point of a moral imagination. The imagination precedes action. So if we do not furnish the imagination with all the good things of a noble and high life, then their action is going to be not good. But if we furnish it with lovely, beautiful, heroic, brave, true, loyal things, that's how they're going to act. And so I think...

Giving students good stories, reading them stories all the time, making history a story, making science a story, making everything you do a story will actually shape more of their virtues and their affections than just telling them what to love because they learn to love it themselves, which is the point.

of anything we do in the classroom. So what are some practice steps to help cultivate that moral imagination within the teacher and within the students in the classroom? So I already talked about read, read, read, and repetition. Let them reread, you reread to them, and you may hate it, but it's actually good for you. I think all the teachers can just appreciate, I've read my literature books now a dozen times, and they get better every single time.

So rereading, reading good stories, letting them marinate, not dissecting them, reflection sheets and turning conversations about bad behavior or bad choices, not into you should do this, you should have done better. But having the kid reflect on a character or historical figure that has done what is good in the moment to actually shape their affections, to love that. Another thing, if

Obviously, in literature class, you need to dissect the book. You need to discuss it. And I would spend most of my time dissecting dilemmas that characters are facing. They're choosing between what is right and what is wrong. They're choosing to go into battle or to stay home. And discussing those dilemmas of characters will actually shape the moral imagination because now these kids are seeing...

what ought to be done and what ought not to be done. So in my literature discussions, we're mainly talking about dilemmas between characters. I also appreciate literature books that have dilemmas where the character has to choose between a good and another good. I find that most of my choices in life are between two goods.

And it is so hard to choose between two goods. And so showing the kids what that looks like and opening the possibilities to that will actually help them later in life. How do you see that growth in the span of a year, less than a year that you have with a fourth grade student from the beginning in August to the end in May, June, whenever the school year ends? How do you quite tangibly see that difference from day one to the final day in class?

Well, this year I did the reflection sheet that I was talking about, I did it at the beginning of the year and at the end of the year. So it was really interesting to see if they chose the same character or chose something different.

But also, as you get to know your students, you'll be able to see more clearly what stories have shaped them. For example, I chose a boy to be our student ambassador for our class. So he's supposed to get up and greet guests and welcome them to our classroom and explain what we're doing and then show them to their seat. And my class gets a lot of visitors. So this boy has to stand up a lot. And when he was given this task, the look of fear on his face.

Why would you give me this task? I cannot do that. And I chose him because he's a very fun child, very good at conversation. And I saw that he was able to do it well. And he did not believe this in himself. So day one of his job, we have four visitors enter the room. He makes eye contact with me. And I nod my head. So that means get up and go greet them. And he's moving in slow motion over to these people.

And I'm still teaching math, so I'm not focused on him. So then he greets the grass, sit down. And then at recess, he comes up to me and he says, I defeated the dragon. And I knew exactly what he meant because a couple of days before we were reading The Hobbit.

And we're talking about a curse of a dragon. It makes you believe you do not have courage when you actually do. And this is what happened to Bilbo in the cave. He heard Old Smog speak and he realized, oh, maybe not. Maybe I shouldn't keep going. And instead he chooses to keep going and not listen to what Old Smog says. And that's what this little boy did. He's like, I kept going. I defeated the dragon.

And then a couple weeks later, we had a new student join us and this boy did not want to come into the classroom at all. And I hadn't even told the child to go up and greet this new student. But the moment this student walked in and the boy, my student ambassador, saw how hesitant the new student was, he immediately got up, did not lock eyes with me and ask permission, just immediately got up and took the child by the hand and led him to a seat

And that's when I saw the growth of what the moral imagination did. He took the story of defeating the dragon, of something that scared him, and he used it to love on another student and to welcome this child into this classroom. And so just in small ways, you can see...

the growth of students and you really have to be looking out for it, which I think is so hard to do as a grammar school teacher. There's a million things on your plate. But when you're my focus as a teacher is to teach virtue and that is at the center and the heart of everything that I do. So I'm looking for ways that I can share a story to teach or I can listen to a student tell me how they took a story and applied it to their own life.

Carissa McCarthy is fourth grade teacher at Seven Oaks Classical School in Ellettsville, Indiana, talking today about how literature shapes the souls of young people and the moral imagination. Carissa, thanks so much for joining us here on the Hillsdale College K-12 Classical Education Podcast. Thank you for having me. I'm Scott Bertram. We invite you to like us on Facebook. Search for Hillsdale College K-12 Classical Education. You

You also can follow us on Instagram at Hillsdale underscore K-12. Hillsdale underscore K-12 on Instagram. Thank you for listening to the Hillsdale College K-12 Classical Education Podcast, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More episodes at podcast.hillsdale.edu or wherever you find your audio.