Is a classical education still relevant? Is it worth the time and the effort, or should our students be studying the modern world and modern languages, preparing for modern jobs? Every one of us wants to give our students the best possible education—but what is the best? The latter half of the twentieth century has […]
The power of the word “classical” cannot be underestimated, communicating as it does the ideas of excellence, truth, order, discipline, and beauty. It brings to mind something that has withstood the test of time and by virtue of this fact, something that participates in some way in the timeless and the eternal. When we examine […]
The study of the material world reaps great benefits for the material welfare of mankind: food, fabrics, energy-saving devices, heating and cooling, transportation,luxuries of every kind, cures for diseases and pain. Science and technology have transformed our world into one of unimaginable wealth, comfort, and blessings for which we must give thanks and gratitude to […]
Too often we relegate religious instruction in our private and homeschools to a kind of secondary academic status. We teach it, but in a way that seems to communicate a lack of seriousness about it. We do this by failing to treat it like we would treat any other academic subject. But what I will […]
When you ask a fellow teacher or homeschool parent what classical education is, you’re likely to get a different answer every time. To one person it is the study of history chronologically, to another it is simply a challenging academic curriculum. To many, particularly in recent decades, classical education is seen as the application of […]
THE KEY TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE The most practical reason for Latin study is that it also teaches English. Over half of our English words are derived from Latin—and it’s not just any half, it’s the difficult half! The common one- and two-syllable words of everyday speech are English, but the big, three- to five-syllable […]
Phonics instruction nearly disappeared in the 1930s, and only started making a comeback in the 1970s. Now, there are so many phonics programs to choose from it’s enough to make your head spin. How do we know which one to choose? A systematic, logical approach to phonics is the best way to teach students to […]
Modern languages are taught by the conversational method. If I understand this method correctly, it involves an emphasis on oral and written conversation in the classroom, supplemented with a secondary focus on grammar. This conversational instruction is most effectively augmented by travel and an immersion experience with native speakers. It could also be called the […]
In the early twentieth century, Dorothy Sayers gave birth to the modern classical education movement in a much-quoted speech at Oxford in which she cast the abstract concepts of the liberal arts of grammar, logic, and rhetoric as stages of learning. These three stages have given structure and clarity to the long and somewhat inscrutable […]
There is a famous restaurant in Memphis called Rendezvous. It is down an alley off a sidestreet, with a small awning underneath a neon sign. You go in the door and down a couple flights of stairs into the basement, where you find tables with red and white checkered tablecloths and walls decorated with memorabilia—antique […]