We are not a STEM school because we don’t treat science, technology, engineering, and mathematics equally—or even close to equally. It would be more accurate to say we are a math and science school, in that order. Our goal is not to graduate trained engineers, programmers , or technologists. Our job, as a K-12 school, […]
Thanks to a misunderstood statement made by Saint Augustine in De Genesi ad Litteram, which condemned, not mathematics as we define it today, but rather astrology (the popular application of math in his day), many early Christians were strongly opposed to the study of mathematics. But Augustine, in fact, had the highest view of mathematics. […]
Several years ago, I was asked by a lady who was starting a classical school if I would come give a speech to an education group in her community. I had planned my usual talk in which I discuss the advantages of a classical Christian education, but on the way there found out that this […]
The works of Plato can be most profitably read on two simultaneous levels: as works of genius in their own right and as inspired writings used by the God of the Bible to prepare the ancient world for the coming of Christ and the New Testament. Plato, in my mind at least, is the greatest […]
Herman Melville’s (very) short story, “The Lightning-Rod Man,” should be required reading for anyone who consumes the daily news. It rings with modern relevance despite being published in 1854. In the story, we meet a homeowner who lives in a mountain region in Albania known since ancient times as Cape Thunder. He is enjoying a […]
We classical educators tend to be a bookish lot. We like Cicero and Shakespeare. We like Latin and Greek. We like musty bookstores with alleyway entrances in Edinburgh. We use a picture of the library at Trinity College Dublin as the desktop background on our computers. We like traditional school uniforms and Gothic arches. We […]
In 1704, Jonathan Swift wrote a tongue-in-cheek story about the battle between ancient and modern books— between the proponents of a broad education that includes literature and history on one side, and the proponents of what would be the equivalent today of an education focusing on science and math and engineering and technology. The quarrel […]
“I wish people would be more blunt with me,” my son said. “What do you mean?” I asked. Michael continued, “If they’re tired of talking with me, I wish they would just say so.” Subtleties escape many of us, but individuals with significant brain differences seem uniquely prone to missing social nuances. When teaching character […]
Literature stands in intimate relationship with each of the arts, but its closest relationship is with music. The purest form of this relationship involves a composer’s timeless desire to take a poem, wrestle with it, and turn it into a song. Yet what about the novel? Can a complex narrative be transformed into music? The […]
In a country in which everybody goes to school, it may seem absurd to offer a defense of literacy, and yet I believe that such a defense is in order, and that the absurdity lies not in the defense, but in the necessity for it. The published illiteracies of the certified educated are on the […]