Tag: leisure

Practicing Peacefulness: Beginning the School Year in the Right Frame of Mind

With the start of school just around the corner, teachers are gearing up for another year. As usual, summer break has gone by too fast. And yet, at the same time, the attraction of new beginnings lures them back to the classroom. There is something about a fresh start that energizes, awakens, and inspires.  How can teachers approach this year in a way that is different from the past? Experienced teachers may have a good idea at this point what their growth goals are for the year. To be sure, taking inventory of one’s skill in the craft of teaching

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To Save a Civilization, Part 2: The Road to Rebuilding

In my previous article, I reflected on the nature of civilizations: how they emerge, what they are built upon, and why they fall. I specifically examined the story of the fall of the Roman Empire. While it is difficult for historians to identify a single point in time when the decline began, various cultural, moral, and economic factors interweaved to ripen the moment for Rome to fall. And fall it did, ushering in a two hundred year period known as the Dark Ages. While the Middle Ages themselves span a period of one thousand years, many of which were full

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To Save a Civilization, Part 1: Conditions for a Decline

Why did Rome fall? In our present age, this question may yield insights that extend beyond historical inquiry. Rome, in the ancient world, was not simply another European city. It represented the pinnacle of western civilization and the magnetic core of order. Rome embodied itself as both the trustee of culture and the key to its future. When plagues spread and the economy struggled, no serious matter. One could count on the longevity of Rome to endure. You can imagine the horror, then, on that cold winter day when, Alaric, King of the Visigoths, crossed the Rhine and sacked “the

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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 applied Aristotle’s four causes to understand this pivotal aspect of quality education. In so doing, I have turned to Charlotte Mason’s Toward a Philosophy of Education to elucidate the fine points of the learner. The Four-fold Manner of Knowing an Object Among the most important

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academy

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 then find a job that matches this passion” (4). It is well summed up by the ever-present, popular advice to “follow your dreams.” As Steve Jobs said in a 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University, “You’ve got to find what you love….[T]he only way to

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Cultivating the Discipline of Study

Our world is restless, this much is clear. As I have observed in previous blogs, the speed of the modern world is only accelerating as new technologies allow people to access whatever they seek at unprecedented rates. Surfing the web, in particular, has never been easier, and with it, the vulnerability to succumb to the siren’s song of amusement. Amusement is a passive state of entertainment. At its core, it is a form of distraction. People seek amusement when they are bored, when they seek to delay or avoid more difficult tasks, or when they have simply grown habituated to

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Rest for the Weary: On Cultivating the Intellectual Life

As the pace of our modern world grows busier and busier, spurred on by the services of smartphones and laptops, people need somewhere to turn for relief. Our glowing rectangles promise us conveniences such as efficiency and a life of ease, but for what purpose? More efficiency, more ease. It’s a never-ending cycle. Technology frees us up to consume…more technology.  In order to escape the technological addiction that has mystified the 21st century, it is not enough to take smartphones, laptops, and video streaming services away. They must be replaced with something better. Something deeper. Something more satisfying. In this

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modern classroom

Bloom’s Taxonomy and the Purpose of Education

One of the major themes in the classical education renewal movement has been to challenge the utilitarianism of modern education. The purpose of education, the argument has gone, is so much broader and more far-reaching than modern educators are making it out to be. It is not merely job training or college preparation, but the formation of flourishing human beings. The cultivation of wisdom and virtue is the purpose of education. There is joy in seeking knowledge for its own sake and as an end in itself.  Next Article in this Series: “Bloom’s Taxonomy and the Importance of Objectives: 3

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the love of learning from old books

The Flow of Thought, Part 9: The Lifelong Love of Learning

The ‘love of learning’ is one of those phrases that is so overused in education that it feels like it has been beaten to death with a stick. Every educator and every educational model claims to promote the ‘lifelong love of learning’ for their students. I challenge you to find an engaged teacher who doesn’t endorse this goal. Side note: There are still unengaged teachers, who are only in it for the job or who will openly claim that they don’t care about their students. I had a few of those in public high school. But that’s another story…. I

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child coloring with crayons

Educating Future Culture Makers

An experienced educator once taught me that every pedagogy, or method of teaching, assumes a particular view of students. Each view, in turn, is founded on premises about the nature of these students, their capabilities, and, perhaps most broadly, their purpose for existence. It is these driving premises that subconsciously guide the hand of the teacher, including how to use class time effectively, what skills to focus on, and which curriculum to implement. As classical educators seeking to retrieve the treasure trove of wisdom and insights about education from the western tradition, we do well to proclaim the Judeo-Christian view

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