For most classical educators, teaching history chronologically means covering the eras of history in three cycles, each cycle in increasing depth, and each cycle corresponding to one stage of the trivium. Here is a typical sequence of historical eras covered chronologically within each four year cycle: Old Testament and Egypt Greece and Rome Middle Ages, […]
Yearly Archives: 2009
We have a tendency to put academic subjects into separate and unrelated categories which have little to do with each other. We have our curriculum chart where we put things such asReading, English, Math, Science, each one dealing with a different skill and a different body of knowledge. Logic seldom finds a place in our lists, although it may be […]
As homeschoolers, we rely too much on experts; this is true not just for homeschoolers, but for the American culture at large. We rely on experts to teach us what to do, how to do it, and sometimes even how to think. In many cases, there is a good reason to rely on expert advice. […]
by Peter Kreeft The content of the curriculum of a classical Christian school, on primary, secondary, or college levels, is similar to the core of the “arts and sciences” core of a university, which was developed from the medieval curriculum of the “seven liberal arts” of the “trivium” and the “quadrivium,” which was invented by […]
The Four Principles of Latin Study In the last issue of the Classical Teacher, I gave some principles of Latin instruction as set forth in Charles Bennett’s 1911 book, The Teaching of Latin and Greek. This book, though long out of print, contains what I believe to be very sound insights into the teaching of classical […]
Benjamin Disraeli was one of the great 19th century prime ministers of Britain. His wife once revealed the confusion we all feel about the subject of history when she famously stated that she “could never remember who came first, the Greeks or the Romans.” Since American schools have largely ignored ancient and world history in […]
One of the things that makes me smile in life is standing in front of novice Latin students and listening as they recite declension endings, their Ss slurring because of missing teeth, their eyes straining upward, and heads nodding as they grasp for the mental picture they have of those ten little endings. I also […]