Tag: ideas

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New to School: 5 Principles for Starting the Year Well

Have you ever been new to a school? Often there are awkward days trying to find new friends. You feel like there’s an opportunity to turn over a new leaf. Every school has its own culture that needs to be learned and navigated. Whatever succeeded at your previous school might not work here. The temptation to be something you are not is a serious pull.  I am joining a new school this fall, moving from Providence Classical Christian Academy in St. Louis to Clapham School in Wheaton, Illinois. Truth be told, it’s not exactly new to me. I will be

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Plato and Aristotle in the Lyceum

Why Study Western Civilization?

The classical Christian movement has at its core a commitment to teaching Western civilization. Even though we teach Western civ, its distinctive qualities are not always clear. As a result, many educators (even within the classical movement) question why we would teach Western civilization. Here I will lay out what I think are the three key pillars of Western society. My hope is that with greater clarity about what Western civilization means, there will be deeper conviction to instruct our students to promote and defend its values. So what do we mean by Western civilization? Today we equate the “West”

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civic building with classical style of architecture

Educating for Moral Character and Civic Duty

There was a fascinating set of papers delivered at the recent Education 20/20 Speaker Series presented by the Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank addressing education policy. Living in a private school world, I have been largely out of the loop on public education policy debates. So I was intrigued to learn more about the state of the discussion. The February 12 session featured two papers. Eliot Cohen made a case for teaching history from the standpoint of patriotism as a means to promote civic and moral virtue. Yuval Levin traced the utilitarian policies of the 90s and 2000s and

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teacher in authority over children in a forest

Authority and Obedience in the Classroom: Reading Charlotte Mason’s Philosophy of Education

I recently talked with a frustrated teacher about the anti-authoritarian Tendenz of her math class. The smug look of the child says everything. “You can’t tell me what to do.” This child might accomplish the set of math problems assigned, at least externally. But on the inside, there is a refusal to submit to the teacher, the assignment, or even mathematics itself. “Who even cares? I don’t even plan to get a job in mathematics,” says the child under his breath to the amusement of a classmate. The spirit of revolution is in the air. Down with the king and

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Rules for Schools?: An Interaction with Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life (Part 3)

I have been interacting with Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life over the past few weeks. This is now the third and final installment. Part 1 looked at habit formation and deliberate practice, while part 2 considered several of Peterson’s rules in conjunction with the idea of discipline. At the heart of Peterson’s book is a concern for truth and meaning. Taken together these have a bearing on our philosophy of education, particularly in what we are trying to produce in the lives of our students. Truth Peterson grounds truth in the biblical conception of the Divine Logos as the creative force behind

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an old and traditional school room

Rules for Schools?: An Interaction with Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life (Part 1)

Chaos is all around us. Education certainly has its element of chaos, given that we are dealing with multiple human beings in the classroom, each bringing his or her own indeterminacy and potential. With this in mind, we could say that the teacher’s role is to cultivate order in the midst of chaos. Order and chaos go together, we cannot have one without the other. I liken this to architectural and organic structures. For instance, in gardening we use trellises for plants such as clematis or roses to climb. Beauty is created through a combination of organic chaos as the

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A few classic books illustrating less is more

Less is More: Are Fewers Subjects Better for Schools?

Chris Perrin, over at Inside Classical Ed, suggests that classical schools are offering too many classes. He champions the idea of multum non multa – much not many. Perrin writes, “To study and learn well, humans have learned that it is important to study a few things deeply, even to mastery, rather than to dabble and sample dozens of things.” Here we have a Pareto distribution, there are a few subjects that when learned maximize the entirety of a student’s learning. He points to C. S. Lewis, who as a student predominantly learned the classical authors through his study of

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lightbulb idea with a sky background

The Role of Ideas in Education

Ever the provocateur, Charlotte Mason, the late 19th century British educator, raised the question of the role of ideas in education. After mentioning the importance of ideas in both common life (“I have an idea!”) and the history of philosophy, she castigates the educational establishment of her day for neglecting ideas: “There is but one sphere in which the word idea never occurs, in which the conception of an idea is curiously absent, and that sphere is education! Look at any publisher’s list of school books and you shall find that the books recommended are carefully dessicated, drained of the

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Plato and Aristotle in the Lyceum

Welcome to Educational Renaissance

Welcome to Educational Renaissance! Here you will find thoughtful engagement with educational ideas. Jason and I have devoted ourselves to the craft of teaching, accumulating hours in the classroom (sometimes together), providing oversight and mentoring as administrators, and exploring important ideas as speakers. We believe educational renewal can occur as we thoughtfully understand the great thoughts of past educators and engage with the educational ideas of today. Thanks for joining us, and we hope you find our contributions helpful as you work on your own teaching as a craft. Thought breeds thought; children familiar with great thoughts take as naturally

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