I believe in another world … I hear it sing in Plato and Dover Beach. I see it in Cezanne and mist-shrouded mountains. I touch it with sweaty fingers on violin strings still ringing with the last chord of Stravinsky’s Firebird. I cry. Seven years of homeschool, then five at a classical Christian school, have […]
One of the most noticeable tendencies in modern education is an aversion to the word “knowledge.” Factose Inolerance Why is this? Why is the one word you would expect to be at the center of the education enterprise the one word that so many modern educators find distasteful? Anyone who has taken the time to read the […]
Mount St. Michael Catholic School is in its 28th year of working with families to form their children in courageous virtue grounded in the truth of Christ. The school began in 1978 as a preschool Montessori program, but quickly grew to also serve grades 1-8 with what moderns would call a “traditional” curriculum and program. […]
Modern educators love to talk about “critical thinking skills,” but not one in a hundred even knows what he means by the term. Every time our country goes through an education reform spasm—which it has undergone about every twenty-five years since the 1920s—the education establishment trots out a set of slogans that always sounds good […]
Why Should Christians Read the Pagan Classics? REASON #8: Philosophy Philosophy is a deep subject that can be quite intimidating. Modern philosophy is so esoteric that few can understand or relate to it, but classical philosophy is different. As with so many things, if you go back to the beginning and learn first principles, you […]
A couple of years ago, I was sitting down on a Sunday morning reading my local paper. I was reading a story about the “new” things happening in education. One of the “new” things happening, said the story, was that they were going to start getting rid of “rote memorization” and putting more emphasis on […]
In the first part of this article, we discussed the origins of the modern Natural/Direct Method of teaching Latin in the unsuccessful attempt to teach modern languages by downplaying the traditional student memorization of the complicated grammatical forms and the emphasis on written translation exercises in favor of conversational methods of instruction and student response. […]
As you teach the struggling student and help him with his weaker areas, look for his stronger interests and abilities. Does he love to draw? Does he long to write stories? Does he delve deeply into areas of scientific or historical research? Does he enjoy developing patterns or solving math problems? Does he have a […]
Two Views of Education If you were to walk into a public school primary classroom one day, and into the same grade level classroom in, say, a classical Christian school, you would see two entirely different things. And you wouldn’t have to wait to notice some of the differences. There would be certain things evident […]
Parents of struggling students ask common questions such as these: “Should I bring home my special-needs son and teach him alongside my other children? How would I modify the materials? How would I arrange for his therapies? Can my special-needs child study Latin? I already feel like giving up!” Bringing your special-needs or struggling student […]