Month: July 2016

Some critics have said that the value of Roman literature is that it has been the vehicle which conveyed Greek ideas to the world. The Romans took their art and, as far as their civilization rests on these, their civilization from Greece. Why, then, do we study Latin? Some of the reasons are given by …

Narrative accounts and musical commemorations follow in the wake of every disaster. From the Iliad and the Odyssey, written about events related to the Trojan War, to Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” literature and music have dealt with destruction and death. What great crime doesn’t have its own documentary? What great disaster …

There are a lot of good reasons for thinking that Latin should be restored to its former place of honor as the basic subject in the elementary years. In previous issues of The Classical Teacher, I talked about some of these. But knowing that you should teach it and knowing how to teach it are …

My brother and sister and I all received a classical education, way back in the 1970s, because my mother homeschooled us the same way she’d been taught at home. Our education was language-centered, not image-centered; we read and listened and wrote, but we rarely watched. She spent the early years of school giving us facts, …

Every subject that is systematic has a certain inherent order to it that dictates how it should be approached. In some subjects this order is more explicit than in others. In mathematics, for example, there is a widely acknowledged sequence of what should be learned and when it should be taught. In other subjects, however, …

Reflections on the Sodalitas Gathering by Jessica Phillips Last week in Louisville, KY, over 60 Memoria Press homeschoolers from across the country gathered for the second annual Sodalitas Gathering at Highlands Latin School. Sodalitas is a one-of-a-kind experience of learning, encouragement, connection, and inspiration, all within the context of cultivating a classical homeschool using Memoria …

Teach him to read well. Stop his body from moving before giving a verbal direction. Give clear, short directions he can follow. Minimize auditory and visual distractions during work time. Provide headphones or earplugs and a supervised “office” area for independent work. Teach in a small, contained area with clear physical boundaries. Provide a visual …

The contrast between shadow and substance singularly interested Shakespeare, as did the very nature of things themselves. He even makes use of profound concepts in logic, such as difference, property, and essence. In rhetoric, these are the topics of invention, for they concern the act of defining. So, then, let us define why we should …