Tag: Aristotle
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The Counsels of the Wise, Part 1: Foundations of Christian Prudence
We began this series with a proposal to replace Bloom’s Taxonomy of educational objectives with Aristotle’s five intellectual virtues. While Bloom and his fellow university examiners aimed to create clarity in teaching goals through a common language, their taxonomy of cognitive domain objectives may have done more harm than good. In rejecting the traditional paradigm…
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“Education is a Discipline”: Virtue Formation in the Classroom
“’Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life’––is perhaps the most complete and adequate definition of education we possess. It is a great thing to have said it; and our wiser posterity may see in that ‘profound and exquisite remark’ the fruition of a lifetime of critical effort (Charlotte Mason, Parents and Children, p. 33).…
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Apprenticeship in the Arts, Part 6: The Transcendence and Limitations of Artistry
In this series on apprenticeship in the arts we have laid out a vision for the role of the arts in a fully orbed classical Christian education. We began by situating artistry or craftsmanship within a neo-Aristotelian and distinctly Christian purpose of education: namely, the cultivation of moral, intellectual, and spiritual virtues. Then we explored…
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What is a Learner?: Reading Charlotte Mason through Aristotle’s Four Causes
The goals and aims of our educational renewal movement center not on the quality of our curriculum or the quality of our teacher. Instead, the quality of learning is the true test of whether we are providing something of lasting value and worth. To that end, I have taken a look at the learner and…
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Apprenticeship in the Arts, Part 5: Structuring the Academy for Christian Artistry
In the previous article we explored the need to counter the passion mindset of our current career counseling by replacing it with a craftsman mindset drawn from a proper understanding of apprenticeship in the arts. Apprenticing students in various forms of artistry (including the liberal arts) constitutes the role of the Academy that is most…
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Apprenticeship in the Arts, Part 4: Artistry, the Academy and the Working World
In his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love, Cal Newport argues against the well-known Passion Hypothesis of career happiness. He describes the Passion Hypothesis as the idea that “the key to occupational happiness is to first figure out what you’re passionate about and…
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Apprenticeship in the Arts, Part 3: Crafting Lessons in Artistry
In the previous two articles in this series exploring Aristotle’s intellectual virtues, I laid out a fivefold division of the arts and a teaching method for training in artistry. My guiding hypothesis is that rethinking education through the Aristotelian paradigm of intellectual virtues will combat some of the typical problems of modern education. Bloom’s Taxonomy…
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Apprenticeship in the Arts, Part 2: A Pedagogy of Craft
In my previous article in this series on Aristotle’s intellectual virtues, I discussed the general nature of artistry or craftsmanship under the heading of apprenticeship. Aristotle’s virtue of techne, often translated ‘art’, points to our human capacity to make things, to produce things in the world. Words like ‘artistry’ or ‘craftsmanship’ help to convey in…
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The Educational Renaissance Symposium 2021: A Digest
On Wednesday, August 4th we had our first annual Educational Renaissance Symposium hosted by Coram Deo Academy in Carmel, Indiana. It was exciting to welcome over sixty participants who heard keynote addresses from Educational Renaissance authors as well as attended great workshops by a variety of guests. The Symposium is a different kind of convention,…
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The Value of Objective Value: C. S. Lewis on Renewing Education
No matter what age you or your children are, I highly recommend The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis for summer reading. They are lighthearted yet full of depth. I am reading aloud The Silver Chair, the fourth book in the seven-book series. For those who know the general contours of the series, this…