Tag: parenting

On Deep Reading

In an age of misleading news articles, vicious discourse, and exponential ignorance, it is a curious fact that the skill of reading continues to take the backseat to other “practical” areas of study. Society, it seems, would rather have students master Microsoft Excel or how to program computers than they would become lectiophiles. Reading is discarded as an antiquated art, a skill for a bygone area, whose value is akin to a penny: sentimentalized yet basically obsolete. At the same time, no one explicitly endorses the excision of reading from the curriculum as they would the penny from U.S. currency.

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Educating for Truth

I recently gave a short talk at my school’s curriculum night on the practical value of a classical education. In many ways, it was a recapitulation of the blog article I wrote a few weeks ago. I identified two popular ways of thinking about education today–both geared toward practical aims–and then argued that classical education is actually more practical than both of them.  In today’s blog, I will make a different argument in support of classical education. Rather than arguing for its practical benefits, I will make the case for something even more important: it is an education in truth.

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Christian Education and the Calling of the Church

Every Christian family has to make the difficult decision at some point where to send their children for school.  With the widespread availability of public education over the last hundred years, the conventional option for some time now has been public schooling. Here the cost for admission is free and the overall education they receive is, generally speaking, adequate. However, more recently, some parents have developed concerns about this option as secular and progressive principles have increased prominently within state legislation. For example, the Illinois State Board of Education recently passed rules requiring teachers to align their lessons with “culturally

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Handwork: Fostering Excellence Through the Habit of Creating

Guest post by Joleen Steel, Classical Christian Educator and Director of Camping Stick Kids We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. Aristotle What do you find yourself repeatedly doing? In this digital world, it is easy to immerse ourselves in the repetition of scrolling through social media or clicking out words on a device in the hope of inspiring minds and garnering followers. Yet, the digital world falls short of satisfying our deepest longings for meaning and purpose. The best moments in life are not found on a screen, but in deep,

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Cultivating a Community: Wisdom for Parents Educating at Home Amidst the Present Crisis

In the last few weeks, life has changed dramatically for families across the globe. For families living in some parts of the United States, the most predictable elements of their busy schedules—the nine-to-five work day, daily school routine, church commitments, soccer practice, piano lessons—have vanished from the calendar. For perhaps the first time since the holidays, last summer, or never, families finally have the chance to breathe.  But will they? How will families adapt in such a crisis? And how will they ensure their children’s learning continues while at home, far removed from the influence of their teachers? The Stoics,

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model of areas of the brain, frontal lobes for attention and willpower

Educating for Self-control, Part 2: The Link Between Attention and Willpower

In my last post on educating for self-control, I laid out a Christian case for the importance of self-control from the New Testament, citing Paul’s famous fruit of the Spirit and Peter’s not-as-famous virtue list in the first chapter of 2 Peter. Then we delved into the roots of self-control as a concept deriving from early Greek philosophers, before turning to what it might look like to develop a school for self-control, rethinking how our schools should be set up if supporting self-control is a chief goal. In particular, we referenced the British educator Charlotte Mason, as she discussed “the

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