RECENT POSTS

Light to the Darkness

Light to Darkness

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 […]

7 Principles for Teaching Latin

principles for teaching latin

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 […]

A Language-Centered Education

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, […]

2016 Sodalitas Gathering in Review

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 […]

20 Ways to Calm a Wiggly Child

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 […]

Shadow & Substance

Why Read Shakespeare

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 […]

You Can Give Your Child the Joy of Knowing

Perhaps your child struggles with attention or concentration, speech or language, sensory or intellectual function, emotional regulation, reading, writing, or other aspects of learning. Whether you have been trying to teach him for years, have recently pulled him from a disappointing or unsuccessful program, or are just now in the earliest stages of research, now you can teach your […]

Traditional vs. Progressive Education

Everyone agrees that education is a good thing. Unfortunately, the agreement pretty much ends there. Although almost everyone agrees that education is good, there is wide disagreement on what education is. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, there has been a sometimes heated debate, not only about what schools should do, but what they should be. Generally speaking, there are […]

Special-Needs Q&A: Summer 2016

Shining Like the Stars Forever and Ever In the book Simply Classical, I share how my two children, despite their significant special needs, benefit from a classical Christian education which not only strengthens their minds, but also impacts their souls. One recent event underscored what this kind of education can do for our children, and what it can […]

The Three Modes of Persuasion

The United States is in the midst of a presidential election. Like all such elections, it involves two, sometimes three, major candidates, each of whom tries to persuade the voters to vote for him or her. Some candidates do this well and others don’t. But they could all do it better if they knew Aristotle’s principles of rhetoric. Classical rhetoric is […]

Skip to content