I recently conducted a webinar for administrators of classical schools, in which the guidelines for the classical classroom were addressed. Having been involved in home education for a number of years educating our own six children prior to entering the classical school arena, first as a teacher and then as an administrator, I find myself […]
If you were to ask most classical educators what classical education is, you would find them hard-pressed to give a short, coherent answer. That is the way with a lot of movements: It’s easy to get swept up in the enthusiasm, but when asked to formulate what it is that excites you, it’s hard to […]
The most basic thing we can ask about anything is “What is it?” Young children explicitly ask this question all the time. But even adults do it, although they may not do it explicitly, or even think about doing it at all. We ask this about words we don’t know, and things we encounter for […]
With the rise in popularity of classical education, more and more parents are considering adding Latin to their curriculum. But many times parents are too quick to pick up any Latin program that promises easy results or to improve SAT scores. Here are a few considerations in choosing a Latin program for your student. 1. […]
In 79 A.D., the catastrophic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in eastern Italy covered nearby towns in ash and completely buried many of them. Accounts of the ancient eruption paint a horrific scene: Volcanic pumice rained from the skies and waves of searing hot gas and debris swept over the nearby landscape. Thousands died where they […]
Training the Memory with a Classical Education In the Dickens novel Great Expectations, Estella admits, “There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth.” So it is today with the lost art of training the memory […]
Heading Out Beyond here there’s no map. How you get there is where you’ll arrive; how, dawn by dawn, you can see your way to feel. You’ve no need now clear: in ponds, sky, just as woods you walk through give to fields. And rivers: beyond all burning, you’ll cross on bridges you’ve long lugged […]
Modern educators love to talk about “critical thinking skills,” but not one in a hundred even knows what he means by this term. Every time our country goes through an education reform spasm-which it has experienced about every twenty-five years since the 1920s- the education establishment trots out a set of slogans that always sound […]
In thinking about Mrs. Lowe these last two weeks, I was reminded of the Parable of the Sower from the Gospel of Mark. Good seed was thrown four places, the last of which was onto good soil. In chapter 4, Jesus says that the good seed that fell in good soil “produced grain, growing up […]
Developing an attractive, legible cursive handwriting style certainly has great aesthetic value, but it also has numerous mental, physical, social, and practical benefits. Here are the Top 10 reasons to learn cursive! 1. Improved neural connections. Cursive handwriting stimulates the brain in ways that typing cannot. It improves the dynamic interplay of the left and […]